[HN Gopher] Titan submersible's $62 SanDisk memory card found un...
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Titan submersible's $62 SanDisk memory card found undamaged at
wreckage site
Author : WithinReason
Score : 117 points
Date : 2025-10-17 06:39 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tomshardware.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tomshardware.com)
| asimovDev wrote:
| is this a common setup to have the camera store to external
| storage device without storing to the SD card as well?
| malux85 wrote:
| Yes because external storage is much larger, and theres nothing
| more annoying than being in the middle of doing some science
| with 30 other bits of complex equipment, and then the camera
| stops working with storage full errors and youre 7000m
| underwater in a cramped sub trying to navigate a camera UI to
| find the setting.
|
| Configure your systems so they are in the configuration that is
| less likely to cause random disruption in the field.
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| Which makes me wonder why they bother with the SD card at
| all. What was it meant to be storing? If it is not intended
| to be the real storage area, why not just have it in a loop,
| constantly over-writing the oldest material?
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| They probably used it for testing only, hence why it had
| irrelevant footage.
|
| They might have forgot to remove or just didn't care.
| intothemild wrote:
| It continues to amaze me how indestructible SDCards are.
| imploded_sub wrote:
| It wasn't in the crushed part, it was in the camera's shell,
| and the camera was mounted outside, if I understood properly.
| netsharc wrote:
| And:
|
| > This still and video camera is rated to withstand depths up
| to 6,000m (19,685 feet, 3,281 fathoms)
|
| Unlike the Titan sub...
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| The picture looks like the camera + storage SD card were in a
| sealed metal tube that was untouched.
| daemonologist wrote:
| Although the entire enclosure was shaken around enough to
| tear bits off the PCB via sheer inertia and crack the CPU
| (hence the need for the recovery process described).
| HPsquared wrote:
| It clearly received a nasty shock when the sub imploded;
| that's why the internal components were so broken.
| gompertz wrote:
| It also amazes me how incredibly unbrowseable tomshardware is
| now with all the ads and pop-ups.
| haunter wrote:
| It also amazes me that people are using the internet w/o an
| adblocker in the year 2025
| bookofjoe wrote:
| I think you mean HN readers.
| Gigachad wrote:
| I haven't bothered working out how to install one on
| mobile. I just don't visit websites with shitty ads.
| squigz wrote:
| Firefox on mobile supports uBlock Origin
| firesteelrain wrote:
| On iOS, every browser is required by Apple to use WebKit.
| I just tried it again myself and FireFox on iPhone has no
| ublock Origin add on possibility.
|
| Firefox Focus does work as an alternative.
|
| Apple created a special system-level API for Safari
| Content Blockers. Apps like Firefox Focus, AdGuard,
| 1Blocker, Wipr can register filtering rules with Safari
| using this API. That's why Focus can block ads/trackers
| inside Safari if you enable it under Safari
| pajamasam wrote:
| Just use the Brave browser. No plugins necessary.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| i was also in shock, then someone reminded me there are
| iphone users.
|
| the horror.
|
| paying thousands of dollars just to be forbidden to block
| ads.
| haunter wrote:
| ?
|
| There are countless free and paid options on iOS too
|
| Firefox Focus, Brave
|
| AdGuard Pro, $9.99 once and you can use any blocklist you
| want (you can just copypaste from uBlock Origin if you
| wish) and it works system-wide with Safari
|
| etc
| jamiek88 wrote:
| what? there are many fantastic ad blockers on ios. Weird
| thing to crow about.
| pwg wrote:
| With UblockOrigin blocking the ads, there were no ads and
| pop-ups.
| gruez wrote:
| It's a solid piece of silicon encased in epoxy, so there's
| nothing really to get crushed. Contrast this to something like
| a cellphone that's made of hundreds of separate parts and has
| void space that will get crushed.
| amelius wrote:
| Why isn't a cellphone filled with epoxy?
| bell-cot wrote:
| That would be a problem for the mic and speaker, and has
| relatively few use cases.
| tom_alexander wrote:
| How would you do screen replacement? That is a common
| repair since people drop their phones and currently you can
| get your phone repaired by some teenager in a booth at the
| mall. If you fill the phone with epoxy, how are you
| detaching the screen, and getting a new ribbon cable
| through the epoxy?
