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 computer manufacturer discovered that playing the music video for Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation would crash certain models of laptops.”
Further investigation revealed that multiple manufacturers’ machines also crashed. Sometimes playing the video on one laptop would crash another nearby laptop. This is mysterious because the song isn’t actually that bad
.Investigation revealed that all the crashing laptops shared the same 5400 RPM hard disk drive.
“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 wrote.
