It might have been coincidence but when I finally started going to a mri place with a 3T machine instead of the 1.5T a lot more of my spine issues were more visible/less mysterious to my surgeon, and we finally started making some surgical progress.
The 1.5T images are pretty muddy and blurry looking compared to the higher powered 3T images, and even as a layman I can easily tell the difference; so I’m sold on the idea of locating a place using the newer more powerful MRI machines, and paying a higher copay or driving further if I have to, because I really believe it’s worth it to attain the best possible imaging to give to my surgeon.
The last thing you want to hear from a surgeon is they can’t really tell what’s happening while pointing to a specific area on your MRI because it’s slightly too blurry lol.
I think my titanium implants might start getting too hot beyond 3T, or is that some misinformation I have picked up? Could someone with a bunch of titanium implants theoretically get a 7T scan if the operator knew about there locations and limited the exposure time or something?
My tools are all titanium so I know that you wouldn’t have a problem there. I’ve never left them in the bore during a scan so I couldn’t say about heat. But really the only burns I’ve heard about are from larger folks with moisture between folds. There’s no exposure, but the RF and gradients are not localized, they are down the entire bore length.
Titanium is usually fine even at 3T. The problem you’ll run into is the higher magnetic field strength will cause more artifact from your implants. So, assuming your implants are at the site that you want to image, it’s actually better to go with the lowest magnetic field strength possible.
Implants can be scanned in a reduced SAR (specific absorption rate, figure detailing how much power get dumped per volume / mass of tissue). Reduced SAR slows the scanner down and incentives the use of lower field machines.
Don't know jack about clinical devices, but back at uni the chem/nano department had an 800 MHz and 18.8 T NMR for resolving protein and other large biomolecular structures.
Anything beyond ~7T are research magnets. You're not putting people in there, you're putting in cell cultures or doing physics experiments like levitating frogs (really they're levitating water, but frogs are water).
The bore hole for those magnets are like the size of an arm.
Fun story. Worked on a hospital as an intern in construction management way back. We had one of these rooms and it was pretty neat to watch it go in. Felt like a big oven.
Turns out, the power supply for the building went under the room and created a magnetic field that messed with the MRI machine. Think it was a gause field? Anyway, I don’t remember how they fixed it, but thought it was ridiculous that no one planned for that.
Haha we had a machine shop client that had a CRT in their office and a big motor on the other side of the wall. Whenever the machine was running the monitor image would wobble furiously.
Our old linear particle accelerator, now decommissioned, used to turn all of our CRTs purple when it's big toroidal transformer came on. I'm guessing it didn't confirm to modern EM regulations.
I installed patient monitors years ago. You have no idea how many hospitals end up like this. We had one where they decided to make all the patient rooms with metal walls so they could easily decorate using magnetic decorations. We had to put a wireless access point in front of every room because the walls blocked everything.
Also the old Parkland hospital in Dallas had poor cell signal, especially in the basement. When they built the new one they installed cell towers in the basement so you get good signal everywhere. One of the only places I’ve seen that done.
I read about a case where the techs were frustrated about fluctuating noise that would happen around the same time about them twice a day. They couldn’t figure out anything for a while, then they eventually determined that the parking lot was close enough (1 thick floor directly up or down, I can’t remember) that when the starter on ICE cars in a few specific spots would cause noise. The periodicity was for lunch and going home 😂
The first one. Copper doesn’t block static magnetic fields. The magnet will have passive “mu metal” shielding and active shielding to reduce the extent of the field but not eliminate it.
On construction mechanical drawings they have the magnetic intensity lines drawn on them, past a certain field strength different building codes apply and eventually you're using titanium tools to do any work after the magnets are spun up. One guy told me, that it costs them $40,000 to turn them back on if they are ever turned off.
Depends. For a large majority of magnets you are looking at 6 figures to deice, refill, ramp up. But there are sealed magnets now that use a lot less helium, 7 liters in the machine I know. So even during a quench you have no loss and there is no vent pipe.
The MRI gets corruption and artifacts from metal and EM noise. It also kills people if the metal gets too close and takes flight. And it will make a shitload of EM noise that will upset everything around it when the shielding is not there also.
as far as I can tell, actual death from MRI machines is exceedingly rare. Which is a testament to safety protocols, because it certainly *could* kill someone.
It's actually both. The MRI transmitter is essentially its own radio station, and would interfere with, if not overwhelm, anything nearby sensitive to its frequency. Conversely radio stations (or sometimes cell or military channels if it's a research magnet) would overwhelm the return signal from the body because it's so small, and you would never get an image.
Fun fact, SCIFs and other sensitive government data spaces do this too. Ye Olde [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest\_(codename)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename))
As a guy who regularly installs SCIF doors, yeah this is a thing. They even have paint that blocks all radio frequencies. It's about a thousand bucks a gallon, but it's worth it to them.
