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
Comment on Why a Helium Leak Disabled Every iPhone in a Medical Facility
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 1 month agoIf 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.
flashgnash@lemm.ee 1 month ago
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Is helium used in deodorants these days?
flashgnash@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Not that I know of, I meant it could be put in a pressurised spray bottle, for example a deodorant can
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
If you are close enough to spray a device you are close enough to just steal it. Or spray the owner.
flashgnash@lemm.ee 1 month ago
If it’s bolted to a wall and unattended neither of those things are an option
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 1 month 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.
xor@infosec.pub 1 month ago
a very small percentage of helium will disable the phone
tal@lemmy.today 1 month 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 1 month 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.