17 ms·

Fascinating. "Accessible" here seems to mean, "physically connected to the mains"? Further, I was sitting here typing "surely a wifi jammer is more accessible"

by k8svet 3y ago

Fascinating. "Accessible" here seems to mean, "physically connected to the mains"? Further, I was sitting here typing "surely a wifi jammer is more accessible", but if modifying a defibrillator is easy, maybe it really is even more theater than I thought. Of course, in the real world, some of these mitigations will be a deterrent. But point taken, for a dedicated attacker/target, you're going to have to get more creative.

mschuster91 3y ago
> "Accessible" here seems to mean, "physically connected to the mains"? Accessible as in "physically accessible to an intruder". In Germany's urban areas, it's more difficult as we tend to bury power and phone lines, but on the countryside, it's bare power wires and trivially openable jumper boxes for the phone lines. For a house, you'll have a lot of different entry points to run destructive power attacks as well: outdoors sockets or lighting fixtures, cameras, wifi APs, solar cells, basically everything that can be reached without a larger ladder should be considered an entry point for a determined attacker. > Further, I was sitting here typing "surely a wifi jammer is more accessible", but if modifying a defibrillator is easy, maybe it really is even more theater than I thought. it's easy from a pure technical viewpoint but incredibly dangerous. A defibrillator dispenses >300 joules worth of energy in a matter of milliseconds, that's around the same order of magnitude as a 9mm pistol bullet - this is also the reason why automated defibrillators will warn you to not touch the person while it dispenses energy: it's enough to send a healthy person into serious cardiac problems. And if you're messing around with the mains power supply wires, typically these are fused for hundreds of amps. If you manage to touch an exposed wire, you die. That's why these kinds of attacks aren't commonplace, because a burglar will simply go for the neighbor that doesn't have an alarm system installed... but once everyone has upped their game, the burglars will as well. In Germany, for example, bank robbers escalated to ATMs... they pump ATMs full of explosive gas, blow it (and with it, often enough the building...) up and take the cash that's flying around, then drive off in a high-speed car [1]. In some cases, the power of the explosion is bad enough to threaten the structural integrity of the building [2]. [1] https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/report-mainz/geldautomaten-sprengung-106.html https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/report-mainz/geldauto... [2] https://www.zeit.de/news/2022-06/18/nach-geldautomatensprengung-gebaeude-einsturzgefaehrdet https://www.zeit.de/news/2022-06/18/nach-geldautomatenspreng...

by k8svet 3y ago

mschuster91 3y ago

> "Accessible" here seems to mean, "physically connected to the mains"? Accessible as in "physically accessible to an intruder". In Germany's urban areas, it's more difficult as we tend to bury power and phone lines, but on the countryside, it's bare power wires and trivially openable jumper boxes for the phone lines. For a house, you'll have a lot of different entry points to run destructive power attacks as well: outdoors sockets or lighting fixtures, cameras, wifi APs, solar cells, basically everything that can be reached without a larger ladder should be considered an entry point for a determined attacker. > Further, I was sitting here typing "surely a wifi jammer is more accessible", but if modifying a defibrillator is easy, maybe it really is even more theater than I thought. it's easy from a pure technical viewpoint but incredibly dangerous. A defibrillator dispenses >300 joules worth of energy in a matter of milliseconds, that's around the same order of magnitude as a 9mm pistol bullet - this is also the reason why automated defibrillators will warn you to not touch the person while it dispenses energy: it's enough to send a healthy person into serious cardiac problems. And if you're messing around with the mains power supply wires, typically these are fused for hundreds of amps. If you manage to touch an exposed wire, you die. That's why these kinds of attacks aren't commonplace, because a burglar will simply go for the neighbor that doesn't have an alarm system installed... but once everyone has upped their game, the burglars will as well. In Germany, for example, bank robbers escalated to ATMs... they pump ATMs full of explosive gas, blow it (and with it, often enough the building...) up and take the cash that's flying around, then drive off in a high-speed car [1]. In some cases, the power of the explosion is bad enough to threaten the structural integrity of the building [2]. [1] https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/report-mainz/geldautomaten-sprengung-106.html https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/report-mainz/geldauto... [2] https://www.zeit.de/news/2022-06/18/nach-geldautomatensprengung-gebaeude-einsturzgefaehrdet https://www.zeit.de/news/2022-06/18/nach-geldautomatenspreng...