3 ms·

What about receiving these communications using computer without special hardware? Could this interfere with audio, wifi or some other component in away that co

What about receiving these communications using computer without special hardware? Could this interfere with audio, wifi or some other component in away that could be detected by software? Quite certainly decent bit rates would be out of question, but would it be possible to pass any information between two computers using this?

mafuyu 11y ago
It would certainly be very difficult. If you could get the bus noise near the 2.4GHz freq range (unlikely), you could use the wifi of the other computer to potentially receive. Another thing people have experimented with is using the speaker/microphone at above human hearing range. This method usually falls flat because crappy laptop speakers have a hard time going above 20kHz. One thing I could potentially see working is a laptop with a hard drive generating vibrations with the motor. Then, a smartphone or laptop with an accelerometer could pick up the signal using the coupling through a table.
- simcop2387 11y ago
  Wifi being so high bandwidth it'd be very difficult. Bluetooth Low Energy supports very small bandwidths and would be significantly easier to generate in the end. You generally don't get good enough control over the motors or voice coil in a hard drive to be able to make vibrations like that. I'd probably look at controlling the fans instead to get a similar effect and use the microphone to listen for the noise from them.
  - mafuyu 11y ago
    I was thinking along the lines of hard drive spin down/spin up due to power state configurations. The fans would probably be easier, though, provided you could pick up on it.
  - 21 11y ago
    There are videos on youtube with people making hard drives "sing" by carefully computed seek actions.
chillingeffect 11y ago
Generally computer busses are designed to operate without impact from external interference, bc there is so much of it around us all the time. You might be able to tip the scales though in some sensitive areas. Microphone input would be one, by influencing any high-impedance parts. Radio systems might be vulnerable... although typically they're designed so you don't get access to the baseband signal. For the most part, you'd be limited to up/down state. Coupling noise onto a USB cable though would require lots and lots power. I wonder if DRAM could be influenced? Hmmm....
- mikeash 11y ago
  I'm reminded of the classic video of a guy shouting at hard drives and causing their latencies to spike: https://www.joyent.com/blog/shouting-at-the-datacenter https://www.joyent.com/blog/shouting-at-the-datacenter
pbkhrv 11y ago
Something remotely related: hijacking Siri via radiowaves and iPhone headphones https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10387486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10387486

mafuyu 11y ago

It would certainly be very difficult. If you could get the bus noise near the 2.4GHz freq range (unlikely), you could use the wifi of the other computer to potentially receive. Another thing people have experimented with is using the speaker/microphone at above human hearing range. This method usually falls flat because crappy laptop speakers have a hard time going above 20kHz. One thing I could potentially see working is a laptop with a hard drive generating vibrations with the motor. Then, a smartphone or laptop with an accelerometer could pick up the signal using the coupling through a table.

simcop2387 11y ago
Wifi being so high bandwidth it'd be very difficult. Bluetooth Low Energy supports very small bandwidths and would be significantly easier to generate in the end. You generally don't get good enough control over the motors or voice coil in a hard drive to be able to make vibrations like that. I'd probably look at controlling the fans instead to get a similar effect and use the microphone to listen for the noise from them.
- mafuyu 11y ago
  I was thinking along the lines of hard drive spin down/spin up due to power state configurations. The fans would probably be easier, though, provided you could pick up on it.
- 21 11y ago
  There are videos on youtube with people making hard drives "sing" by carefully computed seek actions.

chillingeffect 11y ago

Generally computer busses are designed to operate without impact from external interference, bc there is so much of it around us all the time. You might be able to tip the scales though in some sensitive areas. Microphone input would be one, by influencing any high-impedance parts. Radio systems might be vulnerable... although typically they're designed so you don't get access to the baseband signal. For the most part, you'd be limited to up/down state. Coupling noise onto a USB cable though would require lots and lots power. I wonder if DRAM could be influenced? Hmmm....

mikeash 11y ago
I'm reminded of the classic video of a guy shouting at hard drives and causing their latencies to spike: https://www.joyent.com/blog/shouting-at-the-datacenter https://www.joyent.com/blog/shouting-at-the-datacenter

pbkhrv 11y ago

Something remotely related: hijacking Siri via radiowaves and iPhone headphones https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10387486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10387486