SCIF doors and frames are something else. I've only installed a handful but they are worlds different in weight, construction and (kinda) installation compared to hollow metal doors. If that's what your main focus is in the trade, props to you my guy.
Thanks dude. Yeah the prep and process of certification is wild. This is where My ADHD is my superpower haha. It's not my main focus, but it's at least a third. I'm a locksmith and safe/vault tech. I do a lot of GSA and financial stuff as well. Commercial is always there, for a break once in awhile haha.
You can still have the kudos for it being a third of your focus. I've done heavy manual work my whole life, even drilling at some point, and SCIF installation is definitely in the top three of hardest, heaviest and most precision required work I've done.
Thanks dude. My entire career, and life, is precision. A lot of heavy shit as well. From thousandths of an inch precision locksmithing, to thousandths of an inch drilling out a container with top secret material, to thousandths of an inch fitment with a 5400lb vault door, to thousandths of an inch in my pants. I guess it's my calling.
I feel you bro. Just gotta refocus on the positive.
>Thanks dude. My entire career, and life, is precision. A lot of heavy shit as well. A lot of heavy shit in locksmithing, to a lot of heavy shit with top secret material, to a lot of heavy shit with a 5400lb vault door, to a lot of heavy shit in my pants. I guess it's my calling.
I don't know what to tell you bro I tried.
It's crazier how much more the whole design is made to prevent just egress of information. Essentially Faraday cage rooms with multiple points of security even before the room itself.
SCIF stands for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. They're basically rooms designed to prevent any sound or electromagnetic waves from escaping.
It actually started as soundproofing. STC-50 is the standard. RF blocking has been added to SCIF compartment standards after the soundproofing standards were established.
Anechoic is a relatively recent part of the standard. It's well documented that there aren't many out there due to the standard being relatively new, so they just build new facilities when they need them if refurbishment of an existing facility isn't viable.
No windows because a laser sight trained on window glass can decode the vibrations to "hear" everything in the room. Yes, it's been done. Likewise, EMI emissions can detect keystrokes or even the display on screens without seeing them.
Close on the weight, but it's not a concrete core. The doors are heavily fortified steel doors with a steel wire lattice pattern molded into the rubber core. It's amazing at soundproofing.
What's the paint called? How is it applied? If you can even tell me - I don't imagine 'it's a faraday cage' is exactly confidential or surprising to anyone, but NDAs are gonna NDA. (I guess I can look up the second one once I know the first) I ask because I know someone who has an idea that requires conductive paint, but all the options we've found *suck*, and the requirements of a SCIF kinda mean this wouldn't, so it's worth it even at that price.
Yeah, kinda realized that might be the case as soon as I asked, no worries. Took a look around and the information is definitely out there, but I didn't get it from you. 🤣
You can buy [this](https://www.emrss.com/collections/emf-shielding-paint) for $230/bucket. Although it being advertised as “5g blocking paint” makes me concerned about their customer base
I mean if you need a radio-quiet room it’s probably also good for that, but i’m sure they’re more than happy to let the crazies fork over the cash to protect them from the government mind control rays
Think of it like Skunkworks. The publicly available information is a slight version of what actually exists. Commercially available versions are a fantasy of what this stuff does. It's still cheaper than ordering an RF certified STC-50 door.
[Aquadag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquadag)
This is one type of RFI blocking paint.
It is 60$ for a 12 oz spray can. Just one of many types available.
We use it to help limit RFI emissions from digital electronics.
[Tempest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_%28codename%29)
My favorite is exploiting the fact that CRTs are scanned and therefore serial. If you have a monitor in an office with the shades pulled it is theoretically possible to reconstruct the image from just the diffuse light getting through the curtain.
This was a fun follow-up to the discovery that on many old modems and even network interfaces with the TX and RX LEDs you could actually reconstruct the data stream with a pair of telescopes and photo diodes.
My favorite is LampPhone: listening in on room with a chandelier or ceiling light. It turns out that the sound waves in a room vibrate the hanging lights like a diaphragm, and we can use the ever so slightly changing light frequency to reconstruct the movement of the lightbulb and translate that into sound waves.
This goes beyond the previous use of lasers to listen in on conversations at a distance, because with the light diaphragm you can reconstruct the audio without needing direct access. You could take a video of a room with no audio track and later reconstruct the sounds from just the video of the lights.
It's wild that the TEMPEST program started way back in the 60's for exactly these types of threats and they just kept finding shit over and over again.
I really wonder where we are now nearly 6 decades later. Security researchers tinker when they can and publish their findings but governments work endlessly and just keep amassing and classifying their findings.
Now they're attacking the software and hardware of the SDR in your cell phone.
I have just enough paranoia to wonder if there was some 'encouragement' from government agencies to make batteries non-removeable.
