Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable Systems [pdf]

Re:Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable... by sp332 on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @11:29AM (#21453847)

This is a cool attack, but I'm not sure where you got "$14" from. The laser pointers were $18 for a pack of 3, but you need a separate laser driver like the $300 one the authors used, and probably an audio amplifier as well.

There are some videos of the attack at https://lightcommands.com/

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Re:Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable... by ron0c on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @11:46AM (#21454048)

Exactly. Title says "$14" and then show this as the setup: https://i.imgur.com/SYUSIDs.png

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Re:Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable... by phailhaus on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @01:36PM (#21455244)

"Google Assistant can be hijacked by a $2 pack of screws!"

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Re:Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable... by dkonofalski on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @04:38PM (#21456986)

So your typical Reddit/Hacker News new computer build.

"$300 for the whole thing. (Note: This doesn't include the GPU, motherboard, case, or monitor that I already had prior to building.)"

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Re:Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable... by knowaveragejoe on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @04:02PM (#21456649)

If you scroll further down, they show a significantly cheaper setup.

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Re:Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable... by thsowers on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @11:52AM (#21454118)

Agree, title should be more like "Light Commands: Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable Systems"

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Re:Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable... by Someone1234 on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @12:39PM (#21454596)

Particularly as this isn't exclusive to smart assistants. They found the same could be used against phones and tablets (as slightly higher power due to the lower sensitivity of the microphones).

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Re:Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable... by excalibur on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @12:50PM (#21454705)

Yes, but it's targeting the aforementioned software regardless of device. (Not that the HN title isn't terrible, I agree with thsowers on using the title from the actual paper.)

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Re:Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable... by sp332 on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @12:52PM (#21454735)

I think it's extendable, like adding extra voices to a phone call.

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Re:Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable... by brudgers on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @03:55PM (#21456576)

Stipulating that $14 might be off by as much as two orders of magnitude, cost remains an insignificant barrier for any adversary with access to a credit card.

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Re:Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable... by dang on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @04:59PM (#21457196)

We changed the title from "Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa can be hijacked with $14 laser pointer".

Submitters: please don't editorialize like that. It breaks the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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Re:Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable... by hanniabu on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @11:59AM (#21454210)

I foresee a market for decorative chotskies with open centers that sit over the mic to prevent these peripheral attacks.

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Re:Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable... by kordlessagain on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @01:33PM (#21455208)

Clickbait PDF

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Re:Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable... by thih9 on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @01:53PM (#21455399)

To be fair, the PDF's title is different, "Light Commands: Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable Systems".

Maybe we should change this submission's title to the PDF's title.

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Re:Laser-Based Audio Injection Attacks on Voice-Controllable... by eeZah7Ux on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @01:06PM (#21454903)

Modulating a laser at audio frequencies is pretty trivial.

You can probably inject the signal straight from the headphone output of a smartphone into the right pad in the laser pointer with a decoupling resistor and inline capacitor.

...if you don't care about audio quality and longevity of the laser.

http://www.yak.net/fqa/229.html

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