5 ms·

That's such a hack. Seriously, this is how we do tech in 2022?

by ulfw 5y ago

brokenmachine 5y ago
Lol, why don't they use ipv6? What would you use? I think it's a pretty cool hack.
- throwaway34511 5y ago
  It's pretty cool in that commodity integrated hardware is capable of doing something practical at those frequencies. Not long ago it was a struggle to get the Pro Audio Spectrum ISA card working at all. It's awful in that using the auditory domain is too much an intrusion into the human space. There is enough noise pollution. Interference patterns around the room may generate harmonics at audible frequencies. Young kids can hear high frequencies we forgot we ever could. I can still hear CRT flybacks. Sometimes I thought I heard something electronic in conference rooms but convinced myself it was nothing. Someone else was complaining about it affecting their cochlear implant. That is horrifying. It is not so farfetched that it has an adverse affect on health either. America is losing diplomats left and right to some mysterious ultrasonic weapon, or at least that is one of the leading theories. It is awful that my CPU has to be constantly running a FFT to read this signal. I think Apple has an ASIC which does the Siri voice recognition. It's awful that it triggers the orange light to be constantly on so you end up ignoring it. What if Zoom is simultaneously using the microphone stream for nefarious purposes. This is what Bluetooth was made for. This is a worse idea than Wifi over lighting. Even the 9-digit Zoom dial codes are better.
  - brokenmachine 5y ago
    >Someone else was complaining about it affecting their cochlear implant. That is horrifying. Definitely. >It is awful that my CPU has to be constantly running a FFT to read this signal. I think Apple has an ASIC which does the Siri voice recognition. Isn't it the zoom box that has to be doing the detection? The pc is just sending the signal, which wouldn't take much processing. >It's awful that it triggers the orange light to be constantly on so you end up ignoring it. I think someone commented that's for the purpose of detecting if someone is muted and notifying them. Still, there should definitely be a choice to disable this behavior. I wouldn't be able to ignore it. >What if Zoom is simultaneously using the microphone stream for nefarious purposes. There's a lot of nefarious things they could potentially do even without using the mic, considering it's software already running on your pc that already has an encrypted connection to their servers. >This is what Bluetooth was made for. Good point, that would have been better.
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago
      > Isn't it the zoom box that has to be doing the detection? The pc is just sending the signal, which wouldn't take much processing. If the PC were just sending the signal it wouldn't need the microphone to be on. And it would stop working when people turn off their speakers like a lot of people do in a busy meeting room. By the way there seem to be other ways to do it too. Not sure if it's Bluetooth but MS Teams warned me in the past that I was in a room with a Surface display (the huge first generation one). It doesn't keep the microphone active though.. I never investigated how it figured that.
- bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
  Bluetooth would be more appropriate for that I would say.
olliej 5y ago
What is the other way of doing it? Because this “hack”: * Works on devices without Bluetooth (or that have it disabled) * doesn’t require anyone installing privileged software or drivers * gives a very good “in the same room” indicator * doesn’t require any custom/expensive hardware components
- periheli0n 5y ago
  But how is the device going to communicate with the zoom hardware in the room when Bluetooth is disabled?
  - olliej 5y ago
    The ultrasound is the communication. From the description it sounds like it's just a handoff feature, as in you go into a conference room with whatever their conference room product is. Once you get in handoff range they only need to exchange sufficient information to get the AV equipment to start a connection to the appropriate zoom/webex/whatever channel, and presumably the reverse of getting the original zoom client to close. I'm assuming there is some work to reduce the likelihood of unintentionally triggering it, and some basic authentication, but this is not a lot of data, and ultrasound is more than sufficient to do it very "instantaneously".
    - periheli0n 5y ago
      OK, so the actual communication (the call itself) will be transmitted over wifi. But this means that at least some kind of access token must be transmitted over ultrasound. Is this safe? I would love to see an analysis of that communication; whether it is encrypted, is the handshake secure or can it be hijacked, does,it transmit only an anonymous access token or the whole user ID etc. I mean, if I ever switch off Bluetooth it's exactly for the reason that I don't want my device to be detected/tracked. Zoom going around this by using ultrasound is kind of mean, since I can't prevent zoom from using audio if I want to be able to make calls.
      - 5y ago
snickerbockers 5y ago
You're right, they should have found a way to shoe-horn in kubernetes.
- dwaite 5y ago
  proximity detection is done via the blockchain