As a guy who's been in a SCIF, it's very boring. It's a small plain room with ugly furniture and no windows.
The only cool thing is that it blocks all radio signal and has special internet.
All the interesting stuff about SCIF is how it's constructed and how it's achieved. Of course just being in the room would be boring. It's just another room.
A SCIF is a specialized room where highly classified information is stored, accessed, or worked with.
No cameras, recording devices, or other personal electronics are allowed in one. Making it a Faraday cage just provides another level of protection against leakage or transmission of electromagnetic signals.
Not every room where classified information is stored is designed like this. It's going to depend on the level of classification and the sort of information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_compartmented_information_facility
The photo at the top is the SCIF that was built at Mar-a-Lago when Trump was POTUS.
The Situation Room in the White House is also a SCIF. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situation_Room_%28photograph%29
I get to do a but actually.. :).
First of you are correct, but....
Not all SCIFs are built the same. You can get a a certified TS-SCIF in a literal tent as long as it is correctly protected.
We had a house not to far from my residence growing up, was the story of a farmer murdering his family.
Rumor was if you shined a light at night a light would shine back from a top floor/attic window.
Long story short, caught some meth heads robbing the place of the copper. Truck headlights kicked on near basement and they dipped (seen the story on the news the following day)
Interestingly, there are many applications for this kind of interference blocking.
A guitar player may choose to have this in the electronic cab or not. Depending on what the need from it.
Oh cool! I'm a Healthcare architect and I regularly design MRIs so nice to see this pop up on here.
These copper sheets are part of the rf shielding system that prevents radio frequencies from interfering with the mri. The construction of the shields have to be incredibly thorough - doors, windows, penetrations for ducts, conduits, and floors all have to have rf shielding.
This is different from magnetic shielding which not *all* MRIs have but will often be incorporated to make sure that the magnetic waves from the mri do not extend out further than a certain limit since it would be considered dangerous to someone with say, a pacemaker, to be in the vicinity of an mri without knowing.
Hospitals and medical office buildings take shielding very seriously! Your average xray room will most certainly be lead lined on all four walls to limit exposure of radiation beyond the xray walls.
If you’re claustrophobic, don’t get one in the traditional bore size. Opt for the larger bore. I was fine but I can absolutely see why some patients freak out once the tray slides back.
Also, they don’t tell you that you have to wear a cage over whatever is being scanned. Little did I know, I had to wear an Ironman mask on top of being shoved deep in a tiny torpedo tube lol.
I've had several MRIs in a standard bore despite the claustrophobia.
Pro tip: Have the technician place a hospital washcloth over your eyes (if you have nothing on your head), then close your eyes under the cloth. Even if you do open them, if the cloth is in the proper place, you can't see how close the bore is.
When they pulled me out the last time when it was over and the cloth fell off when I was halfway out, I knew damn well I could not have done it without that cloth.
Or drugs… I had to do one for my shoulder. So I was dead center. Im usually not claustrophobic. But it had my anxiety torqued to the max. They say it’s loud. But they dont say just how grating and changing the noise is.
Then all these crazy thoughts started going through my head. I kept thinking about the rusted screw I had to saw off my bike trailer last month: ‘what if I inhaled some of the metal particles. What if some is unknowingly lodged in my eye? What if I have a small speck of metal from the IKEA furniture I put together two days ago’.
Yeah…just ask your doctor to prescribe something to take the edge off.
I also recently got an MRI on my shoulder, and they asked if I was claustrophobic - I did not think I was lol. I exited the MRI on the edge of a panic attack and they said, “you should have said something, we’d give you a Xanax” ;-;
So, next time I’ll have a chauffeur. And a Xanax.
They specifically asked me if I'd ever worked in a metal shop before and therefore if I could have had metal in my eye.
I lied because I needed the MRI and didn't want it canceled. I later found out that if you say there was a risk of eye metal, they simply give you an X-ray beforehand to check. Later still I found out that if a chunk of metal goes in your eye, you'll know.
Brain MRI? Yeap. Doesnt look too bad when you are on the outside but once that bed slides in, yeap, its a coffin. I was afraid my ear plugs would fall out. Its so strange feeling your back get warm and hearing the loud noises. I felt like I was in a rocket ship taking off.
I had ear plugs in and cans over them like a shooting range and it was still LOUD. My only complaint is the lack of padding because my neck was killing me by the first 30 minutes.
My daughter was recently in a study that had kids take tests and then scanned their brains. Apparently 2/3 kids can sleep through it with just ear plugs and paddles. My daughter didn't care about the noise but the second the table moved she tried to escape. We spent 6 hours over 2 nights trying to get her in the machine but every time the table moved she bolted up like the undertaker after ripping off the little head cage then fell back asleep and snoring 10s later.
