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How a Helium Leak Disabled Every iPhone In a Medical Facility (vice.com)
dmoberhaus writes: In one of the strangest system admin tales of all time, one IT guy details how a new MRI machine managed to disable every single iPhone, Apple watch and iPad in a medical facility while leaving the rest of the devices untouched. Eric Woolridge, a system administrator at Morris Hospital in Illinois, said in a detailed post on the r/sysadmin subreddit that helium was to blame for the malfunctioning iPhones. "[T]he MRI installation involves supercooling the giant magnet in the machine by boiling off liquid helium," reports Motherboard. "This evaporated helium is usually pumped out of the facility through a vent, but this vent was leaking the helium into the rest of the facility. In all, about 120 liters of helium (or about 90,000 cubic meters in its gaseous state) was pumped out of the MRI room and an untold amount leaked into the rest of the hospital."
In a blog post, iFixit notes that helium atoms can wreak havoc on MEMS silicon chips. "MEMS are microelectromechanical systems that are used for gyroscopes and accelerometers in phones, and helium atoms are small enough to mess up the way these systems function," reports Motherboard. What's odd is that Android phones were not affected. Apparently, the reason "is because Apple recently defected from traditional quartz-based clocks in its phones in favor of clocks that are also made of MEMS silicon," reports Motherboard. "Given that clocks are the most critical device in any computer and are necessary to make the CPU function, their disruption with helium atoms is enough to crash the device."
In a blog post, iFixit notes that helium atoms can wreak havoc on MEMS silicon chips. "MEMS are microelectromechanical systems that are used for gyroscopes and accelerometers in phones, and helium atoms are small enough to mess up the way these systems function," reports Motherboard. What's odd is that Android phones were not affected. Apparently, the reason "is because Apple recently defected from traditional quartz-based clocks in its phones in favor of clocks that are also made of MEMS silicon," reports Motherboard. "Given that clocks are the most critical device in any computer and are necessary to make the CPU function, their disruption with helium atoms is enough to crash the device."
They use PMT tubes, and helium will leak thru glass seals easily, which is what happened to these chips.
They all changed frequency, and aren't working right. :)
The PMT's will just arc internally, glowing a nice bright orange, if you could see them. :D
It will drop the power supply rails, and there's no fixing the tubes, they'll have to be replaced.
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Using MEMS instead of a quartz crystal is like using an inscribed candle instead of a pendulum. It's a major step in the wrong direction.
Apple may have saved a whole 2 cents per $1000 phone by doing that.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Obviously the helium concentration wasn't very high -- people could breathe and talk without sounding like Alvin the Chipmunk. I wonder if this can be exploited to mess with iPhone-owning hipsters at a party -- a balloon inflator sized helium tank and the appropriate valve orifice should do it...
OMG! My phone just died! *head explodes*
Helium detector.
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They really should have sensors to detect these conditions in places where large amounts of gas is used.
They did. iPhones.
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Because they're idiots who don't realize what they're dealing with, that's why.
The only way to prevent such waste is to increase the price of helium to such a point that everyone dealing with helium, when possible, will try to re-capture it once it's been used.
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Helium goes right through solid objects.
Plastics have molecules, and holes between molecules, about 25,000 times larger than a helium atom. Helium gas is normally single atoms, not molecules.
That's the challenge with helium hard drives. If you try to use a typical rubber seal, the holes between rubber molecules are much larger than helium atoms, allowing the helium to go right through almost as if the rubber wasn't there.
You may have noticed a helium balloon stops floating overnight. That's because the helium goes out right through the rubber. Interestingly, air leaks INTO the balloon due to something called partial pressure.
The user manual says gases like helium can damage the phone.
exposing iPhone to environments having high concentrations of industrial chemicals, including near evaporating liquified gasses such as helium, may damage or impair iPhone functionality
I'm sure at $120k/fill they would love to do this. The problem is how. This is many liters of highly compressed helium that has to escape somewhere in very short time in order to demagnetize the room in case of emergency.
In most cases (as in this), the valve/pipe to the outside simply freezes and the helium dumps through the room via other ways.
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Because it is perfectly normal to walk around in a Helium-enriched atmosphere, given it's SOOO commonplace....
It's used in critical facilities for fireproofing. i.e. inert gas firefighting systems. The other options are argon and nitrogen. It's far more common then you'd think, especially since "inert gas" fire fighting systems have become the green choice instead of stuff like halon and it's derivatives. And also unlike halon, which can be mixed with a secondary to drive it through the system like with how a car airbag works, neutral gas system remain fully or partially pressurized. Especially those in closed rooms, those "check oxygen levels before entry" signs aren't for show.
Om, nomnomnom...
Yeah, there's a ton of holes in the story. In the linked article, he admits his test used a far higher concentration of He than would have been possible in the hospital. Plus, if you actually follow up on the kinks... you find the story doesn't tell the whole truth, there were other devices that experienced glitches. And someone else points out that all the Apple devices in question use inductive charging.
So, there's a whole lot of assumptions going on.
