5 ms·

So I'm going to ask a dump question, how much explosive power can actually be packed in a USB stick? Is it enough to kill someone, or is it about the shrapnel,

So I'm going to ask a dump question, how much explosive power can actually be packed in a USB stick? Is it enough to kill someone, or is it about the shrapnel, or is it just some burns on the person who plugged it in?

h2odragon 4y ago
Probably enough to mess up your hand, probably not enough to completely remove it. I wouldn't want to count on it for rendering a laptop completely irrecoverable; but it'd probably do a good enough job most of the time. A "thumb drive" that's much bigger than an m80 is going to be a little suspect anyway, isn't it? some of them things can be swallerd now. Don't think any are designed to work after, alas.
- fuzzfactor 4y ago
  Had one of the small metal ones come through the washing machine OK.
fwlr 4y ago
The first USB thumb drive I could find on Amazon was a Sandisk with dimensions of 7 x 41 x 17 millimetres. That gives it a total volume of just under 4.9cm3, which would be a maximum of 8.5 grams of C4, or just under 1/3 of an ounce. Here’s one ounce of C4 as a shaped charge punching a hole through a steel plate: https://youtu.be/AwyniA5ryhY&t=46 https://youtu.be/AwyniA5ryhY&t=46 Realistically you couldn’t achieve 1/3 of an ounce (that would be a thumb-drive-shaped blob of C4), it would be at most half of that, and the thumb drive would weigh 5 grams instead of half a gram which is probably noticeably odd. The problem is that a flash drive bomb is going to explode when you plug it in, i.e right when you are holding it in your hand, and holding an explosive in your hand is the best way to maximize the harm it causes. The closest real world example to a thumb drive bomb that we have data on is an M80 firecracker, we have hundreds of instances of those going off while being held in the hand just like what would happen with a thumb drive. The M80 has between 2g and 5g of flash powder, which causes a very comparable explosion (similar size and speed) to what you could practically get from a C4 thumbdrive bomb. I don’t recommend searching M80 firecracker injuries, it seems like it tends to mangle multiple fingers. So an estimate for a practical thumb drive bomb is that it could probably blow off your thumb and a finger or two.
- hilbert42 4y ago
  I am very surprised that the journalist wasn't severely injured or killed. I reckon your estimate of a few lost fingers underestimates the potential damage. View it this way, the charge in a handgun bullet would easily fit into a USB stick—especially the larger type. Now consider that the amount of energy in the charge is calibrated to kill the recipient of the bullet, that is there is enough residual energy in the projectile to do the job after all coupling losses have been accounted for such as projectile/barrel friction, air resistance, penetrating victim's clothes etc. The likely real tragedy of this incident is that it becomes a copycat incident and that 'professionals' who know how to minimize the coupling losses will get involved. As for your point that the device would trigger immediately, it would depend on what the perpetrator's intentions were. I recall some years back that the Israelis killed a terrorist with a phone containing C4 or similar. Presumably, there was a delay between the time he answered the phone and when he put it to his ear. A 555 timer could delay the trigger say until the USB was removed and that it was, say, put into one's pocket. No doubt those with evil intent and inventive minds will think of other ideas to maximize damage. Irrespective, this incident is a horrible development and a portent of things to come. I just hope I'm wrong.
  - fwlr 4y ago
    A bullet is a bad comparison because guns are uniquely fantastic maximisers of the damage potential of explosions. What a gun does is take the entire explosion and concentrate it into one particular direction, it’s like a laser chamber for an explosion. Consider that the 5 milliwatt LED in a cheap laser pointer can cause permanent harm to the retina in seconds, while we light our houses with 5 watt LED bulbs all day and they don’t cause any harm to our retinas. This does raise another, perhaps more ethical idea. The shape of a thumb drive lends itself to building a shaped charge directing the explosion through the usb port into the internals of the computer. You could probably get reliable computer destruction with this method.
    - hilbert42 4y ago
      Time, unfortunately, will likely tell. I claim no great expertise in these matters but I do know C4 is a more powerful charge. I also know how much potential energy is locked up in a bullet cartridge. When the army instructed us in the absolute necessity of pull-through procedure and barrel cleaning it was drilled in by showing us a rifle with its breach blown to bits because the barrel was blocked. It was pointed out that breach explosions had killed many.
euroderf 4y ago
Hypothesizing here... At what point do we have to worry about a USB stick that has an antimatter payload ? Such a weapon might be enough to blow off a significant chunk of the Earth's crust.
- arrow7000 4y ago
  When it starts costing less than a few billion $ per milligram to produce
  - jrootabega 4y ago
    And technology exists to contain it indefinitely in a thumb-sized container, while also being powered from within that thumb-sized container, while also not radiating, or possibly even generating, enormous amounts of heat.