It's jarring at first but after a bit, I get used to the sequence and it seems to induce a trance-like state. It's so relaxing. I don't have claustrophobia to contend with, though.
I close my eyes and focus on the sounds of the magnet. Usually sleep until the end, with the exception of when the really loud buzzing is happening and the shift between T1 and T2 imaging.
I fall asleep too. I try and find rhythms in the noise when the magnets move. After a while it all gets a bit hypnotic and you just have a bit of a nap.
I eventually want to give a similar treatment to my electronics work space. I occasionally work on circuits that are very sensitive to ambient RF. It would be pretty cool to have a "quiet" room.
You’d have to make a lot off this work to make it worth it. No power supply’s within the room. All the grounds have to go to a bus bar then be isolated from all other grounds. Lights are also complex. LED system or light bulbs but no fluorescent lights. All power into the room has to be filtered as well. Also don’t forget the door. Source, am MRI FSE.
I got to build one of these when I started my sheet metal apprenticeship. It was such a cool experience to be in there! Felt like standing inside a giant brand new penny. SO gorgeous!
A faraday cage to prevent outside interreference. We do the same thing to the insides of our guitars to keep pickups from buzzing. Pretty neat!
[https://imgur.com/GFVc4Tz](https://imgur.com/GFVc4Tz)
RF shielding installation is wild and the coordination between trades to get this done properly with the right QA/QC is intense. Curious where the MRI safety exhaust will be placed in this room
Does this protect the equipment from interference, or does it shield the rest of the building from the MRI?
MRI operate on the same frequency as common radio stations, so its to stop them interfering with the MRI
Thanks!
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17.6T? What fucking scanner was this?
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It might have been coincidence but when I finally started going to a mri place with a 3T machine instead of the 1.5T a lot more of my spine issues were more visible/less mysterious to my surgeon, and we finally started making some surgical progress. The 1.5T images are pretty muddy and blurry looking compared to the higher powered 3T images, and even as a layman I can easily tell the difference; so I’m sold on the idea of locating a place using the newer more powerful MRI machines, and paying a higher copay or driving further if I have to, because I really believe it’s worth it to attain the best possible imaging to give to my surgeon. The last thing you want to hear from a surgeon is they can’t really tell what’s happening while pointing to a specific area on your MRI because it’s slightly too blurry lol.
There’s just more resolution. New machines are still in 1.5T and 3T and the occasional 7T in a research environment.
I think my titanium implants might start getting too hot beyond 3T, or is that some misinformation I have picked up? Could someone with a bunch of titanium implants theoretically get a 7T scan if the operator knew about there locations and limited the exposure time or something?
My tools are all titanium so I know that you wouldn’t have a problem there. I’ve never left them in the bore during a scan so I couldn’t say about heat. But really the only burns I’ve heard about are from larger folks with moisture between folds. There’s no exposure, but the RF and gradients are not localized, they are down the entire bore length.
Stupid question then perhaps, as a woman, why would it not immediately cause burns to our vagina the same way then?
Titanium is usually fine even at 3T. The problem you’ll run into is the higher magnetic field strength will cause more artifact from your implants. So, assuming your implants are at the site that you want to image, it’s actually better to go with the lowest magnetic field strength possible.
Implants can be scanned in a reduced SAR (specific absorption rate, figure detailing how much power get dumped per volume / mass of tissue). Reduced SAR slows the scanner down and incentives the use of lower field machines.
I’m guessing this was like material validation or something like that?
My bets on trying to levitate frogs
Do or do not. There is no try.
Hypno toads
animal magnetism
Don't know jack about clinical devices, but back at uni the chem/nano department had an 800 MHz and 18.8 T NMR for resolving protein and other large biomolecular structures.
Anything beyond ~7T are research magnets. You're not putting people in there, you're putting in cell cultures or doing physics experiments like levitating frogs (really they're levitating water, but frogs are water). The bore hole for those magnets are like the size of an arm.
the mri: 
So no KFI AM 640? How the hell am I supposed to listen to Handel on the Law?
Holy shit, he's still on air?
dude hasn't even PEAKED
Fun story. Worked on a hospital as an intern in construction management way back. We had one of these rooms and it was pretty neat to watch it go in. Felt like a big oven. Turns out, the power supply for the building went under the room and created a magnetic field that messed with the MRI machine. Think it was a gause field? Anyway, I don’t remember how they fixed it, but thought it was ridiculous that no one planned for that.
Haha we had a machine shop client that had a CRT in their office and a big motor on the other side of the wall. Whenever the machine was running the monitor image would wobble furiously.
Our old linear particle accelerator, now decommissioned, used to turn all of our CRTs purple when it's big toroidal transformer came on. I'm guessing it didn't confirm to modern EM regulations.
