Look Who's Talking Now

Recently, a computer security researcher from Vancouver, Dragos Ruiu, made a very interesting (and alarming) claim. He had begun to notice a high pitched whine in his house. Originally, he thought it was the result of electrical noise from his home wiring, but soon found a different origin. It seemed that his macbook was transmitting the whine, and so he immediately tried to figure out why and for what.

He realized that ever since he started hearing the whine, his computers had started doing weird things. Not malicious things, but just random running of programs or executions. Ruiu was even more interested when he realized that these things were still happening even when the computer was unplugged and the wi-fi was turned off.

This is all a theory, but given the source (a computer security researcher) and the investigation it has set in motion in the computer security community, this new realm of virus, by using sound to transmit and command, is potentially problematic. This could be a dangerous tool if perfected, allowing incredible secure networks to be more vulnerable.

Are we going to start having to disable our microphones on our phones or computers to prevent these kind of viruses? It seems crazy, but might could be commonplace in just a few years.

source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24582-can-a-computer-virus-communicate-via-your-speakers.html#.UozjJpFTQng

image source: http://www.illustrationsource.com/stock/image/31334/computer-heads-talking-to-each-other/?&results_per_page=1&detail=TRUE&page=10