Figuring out obscure computer issues can be a total pain. Sometimes a system restart fixes everything, while (apparently) turning off 1980s pop songs does the trick other times.
In a blog post by Microsoft software engineer Raymond Chen, it seems that the music video for Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” was causing particular mid-2000s laptops to crash. A ‘major computer manufacturer’ investigation even discovered that merely playing the song nearby would shut down some machines. Only this specific song would yield the problem too, and the reason why is incredible.
“It turns out that the song contained one of the natural resonant frequencies for the model of 5400 rpm laptop hard drives that they and other manufacturers used,” Chen said.
Basically, those laptops would act up because the hard drives couldn’t function properly while something else was using the same frequencies.
“The manufacturer worked around the problem by adding a custom filter in the audio pipeline that detected and removed the offending frequencies during audio playback,” Chen continues.
Wildly enough, the Mitre Corporation even gave this particular vulnerability a CVE ID. 2022-38392, to be exact (Thanks, CNET).
Imagine going about your business, toiling away at an Excel spreadsheet — only for the laptop to keep dying because you’re listening to a bop. I can only imagine the IT department headaches this must have caused.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.
