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How Hackers Can Use Pop Songs To 'Watch' You (fastcompany.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fast Company: Forget your classic listening device: Researchers at the University of Washington have demonstrated that phones, smart TVs, Amazon Echo-like assistants, and other devices equipped with speakers and microphones could be used by hackers as clandestine sonar "bugs" capable of tracking your location in a room. Their system, called CovertBand, emits high-pitched sonar signals hidden within popular songs -- their examples include songs by Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake -- then records them with the machine's microphone to detect people's activities. Jumping, walking, and "supine pelvic tilts" all produce distinguishable patterns, they say in a paper. (Of course, someone who hacked the microphone on a smart TV or computer could likely listen to its users, as well.)

33 comments

  1. Re: interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Probably because they are faggots

  2. good choice by roc97007 · · Score: 3, Funny

    > their examples include songs by Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake

    Good choices. Already lots of high pitched noises.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  3. Bruce Wayne by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    This was in one of the Batman movies. Not news.

  4. Tracked by pop songs by freeze128 · · Score: 1

    Songs by those artists haven't been popular for a long time. Not only can hackers tell your location in a room, they can also tell how old you are.

    1. Re:Tracked by pop songs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So ... have refined tastes and don't listen to pop culture shit and you're not likely to be targeted? Seems fitting. I have no problem with this. Oh, and secure your devices. Don't use insecure devices that give you no such option. That helps too.

      As long as they target the dumb masses (sheople) this is OK. They're already being bombarded from every angle by various political, marketing and propaganda efforts. This is the least of their worries.

    2. Re:Tracked by pop songs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH

  5. normalfags by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are normalfags too stupid to be allowed technology?

    1. Re:normalfags by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are normalfags too stupid to be allowed technology?

      They're common. They're not normal. Making that distinction is the first hurdle.

      They think they can invest zero knowledge and near-zero effort into a thing and get everything they want out of it and nothing will ever go wrong. In a more natural hunter-gatherer environment, such people would have died at a very young age. Now we have "cybercrime". Progress??

    2. Re:normalfags by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In a more natural hunter-gatherer environment, such people would have died at a very young age.

      You? Would you thrive?

  6. Smart TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    smart TV

    If you have a smart TV, Samsung is already watching you. (Yes even when it's off)

    1. Re: Smart TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And if Samsung does not like you, they will put you on fire!

  7. Such a title! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    It's on par with, Dentists Can Use Fillings to 'Control' Your Diet. I mean, one could make a strainged argument to this idea but by and large dentists cannot use fillings to control your diet in the same way that hackers cannot use a song cannot watch you.

    BTW, if your dentist tries to give you a "cyanide filling" then he's trying to kill you. #DentalAssassinsEverywhere ;)

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:Such a title! by Scarletdown · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I translated it as "Another highly unlikely nonissue is concocted to help keep you frightened of the world around you and distrustful of everyone except your handlers."

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      This space unintentionally left blank.
    2. Re:Such a title! by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      Fear in headlines is apparently good business. I'd have gone with: "Echo Location With Your Echo". Or some other play words.

      By why not go full retard? "Hackers added hidden sounds to a pop song - you won't believe what happens next!"

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    3. Re:Such a title! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      By why not go full retard?

      never go full retard.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  8. right. like nobody has nothing better to do than by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    watch you like you watch ants on a snowy tv screen tuned to a off-air station. sukuz gotta have something to sukz and this is that something. suka!

  9. No worries here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No worries here, nearly all of my schitt is old stuff ripped off the CD. And the other stuff is so obscure nobody would give a fuck about it to begin with.

  10. Which Jackson songs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because there is no chance I'll be playing any Timberlake.

  11. ubiquitous, panoptic by Reverend+Green · · Score: 1

    The machine is always watching.

  12. And the blind man by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    I know I know, and a blind man can tell when a person enters the bathroom by the echos from his piss, although he probably heard to the door open too.

    1. Re:And the blind man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And me with eyes closed. I can infer with good accuracy what's happening around with my eyes closed.

    2. Re:And the blind man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plot twist: The blind man is an exhibitionist, and he's leaving the door to the one-seater bathroom unlocked on purpose.

  13. Re: Don't worry about hackers watching u by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake songs playing in the background?

  14. Good use for Somebody's Watching Me by HalAtWork · · Score: 1
    1. Re:Good use for Somebody's Watching Me by HalAtWork · · Score: 1

      Man I really messed up that link, here's the original video, my apologies

  15. Supine but not prone? by Chelloveck · · Score: 1

    Jumping, walking, and "supine pelvic tilts" all produce distinguishable patterns

    In other words, this exists because somebody wanted to find out if his girlfriend was cheating on him.

    --
    Chelloveck
    I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
  16. Easier and More Accurate by Luthair · · Score: 1

    If they've gone to the difficulty of hacking a device in your own that plays music and has a microphone, why not just hack their devices and use the camera. As an added bonus it works when the user isn't playing music.

  17. Facebook app identifies location by sonar as well. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Facebook app identifies location by sonar as well.

  18. Re: Don't worry about hackers watching u by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I heard this was calibrated in Wisconsin to detect bending over.

    #Foxconn

  19. Safety of these ultrasonic output by iridium_ionizer · · Score: 1

    So who is verifying the safety of these ultrasonic output. Maybe I am being paranoid, but the US diplomats in Cuba were recently attacked in their residences with ultrasonic devices that were undetectable, except for the symptoms (severe hearing loss, migraine headaches, nausea).

    It's probably several orders of magnitude different in energy output, but I would still like to think some accountable government organization signed off on this usage - not just the company feeling that its okay. After all, if you are playing detectable music too loud then you can hear it and your ears start hurting. In this case there would be no warning signs until damage was done. The FDA did years of testing on prenatal ultrasound devices before they became routine in their usage. So who do these companies go to for verifying the safety of this technology before deployment. Or is just the honor system?

    This kind of reminds me of the deployment of back scatter x-ray machines for security at U.S. airports that had not been studied for dosing amounts on humans (and ended up giving extremely high exposures). There are news stories from 2010 speaking about the controversies regarding the health effects of the machines, but there are also news stories in 2007 about the machines being deployed and I believe there were limited deployments between 2003 and 2005 (if memory serves me correctly). NOTE: I used google news to search up the old articles.

  20. Rather Enterprises than hackers... by chris.vanderheyden · · Score: 1

    From a privacy point of view I'm a LOT more concerned for the companies that produce these products rather than hackers. If hackers can hack the devices to implement an ultrasonic body movement tracker, who guarantees that Google and Amazon haven't already done so in their factory fresh devices?