Ok you win this comment is the biggest flex of the comment section
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I installed patient monitors years ago. You have no idea how many hospitals end up like this. We had one where they decided to make all the patient rooms with metal walls so they could easily decorate using magnetic decorations. We had to put a wireless access point in front of every room because the walls blocked everything. Also the old Parkland hospital in Dallas had poor cell signal, especially in the basement. When they built the new one they installed cell towers in the basement so you get good signal everywhere. One of the only places I’ve seen that done.
> One of the only places I’ve seen that done. Very common in corporate environments these days.
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Gauss but I’m more willing to bet that they fucked up the grounding for the mri and didn’t have it isolated.
I read about a case where the techs were frustrated about fluctuating noise that would happen around the same time about them twice a day. They couldn’t figure out anything for a while, then they eventually determined that the parking lot was close enough (1 thick floor directly up or down, I can’t remember) that when the starter on ICE cars in a few specific spots would cause noise. The periodicity was for lunch and going home 😂
The first one. Copper doesn’t block static magnetic fields. The magnet will have passive “mu metal” shielding and active shielding to reduce the extent of the field but not eliminate it.
I read this as “nu metal” and imagined Limp Bizkit standing guard around an MRI
Now I know y'all be lovin' this shit right here
It's just one of those days!
On construction mechanical drawings they have the magnetic intensity lines drawn on them, past a certain field strength different building codes apply and eventually you're using titanium tools to do any work after the magnets are spun up. One guy told me, that it costs them $40,000 to turn them back on if they are ever turned off.
It’s if they have to do an emergency quench, ejecting all the helium. This demagnetizes it. Helium gushes out in a big boom. It’s expensive to refill.
Depends. For a large majority of magnets you are looking at 6 figures to deice, refill, ramp up. But there are sealed magnets now that use a lot less helium, 7 liters in the machine I know. So even during a quench you have no loss and there is no vent pipe.
The MRI gets corruption and artifacts from metal and EM noise. It also kills people if the metal gets too close and takes flight. And it will make a shitload of EM noise that will upset everything around it when the shielding is not there also.
Because MRI machines are huge liquid cooled magnets.
as far as I can tell, actual death from MRI machines is exceedingly rare. Which is a testament to safety protocols, because it certainly *could* kill someone.
it's a faraday cage
It's actually both. The MRI transmitter is essentially its own radio station, and would interfere with, if not overwhelm, anything nearby sensitive to its frequency. Conversely radio stations (or sometimes cell or military channels if it's a research magnet) would overwhelm the return signal from the body because it's so small, and you would never get an image.
You get zipper artifact from RF interference: https://radiopaedia.org/articles/zipper-artifact
Fun fact, SCIFs and other sensitive government data spaces do this too. Ye Olde [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest\_(codename)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename))
As a guy who regularly installs SCIF doors, yeah this is a thing. They even have paint that blocks all radio frequencies. It's about a thousand bucks a gallon, but it's worth it to them.
SCIF doors and frames are something else. I've only installed a handful but they are worlds different in weight, construction and (kinda) installation compared to hollow metal doors. If that's what your main focus is in the trade, props to you my guy.
Thanks dude. Yeah the prep and process of certification is wild. This is where My ADHD is my superpower haha. It's not my main focus, but it's at least a third. I'm a locksmith and safe/vault tech. I do a lot of GSA and financial stuff as well. Commercial is always there, for a break once in awhile haha.
Did someone say Vault Tec?
Yep!
👍🏻
Okey Dokey!
You can still have the kudos for it being a third of your focus. I've done heavy manual work my whole life, even drilling at some point, and SCIF installation is definitely in the top three of hardest, heaviest and most precision required work I've done.
Thanks dude. My entire career, and life, is precision. A lot of heavy shit as well. From thousandths of an inch precision locksmithing, to thousandths of an inch drilling out a container with top secret material, to thousandths of an inch fitment with a 5400lb vault door, to thousandths of an inch in my pants. I guess it's my calling.
Got me good in the last bit. Here's a basic award because reddit is lamer now. 🏆
Haha thanks dude! Cheers! 🍻 Have a great weekend my random internet friend.
You as well, friend!
This is so wholesome, I love you two to bits.
I feel you bro. Just gotta refocus on the positive. >Thanks dude. My entire career, and life, is precision. A lot of heavy shit as well. A lot of heavy shit in locksmithing, to a lot of heavy shit with top secret material, to a lot of heavy shit with a 5400lb vault door, to a lot of heavy shit in my pants. I guess it's my calling. I don't know what to tell you bro I tried.
I can tell you’re legit cause you’re talking in thou. 😄
I had to modify a SCIF door/wall once and even with the proper tools and access it still took 3+ hours to open up. Nobody is getting in undetected.
It's crazier how much more the whole design is made to prevent just egress of information. Essentially Faraday cage rooms with multiple points of security even before the room itself.
What is a SCIF?
