3 ms·

Seems more like the sort of thing someone at 4chan or similar would do, just because they could. For shits and giggles.

by yardstick 2y ago

Wowfunhappy 2y ago
But how is a random 4chaner getting a bluetooth signal close enough to all parts of the stadium without being noticed?
- iceburgcrm 2y ago
  Inside person or from above or from below
  - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
    This is a really lame James Bond movie! I recognize that it is technically possible to cause mischief with these things, but they require access to substantial resources and are likely to get you arrested, all in the pursuit of basically nothing.
    - yardstick 2y ago
      That’s literally a common troll MO. People often do things despite no logical or rational reason. I’m reminded of a quote from Edmund Hillary after successfully climbing Mt Everest (he and Tenzing Norgay being the first humans to do so). A reporter asked him why he climbed it. His response: Because it was there.
- KeplerBoy 2y ago
  Bluetooth range is only limited if you care about transmission power regulations.
  - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
    If you don't care about transmission power regulations you could also just jam the sound system, to heck with the pretty lights. And then you'll get arrested.
    - CPLX 2y ago
      Every large scale production event relies heavily on standard wireless microphones, which would be fairly trivial to disrupt from the parking lot.
      - nick238 2y ago
        Are digital spread-spectrum microphones used? Traditional "just modulate the mic to 485.250 MHz" systems seem too jammable/hijack-able nowadays, while a digital frequency-hopping scheme is more resistant to interference, intentional or accidental, at the expense of some milliseconds of latency. Just looking at the most expensive wireless solution on the Shure website: Shure AD4Q Four-channel Axient Digital Wireless Receiver: 4-channel Digital Wireless Receiver with 184MHz Tuning Range, Frequency Diversity, and 256-bit Encryption, $7500. If a large production ever has an issue with someone in the parking lot (or elsewhere) trying to jam them, the cost of one of these systems feels like basically nothing. You'll spend more on renting chairs.
        CPLX 2y ago
        As someone who produces large scale events in major cities I can tell you it's still not a solved problem. In places like Times Square there's just so much RF going on from similar devices that you can see bizarre intermittent problems. That's the observation I'm using to assume it could also be done intentionally. Which, of course, would be a massive problem with the FCC and a felony and all that. But technically it's still possible I'm assuming. To answer your question yes, for sure large scale productions have the top end devices, and plenty of backups.
- anamexis 2y ago
  It's infrared, not bluetooth.
  - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
    I'm pretty sure it has both infrared and Bluetooth. But if it really is only IR, then this is doubly pointless because I'd like to see someone come to the stadium with a massive IR spotlight that no one noticed. And, it's presumably only an IR receiver so how would encryption even work?
    - gravescale 2y ago
      You definitely could have an encryption protocol that works on a unidirectional 38kHz IR system. You put your public key in the receiver, then you, the sender, can sign a message with the matching private key and the receiver can verify the match. You can't authenticate that only authorised devices receive the message (which is usually what the secure crypto chips with a private key in them bring to the party). You also don't need to provide any kind of secrecy - the message content is about to be broadcast in thousands of LEDs. But then you've made it much less reliable as you have to get a lot of bits across in perfect order, and adding enough forward error correction to compensate affects throughput. Plus if you or the venue staff fluff the crypto it's another failure mode that results in Taylor Swift's legal team uncapping their Mont Blancs. Whereas the real beauty of this system is that it leans into the noisy channel and is designed so dropping a few bits here and there is basically imperceptible. Anyone in a position to mount a malicious IR transmitter that can overwhelm the existing ones (assuming that even works and doesn't just mutually interfere and break everything) is presumably already an insider and can probably just copy "naked_hitler_flipping_the_bird.mkv" to the Jumbotron controller anyway.
      - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
        But isn't this trivially susceptible to a relay attack? Anyone could capture the IR sequences that cause the band to light up in each color, and rebroadcast them whenever they want. But I think we're in agreement that this is pointless anyway...

