51–60 of 62 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Van Eck Phreaking dates back to 1982, which used CRTs, and if you're aware of that, it's not an insurmountably huge logical leap to realize that modern hardware can be exploited the same way (thanks to greater sensitivity in receiving devices). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking
I first learned about this while reading Cryptonomicon. It seemed too fantastical to be a real thing.
This could be really useful in the future. NIST has been talking about retiring its radio-syncing signal, as there are better modern alternatives with satellites, the Internet, etc. But last time they suggested this there was an outcry, not just from the public with old radio-synced clocks and watches, but also industry with legacy equipment using it. This provides a solution.
That said, newer ones can use authentication, which (together with a reasonably accurate local oscillator) can prevent at least trivial spoofing.
I remember years ago I bought a clock that advertised it set itself using the atomic clock broadcast. Which it did. The very first time it was plugged in, and then never again after. The clock also kept horrible time, it lost a couple minutes every month. Truly an astonishing piece of wtf engineering.
What's weird is it seems like for a long time now I haven't seen "self setting" clocks on retail shelves in a while at big box stores. Everyone went back to just manual timekeeping and I haven't seen a self-setter in a hot minute.
While the mains frequency is usually a great (long-term) stable frequency source, the bigger problem is that all microwaves I know lack a backup battery and require re-setting after unplugging them.
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Err… WWVB has no audio range. The carrier frequency is only 60 kHz. It’s effectively a CW signal since the amplitude is only modulated once per second.
There’s a voice mode station that mixes time signals and voice messages together during broadcast. This station also includes GPS errata from time to time, which in my head canon, are received by solo sailors crossing the Atlantic. I thought this was Boulder, but I assume not?
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Err… WWVB has no audio range. The carrier frequency is only 60 kHz. It’s effectively a CW signal since the amplitude is only modulated once per second.
> WWVB has no audio range I got my WWVB and WWVH confused! There's a reasonable emulator here: https://wwv.mcodes.org/ Unfortunately it doesn't let you play both at the same time, which is what you need for the full experience.
I have a big old analog radio-controlled clock in my classroom, and it's always about 4 minutes fast, which would drive me nuts except most of my students can't read analog time so they're never confused by it. Regardless, I'm excited to try this out next time I'm in the classroom. I'm a little confused by time zones, however. My clock has no controls on the back whatsoever (at least that I can find, I haven't opened…
If you are in the USA, your clock must have a time zone control (or be fixed to one time zone), because the WWVB signal broadcasts UTC.
This could be really useful in the future. NIST has been talking about retiring its radio-syncing signal, as there are better modern alternatives with satellites, the Internet, etc. But last time they suggested this there was an outcry, not just from the public with old radio-synced clocks and watches, but also industry with legacy equipment using it. This provides a solution.
Satellite-based time signals also seem easier to spoof, given the inherent power constraints of the transmitters. That said, newer ones can use authentication, which (together with a reasonably accurate local oscillator) can prevent at least trivial spoofing.
“One of the higher-frequency harmonics inevitably created by any real-world DAC during playback will then be the original fundamental, which should leak to the environment as a short-range radio transmission via the ad-hoc antenna formed by the physical wires and circuit traces in the audio output path.” Sometimes I think I’m a smart guy…and then I read of people doing shit like this.
Very impressive, I just tried it, the first time it worked but synced the wrong time, despite the device time is correct, the browser (preview part) had the wrong time however. I tried to offset the time and sync it again, the watch is detecting the signal but no sync. Nonetheless, pretty amazing!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's weird is it seems like for a long time now I haven't seen "self setting" clocks on retail shelves in a while at big box stores. Everyone went back to just manual timekeeping and I haven't seen a self-setter in a hot minute.
I recently bought 2 of them. You have to specifically look for the feature. Most do not have it.
Unfortunately, Sharp is lying. "Accu-Set(tm)" is them factory-programming the clock IC and just shipping a button cell in the box and hoping it holds time. My clock was 5 minutes behind and I have to manually set it. No RDS, no radiotime, nothing.
Oi... guess I have to be even more specific in my product hunt.