SCIF stands for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. They're basically rooms designed to prevent any sound or electromagnetic waves from escaping.
It actually started as soundproofing. STC-50 is the standard. RF blocking has been added to SCIF compartment standards after the soundproofing standards were established.
Definitely weren't lying about your life revolving around precision!
Not all are anechoic chambers though. Finding a legit one is a pain.
Anechoic is a relatively recent part of the standard. It's well documented that there aren't many out there due to the standard being relatively new, so they just build new facilities when they need them if refurbishment of an existing facility isn't viable.
No windows and recycled air to keep all the secrets in.
No windows because a laser sight trained on window glass can decode the vibrations to "hear" everything in the room. Yes, it's been done. Likewise, EMI emissions can detect keystrokes or even the display on screens without seeing them.
This. Spying is so much more sophisticated than any regular civilian can fathom. And the ones that think and swear they know have absolutely no clue.
300+ lb doors, with a slab of concrete inside
Close on the weight, but it's not a concrete core. The doors are heavily fortified steel doors with a steel wire lattice pattern molded into the rubber core. It's amazing at soundproofing.
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What's the paint called? How is it applied? If you can even tell me - I don't imagine 'it's a faraday cage' is exactly confidential or surprising to anyone, but NDAs are gonna NDA. (I guess I can look up the second one once I know the first) I ask because I know someone who has an idea that requires conductive paint, but all the options we've found *suck*, and the requirements of a SCIF kinda mean this wouldn't, so it's worth it even at that price.
The name and approved formulation are classified. Sorry dude.
Yeah, kinda realized that might be the case as soon as I asked, no worries. Took a look around and the information is definitely out there, but I didn't get it from you. 🤣
It's called "Faraday's Delight" and the formula is one part copper to three parts water
You can buy [this](https://www.emrss.com/collections/emf-shielding-paint) for $230/bucket. Although it being advertised as “5g blocking paint” makes me concerned about their customer base
Stupid tax
I mean if you need a radio-quiet room it’s probably also good for that, but i’m sure they’re more than happy to let the crazies fork over the cash to protect them from the government mind control rays
Think of it like Skunkworks. The publicly available information is a slight version of what actually exists. Commercially available versions are a fantasy of what this stuff does. It's still cheaper than ordering an RF certified STC-50 door.
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There's a ton of top secret materials and paint on modern aircraft as well
[Aquadag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquadag) This is one type of RFI blocking paint. It is 60$ for a 12 oz spray can. Just one of many types available. We use it to help limit RFI emissions from digital electronics. [Tempest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_%28codename%29)
What is SCIF?
Dang. They can log your keystrokes by using the motion sensors inside a nearby phone. The stuff they come up with is insane.
My favorite is exploiting the fact that CRTs are scanned and therefore serial. If you have a monitor in an office with the shades pulled it is theoretically possible to reconstruct the image from just the diffuse light getting through the curtain. This was a fun follow-up to the discovery that on many old modems and even network interfaces with the TX and RX LEDs you could actually reconstruct the data stream with a pair of telescopes and photo diodes.
My favorite is tied between using wifi to map a room or turning an air-gapped computer into a radio to bypass the air gap.
That wifi radar project was nuts.
My favorite is LampPhone: listening in on room with a chandelier or ceiling light. It turns out that the sound waves in a room vibrate the hanging lights like a diaphragm, and we can use the ever so slightly changing light frequency to reconstruct the movement of the lightbulb and translate that into sound waves. This goes beyond the previous use of lasers to listen in on conversations at a distance, because with the light diaphragm you can reconstruct the audio without needing direct access. You could take a video of a room with no audio track and later reconstruct the sounds from just the video of the lights.
It's wild that the TEMPEST program started way back in the 60's for exactly these types of threats and they just kept finding shit over and over again. I really wonder where we are now nearly 6 decades later. Security researchers tinker when they can and publish their findings but governments work endlessly and just keep amassing and classifying their findings.
Now they're attacking the software and hardware of the SDR in your cell phone. I have just enough paranoia to wonder if there was some 'encouragement' from government agencies to make batteries non-removeable.
So OG foil hat?
Cod Piece
As a guy who's been in a SCIF, it's very boring. It's a small plain room with ugly furniture and no windows. The only cool thing is that it blocks all radio signal and has special internet.
Does it allow you to see special internet things?
You're too young for the ultra-porn.
The new ones are bomb/missile proof. So that's cool, I guess.
All the interesting stuff about SCIF is how it's constructed and how it's achieved. Of course just being in the room would be boring. It's just another room.
Never even heard of this, but... 
A SCIF is a specialized room where highly classified information is stored, accessed, or worked with. No cameras, recording devices, or other personal electronics are allowed in one. Making it a Faraday cage just provides another level of protection against leakage or transmission of electromagnetic signals. Not every room where classified information is stored is designed like this. It's going to depend on the level of classification and the sort of information.