That's such a hack. Seriously, this is how we do tech in 2022?

by ulfw 5y ago

That's such a hack. Seriously, this is how we do tech in 2022?

brokenmachine 5y ago

Lol, why don't they use ipv6? What would you use? I think it's a pretty cool hack.

throwaway34511 5y ago
It's pretty cool in that commodity integrated hardware is capable of doing something practical at those frequencies. Not long ago it was a struggle to get the Pro Audio Spectrum ISA card working at all. It's awful in that using the auditory domain is too much an intrusion into the human space. There is enough noise pollution. Interference patterns around the room may generate harmonics at audible frequencies. Young kids can hear high frequencies we forgot we ever could. I can still hear CRT flybacks. Sometimes I thought I heard something electronic in conference rooms but convinced myself it was nothing. Someone else was complaining about it affecting their cochlear implant. That is horrifying. It is not so farfetched that it has an adverse affect on health either. America is losing diplomats left and right to some mysterious ultrasonic weapon, or at least that is one of the leading theories. It is awful that my CPU has to be constantly running a FFT to read this signal. I think Apple has an ASIC which does the Siri voice recognition. It's awful that it triggers the orange light to be constantly on so you end up ignoring it. What if Zoom is simultaneously using the microphone stream for nefarious purposes. This is what Bluetooth was made for. This is a worse idea than Wifi over lighting. Even the 9-digit Zoom dial codes are better.
- brokenmachine 5y ago
  >Someone else was complaining about it affecting their cochlear implant. That is horrifying. Definitely. >It is awful that my CPU has to be constantly running a FFT to read this signal. I think Apple has an ASIC which does the Siri voice recognition. Isn't it the zoom box that has to be doing the detection? The pc is just sending the signal, which wouldn't take much processing. >It's awful that it triggers the orange light to be constantly on so you end up ignoring it. I think someone commented that's for the purpose of detecting if someone is muted and notifying them. Still, there should definitely be a choice to disable this behavior. I wouldn't be able to ignore it. >What if Zoom is simultaneously using the microphone stream for nefarious purposes. There's a lot of nefarious things they could potentially do even without using the mic, considering it's software already running on your pc that already has an encrypted connection to their servers. >This is what Bluetooth was made for. Good point, that would have been better.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    > Isn't it the zoom box that has to be doing the detection? The pc is just sending the signal, which wouldn't take much processing. If the PC were just sending the signal it wouldn't need the microphone to be on. And it would stop working when people turn off their speakers like a lot of people do in a busy meeting room. By the way there seem to be other ways to do it too. Not sure if it's Bluetooth but MS Teams warned me in the past that I was in a room with a Surface display (the huge first generation one). It doesn't keep the microphone active though.. I never investigated how it figured that.
bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
Bluetooth would be more appropriate for that I would say.

olliej 5y ago

What is the other way of doing it? Because this “hack”: * Works on devices without Bluetooth (or that have it disabled) * doesn’t require anyone installing privileged software or drivers * gives a very good “in the same room” indicator * doesn’t require any custom/expensive hardware components

periheli0n 5y ago
But how is the device going to communicate with the zoom hardware in the room when Bluetooth is disabled?
- olliej 5y ago
  The ultrasound is the communication. From the description it sounds like it's just a handoff feature, as in you go into a conference room with whatever their conference room product is. Once you get in handoff range they only need to exchange sufficient information to get the AV equipment to start a connection to the appropriate zoom/webex/whatever channel, and presumably the reverse of getting the original zoom client to close. I'm assuming there is some work to reduce the likelihood of unintentionally triggering it, and some basic authentication, but this is not a lot of data, and ultrasound is more than sufficient to do it very "instantaneously".
  - periheli0n 5y ago
    OK, so the actual communication (the call itself) will be transmitted over wifi. But this means that at least some kind of access token must be transmitted over ultrasound. Is this safe? I would love to see an analysis of that communication; whether it is encrypted, is the handshake secure or can it be hijacked, does,it transmit only an anonymous access token or the whole user ID etc. I mean, if I ever switch off Bluetooth it's exactly for the reason that I don't want my device to be detected/tracked. Zoom going around this by using ultrasound is kind of mean, since I can't prevent zoom from using audio if I want to be able to make calls.
    - 5y ago

snickerbockers 5y ago

You're right, they should have found a way to shoe-horn in kubernetes.

dwaite 5y ago
proximity detection is done via the blockchain