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Janet Jackson’s song “Rhythm Nation” would be dangerous for some laptops

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Microsoft Senior Software Engineer Raymond Chen explained how a clip from a Janet Jackson song could compromise laptops running Windows XP.

During his career, computer scientist Raymond Chen has encountered many hilarious situations. During 25 years with Microsoft, he is now the company’s chief software engineer. Over the years, he shared these anecdotes in a blog, posted directly on the computer giant’s site.

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On August 16, Raymond Chen recounted how Janet Jackson’s song “Rhythm Nation” had the power to crash laptops, The Verge reports. The story goes back to the era of Windows XP, the operating system launched in 2001 that disappeared in 2014.

Even computers listening to the song were affected.

One manufacturer noticed that when playing this song, certain computer models encountered errors and stopped working. When testing on competitor devices, the result was identical. But even more surprising, the manufacturer realized that the computers also reacted to “Rhythm Nation”.

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Upon hearing the title of Janet Jackson, the computer emitted a sound wave capable of vibrating its hard drive, which undoubtedly caused a system crash. To solve the problem, the manufacturer simply created an audio filter, preventing computers from playing this specific frequency.

A well known phenomenon

If the Microsoft engineer does not specify which brands and which hard drives were affected by this problem, the reaction of computing devices to certain sounds is still known. In his blog post, Raymond Chen also refers to a 2009 video showing an IT worker screaming in a data center while recording the impact on system latency.

More recently, security researcher Alfredo Ortega demonstrated this phenomenon in 2017. Using specific software, he reproduced the resonant frequency of a hard drive, which would surely cause the computer to fail. Obviously, the software can severely damage the device it is used on.

Author: pierre monnier
Source: BFM TV

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