No. Although you're right on with your view of Corporate America, the impending Helium Shortfall is Worldwide. You fail like most to understand just where Terrestrial Helium comes from. It's the result of billions of years of very slow Alpha Decay from Actinides way deep down. Practically all of it migrates upwards and escapes, first into the atmosphere, and then into space. But in certain kinds of crustal conditions, like in Natural Gas pockets, some of the Helium hangs around. However, most Natural Gas contains little to no measurable Helium at all. (Helium unlike Hydrogen forms no natural Molecular compounds to bind it, at least down here. Yes, we can make Helium Hydride... for a short time and with incredible difficulty. This I have actually done.)
Alpha Decay can't reasonably be speeded up, unlike say Fission, so we are utterly dependent on natural processes here. But wait, there's more!
4He is the result of Alpha Decay from the Actinides. But 3He is the result of the Beta decay from Tritium. Tritium is Primordial here; all of the Tritium within the Earth decayed quite quickly, billions of years ago, leaving 3He in some of those same Gas pockets. At least on Earth, the only sources of new Tritium, and its decay product 3He, comes from our Nuclear Reactors.
I was once involved in the design of a new kind of Neutrino Detector that needed 3He, quite a lot of it. Even at the cut rate prices that the Russians were offering, and that they couldn't deliver in the volume needed, the Detector would have needed some ~$200 Billion in 3He. The design was cancelled.
And for this very reason, absolutely crazy schemes have been put forth to mine 3He from the surface of the Moon, where it is continually produced due to the Solar Wind that our own Magnetic Field protects us from.
But why 3He? What makes it so important?
Aneutronic Fusion.
Liquid helium costs about $5 per liter. So 120 liters is worth about $600. No recovery effort could possibly be cost effective for such a small leak.
Also 120 liters of liquid Helium is NOT 90,000 cubic meters of gas. It is about 90 cubic meters.
I'm sure at $120k/fill ...
Who said it costs $120k/fill? TFA does not say that. It says 120 liters, which costs about $1k.
So why would you use anything other than Nitrogen?
It is often a blend. Liquid N2 is cheaper if it isn't pure, containing argon as well, which is about 1% of the atmosphere. Then you can add some helium to the mix if the fire danger is expected to be high, along the ceiling. The helium will make the gas blend rise.
If you are more concerned about liquid fires that burn near the ground, you can use a gas mixture of partially or mostly CO2, which is heavier than air and will create a smothering layer on the floor. CO2 is easier to store under pressure since it will liquify at about 5 atm.
Of course you also want to add mercaptan or some other odorant to make it stink, so a leak is immediately noticed. You don't want to smother people instead of fires.
Background: I'm on the technical team for a research unit that has an MRI machine of its own and access to another. Plus I do Helium refills for an MEG facility. This does not ring true. An MRI is going to have something like 500L of liquid helium in it. It doesn't cool by "Boiling it off". In fact a high boil-off rate is a bad thing. The unit will have a chiller to keep the temperature of the helium down and probably a recondenser to reduce loss. If the unit quenched during install then all the helium will have boiled off. A lot more than 120L. Also the vents are certified so that *All* the helium that boils off goes up and out safely. Add to that all these facilities have O2 alarm systems, this must have been a very small, slow leak over the course of months. Any leaking helium will have risen straight up to the ceiling and spread out, maybe working its way up into cracks and passing to above floors at a massively reduced concentration. At the levels we're talking about here, if the helium were the problem then we'd be seeing a spate of iPhone failures at children's parties from the helium in the balloons.
... when applied to other peoples expensive Apple gadgets.
Well, they really can't know how much it costs until they run your credit. That's why the hospital admit form asks for everything on a credit app. For major bills, has anyone noticed that the bill is your available cash + available credit + at least 1 year salary? There is a reason they will NOT post pricing up front.
:/
CSB: I paid in full for 3 days of EEG monitoring/reading results etc ($2,600). The company switched the bill from an in network shell, to an out of network shell then changed the charges to $30k/Day and added the day to add and remove the monitoring to make it 5 days for a $150k total. They had language in the original consent for saying 'may be billed under a different name'.
Yes, the raw helium may only cost $1k but the cost of ramping a magnet up/down is a lot more. In case of Siemens MRI, they have to fly in special equipment from Germany overnight (a few pallets of basically giant transformers and BeCu tools, shims etc), the repairs associated with a magnet quench are a few thousand (usually you have to outright replace the valves and various other parts that froze) and then it takes a few hours of carefully charging the magnet and monitoring while the helium is slowly being filled. Hopefully you only have to do this once as it is possible that other issues or leaks are found and the helium you just filled boils off. All the while you are paying for at least 3 engineers and the helium delivery guy.
I've been involved with MRI magnet quenches, they're not pretty or cheap. The helium is practically worthless, I've heard of some sites that rather let helium boil off at a certain rate than get a repair done.
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I'm one of Apple biggest critics and I really can't see any reason to blame apple for this issue at all. I actually find the science behind the issue to be kind of cool.
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