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I am prone to static shocks and one day I discovered I could temporarily bypass the card key lock at our office by shocking the handle. No one believed me until

I am prone to static shocks and one day I discovered I could temporarily bypass the card key lock at our office by shocking the handle. No one believed me until one day we gathered everyone at the office around and I did it while being filmed. Our head of security was furious, everyone else thought it was hilarious.

MichaelApproved 8y ago
> Our head of security was furious Furious with you or the vendor? How long did it take to fix, if ever?
- pasta 8y ago
  Loss of control can result in anger.
  - duaoebg 8y ago
    Even if your not mad it sometimes helps to put on a show. Lets others know that you’re serious about security.
    - drdeadringer 8y ago
      I remember these emails while in the Defense Industry. Sprinkled through the email would be choice words in all caps, and bolded, and in Italics, likely in red, maybe highlighted in some other color as well. Such attempts at "letting others know you're serious about security" seemed more for CYA oversight purposes for the company's security department, but at least 100s of people got reeducated-by-email about proper door security during or after a fire drill.
- creaghpatr 8y ago
  I'm not sure if it ever did, it would have been the jurisdiction of the building management rather than our company. We had all our critical hardware locked in a separate room with analog locks so it wasn't an emergency at the time. This was also years ago, so imagine it's been addressed and may have been at the time. I didn't keep testing it because it involves static shocking yourself, which is something I like to avoid.
  - kweks 8y ago
    Seems like glitching locks is still a thing: https://nfckill.com https://nfckill.com
pasta 8y ago
Static shocks can do damage. Some weeks ago I was sitting at an office where everything was static (I think they did not ground the power outlets in the desks properly). Every time I sat down I got a big hit. But one time my laptop crashed and shut down. So back to the story: it might as well has to do with the shoes employee 2 is wearing and the way he/she walks. Edit: from the poster on Reddit: "She wears a wool cover to stay warm."
- Moru 8y ago
  30 years ago I was working at a place that just had started with computers. One of the older employees always had computer problems and had been told to spray the floor with softener by th IT staff tired of repairing the fried motherboard. A few years later another company kept a stack of keyboards next to a lady that kept killing hers. They start working again after a while thanks to keyboards having a nice fuse. Just rotate them until the keyboard port fried one day. She was also wearing a wool sweater, big old stone building in northern Sweden...
  - DoctorOetker 8y ago
    >...old stone building Yeah, I think we often forget that ground from the outlet is not necessarily local ground in the building materials (concrete and whatever)
- e40 8y ago
  I have a power cord that has everything but the ground wire cut and the single ground part of the plug plugged into the wall. Near my keyboard, I have the other end of the ground wire exposed. Before I touch my keyboard, I touch it. In the winter, 9/10 times I discharge a little shock. I've ruined keyboards and computers with my shocks, and since I installed this setup, zero problems. I set up a coworker with this, after he killed his laptop by shocking it.
  - rleigh 8y ago
    In my old office, one of the girls got a humidifier to combat the dry air during wintertime. It also seemed to help with the amount of static buildup maybe by making it easier to dissipate. Not a fix by any measure, but it did seem to help a bit. Anyone else tried this?
holstvoogd 8y ago
I have had my monitor turn off when I touch my laptop whilst being statically charged. Might well be the issue here too, especially since they mention she wears wool quite often. However, that was by direct touch, how that would happen when walking by is still a mystery to me :)
- Moru 8y ago
  Wearing an old cellphone and the computer was old and no shielding? ;) When we were still young and played a lot, we also overclocked a lot. At one hacker convent we had three computers with the hood of, all running w95. Any time there was a phone call (Nokia 3210 era) all three would get a bluescreen. The computers ran much better with hoods on except for the heat.

MichaelApproved 8y ago

> Our head of security was furious Furious with you or the vendor? How long did it take to fix, if ever?

pasta 8y ago
Loss of control can result in anger.
- duaoebg 8y ago
  Even if your not mad it sometimes helps to put on a show. Lets others know that you’re serious about security.
  - drdeadringer 8y ago
    I remember these emails while in the Defense Industry. Sprinkled through the email would be choice words in all caps, and bolded, and in Italics, likely in red, maybe highlighted in some other color as well. Such attempts at "letting others know you're serious about security" seemed more for CYA oversight purposes for the company's security department, but at least 100s of people got reeducated-by-email about proper door security during or after a fire drill.
creaghpatr 8y ago
I'm not sure if it ever did, it would have been the jurisdiction of the building management rather than our company. We had all our critical hardware locked in a separate room with analog locks so it wasn't an emergency at the time. This was also years ago, so imagine it's been addressed and may have been at the time. I didn't keep testing it because it involves static shocking yourself, which is something I like to avoid.
- kweks 8y ago
  Seems like glitching locks is still a thing: https://nfckill.com https://nfckill.com

pasta 8y ago

Static shocks can do damage. Some weeks ago I was sitting at an office where everything was static (I think they did not ground the power outlets in the desks properly). Every time I sat down I got a big hit. But one time my laptop crashed and shut down. So back to the story: it might as well has to do with the shoes employee 2 is wearing and the way he/she walks. Edit: from the poster on Reddit: "She wears a wool cover to stay warm."

Moru 8y ago
30 years ago I was working at a place that just had started with computers. One of the older employees always had computer problems and had been told to spray the floor with softener by th IT staff tired of repairing the fried motherboard. A few years later another company kept a stack of keyboards next to a lady that kept killing hers. They start working again after a while thanks to keyboards having a nice fuse. Just rotate them until the keyboard port fried one day. She was also wearing a wool sweater, big old stone building in northern Sweden...
- DoctorOetker 8y ago
  >...old stone building Yeah, I think we often forget that ground from the outlet is not necessarily local ground in the building materials (concrete and whatever)
e40 8y ago
I have a power cord that has everything but the ground wire cut and the single ground part of the plug plugged into the wall. Near my keyboard, I have the other end of the ground wire exposed. Before I touch my keyboard, I touch it. In the winter, 9/10 times I discharge a little shock. I've ruined keyboards and computers with my shocks, and since I installed this setup, zero problems. I set up a coworker with this, after he killed his laptop by shocking it.
- rleigh 8y ago
  In my old office, one of the girls got a humidifier to combat the dry air during wintertime. It also seemed to help with the amount of static buildup maybe by making it easier to dissipate. Not a fix by any measure, but it did seem to help a bit. Anyone else tried this?

holstvoogd 8y ago

I have had my monitor turn off when I touch my laptop whilst being statically charged. Might well be the issue here too, especially since they mention she wears wool quite often. However, that was by direct touch, how that would happen when walking by is still a mystery to me :)

Moru 8y ago
Wearing an old cellphone and the computer was old and no shielding? ;) When we were still young and played a lot, we also overclocked a lot. At one hacker convent we had three computers with the hood of, all running w95. Any time there was a phone call (Nokia 3210 era) all three would get a bluescreen. The computers ran much better with hoods on except for the heat.