{"id":48435,"date":"2022-08-17T22:11:15","date_gmt":"2022-08-17T22:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/janet-jacksons-rhythm-nation-apparently-vibed-too-hard-for-some-laptops\/"},"modified":"2022-08-17T22:11:15","modified_gmt":"2022-08-17T22:11:15","slug":"janet-jacksons-rhythm-nation-apparently-vibed-too-hard-for-some-laptops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/janet-jacksons-rhythm-nation-apparently-vibed-too-hard-for-some-laptops\/","title":{"rendered":"Janet Jackson’s ‘Rhythm Nation’ apparently vibed too hard for some laptops"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

While it’s normal for friends to judge our music tastes and take away your aux privileges, our devices usually won’t complain about our listening habits (even if we ask them to repeatedly play a song that most humans would find insufferable). However, according to a story shared by Microsoft principal software engineer Raymond Chen on his blog The Old New Thing<\/em>some Windows XP-era laptops did end up taking exception to the music video for Janet Jackson’s \u201cRhythm Nation\u201d because it contained a sound that crashed their hard drives.<\/p>\n

According to Chen, an unnamed \u201cmajor computer manufacturer\u201d discovered that some of their computers were crashing when trying to play the song and that playing the song on one laptop could even crash another computer nearby that was just minding its own business. The manufacturer also discovered that the issue cropped up on other companies’ laptops as well.<\/p>\n

Chen says the company eventually discovered that the song had a sound in it that resonated with a specific model of laptop hard drive. In other words, it was like a less destructive version of when someone plays a specific sound to shatter a wine glass \u2014 the sound waves the computer’s speakers made while playing the song would make its hard drive vibrate, crashing the computer. According to the story, the manufacturer figured out a simple, if inelegant, fix for the issue: making it so their computers simply wouldn’t play that specific frequency.<\/p>\n

The story is, unfortunately, relatively light on specifics. Chen doesn’t say which laptops or hard drives were affected, and there isn’t any video of a laptop actually crashing while playing the song. Still, it’s a fun anecdote about the exceedingly strange things that physics can do to our computers and the process of nailing down what seems to be a completely random bug.<\/p>\n

While I can imagine that troubleshooting this issue must’ve been some special sort of nightmare, it’s no secret that hard drives are extraordinarily susceptible to vibrations of all types. Chen links to a video from 2008 that shows data center engineers disrupting hard drives by screaming at them, and in 2017, security researcher Alfredo Ortega demonstrated a program that purposefully crashes hard drives by playing a sound at their resonant frequency. The program even warns that it could physically damage the drive \u2014 resonance transmitters can actually be extremely destructive in the wrong circumstances. They’ve helped lead to suspension bridges collapsing, and the Stuxnet virus reportedly tried to take advantage of them to destroy centrifuges. <\/p>\n

Ortega and other security researchers have also demonstrated how hard drives can be used as rudimentary microphones to spy on people’s conversations, thanks to the fact that they react to sounds. One of the examples included in a talk demonstrating the effect involved playing an Iron Maiden song at a hard drive and seeing if Shazam could identify it. The experiment apparently worked, though the presenter doesn’t mention whether it crashed the drive. <\/p>\n

PS: unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like Pawe\u0142 Zadro\u017cniak, the person who creates music using old computer parts, including hard drives, has covered \u201cRhythm Nation.\u201d But Zadro\u017cniak definitely should now because the irony would be delightful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While it’s normal for friends to judge our music tastes and take away your aux privileges, our devices usually won’t complain about our listening habits (even if we ask them to repeatedly play a song that most humans would find insufferable). However, according to a story shared by Microsoft principal software engineer Raymond Chen on …<\/p>\n

Janet Jackson’s ‘Rhythm Nation’ apparently vibed too hard for some laptops<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":49290,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/old-laptop-hard-drives-will-allegedly-crash-when-exposed-to-janet-jackson-music\/","url_meta":{"origin":48435,"position":0},"title":"Old laptop hard drives will allegedly crash when exposed to Janet Jackson music","date":"August 18, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Western Digital It sounds like something out of an urban legend: Some Windows XP-era laptops using 5400 RPM spinning hard drives can allegedly be forced to crash when exposed to Janet Jackson's 1989 hit \"Rhythm Nation.\" But Microsoft Software Engineer Raymond Chen stands by the story in a blog post\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49571,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/janet-jacksons-1989-mega-hit-rhythm-nation-sonically-smashes-old-hard-drives\/","url_meta":{"origin":48435,"position":1},"title":"Janet Jackson’s 1989 mega-hit ‘Rhythm Nation’ sonically smashes old hard drives","date":"August 18, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The \"brown noise\" is a legendary tone purportedly capable of causing people to lose control of their bowels when subjected to its gut-punching harmonic resonance. South Park did a whole thing on it. Turns out that the 5400 RPM hard drives from a number of old Windows-era laptops possess a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51543,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/how-to-destroy-a-computer-hard-drive-with-a-janet-jackson-song\/","url_meta":{"origin":48435,"position":2},"title":"How to destroy a computer hard drive with a Janet Jackson song","date":"August 21, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"In a recent blog, Raymond Chen, a software engineer Microsoft, discussed the surprising discovery that Janet Jackson's song \"Rhythm Nation\" is powerful enough to physically destroy some computer hard drives. Or, well, at least it resonates at the right frequency to destabilize and crash the hard drive: One discovery during\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Entertainment"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49126,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/janet-jackson-music-video-given-cve-for-crashing-laptops-the-register\/","url_meta":{"origin":48435,"position":3},"title":"Janet Jackson music video given CVE for crashing laptops \u2022 The Register","date":"August 18, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The music video for Janet Jackson's 1989 pop hit Rhythm Nation has been recognized as a cybersecurity vulnerability after Microsoft reported it can crash old laptop computers. \"A colleague of mine shared a story from Windows XP product support,\" wrote Microsoft blogger Raymond Chen. The story detailed how \"a major\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49281,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/playing-a-janet-jackson-song-would-crash-some-old-laptops\/","url_meta":{"origin":48435,"position":4},"title":"Playing a Janet Jackson song would crash some old laptops","date":"August 18, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I have a new favorite bug: Janet Jackson's 1989 certified choon Rhythm Nation had an uncanny ability to crash certain old laptops. this was nothing to do with the file itself; even being near another laptop playing the song could cause a crash. Turns out, one of the sonic frequencies\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3642,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/janet-jacksons-performance-briefly-hampered-by-technical-issues-at-essence-festival-in-new-orleans\/","url_meta":{"origin":48435,"position":5},"title":"Janet Jackson’s performance briefly hampered by technical issues at Essence Festival in New Orleans","date":"July 4, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Janet Jackson's outing at the Essence Festival of Culture at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans Saturday was briefly hampered by technical issues, but she continued to perform.Audio during the 56-year-old singer's set cut out during her outing, TMZ reported on Sunday, but she was able to continue with her\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Entertainment"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2022\/07\/04\/02\/59828615-10978999-image-a-20_1656898032917.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.vox-cdn.com\/thumbor\/FrG-bNAL_Hf96eZ7ufZ2YGxRcO8=\/0x30:2880x1538\/fit-in\/1200x630\/cdn.vox-cdn.com\/uploads\/chorus_asset\/file\/23951919\/Screenshot_2022_08_17_at_12.11.50.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}