Ask HN: Can anyone help explain remote access to my computer speakers?

[ducttapethrow]

Throwaway bc I'm pretty active here. I would love some help explaining a creepy incident I experienced a couple hours ago.

I was working on a Macbook at my desk when I heard someone speaking. There was a Sonos across the room playing music from my partner's phone, but the sound wasn't coming from that direction. My desk is where I have a gaming PC and connected to it are a set of Audioengine A5+ speakers - (they aren't smart speakers/connected to wifi). The speakers were powered on, but my gaming PC was turned off (not switched off, though).

I increased the volume of my laptop to check if that was the source of the voice but it wasn't, so I muted my computer. I tried listening to the song playing across the room but the voice was definitely coming from somewhere closer. I brought my ear near the left A5 speaker on my desk and could hear what the voice was saying. They said: "Do you know what duct tape feels like across your lips" in a creepy manner.

I Googled the phrase to hopefully find the lyrics to a song but there were no relevant results. The top "lyrics" result was by a band called the Insane Clown Posse but the lyrics didn't match up at all. The voice stopped speaking and I didn't know what to do, so I turned off the Sonos in case that actually was the source. I went back to my desk and tried listening to the Insane Clown Posse song on my phone and I heard the voice again from the A5 speaker. This time they said "duct tape, duct tape". I unplugged the A5s power cable and switched off my PC and haven't heard the voice since.

I'm pretty confident the voice was coming from the left A5 speaker. There are no other electronics on that corner of the desk besides a lamp. However, the A5s are connected to my gaming PC which has been turned off this entire time and resting on the ground in the same corner as the left speaker. It's a relatively new PC and I only have a few apps installed on (Steam, Discord, Epic Launcher). I received the A5s from a close friend years ago and have used them almost daily. No one has access to my computers but me and my partner who would never do something like this. I'm pretty sure none of my friends have anything to do with this. I do live in a dense urban area. I don't have history of mental illness/hallucinations. I also wouldn't say that I'm a target for any reason. Although I am very creeped out, I think this is more likely a prank than a threat to me.

Given all this, can anyone come up with a technical explanation? The only one I can think of is that my gaming PC was being hacked/remotely accessed and someone was speaking out loud or playing an audio file to prank me. The only action I've taken so far is change my WiFi's password (I was using the default password before). I appreciate any help here.

[jml7c5]

Almost certainly speaker wire or something similar acting as an antenna. You can find videos of the phenomenon on YouTube. The creepy voice would just be down to distortion; it can sound a lot like someone is using a voice changer, as though they're a movie villain making a phone call.

I wouldn't put much stock into what the phrases sounded like. It's easy to misunderstand distorted speech, especially when you're primed to hear something weird or spooky. The repeated "duct tape, duct tape" seems like what one would expect from someone using a walkie-talkie, where repeating words for the sake of clarity is common. E.g., "all stations, all stations, blah blah blah...".

[mod → jml7c5]

When I was a kid, cordless phones (not cell phones, but landline phones) were all the rage, and one Christmas I got some nice walkie talkies from Radio Shack. We quickly discovered that we could hear phone conversations from at least one house, that we always assumed were from those cordless phones.

Anyway, that's what this story reminded me of. I've had similar things happen a few times in my life.

[ducttapethrow → jml7c5]

Thank you for your reply. This will help my partner and me rest a little easier!

[khedoros1]

If the gaming PC wasn't on, it's hard to imagine that it was producing the audio signal (e.g. someone accessing the computer remotely, causing it to run a program and play the audio). I'd guess something more like an excessively-powerful AM radio transmission. It's not too hard to find similar anecdotes online: https://forums.tomsguide.com/threads/picking-up-radio-statio...

[ducttapethrow → khedoros1]

I think this is the most likely explanation. My threat vector isn't high so such a sophisticating hacking job makes little sense. I just have no idea why someone would broadcast that kind of message near me. I checked Nextdoor for any complaints but my neighborhood isn't very active there.

[alfredblue]

It looks like your speakers have Bluetooth and pairing doesn’t require anything special, probably someone connected with Bluetooth.

[khedoros1 → alfredblue]

Doesn't seem like they support bluetooth: https://audioengineusa.com/product_tech_specs/a5-classic-spe...

[berkes]

> The only one I can think of is that my gaming PC was being hacked/remotely accessed and someone was speaking out loud or playing an audio file to prank me

Maybe "espeak"? It it is running Linux, that can be quite easily triggered over ssh to make any computer "speak".

We used to have a media station at home, wake-on-lan. One day, I desparately needed to speak to my wife, but she did not pick up her phone. So I ssh-ed into the media station, sudo-apt-get espeak and then piped "echo 'pick up the phone, berkes needs to talk to you'" into espeak. Freaked her out completely, but she did pick up the phone.

[ducttapethrow → berkes]

I have a windows PC but eSpeak does have a CLI for windows. I'll try it out to see if it sounds familiar. Thank you!

[jquast]

Every wire, every circuit path, is also an antenna, speakers can become a receiver without any special device, just an amplifier and a wire.

A neighbor with a modified CB or baofeng radio is “talking trash” using AM, that’s why they’re transmitting on unlicensed frequencies with output against FCC laws, it’s how boomers troll, and the FCC is only concerned with high-value license violations that bring in mega-millions, like Janet Jackson’s tit on tv rather than a redneck neighbor, anyway don’t worry about it and if you get an SDR you could probably find the source frequency and go mobile and triangulate the person, if you care to. They don’t talk trash very long because they know of the possibility. And fuck the fcc, anyway.

[theandrewbailey]

Something similar happened to me once. A few months later, I learned that a neighbor had set up a ham radio transmitter.

[Nextgrid]

Reinstall that machine and consider all its data and accounts it had accessed compromised (rotate passwords/keys/etc). Just in case.

[mixedCase → Nextgrid]

OP mentioned PC was off. Feels way overkill.

[Nextgrid → mixedCase]

Was it off or merely on standby, susceptible to be woken up by USB activity (even slightly touching the mouse would be enough) or scheduled tasks (Windows update, etc)?

I'm suspecting it was on standby, woke up at some point but the monitor turned off due to inactivity even though the machine was on at the time (or turned itself off again later after the incident happened).