Cell phone battery catches fire, browns hacker’s tail during Defcon

Defcon attendee shows CNET his charred backside after his dungeon phone battery casually held glow and parched a hole by his pants pocket.

(Credit:
Elinor Mills/CNET)

LAS VEGAS — A dungeon phone battery casually held glow today, burnt by a Defcon attendee’s behind pants pocket, and fell on a floor, formulating bake spots on a runner and withdrawal a burn-hole in a attendee’s chair.

The man, who asked not to be identified, was not spoiled though his trousers were ruined. He told CNET that he was sitting in a eventuality during Defcon around 11:30 a.m. PT when he started to smell something blazing and felt some feverishness underneath him on his seat. He stood adult to find that his behind left slot was on fire.

“I smelled a burn, a smoke, and we stood adult and could literally see flames,” he said. “I attempted to daub it out (with a hand) and it fell to a floor. It burnt right by a backside.”

The battery, that he pronounced goes with a Droid Bionic smartphone that was not in a pocket, was still blazing on a ground. He kicked it and it rolled and burnt another mark into a carpet. He afterwards left a room to get assistance as people around him began holding photos.

His derriere substantially would have been destroyed as good if he hadn’t had his cosmetic hotel room key-card in between him and a battery. “My hotel pivotal saved my butt,” he said, laughing.

A lady who was holding video of a eventuality for Defcon was seated on a height about 20 feet divided and had a good perspective of what happened. “I saw something intense out of a dilemma of my eye,” she said. “A guy’s boundary was in flames.”

The rest of a eventuality was canceled and a room was evacuated. The male pronounced he had zero else in his slot though a battery and a hotel label key, and that he had no thought because a battery would have started to feverishness up.

CNET did not see a phone and was incompetent to endorse a make and model.

A Motorola deputy supposing this matter when asked for comment: “Motorola Mobility’s priority is a reserve of a customers. All Motorola products are designed, manufactured, and tested to accommodate or surpass general and internal standards for consumer reserve and performance. We will will demeanour into this matter immediately.”

The means of a overheating stays a mystery.

Don Bailey, a mobile consultant during Capitol Hill Consultants, pronounced batteries can feverishness adult if a steel leads hold something conductive. “Something as elementary as steel nap can means a brief between a leads on a dungeon phone battery,” he said.

It could been a bad battery, or a male could have shop-worn a battery somehow. But if there was no steel in a slot during a time, it’s expected a law-breaker was some conductive material, such as steel nap from a brush used to purify metal, that had somehow worked a approach into a fibers of his pocket, Bailey said. “It’s singular for made batteries like these to have that kind of a failure.”

These are a bake outlines that were left on a building after a incident. The chair was private right after a accident.

(Credit:
Elinor Mills/CNET)