A camera-less iPhone issued to my buddy that works at a nuclear plant | Hacker News Reader

A camera-less iPhone issued to my buddy that works at a nuclear plant

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47 pointsFaaak22 comments

When I was in the Navy, the policy of Electric Boat (manufacturer of USN’s submarines) was if you wanted to bring a phone anywhere near a boat, it couldn’t have a camera. However, they would also accept permanently disabling it. A shipmate took his shiny new BlackBerry Storm, hole-punched the camera, and got security to sign off on it.

The Navy took a dimmer view of things, and forbade any phone in the engine room (which is where the nuclear reactor is controlled), camera or not. For a brief period of time, it was being discussed that they would also ban eReaders anywhere, but that didn’t get traction while I was in. I have to imagine things have gotten stricter if anything, given the capabilities of modern devices.

E-readers seem like essential equipment for someone assigned to live in a submerged tube for months at a time.

yeah, I don't understand the e-reader issue either. Considering that space is at a premium in a sub. Maybe having lot of documentation on e-reader style devices might be a good thing. Provided those e-readers are issued by the Navy and aren't taken off the sub

I also removed my cameras and microphones from my old iPhones. It's kinda cool, but you have to explain yourself a lot when you leave your cable headset at home and can't talk with anyone without it :D.

You cancel the call, then write an sms: I can't talk right now, what's the problem?

And everyone thinks you are an idiot :D.

You were just way ahead of the trend. Current iPhones allow you to decline a call with a text message response, and even include some pre-populated responses to choose from.

Apart from my parents, I pretty much decline incoming calls (with a text message response if warranted, usually if it’s from someone who doesn’t usually call out of the blue) across the board. I thought this was mostly pretty common these days! People still just expect you to pick up rando calls without prior notice?

> I pretty much decline incoming calls

Whenever I see an unknown number, I just stare at it until it goes away.

I believe it will ring more quietly if you pick it up and put it back down.

Staring at the phone until it stops ringing, then texting “sorry I missed your call, what’s up?” is perfectly cromulent behavior!

I was just in a nuclear power plant in the US.

Needless to say several things stuck out but I was actually pretty surprised about their phone policy.

I was allowed to keep my phone the entire time and allowed to take pictures of everything except the control room and security related procedures, items, devices, etc. All the employee phones I saw were standard devices.

The asked us to avoid posting to social media but that was more of a consideration for why we were there. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with broader security concerns, etc.

All of that said you are accompanied by at least one escort the entire time, down to water breaks, bathroom visits (they wait for you outside), etc.

What they were most strict about was safety related issues that weren’t strictly nuclear related. For example, they take holding handrails incredibly seriously and if someone saw you taking a single step on stairs without holding a hand rail you’d (basically) get yelled at.

Regarding your last point I think it's a great attitude to have regarding safety in a nuclear power plant. It prevents the normalization of deviance. Which in turns helps prevent the larger accidents we typically associate with nuclear energy.

Agreed!

There is an extremely strong safety and process culture in the US nuclear industry.

This is quite a common policy in safety critical industries. I consulted at a large oil company a few years ago and they had a similar attitude in their head offices.

What is even the purpose of preventing photos being taken of the controls in a commercial power plant? I thought all of it was documented elsewhere already and pretty standardised across the same model of reactor.

I assume that's the back panel where the real camera has been removed for security(?). But then what about the front camera?

The front camera and FaceID stuff are usually on their own assembly that plugs into the main board, so they could be removed completely, or permanently disconnected by cutting the flat flex cable if they're glued in a way that's difficult to remove cleanly.

The number of ludicrous "security theater" stories in the linked thread go a long way to explaining why nuclear power is so expensive. My favorite is the delivery guy who had his clothes confiscated. I wonder if it was always this ridiculous or if it's a post-9/11 thing.

I didn’t know they made these models, a good friend works on DoD research and all of his laptops have had the cameras rendered useless with a Dremel.

I guess they have a valid excuse for not turning on cameras during zoom calls

Neither did I. At the controlled area of the shipyard I've been in and out of recently those deemed important enough to need phones inside had ruggedized flip phones with no cameras, it felt like something out of 2009.

What about the software? Is it a modified version, or will you just get an error/black screen when you open it?

I had an old iPhone where the previous owner had tried to repair it, but when reassembling left out a bracket that secured the camera connector to the motherboard. Dropping the phone would cause the connector to pop out, disabling the camera until I took the thing apart and reconnected it. Opening the camera app would just give a black screen.

At very least you're likely to get the error message about the serial number being wrong on newer phones, since the camera assemblies are serial locked.

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