Playing Janet Jackson music video crashed hard drives in nearby computers
Microsoft software engineer Raymond Chen has shared a story recounting how Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” would crash old laptops using 5,400 RPM hard drives.
“A major computer manufacturer discovered that playing the music video for Janet Jackson’s ‘Rhythm Nation’ would crash certain models of laptops,” Chen said.
“Playing the music video on one laptop caused a laptop sitting nearby to crash, even though that other laptop wasn’t playing the video!”
Chen said Jackson’s song contained one of the natural resonant frequencies for the particular model of 5,400 RPM hard drive that the affected laptops used.
The issue has even been identified as a cybersecurity risk and received a common vulnerabilities and exposures identifier of CVE-2022-38392.
MITRE says the vulnerability “allows physically proximate attackers to cause a denial of service (device malfunction and system crash) via a resonant-frequency attack with the audio signal from the Rhythm Nation music video.”
The manufacturer reportedly circumvented the exploit by adding a custom audio filter that detected and removed the crash-inducing frequencies during audio playback.
Mechanical resonance has been cited as a contributing factor in disasters such as the collapse of the Broughton suspension bridge in 1831 and the Angers bridge in 1850.
London also closed the Millennium Footbridge on its opening day when pedestrians experienced an alarming swaying motion while walking across.
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