Seems more like the sort of thing someone at 4chan or similar would do, just because they could. For shits and giggles.

Wowfunhappy 2y ago

But how is a random 4chaner getting a bluetooth signal close enough to all parts of the stadium without being noticed?

iceburgcrm 2y ago
Inside person or from above or from below
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago
  This is a really lame James Bond movie! I recognize that it is technically possible to cause mischief with these things, but they require access to substantial resources and are likely to get you arrested, all in the pursuit of basically nothing.
  - yardstick 2y ago
    That’s literally a common troll MO. People often do things despite no logical or rational reason. I’m reminded of a quote from Edmund Hillary after successfully climbing Mt Everest (he and Tenzing Norgay being the first humans to do so). A reporter asked him why he climbed it. His response: Because it was there.
KeplerBoy 2y ago
Bluetooth range is only limited if you care about transmission power regulations.
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago
  If you don't care about transmission power regulations you could also just jam the sound system, to heck with the pretty lights. And then you'll get arrested.
  - CPLX 2y ago
    Every large scale production event relies heavily on standard wireless microphones, which would be fairly trivial to disrupt from the parking lot.
    - nick238 2y ago
      Are digital spread-spectrum microphones used? Traditional "just modulate the mic to 485.250 MHz" systems seem too jammable/hijack-able nowadays, while a digital frequency-hopping scheme is more resistant to interference, intentional or accidental, at the expense of some milliseconds of latency. Just looking at the most expensive wireless solution on the Shure website: Shure AD4Q Four-channel Axient Digital Wireless Receiver: 4-channel Digital Wireless Receiver with 184MHz Tuning Range, Frequency Diversity, and 256-bit Encryption, $7500. If a large production ever has an issue with someone in the parking lot (or elsewhere) trying to jam them, the cost of one of these systems feels like basically nothing. You'll spend more on renting chairs.
      - CPLX 2y ago
        As someone who produces large scale events in major cities I can tell you it's still not a solved problem. In places like Times Square there's just so much RF going on from similar devices that you can see bizarre intermittent problems. That's the observation I'm using to assume it could also be done intentionally. Which, of course, would be a massive problem with the FCC and a felony and all that. But technically it's still possible I'm assuming. To answer your question yes, for sure large scale productions have the top end devices, and plenty of backups.
anamexis 2y ago
It's infrared, not bluetooth.
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago
  I'm pretty sure it has both infrared and Bluetooth. But if it really is only IR, then this is doubly pointless because I'd like to see someone come to the stadium with a massive IR spotlight that no one noticed. And, it's presumably only an IR receiver so how would encryption even work?
  - gravescale 2y ago
    You definitely could have an encryption protocol that works on a unidirectional 38kHz IR system. You put your public key in the receiver, then you, the sender, can sign a message with the matching private key and the receiver can verify the match. You can't authenticate that only authorised devices receive the message (which is usually what the secure crypto chips with a private key in them bring to the party). You also don't need to provide any kind of secrecy - the message content is about to be broadcast in thousands of LEDs. But then you've made it much less reliable as you have to get a lot of bits across in perfect order, and adding enough forward error correction to compensate affects throughput. Plus if you or the venue staff fluff the crypto it's another failure mode that results in Taylor Swift's legal team uncapping their Mont Blancs. Whereas the real beauty of this system is that it leans into the noisy channel and is designed so dropping a few bits here and there is basically imperceptible. Anyone in a position to mount a malicious IR transmitter that can overwhelm the existing ones (assuming that even works and doesn't just mutually interfere and break everything) is presumably already an insider and can probably just copy "naked_hitler_flipping_the_bird.mkv" to the Jumbotron controller anyway.
    - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
      But isn't this trivially susceptible to a relay attack? Anyone could capture the IR sequences that cause the band to light up in each color, and rebroadcast them whenever they want. But I think we're in agreement that this is pointless anyway...