Seems really terrible engineering to design a laptop where malware can destroy the speakers.
I guess there's reason to wonder whether malware might also be able to set the whole machine on fire.
I guess there's reason to wonder whether malware might also be able to set the whole machine on fire.
It's not something laptop specific: you can damage any pair of plain regular speakers (say hi-fi speakers) by sending them the right (meaning wrong) audio signals to them: burn the voice coil, fry the tweaters, etc. Audio engineers take certain precautions to what they send the speakers.
Laptop speakers have software control of the speakers for protecting them from this, and to allow better performance as long as the components aren't overheating, etc.
You could for example blow all the efuses in anything with signed firmware versioning - meaning there would be no firmware release that will boot anymore.
You can also typically increase system voltages to cause failure, erase flash so many times it fails in a few minutes, overwrite bootloaders in peripherals so they can't be fixed without a soldering iron, etc.
But also, there have been many bugs in the past which bypassed SIP.
that was one of my favorite parts of Mr. Robot