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| use pogo pins or a board to board connector
| bluGill wrote:
| Which means air space that can get crushed. Either the
| phone is solid or it isn't.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Which means air space that can get crushed_
|
| Would note that air isn't the only substance in a phone
| that compresses under 38 MPa. (Batteries come to mind.)
| userbinator wrote:
| I'm sure there are some companies who want to do that, as
| long as they can convince people it's better for security
| or something.
| numpad0 wrote:
| It's just not necessary, while having reliability problems
| of its own.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Why isn't a cellphone filled with epoxy?
|
| Added cost and weight are two things that would put off
| consumers. The phone would also be neigh irreparable, but
| consumers don't seem to care for that other than replacing
| their screen.
| amelius wrote:
| A conformal coating wouldn't give much more weight.
| dotancohen wrote:
| A conformal coating isn't "filled with epoxy", which is
| the concern I was answering.
| amelius wrote:
| There is very little empty space in a phone, so conformal
| coating is practically the same as filling it.
|
| Anyway, I wasn't disagreeing, just reasoning a bit
| further.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| The point of filling it is to remove the compressible
| empty space so that large pressure gradients won't crush
| it.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| No, conformal coating and _potting_ are extremely
| different things done for different reasons.
| amelius wrote:
| I'm not talking about which methods are being used, I'm
| talking about which methods could be used. Further,
| potting, where you let the epoxy drip off, gives you a
| conformal coating.
| NuclearPM wrote:
| Neigh?
| ohyes wrote:
| Some claim we are centaurs, we say Neigh!
| tagawa wrote:
| I think they meant "nigh on irreparable".
| dotancohen wrote:
| I didn't notice that, I was dictating to Gboard. If
| that's what was heard, then I should probably go eat some
| hay and get my tail brushed.
| jjk166 wrote:
| When was the last time your phone stopped working due
| mechanical PCB damage?
|
| Typically the limiting factor on your phone is the screen
| breaking, your battery life getting too short, wear and
| tear on components like buttons or the charging port, and
| factory defects. Epoxy isn't going to help with any of
| those. The only thing it would help with is exposure to
| water, but if other parts of your phone like your screen
| aren't water proof, what's the point?
|
| Epoxy adds weight and manufacturing cost. It introduces
| design challenges as you need to balance the thermal
| expansion of the various parts. It's an extra step that can
| go wrong, and makes repair of other defects far more
| difficult. What benefit is there for the typical consumer
| that outweighs these costs?
| withinboredom wrote:
| To add to that. My son got his phone caught in a
| reclining chair without realizing it. The fact that the
| phone bent in half instead of destroying the chair is a
| nice bonus. Replacing the phone was cheap, replacing a
| chair would not have been -- yes, both are insured, but
| replacing/repairing a chair takes a hell of a lot longer.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| The GoPro Session actually took this tack to achieve
| waterproofness without a secondary case.
| scrumper wrote:
| Well, most cellphones aren't subjected to the conditions
| found under three miles of frigid sea water. Epoxy is also
| really, really expensive.
| Towaway69 wrote:
| Thermal concerns perhaps - how does epoxy dissipate heat?
| Aurornis wrote:
| The heavy components on a cell phone PCB are reinforced
| with spot applications of adhesive to the PCB.
|
| Filling the entire cell phone with epoxy wouldn't help. The
| parts that break on drops are external like the screen.
|
| This SD card was enclosed in a sealed metal container so it
| wasn't exposed to water.
| pfdietz wrote:
| This comment made me wonder how much easier proximity fuzes
| would have been to develop in WW2 had they had transistors
| (or integrated circuits). I assume making modern solid state
| electronics 20,000g shock resistant is much easier than doing
| the same to vacuum tubes.
| MadnessASAP wrote:
| No need to wonder, proximity fuzes are still used today.
| And yes, they are much smaller, cheaper, more reliable, and
| precise.
| dylan604 wrote:
| So that's the next phase of making devices thinner? /s
| stefan_ wrote:
| The SDCard that was in another sub, properly constructed from
| titanium not carbon. The sub housed a camera, no humans.
| userbinator wrote:
| Heat and wear are the greatest dangers to flash memory, and
| this was found in a cold dark place, with presumably plenty of
| life remaining.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _It continues to amaze me how indestructible SDCards are._
|
| Until they're sold as supplemental hard drives ( _cough_
| Transcend Jetdrive _cough_ ). Then they'll fail if you even
| look at them strangely.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Put one in a Raspberry pi and it will be dead in a month.
| jonas21 wrote:
| The NTSB's original report has more detail on how the SD Card was
| encrypted and how the NTSB managed to decrypt it:
|
| https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket/Document/docBLOB?ID=18741602&Fi...
