In case your laptop crashes each time it hears Janet Jackson’s 1989 music Rhythm Nation, it’s not as a result of it shares the identical musical tastes as you. As a substitute, it’s occurring since you’re working an previous, 5400 RPM exhausting drive that merely can’t deal with a selected frequency that the video resonates.

Not solely would enjoying the video crash such a tool – it could additionally crash a close-by system that isn’t even enjoying the video. All it takes is for the frequency to bodily attain the affected endpoint (opens in new tab) to have it crash.

It sounds too odd to be true, however in response to a weblog (opens in new tab) fromMicrosoft’s Raymond Chen, “a colleague of mine shared a narrative from Home windows XP product help. A serious laptop producer found that enjoying the music video for Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” would crash sure fashions of laptops.”

Distinctive frequencies

“It seems that the music contained one of many pure resonant frequencies for the mannequin of 5400 rpm laptop computer exhausting drives that they and different producers used,” Chen famous. 

“The producer labored round the issue by including a customized filter within the audio pipeline that detected and eliminated the offending frequencies throughout audio playback.”

Although the flaw would possibly sound trivial, researchers discovered it related sufficient to listing it on the register of Frequent Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs). 

It is listed as CVE-2022-38392 and, in response to The Register, has already been acknowledged by safety vendor Tenable.

So within the extremely unlikely case that you simply’re working a pc with an previous, sluggish 5400-RPM exhausting disk drive, be certain that to maintain it away from anybody who would possibly nonetheless get pleasure from Janet Jackson’s music.

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Through: The Register (opens in new tab)