
Quietnet: Chat client that works over near-ultrasonic sound - luu
https://github.com/Katee/quietnet
======
brownbat
I'm glad people are realizing that radio waves aren't the only ways to send
signals around a room.

I really want someone to make a wireless, powerless keyboard where every key's
click is tuned to a slightly different sound.

Keylogging by acoustic emanations is a well researched technique, I just think
it could be a feature if we made the keyboard right.
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/09/snooping_on_t...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/09/snooping_on_tex.html)

~~~
GotAnyMegadeth
Until you get crumbs under the keys...

EDIT: "a wireless, powerless keyboard where every key's click is tuned to a
slightly different sound" hang on, like a piano?

~~~
namecast
Heh, I just visualized my laptop keyboard transposed onto an 88 key piano, and
then tried to imagine what a typical vim session would sound like on it...

~~~
e12e
Obviously Emacs sessions would sound better, as Emacs already is set up to use
chords...

~~~
thirdsight
Funny :)

As long as you hit middle C1 on every chord regardless of whether or not it's
a duff chord or not...

At least with vi, you can play one fingered and make an acceptable tune ;)

Sure Douglas Hofstadter could write a book about that...

------
VLM
It looks like it would interoperate with standard amateur radio PSK-31
software if you set the ham radio software to 19043 Hz (instead of more
typical 500-2000 or so Hz)

Over the last 15 years or so there have been a lot of PSK-31 software
interfaces, so there's probably one that appeals to everyone.

I would imagine other modulation schemes would work in the ultrasound range,
if you wanted to try SSTV or RTTY or perhaps a bidirectional error correcting
protocol. AX.25 would be amusing and linux has kernel support and softmodem
support if you can convince it to run at 20 KHz.

If you've got the bandwidth for Olivia and other modern modes I'd try those...
I've made QSOs on HF where there is no discernible signal on the waterfall,
works down to very low SNR. So you could get better range / lower error rate
with a wider band / slower / more modern modulation method.

I would imagine doppler shift and multipath interference would be an
interesting problem.

~~~
arnarbi
Do you mean the sound waves would generate radio waves somehow, or are you
thinking of the speaker generating EM interference as well? How strong would
you expect that to be?

~~~
VLM
No, just audio. If PSK-31 modulation works, Olivia will work better.

------
easymovet
Should be called Furby chat ,because:
[http://poppopret.org/2013/12/18/reverse-engineering-a-
furby/](http://poppopret.org/2013/12/18/reverse-engineering-a-furby/)

~~~
katee
Definitely in no way a unique idea. Also that article is awesome.

------
themgt
New computer security system: owning a dog

~~~
e12e
Hacking the soundcape: How to own the dog?

------
paulirish
A webapp using the Web Audio API adopting the same sort of approach:
[http://smus.com/ultrasonic-networking/](http://smus.com/ultrasonic-
networking/)

~~~
katee
That's really cool! I used the web audio stuff to get real time audio data for
interactive visualizations when I did a 5 minute demo of quietnet, the code is
available (but might be a pain to get running):
[https://github.com/katee/quietnet-
presentation](https://github.com/katee/quietnet-presentation)

Running fully in the browser with visualizations might make a good teaching
tool for digital signal processing (although you'd need better DSP code to
demo, mine is not a shining example.)

------
songzme
Can this be accomplished on mobile devices? This could be a clever trick to
implement interesting multiplayer games on train rides, airplanes, where wifi
is not available.

From a quick research, it seems that iPhones are not able to play ultrasonic
sound: "iPhone 4s is rated for 20Hz - 20,000Hz, which means it cannot generate
ultrasonic frequencies." \- [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10034346/ios-
how-to-produ...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10034346/ios-how-to-
produce-ultrasonic-sound)

~~~
GrantS
Not ultra-sonic but this app sends photos from iPhone to iPhone using the
speaker and microphone.

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/acoustic-picture-
transmitter...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/acoustic-picture-
transmitter/id415136803?mt=8)

Fun to play around with and think of the possibilities of using sensors in
unintended ways.

~~~
e12e
Essentially a modem (with zmodem/sz-rz functionality)?

------
51Cards
Interesting... I thought the consensus was that these sounds weren't possible
to create / detect on typical hardware according to recent discussions about
mystery malware spreading through the air? I wonder what percentage of systems
would be up to the required specs.

~~~
jerf
Malware can't _spread_ via ultrasound, but it could certainly _communicate_
via ultrasound. To spread would require that a sound picked up by the
microphone would be executable, and in general, that can't happen. (In
_specific_ it can, of course; one could build a program to execute things from
the microphone on purpose. But generally microphones do not get their input
executed, and any hardware that did that would be incredibly, insanely broken.
Mind you, I'm not saying that doesn't exist... just that it would be
incredibly, insanely broken. Even by the standards of embedded hardware
programming.)

Also, I don't think the badBIOS guy claimed it was spreading via ultrasound,
that was sort of a generalized misinterpretation in the community.

~~~
morganherlocker
Microphone injection reminds of the picture going around with the person who
taped a sql injection attack over their license plate to screw with the
traffic cams.

~~~
deaconblues
link: [http://gizmodo.com/5498412/sql-injection-license-plate-
hopes...](http://gizmodo.com/5498412/sql-injection-license-plate-hopes-to-
foil-euro-traffic-cameras)

------
vincentellis
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.rear ALSA
lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.center_lfe ALSA
lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.side
bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111)
bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111)
bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111)
bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111) ALSA lib
pcm_dmix.c:957:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) The dmix plugin supports only playback
stream Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory Cannot
connect to server request channel jack server is not running or cannot be
started

Anyone else got this?

------
songzme
Just installed and tried all the necessary packages, but for some reason it
simply doesn't work. Here's a screenshot:
[http://cl.ly/image/180b0k3X332g](http://cl.ly/image/180b0k3X332g)

I'm using a retina macbook pro 15 inches

~~~
songzme
Tried again, this time I get an 'o'.
[http://cl.ly/image/0e1A2c2i1Y16](http://cl.ly/image/0e1A2c2i1Y16)

~~~
mcb3k
Are you sending and receiving on the same computer? I feel like that might
cause issues. Are you able to use two separate computers to test?

~~~
katee
It actually works much better when sending an receiving on the same computer.
It's not as fun though.

~~~
mcb3k
Now that I've thought about it more, that actually makes a lot of sense.
Thanks for the response!

------
ghacks
I'm getting an invalid syntax error when I try to run the scripts on Windows.

C:\Python33\Scripts\quietnet-master>python listen.py File "listen.py", line 71
print '' ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax

~~~
unwind
You are using Python 3.3, but the script is for Python 2.x where print is a
built-in rather than a function. Welcome to the fragmented world of Python.

------
angersock
Has anyone tried using this around their dogs?

I don't want to dos my puppy. :(

~~~
Couto
I can say my cats are fine... :)

------
solox3
In case anyone else is as daft as I was, this will not work for everyone in an
everybody-wears-headphones environment.

~~~
Raphmedia
You can make software use different speakers and other your headphones. iTunes
has this in it's interface even (mac anyway).

------
Varcht
Somewhere a phreaker is rejoicing

