Comment on Why a Helium Leak Disabled Every iPhone in a Medical Facility

• tal@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ 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.

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  • IrritableOcelot@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ 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.

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• flashgnash@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ 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

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  • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    Is helium used in deodorants these days?

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    • flashgnash@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      Not that I know of, I meant it could be put in a pressurised spray bottle, for example a deodorant can

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  • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    If you are close enough to spray a device you are close enough to just steal it. Or spray the owner.

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    • flashgnash@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      If it’s bolted to a wall and unattended neither of those things are an option

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      • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        If y9ou are close enough to a system of importance that you can spray it, you are close enough to compromise it in countless other ways.

        This is just one of many physical access attacks. Just like “you could take a hammer to it”

        Like, I know people want to think this is some Ocean’s Eleven heist waiting to happen. It isn’t. At best it is an episode of Burn Notice where Michael has to rapidly improvise an escape where his CIA handler of the week already refused to give him something much more useful.

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• xor@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  a very small percentage of helium will disable the phone

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