Blowing up a cellphone via software hack

[JonnyBoats]

The TED talk here: http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_domas_the_1s_and_0s_behind_cyber_warfare
by cyber researcher discusses blowing up (and possibly killing the user) a cellphone remotely by hacking the software. Since this is a TED talk, this is not from a completely bogus source.

While this is ostensibly being used for a "legitimate" purpose, that is stopping a bomber from using a cellphone to detonate a bomb, I can't help but think that a cellphone vulnerable to this hack must be an extremely bad design from an EE prospective.

Would one really use only software to control the charging current and voltage to a lithium ion battery pack? Wouldn't this be a sufficient safety concern that one would want to avoid a single point of failure? Would you not put some sort of crowbar protection into hardware just in case the software fails for whatever reason?

What about a Boeing Dreamliner? Can you make the plane blow up by hacking the software?

[marshallh]

Went to a talk where a guy tried to blow up a variety of Android phones purely from software. Even with normally-impossible software tricks and custom kernels he was only able to make the phone very uncomfortably hot. He couldn't get the battery to blow up, just discharge incredibly fast.

[G7PSK]

There was a case where the Israel's assassinated a terrorist leader by blowing up a his cell phone in the late 90's I think. I think though that they actually put some explosive into the phone, but they did it by pretending to be the phone company and recalling his phone to fix a fault then sending it back to him, they then called him up to verify that it was him on the phone then detonated it. 

[amyk]

I highly doubt it's possible - even the cheapest cellphone batteries I've seen (including the Chinese clones) have a protection PCB with a sensor IC and a pair of MOSFETs. (See if you can find the protection IC on this $12 phone's PCB.) These have overvoltage, undervoltage, and overcurrent protection, and there's no way for software to get around that.

There was a sensational article about Macbook battery hacking a few years ago, and while it was possible to rewrite the firmware in the "smart" battery, the protection hardware won't let the cells get abused.

[Psi]

You can usually overclock the cpu and adjust it's voltage though.
So it's possible to eventually burn out the cpu purely from software code.

The clock speed and cpu voltage need to be programmable for power management to work properly. It scales back the clock and voltage when not needed to save power, and increase it for quick bursts of speed.

You could burn out the Nokia N900 if you overclocked it to far with too much volts and left it to get too hot in that state

[dannyf]

Since this is a TED talk, this is not from a completely bogus source.

That assumption makes TED the perfect place to pull off a con.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Any phone that can blow up with only software is unsafe, and a manufacturer of any reputation would be nuts to sell it - there should always be hardware fallbacks.

[rollatorwieltje]

Haven't seen the video, but what's the worst you could do? Dead short on the battery? That's not really lethal. At best it catches fire, but in my limited experience destroying phones, the battery usually just swells up. For some reason I never really could pull insane currents out of cell phone batteries, unlike those R/C lipo packs. I think they just use cells optimized for high capacity at low currents.

[Legit-Design]

http://www.androidauthority.com/busting-the-myth-yes-cell-phones-can-explode-42582/






Maybe just switch the battery to something that has more probability of exploding? Like some no name chinese nokai fake?

[dannyf]

yes-cell-phones-can-explode

Still pictures aren't great in evidencing exploding phones.

Maybe a video with 3rd party verification would be better.

[Legit-Design]

If you put millions or billions of something out, yes you will have a variety of problems. My guess is most of the exploded batteries include a shady chinese factory and some user who wanted to save few bucks and give their phone some new life. Also there are some really stupid users out there. Like the one who put phone in microwave to dry it, I think he got new one from Samsung even if he got caught.

[JonnyBoats]

I would love to see the Mythbusters Show http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters test this, in fact I went to their website and suggested it. To be true to the claim on the TED talk it would need to be a "stock" phone with standard battery and no physical tampering. Obviously if one could physically tamper with almost any phone and insert C4 and a detonator then it could be made to blow up.

[rob77]

There was a case where the Israel's assassinated a terrorist leader by blowing up a his cell phone in the late 90's I think. I think though that they actually put some explosive into the phone, but they did it by pretending to be the phone company and recalling his phone to fix a fault then sending it back to him, they then called him up to verify that it was him on the phone then detonated it.

back in 90's the phones were so huge and heavy, that the user probably was not even able to notice that his phone is 100grams heavier because of the stuffed plastic inside 

[dannyf]

in fact I went to their website and suggested it.

I would think that their having not shown any such demonstration of software triggered phone explosions is quite informative.

[rob77]

btw... even if it's possible to overload the battery through software , it's not possible to predict when and how the battery will fail. actually it's not easy to set the battery on fire unless it has some defect.
so let's sum up:
1. you need a crappy stupid implementation of the battery charger/control circuit
2. vulnerable software to let the attacker in
3a. identify the phone on the IP network in order to attack (nearly impossible - most of the carriers are using private IP ranges and NAT)
3b. have direct access to the victim's wifi network in order to break into his phone (if the above is not possible because of NAT)
4. infect the phone
5. hope that his battery has a deffect and it's vulnerable to overload/overheat explosion.
6. wait till the battery fails
7. start over because the victim visited a phone repair shop (his battery is draining quickly and phone gets hot) where the tech reflashed his phone.

so it's  unrealistic that anyone will be attacked this way. (btw.. i wasn't even watching that TED talk, because this battery explosion attack is a  )

[Sionyn]

one of my lectures thought he was having a heart attack with this burn sensation in breast area after he went to hospital it turned out to be the leaking batteries from his calculator that he kept in his breast pocket 

[Alexei.Polkhanov]

back in 90's the phones were so huge and heavy, that the user probably was not even able to notice that his phone is 100grams heavier because of the stuffed plastic inside 

You only need 6 grams plus the detonator I suppose :-) 


I wonder if victim ear will be embossed into a iPhone shell if it explodes giving birth to a new piece of art something like this art technique is called - Detonography.
http://newmexicomercury.com/blog/comments/explosive_art_something_new_under_the_sun.

[johansen]

Recently in the news, a 70 year old woman had a laptop explode, she didn't know where the replacement battery was from however (too good to be true prices on ebay?)

A traditional lithium battery could rupture at 1-2000 psi or more, if the vent doesn't break as its supposed to. such an event would be perceived as an "explosion", but we know that not to be the case. furthermore, newer laptop and cellphone batteries aren't steel cylinders, so they will rupture at maybe 100 psi which will still be perceived to be an "explosion" but won't be enough energy to send plastic shrapnel through the skin.

[zapta]

There was a case where the Israel's assassinated a terrorist leader by blowing up a his cell phone in the late 90's I think. I think though that they actually put some explosive into the phone, but they did it by pretending to be the phone company and recalling his phone to fix a fault then sending it back to him, they then called him up to verify that it was him on the phone then detonated it.

Ironically his nick name for The Engineer.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Ayyash#Assassination

Modern phones do not have much room for explosives, except possibly if you use a smaller battery.