from Hacker News

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

by Faaak on 6/18/24, 8:57 AM with 22 comments

• by sgarland on 6/18/24, 12:38 PM

  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.

• by lofaszvanitt on 6/18/24, 12:49 PM

  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.

• by kkielhofner on 6/18/24, 10:10 AM

  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.

• by Rinzler89 on 6/18/24, 9:56 AM

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

• by dTal on 6/18/24, 3:57 PM

  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.

• by mtnGoat on 6/18/24, 2:46 PM

  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

• by tamimio on 6/18/24, 10:18 PM

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