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Show HN: TCP/UDP over sound

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Re: Show HN: TCP/UDP over sound

#41

Post by bcook »

userbinator wrote: post #31
Razengan wrote: post #22

Slightly unrelated but curious; have there been any attempts to transfer data as sound? I don't mean sound converted to electricity, or to represent 0s and 1s, but using a specific frequency range to represent 1, another range to represent 2, another for 3... I don't know the terms for these things. Using vibrations instead of electrons to transmit data over a wire? Do creatures like dolphins do this?

Some of the very first remote controls used ultrasound. http://www.pushclicktouch.com/blog/?p=107 They didn't even need batteries, since they were purely mechanical.

My father always referred to TV remotes as "ker-chunkers" because of his experience with an early TV remote that would make a noise like a tuning fork when pressed then the TV knob would make an audible "ker-chunk" as the channel changed.

Re: Show HN: TCP/UDP over sound

#42

Post by biot »

aylons wrote: post #26
alanh wrote: post #20

With this headline, I cannot hear anything in my head except “the dial-up noise.” TCP over sound was how I used to connect to the Internet…

Good catch, but it was actually over audio signals. Sound was just for monitoring.

That's a distinction without a difference. If another family member picked up the phone while you were dialed up, they certainly heard it.

Re: Show HN: TCP/UDP over sound

#43

Post by netsin »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #29
alanh wrote: post #20

With this headline, I cannot hear anything in my head except “the dial-up noise.” TCP over sound was how I used to connect to the Internet…

I have those memories too! I'm certainly not claiming to have invented the idea of dial-up. The idea for this library is to provide a soft modem, highly configurable (thanks to liquid DSP), which comes "batteries-included" with a TCP stack (thanks to lwip). The examples shown in the README can even run on a nearly-ultrasonic modem profile whose spectrum content lies >= 19kHz

Someone's dog is going to hate this.

Re: Show HN: TCP/UDP over sound

#44

Post by postscapes1 »

Razengan wrote: post #22

Slightly unrelated but curious; have there been any attempts to transfer data as sound? I don't mean sound converted to electricity, or to represent 0s and 1s, but using a specific frequency range to represent 1, another range to represent 2, another for 3... I don't know the terms for these things. Using vibrations instead of electrons to transmit data over a wire? Do creatures like dolphins do this?

There's a UK startup who has a product in this space: http://www.chirp.io

Re: Show HN: TCP/UDP over sound

#45

Post by goodmachine »

nickodell wrote: post #23
Razengan wrote: post #22

Slightly unrelated but curious; have there been any attempts to transfer data as sound? I don't mean sound converted to electricity, or to represent 0s and 1s, but using a specific frequency range to represent 1, another range to represent 2, another for 3... I don't know the terms for these things. Using vibrations instead of electrons to transmit data over a wire? Do creatures like dolphins do this?

>I don't mean sound converted to electricity, or to represent 0s and 1s, but using a specific frequency range to represent 1, another range to represent 2, another for 3... I don't know the terms for these things. Frequency-shift keying? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-shift_keying

Yup, a company I co-founded http://chirp.io has been using this technique (well, MFSK) to share data over the air, between mobile and embedded devices for a while now.

Easy to describe, hard to do robustly.

Re: Show HN: TCP/UDP over sound

#46

Post by NamTaf »

niftich wrote: post #36
NamTaf wrote: post #33

Was there not a PoC recently (~months ago) of someone who did similar over a speaker/microphone but outside the audible range of ears? It was a PoC of the Flame malware capability to jump airgapped PCs

Not sure if this is what you meant, but Chromecast's guest mode will pair using ultrasound. The guy who worked on it has some code using the WebAudio API on github and his linked blog: https://github.com/borismus/sonicnet.js

No there was an article on here several months ago that I couldn't find when searching where someone wrote a PoC for the transmission of data via near-ultrasonic sounds from a computer speaker and microphone. I don't think it was this [1] one, but it shows the concept being used.

Maybe I'm misintepreting the OP's work and not realising how it differs in some subtle way? I get that they've put TCP/UDP over it, but is there something else I'm oblivious to?

Also, I meant BadBIOS [2], not Flame.

[1]: https://www.anfractuosity.com/projects/ultrasound-via-a-lapt... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BadBIOS

Re: Show HN: TCP/UDP over sound

#47

Post by larholm »

vacri wrote: post #27
aylons wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good catch, but it was actually over audio signals. Sound was just for monitoring.

Some ye olde modems had a socket that you plugged your regular handset into: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_coupler I think one was used in the film War Games , but can't recall clearly.

War Games used a Dataphon s21d, iirc.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akustikkoppler#/media/File:Acu...

I had one for my C-64.

Re: Show HN: TCP/UDP over sound

#48

Post by nathancahill »

I've been prototyping a dail-up concept (like CSD) over 2G networks. Combined with heavy server-side compressing, the goal is to achieve speeds faster than GPRS in areas that have no data coverage to speak of. TCP over sound was the first part. I'll have to study this implementation.

Re: Show HN: TCP/UDP over sound

#50

Post by 4ad »

nathancahill wrote: post #48

I've been prototyping a dail-up concept (like CSD) over 2G networks. Combined with heavy server-side compressing, the goal is to achieve speeds faster than GPRS in areas that have no data coverage to speak of. TCP over sound was the first part. I'll have to study this implementation.

Your project sounds very interesting.

I don't think you'll be able to achieve speeds faster than GPRS, but it's useful nevertheless.

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