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Does not leave SubC in a particularly flattering light...
| Aurornis wrote:
| They had no idea how their own product worked. They didn't
| even know it used encrypted storage.
|
| This was either outsourced or done by some junior engineer
| who was putting pieces together like it was another Raspberry
| Pi project that just needed to kind of work.
| Hamuko wrote:
| But how did anyone figure out it was a SanDisk SD card? Card
| details were redacted.
| Macha wrote:
| There's only 3 manufacturers of SD cards in any volume, you can
| compare the branding and font choices and see who's it is.
| serf wrote:
| SanDisk is one of the big three on SD-3C/SD Association.. so
| kinda regardless of the MFG it's 'one of theirs' in a
| roundabout way.
| matja wrote:
| Presumably because it looks identical to a Sandisk extreme pro
| 512gb, with grey boxes drawn over the logo.
| siliconunit wrote:
| also basically if enough companies agrees on helping the cause
| your crypto secrets are quite more likely to be exposed...
| yread wrote:
| Isnt the weakness here that there was nothing encrypting the
| actual key? On a laptop luks key stored in a tpm would usually
| be encrypted using your passphrase
| XorNot wrote:
| The NTSB report noted that if the TrustZone secure enclave
| system was being used, then yeah this data would be toast.
|
| But it speaks more to Oceangstrs negligence that this
| situation even existed: why wasn't any potential encryption
| keys escrowed ashore to ensure they could be recovered later?
| This shouldn't have even been an issue.
| daemonologist wrote:
| It seems the manufacturer of the camera didn't even know
| (at least in the part of the org communicating with the
| NTSB) that their storage was encrypted. In any case the
| media recovered were from testing/non-dive environments,
| and during an actual dive footage would presumably be
| recorded directly to the onboard computers (which were
| irrecoverably destroyed).
|
| Oceangate should take the blame for a lot of things but
| probably not this.
| dmix wrote:
| Since not everyone reads articles:
|
| > Somewhat disappointingly, the images and videos shared in the
| report were taken in the vicinity of the ROV shop at the Marine
| Institute, also in Newfoundland. The location was the logistical
| base for Titanic dive missions. No deep-sea shenanigans around
| the Titanic wreck were revealed.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Wouldn't it have been streaming it to disk without creating the
| file? Kinda like how if your camera dies while it's recording,
| there is no recording. You have to manually recreate the file.
| RandomBK wrote:
| I see a lot of discussion in this thread stemming from some
| confusion+not reading the actual report[0].
|
| Some key points:
|
| 1. The Camera+Card was encased in a separate enclosure made of
| titanium+sapphire, and did not seem to be exposed to extreme
| pressures.
|
| 2. The encryption was done via a variant of LUKS/dm-crypt, with
| the key stored on the ARM TrustZone NVRAM of a chip.
|
| 3. The recovery was done by transplanting the original chip onto
| a new working board. No manufacturer backdoors or other hidden
| mechanisms were used.
|
| 4. Interestingly, the camera vendor didn't seem to realize there
| was any encryption at all.
|
| [0]
| https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket/Document/docBLOB?ID=18741602&Fi...
| nxobject wrote:
| If the encryption was that easy to bypass, was it worth it at
| all?
| anakaine wrote:
| Sure. If the card was recovered without the camera
| motherboard then the decryption key would not have been
| recovered.
| trenchpilgrim wrote:
| Stealing a camera is much harder than stealing an SD card out
| of a camera.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Citation needed. It might be slightly easier, but most
| cases where you can get part of the camera, you can get the
| whole camera. This isn't a little point-and-click with a
| handy spring-loaded slot either.
| trenchpilgrim wrote:
| Yeah but the Camera's owner is much more likely to notice
| "my camera is missing" than "the SD card is blank for
| some reason... the SD card must have failed"
|
| EDIT: The linked PDF has a photo, the camera literally
| opens up to access the SD card.
| phire wrote:
| The manufacturer didn't even know encryption was enabled,
| because as long as the camera was working, it would just
| provide all files over USB without any encryption.
|
| It was basically enabled by accident, and the only thing it
| prevented was recovery of files directly from the SD card
| when the camera was damaged.
| Keeblo wrote:
| Unless I misread the article, the key was stored in the NVRAM
| and _not_ the TrustZone.
|
| IIRC, the article stated that if the key(s) had been stored in
| the TrustZone then the data would have been irrecoverable.
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(page generated 2025-10-18 23:00 UTC)