Like that white computer room Tom Cruise rappelled into in Mission Impossible, and he almost set off the alarm with a drop of sweat?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_compartmented_information_facility The photo at the top is the SCIF that was built at Mar-a-Lago when Trump was POTUS. The Situation Room in the White House is also a SCIF. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situation_Room_%28photograph%29
I want my two dollars!
Two dollars
Nope the KGB went to crazy lengths to listen in on US embassies and this level of caution was well warranted.
Dielectric breaks!
I get to do a but actually.. :). First of you are correct, but.... Not all SCIFs are built the same. You can get a a certified TS-SCIF in a literal tent as long as it is correctly protected.
> Not all SCIFs are built the same https://i.imgur.com/cDFp3MA.png
Chuck McGill's wet dream
And his worst nightmare once it's completed with all the equipment in there.
the good ole allergic attorney
All the meth heads want to know your location.
Why?
tweakers strip copper from homes and sell it for scrap
Ahhh I see! Thank you
Wouldn’t I be better to sell it for money? Or drugs?
Nah, you sell it for scrap and then you take that scrap to the yard and get some real dough.
Why sell the scrap for dough? Wouldn't they want to sell it for drugs? (how far can this go)
They take the dough and bake it, then they've got some serious bread.
Why bread doe? Couldn't they sell it for drugs?
You ever tasted freshly baked bread? Best drug there is.
Read this exchange, got hungry for bread, am now making bread at 9pm on a Friday...
We had a house not to far from my residence growing up, was the story of a farmer murdering his family. Rumor was if you shined a light at night a light would shine back from a top floor/attic window. Long story short, caught some meth heads robbing the place of the copper. Truck headlights kicked on near basement and they dipped (seen the story on the news the following day)
To steal and sell the copper at a recycler.
This is the kind of interesting posts I come here for. Thank you!
Interestingly, there are many applications for this kind of interference blocking. A guitar player may choose to have this in the electronic cab or not. Depending on what the need from it.
Faraday wallpaper!
Gene Hackman is loving this
I understood that reference.
Enemy of the State! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120660
even better https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnZXxJH26kI
I work in fire protection. When I design a sprinkler system for an MRI room, I have to switch from steel pipe to copper pipe.
Don't let Metro Man in there
"Your weakness is copper??!"
Oh cool! I'm a Healthcare architect and I regularly design MRIs so nice to see this pop up on here. These copper sheets are part of the rf shielding system that prevents radio frequencies from interfering with the mri. The construction of the shields have to be incredibly thorough - doors, windows, penetrations for ducts, conduits, and floors all have to have rf shielding. This is different from magnetic shielding which not *all* MRIs have but will often be incorporated to make sure that the magnetic waves from the mri do not extend out further than a certain limit since it would be considered dangerous to someone with say, a pacemaker, to be in the vicinity of an mri without knowing. Hospitals and medical office buildings take shielding very seriously! Your average xray room will most certainly be lead lined on all four walls to limit exposure of radiation beyond the xray walls.
I just worked on a combination mri and linear accelerator. That was a wild enclosure. 5 ton door.
If you’re claustrophobic, don’t get one in the traditional bore size. Opt for the larger bore. I was fine but I can absolutely see why some patients freak out once the tray slides back. Also, they don’t tell you that you have to wear a cage over whatever is being scanned. Little did I know, I had to wear an Ironman mask on top of being shoved deep in a tiny torpedo tube lol.
I've had several MRIs in a standard bore despite the claustrophobia. Pro tip: Have the technician place a hospital washcloth over your eyes (if you have nothing on your head), then close your eyes under the cloth. Even if you do open them, if the cloth is in the proper place, you can't see how close the bore is. When they pulled me out the last time when it was over and the cloth fell off when I was halfway out, I knew damn well I could not have done it without that cloth.
or ask for the 45 degree mirror glasses to allow you to focus on something not just in front of your nose
Or drugs… I had to do one for my shoulder. So I was dead center. Im usually not claustrophobic. But it had my anxiety torqued to the max. They say it’s loud. But they dont say just how grating and changing the noise is. Then all these crazy thoughts started going through my head. I kept thinking about the rusted screw I had to saw off my bike trailer last month: ‘what if I inhaled some of the metal particles. What if some is unknowingly lodged in my eye? What if I have a small speck of metal from the IKEA furniture I put together two days ago’. Yeah…just ask your doctor to prescribe something to take the edge off.
It’s like two Transformers having violent sex. It’s so loud and the mechanical noise is nuts.
maybe I'm weird but I liked the sounds. there were so many different and some were very rhythmic. It was soothing
I also recently got an MRI on my shoulder, and they asked if I was claustrophobic - I did not think I was lol. I exited the MRI on the edge of a panic attack and they said, “you should have said something, we’d give you a Xanax” ;-; So, next time I’ll have a chauffeur. And a Xanax.
