Mr. Robot Questions

I was curious to know why in watching Mr. Robot the main character (Elliot) decides that when he needs to wipe everything to protect himself, he takes out the RAM and microwaves it. Isn't RAM volatile and dump on shutdown? Was there a reason I missed or is it just Hollywood?

2 Responses

I thougth the same thing: There is a cool-boot-attack. By this attack data can restored for some minutes in room temperature. This works with DRAM, because DRAM is able to hold the data or electricity for little time and than it needs a refresh (~electric impuls). This refresh needs power and i guess the producers of DRAM aim on don't wasting power. So the time between two refresh getting bigger. When you cool DRAM down on very low temp. than you can hold this electricity even over days.

I guess Elliot was just very paranoid and want to be prepared for the worst case (the observers, investigators and forensic-guys are already in his street and wait for a criminal action on his computer e.g. )

That's fascinating. Thank you for that. I wonder if there are other types of attacks that would cause Elliot to microwave the sticks.

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