Well that’s not true. It’s just a real bitch. As a welder, helium leak check is about the toughest damn QC to pass. Most welding QC has some reasonable margin for error during inspection, but the damn helium doesn’t care. You can have a beautiful weld with a tiny imperfection at the start or end and it’ll piss helium just as badly as an entirely scuffed bead.
Comment on Why a Helium Leak Disabled Every iPhone in a Medical Facility
cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
Helium doesn’t just kill apple devices, It kills anything with a MEMS oscillator. Helium atoms are so small that it’s impossible to make a seal that completely blocks them.
LordGimp@lemm.ee 2 months ago
tal@lemmy.today 2 months ago
Hmm.
That seems like it’d open a lot of potential abuses.
I wonder what the failure mode of various electronic locks is when they’re exposed to helium?
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
If you are in a position where you can dump random gases into the air supply to the degree it impacts these devices then they are likely compromised in other ways as well.
tal@lemmy.today 2 months ago
I don’t know about that. It seemed to have a pretty rapid impact on the phone in that video, and it’s not like those are exactly open. And they weren’t pressurizing it.
IrritableOcelot@beehaw.org 2 months ago
Helium is tiny, and will diffuse though pretty much anything other than continuous welded metal pipe very very quickly. The elastomer seals on a phone would slow it down slightly, but the article’s from 2018, before so many phones were watertight. I remember my old iPhone had a little piezo cooling fan in one of the grates on the bottom, so helium would have no trouble at all.
flashgnash@lemm.ee 2 months ago
You don’t necessarily need to put it into the air supply, could just bathe the specific device you want disabled in helium from a deodorant can or something
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Is helium used in deodorants these days?
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
If you are close enough to spray a device you are close enough to just steal it. Or spray the owner.
xor@infosec.pub 2 months ago
a very small percentage of helium will disable the phone
4th_Times_A_Charm@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Lock picking lawyer gonna have to get on this