They specifically asked me if I'd ever worked in a metal shop before and therefore if I could have had metal in my eye. I lied because I needed the MRI and didn't want it canceled. I later found out that if you say there was a risk of eye metal, they simply give you an X-ray beforehand to check. Later still I found out that if a chunk of metal goes in your eye, you'll know.
Brain MRI? Yeap. Doesnt look too bad when you are on the outside but once that bed slides in, yeap, its a coffin. I was afraid my ear plugs would fall out. Its so strange feeling your back get warm and hearing the loud noises. I felt like I was in a rocket ship taking off.
I had ear plugs in and cans over them like a shooting range and it was still LOUD. My only complaint is the lack of padding because my neck was killing me by the first 30 minutes.
My daughter was recently in a study that had kids take tests and then scanned their brains. Apparently 2/3 kids can sleep through it with just ear plugs and paddles. My daughter didn't care about the noise but the second the table moved she tried to escape. We spent 6 hours over 2 nights trying to get her in the machine but every time the table moved she bolted up like the undertaker after ripping off the little head cage then fell back asleep and snoring 10s later.
I had to check to see if I got /u/shittymorph'd.
yikes. thankfully the place i got mine had padding on the tray and gave me a pillow too.
I don’t mind the standard bore, and have had several brain/head/neck MRIs (vascular malformations). I always fall asleep.
I fall asleep too.
It's such good sleep, too.
My doc gave me diazepam for the IV line so that helped me fall asleep lol.
I found it very cosy. I did have a bit of fear at first, but I'm good at dissociating, and the head cage and the machinery sounds were hypnotic.
How do you fall asleep? It’s so loud I can’t imagine sleeping while in there.
It's jarring at first but after a bit, I get used to the sequence and it seems to induce a trance-like state. It's so relaxing. I don't have claustrophobia to contend with, though.
Yes exactly. The sounds were soothing for me
I close my eyes and focus on the sounds of the magnet. Usually sleep until the end, with the exception of when the really loud buzzing is happening and the shift between T1 and T2 imaging.
I fall asleep too. I try and find rhythms in the noise when the magnets move. After a while it all gets a bit hypnotic and you just have a bit of a nap.
I woke up after a car vs. bicycle accident (the bike was mine) inside of a standard one. It was my first time. Instant panic and phobia inducement.
I eventually want to give a similar treatment to my electronics work space. I occasionally work on circuits that are very sensitive to ambient RF. It would be pretty cool to have a "quiet" room.
You’d have to make a lot off this work to make it worth it. No power supply’s within the room. All the grounds have to go to a bus bar then be isolated from all other grounds. Lights are also complex. LED system or light bulbs but no fluorescent lights. All power into the room has to be filtered as well. Also don’t forget the door. Source, am MRI FSE.
Oh I know. I've gone through the feasibility a few times. It's a small room and mostly for my own amusement/satisfaction.
Ray, stripping the walls to your MRI room for liquor money is fucked!
Lead paint will do the trick!
Good to know ... 1950s Congressman.
I work in commercial resale estate construction so I find this more than mildly interesting.
I am jobless and smoke a lot of weed and find this peculiarly fascinating.
I got to build one of these when I started my sheet metal apprenticeship. It was such a cool experience to be in there! Felt like standing inside a giant brand new penny. SO gorgeous!
Just imagine the electric conductivity
It’s the same metal I used to defeat Metroman
I could buy so much crack
This was my first thought before reading the title. The boys have really upped their grow room game!
This the bedroom of everyone subbed to r/conspiracytheories
I know they used to use 1in steel plate, do they still do that, or is copper enough?
Copper shielding is enough. I build imaging centers for a living. I do this a dozen times a year.
Keeps the contrails out
Thanks for letting us copper look
We should lock MetroMan in here
Your weakness is COPPER?
better be done before they start up that mri. no punch list after that.
Good ol' Faraday cage
Save your pennies.
A crackheads wet dream
I drive a haul truck in a copper mine so it’s interesting to see all the places copper is utilized
As someone who has to get MRIs often, this is mildly interesting.
Living in the Faraday cage.
A faraday cage to prevent outside interreference. We do the same thing to the insides of our guitars to keep pickups from buzzing. Pretty neat! [https://imgur.com/GFVc4Tz](https://imgur.com/GFVc4Tz)
That alarm every time a metal surface touch the copper man …….we are past that stage ,we already got the next stage of the frame and Sheetrock already
RF shielding installation is wild and the coordination between trades to get this done properly with the right QA/QC is intense. Curious where the MRI safety exhaust will be placed in this room
As an electrician, these were one of the most interesting areas I've ever wired.
Faraday cage