h2odragon 4y ago

Probably enough to mess up your hand, probably not enough to completely remove it. I wouldn't want to count on it for rendering a laptop completely irrecoverable; but it'd probably do a good enough job most of the time. A "thumb drive" that's much bigger than an m80 is going to be a little suspect anyway, isn't it? some of them things can be swallerd now. Don't think any are designed to work after, alas.

fuzzfactor 4y ago
Had one of the small metal ones come through the washing machine OK.

fwlr 4y ago

The first USB thumb drive I could find on Amazon was a Sandisk with dimensions of 7 x 41 x 17 millimetres. That gives it a total volume of just under 4.9cm3, which would be a maximum of 8.5 grams of C4, or just under 1/3 of an ounce. Here’s one ounce of C4 as a shaped charge punching a hole through a steel plate: https://youtu.be/AwyniA5ryhY&t=46 https://youtu.be/AwyniA5ryhY&t=46 Realistically you couldn’t achieve 1/3 of an ounce (that would be a thumb-drive-shaped blob of C4), it would be at most half of that, and the thumb drive would weigh 5 grams instead of half a gram which is probably noticeably odd. The problem is that a flash drive bomb is going to explode when you plug it in, i.e right when you are holding it in your hand, and holding an explosive in your hand is the best way to maximize the harm it causes. The closest real world example to a thumb drive bomb that we have data on is an M80 firecracker, we have hundreds of instances of those going off while being held in the hand just like what would happen with a thumb drive. The M80 has between 2g and 5g of flash powder, which causes a very comparable explosion (similar size and speed) to what you could practically get from a C4 thumbdrive bomb. I don’t recommend searching M80 firecracker injuries, it seems like it tends to mangle multiple fingers. So an estimate for a practical thumb drive bomb is that it could probably blow off your thumb and a finger or two.

hilbert42 4y ago
I am very surprised that the journalist wasn't severely injured or killed. I reckon your estimate of a few lost fingers underestimates the potential damage. View it this way, the charge in a handgun bullet would easily fit into a USB stick—especially the larger type. Now consider that the amount of energy in the charge is calibrated to kill the recipient of the bullet, that is there is enough residual energy in the projectile to do the job after all coupling losses have been accounted for such as projectile/barrel friction, air resistance, penetrating victim's clothes etc. The likely real tragedy of this incident is that it becomes a copycat incident and that 'professionals' who know how to minimize the coupling losses will get involved. As for your point that the device would trigger immediately, it would depend on what the perpetrator's intentions were. I recall some years back that the Israelis killed a terrorist with a phone containing C4 or similar. Presumably, there was a delay between the time he answered the phone and when he put it to his ear. A 555 timer could delay the trigger say until the USB was removed and that it was, say, put into one's pocket. No doubt those with evil intent and inventive minds will think of other ideas to maximize damage. Irrespective, this incident is a horrible development and a portent of things to come. I just hope I'm wrong.
- fwlr 4y ago
  A bullet is a bad comparison because guns are uniquely fantastic maximisers of the damage potential of explosions. What a gun does is take the entire explosion and concentrate it into one particular direction, it’s like a laser chamber for an explosion. Consider that the 5 milliwatt LED in a cheap laser pointer can cause permanent harm to the retina in seconds, while we light our houses with 5 watt LED bulbs all day and they don’t cause any harm to our retinas. This does raise another, perhaps more ethical idea. The shape of a thumb drive lends itself to building a shaped charge directing the explosion through the usb port into the internals of the computer. You could probably get reliable computer destruction with this method.
  - hilbert42 4y ago
    Time, unfortunately, will likely tell. I claim no great expertise in these matters but I do know C4 is a more powerful charge. I also know how much potential energy is locked up in a bullet cartridge. When the army instructed us in the absolute necessity of pull-through procedure and barrel cleaning it was drilled in by showing us a rifle with its breach blown to bits because the barrel was blocked. It was pointed out that breach explosions had killed many.

euroderf 4y ago

Hypothesizing here... At what point do we have to worry about a USB stick that has an antimatter payload ? Such a weapon might be enough to blow off a significant chunk of the Earth's crust.

arrow7000 4y ago
When it starts costing less than a few billion $ per milligram to produce
- jrootabega 4y ago
  And technology exists to contain it indefinitely in a thumb-sized container, while also being powered from within that thumb-sized container, while also not radiating, or possibly even generating, enormous amounts of heat.