Journalist plugs in unknown USB drive mailed to him–it exploded in his face

Re:Journalist plugs in unknown USB drive mailed to him–it ex... by klyrs on Wednesday March 22, 2023 @06:24PM (#35267864)

Those seem like they should be pretty hard to come by, but there are some toxic gasses that result from not-too-exotic chemistry, which can effectively kill with a whiff.

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Re:Journalist plugs in unknown USB drive mailed to him–it ex... by Eavolution on Thursday March 23, 2023 @04:00AM (#35271675)

I could be wrong about this, but off the top of my head can't you make chlorine gas by mixing bleach with a strong acid?

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Re:Journalist plugs in unknown USB drive mailed to him–it ex... by riter on Thursday March 23, 2023 @04:13AM (#35271742)

acid not necessary. ammonia.

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Re:Journalist plugs in unknown USB drive mailed to him–it ex... by jjk166 on Thursday March 23, 2023 @04:46PM (#35281032)

The difficulty with toxic gases is in the delivery method. For example Chlorine gas at hundreds of PPM still takes several minutes of inhalation to be fatal, and it is a strong irritant so everyone will know it's there and be trying their hardest to get away from it. So you either need to trap someone in a very enclosed space or release ridiculous amounts of it very quickly. Viable for trench warfare, but not much else.

Realistically you need something odorless (=exotic enough the human nose hasn't evolved to detect it), fast acting (=highly reactive/unstable), and dangerous at low concentrations (=likely to kill you while making it).

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