Before Bluetooth, before the Internet of Things, and before network-connected everything, infrared was king. In the 90s, personal organizers, keyboards, Furbys, and critical infrastructure was built on infrared. Some of these devices are still around, hiding in plain sight. This means there’s a lot of opportunities for some very fun exploits. This was the focus of [Mike Ossmann] and [Dominic Spill]’s talk at this year’s Shmoocon, Exploring The Infrared World. What’s the hook? Using software-defined radio with terahertz frequencies.
Demos are a necessity, but the world seems to have passed over IR in the last decade. That doesn’t mean there still aren’t interesting targets. A week before Shmoocon, [Mike Ossmann] put out the call on Twitter for a traffic light and the associated hardware. Yes, police cars and ambulances use infrared signaling to turn traffic lights green. You shouldn’t. You can, but you shouldn’t.
What was the takeaway from this talk? IR still exists, apparently. Yes, you can use it to send documents directly from your PalmPilot to a laser printer without any wires whatsoever. One of the more interesting applications for IR is an in-car wireless headphone unit that sends something almost, but not quite, like pulse coded audio over infrared. The demo that drew the most applause was an infrared device that changed traffic lights to green. The information to do that is freely available on the web, but you seriously don’t want to attempt that in the wild.
There are rumours that using xenon headlights minicab drivers can cause the “blues & toos” sensor in some traffic lights to trigger and start a cycle to change.
Some drivers claim it’s possible, others faint ignorance.
All I know is there was a large section of magazines dedicated to this and special registration plate masking paint.
But this at least seems a credible way to achieve the same effect.
I’ve seen it work in the past but they changed it from merely being a flashing light causing the trigger in the 1980’s and 90’s to a bit more of a special sequence which is much harder to do. Was fun while it lasted though.
The code is now set to SOS in morse code.
Hmmm… The flashlight app on my phone does that….
the old xenon-strobe triggered versions still exist, if you know where…
im not sure of the exact flash pattern, but the beat of most electro-house techno works okay… just need to turn off strobing in order for the crosswalk to let you cross, otherwise you’ll have to wait til your song is no longer strobing for “walk” light.
and if there are traffic cameras you’d better’d hope it “looked” like an accidental triggering as i assume the triggers get red-flagged…
as for lightning?
ive never hung-around tall metal posts in a lightning-storm long enough to notice any effects, and i do not reccomend you do either.
This traffic light changing is new for me. Maybe it’s not common here in EU
It’s called traffic signal preemption ; common in the us. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_signal_preemption
4Mbaud IRDA receivers are really handy for all sorts of IR work, and performance is better than anything you can make easily from discretes.
A big advantage of IR over radio for some applications is you can make it very directional, and control the range, and not worry about it going through walls, so good for things like indoor location beacons.
So can I use it for my vehicle entertainment system that has some fraggin’ stupid nearly DA over IR that’s hard or $pendy to get replacement headphones for?
A bit more on IR for public infrastructure: back in 2008 a Polish 14-year-old modified a TV remote to output control codes affecting the Polish tram system. He was able to mess with track controls that caused the trains to run the wrong way, leading to a derailment and 12 injuries.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/11/tram_hack/
Heck of a thing to have on one’s permanent record.
No worries, I had it expunged…
Wonder what it would take to run QAM modulation on IR…
Nothing more than a sound card in a pc and appropriate audio transformer in between the card and the it led/diode. There’s PC software that can modulate QAM64 over a single mono audio channel to send any file/data. I have used a program called JQam to send a 370kb/s QAM64 signal over an LED/photo transistor arrangement. The program can even send streaming video and audio over either a QAM 64 or 16 signal. It has a theoretical limit of about 400kb/s per second.
There’s a demo available to see if you like the features, though it’s limited to just QAM 16 at 17kbps.
Also it costs $25. But that gets you 2 licenses so you can set up two PC’s for send and receive. Though to be honest the guy has put in zero DRM of any kind so there’s really no limit to how many PC’s you install it too once you have a full copy.
I think I remember GNURadio having a QAM64 module and that’s free.
Jack, sounds like you created a QAM64 modulated subcarrier while Joslyn was probably talking about manipulating the phase of the actual light source. I would have figured that it is just impossible to do but Wikipedia knows better:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro-optic_modulator
I see what you’re saying, and maybe that’s what Joslyn meant as well. But its simplicity makes it a great place to start, even if it’s not exactly true QAM 64 modulation on its own.
I was thinking of another way to directly modulate QAM64 over a light source as I typed the above response. You could use 2 LEDs, each a different wavelength, and each handle one of the two axis of the QAM signal. Then all you would need to do is very the intensity of each to produce the QAM signal without having to deal with phase. If you ran this off a sound card capable of producing a 192khz signal, you could potentially output 96,000 symbols per second, that’s 567kbps. Not too shabby for a sound card.
I didn’t read TFA, but it might be useful to say that with 4.7 K resistor high speeds might be problematical. Lower resistance will allow higher speeds, but with lower sensitivity. Higher resistances will give low speeds, but higher sensitivity.
The title mentions terahertz, but the article talks about infrared. What gives?
A large part of the IR spectrum is in the terahertz frequency range, wavelengths from about 1mm to 1um.
I get that, but nobody in physics/EE refers to infrared as “terahertz” — THz is the band between IR and mm-wave.
Exactly. I cannot understand why on earth the authors decided to call it “terahertz”, especially since the devices described all work at around 1000nm. Generally, you’ve got infrared, far infrared, then terahertz.
Click bait or vastly uninformed
-> to make it believe that it was about coherent modulation in the terahertz range
do you still need fcc license to transmit on terahertz since no one uses that?
Given that you do not need any license to operate a heat lamp, the short answer is no. Not sure exactly where the line is but I seem to remember 3THz being the upper end of what is considered microwave.
I think after chrome boxes became popular, instead of the emergency vehicle IR signals turning the direct path green, it would turn the light red all ways.
Where is terahertz here?
Anyways, we can use SDR to millimeter waves with multipliers.
In regards to solid state only systems… terahertz test equipment used to be made in France only. Not sure if anything has changed in regards to the company as I forget the name.