12 ms·
Spreading deadly pathogens under the disguise of popular music
- mikro2nd 4y ago
- woolion 4y agoIt isn't really the ACM, the authors got their paper accepted with a funny name, which isn't uncommon practice. Goto considered harmful or programming with bananas and barbed wire also got quite a popularity thanks to their unconventional naming. It is in some cases clearly abused. Also, you need to read the abstract in full to understand what it's about, a cursory reading feels like buzzwords from completely unrelated domains. A real title could be "Fooling biolabs security measures with audio waves embedabble in popular music".
- tsukikage 4y agoI mean, "(2) We use this finding to design malicious music to create resonance in DPSs, resulting in an overshooting in the DPS's normal pressure readings." That's already pretty awesome. They could have just led with that. It's straight out of Godel, Escher, Bach :)
- ska 4y agogoofy titles have a long history in science,to be fair.
- carewell 4y agoHumor is not clickbait. The research shows that it is possible to compromise pathogen storage facilities by embedding specific frequencies/tones in popular music, hence the humorous but not misleading title.
- RansomStark 4y agoarxiv link for anyone interested in the full article: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2210.03688.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2210.03688.pdf
- robinhouston 4y agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33347967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33347967
- t0rt01se 4y agoIt's not difficult to spread something that's already popular.
- ruffyx64 4y agoWow. To summarize: Listening to Taylor Swift (in a NPR) can lead to the destruction of humanity!
- elzbardico 4y agoTo ensure complete obliteration of the planet's life forms, a second attack with Celine Dion is recommended. Refer to the instruction booklet in the box for further details. Or call our hotline at 0-0800-ACME-MUSICAL-PLANET-OBLITERATOR
- greenbit 4y agoAt first I thought this was click bait, too. But actually.. TL;DR take: Hospitals and labs contain deadly pathogens in regions of lowered air pressure. Sophisticated electronics monitor pressure and control the evacuation system accordingly. Many such spaces have resonant frequencies in the audio range. Ergo, it's possible to play specific tones through an entertainment system to establish significant deviation from the average pressure to fool the sensors, and disrupt the containment. Such tones could be embedded in pop music. Wow.
- dont__panic 4y ago> Moreover, we demonstrate our attack at a real-world NPR located in an anonymous bioresearch facility, which is FDA approved and follows CDC guidelines. Wow indeed. A real-world life hack!
- justincredible 4y ago
- pvaldes 4y agoThis is obviously about autotune's evil empire. Right?
- yalogin 4y agoThis is a cool paper! An area I didn’t know existed and how critical security is to this. Really showed me a new thing today. Thanks for posting it
- version_five 4y agoThe article is about using sound to compromise negative pressure rooms. From the headline, I was hoping for some kind of memetic Snow Crash type pathogen that infects you when you hear it
- ableal 4y agoThere's also the (fictional) visual attack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLIT_(short_story) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLIT_(short_story)
- stevenwoo 4y agoA variation on this was a key plot point to Westworld season four.
- Pxtl 4y agoAudio pathogen was a plot point in Mark Waid's "Irredeemable" comic series.
- falcolas 4y agoSony’s back with another root kit?! Seriously though, that is a cool paper. Helps reinforce how much we need more adversarial testing, even for mundane things.
- mlinksva 4y agoYet another reason why non-headphone/amplified audio in work/public places is terrible.
- gloryless 4y agoPretty sweet paper. First time the clickbait title actually turned out to be accurate
- giuliomagnifico 4y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33682057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33682057