To be shocked one must be "In the circuit" in some fashion. To be lethally electrocuted your heart must be in the circuit, with current flowing through the heart itself. This challenge doesn't really put you in the circuit unless by chance the penny were to touch the hot spade and your other hand or bare foot was grounded. What would most likely happen is the penny would short the socket and become red hot almost instantly. The circuit breaker would kick in after a moment and stop the flow of current. GFI or other similar breaker might break the flow faster and the penny would not get hot.
About 50 years ago my little sister (a baby at the time) was crawling around on the floor as the adults were sitting at the kitchen table talking. She crawled down a hallway only about 10 feet from the adults and found a metal hair clip on the floor. It was the kind that bends in the middle with a spring action and is either closed or open wiith two prongs sticking out. She found it open, picked it up, and being pretty smart I guess, thought it looked like a plug which she had seen people using. Putting things together she "plugged in" the hair clip on a nearby socket. It behaved exactly as I described above and got red hot in an instant and then blew the breaker. It burned her two fingers she used to handle the clip, but she was not shocked. The finger burns actually cured her of sucking on her two middle fingers (insted of her thumb) since it hurt to do that. Positivie spin on a somewhat startling situation.
To be shocked one must be "In the circuit" in some fashion. To be lethally electrocuted your heart must be in the circuit, with current flowing through the heart itself. This challenge doesn't really put you in the circuit unless by chance the penny were to touch the hot spade and your other hand or bare foot was grounded. What would most likely happen is the penny would short the socket and become red hot almost instantly. The circuit breaker would kick in after a moment and stop the flow of current. GFI or other similar breaker might break the flow faster and the penny would not get hot.
In a modern installation, this is incorrect. Even 50 years ago this was only correct in old houses. Modern installations have Earth Leakage Protection and that trips the power almost immediately.
40 years ago, the only house which did not have this protection was my grandparent's farm and I got zapped quite a few times trying to repair stuff not knowing what I was doing (e.g. isolating only 1 phase while working with 3-phase powered equipment).
If there would be enough current to get the penny red hot (even for a moment), then you are dead.
It is physically impossible to insert a plug in a socket and touch the life metal parts, not even with a penny. Plug and socket are constructed that way. Both have to follow strict standards. If both are constructed as imposed by those standards, nothing could happen to the girl.
That’s not to say Alexa should have such a challenge. That’s not acceptable behaviour for a smart speaker. But the little girl was never in danger. Not even when she had done what Alex instructed her to do.
You can absolutely do this in the US. Our plugs are a terrible design.
I haven’t tried it but I also don’t see why it would be impossible. And the way kurtvdpoel is describing it is not what the article is saying. The article is saying to insert the plug halfway and then touch a penny to the prongs that are still sticking out. I haven’t tried it so I don’t know what the result would be but you absolutely can insert a plug halfway and touch a penny to the prongs.
Same video of the white concrete block school wall as the one Marvin posted, but has other footage. It has a nice image of a penny that's been melted into the prongs. Apple angle: they used an Apple 5W charging brick (USA version).
Best outcome is the circuit breaker trips fast enough such that notion happens and no damage is done. There are all kinds of worst case options. People are highly suggestible, for surely evolutionary reasons, where they are willing to do stupid shit to be part of a group or their curiosity of "what happens" if they do this or that action is overwhelming. For both, any thought of future consequences is the furthest thing in their minds. Kids certainly have this curiosity as you will certainly know someone who stuck a metal wire, fork, whatever into an outlet to see what happens. Some don't grow out of it until well into adulthood.
The last paragraph in this article says everything that needs to be said about this incident:
"Smart assistants like Google and Alexa are well known for having various
skills that access information on the mostly unfiltered web. While
there seems to be some form of trusted sources for these devices, it is
apparent that some bad actors still get through."
Every system that allows unfiltered, inadequately curated, or faulty content to leak through and be perceived as factual, truthful, or authoritative is vulnerable to the exact same form of deception. This includes Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, blogs, pseudo news networks, phone scams, phishing emails, and so on (and on and on and on ...). The fact that the Echo devices interact via voice is peripheral to this discussion, unless of course you believe that what is coming out of the device's speaker has more authenticity, authority, and trust than other systems that are as equally vulnerable to being abused by bad actors.
Sadly, this is just a wake-up call, or a reminder for those who are already less trusting, that any system that has a mechanism for abuse/failure will be abused/fail. Hopefully, basic safety precautions about working around electrical devices kicked-in before someone got caught up in this particular deception. On a less nefarious front, a GPS navigation device or application that directs you, by voice in fact, to drive the wrong way down a one-way street, drive your vehicle into a body of water, put you in an infinite loop, or send you into the wilderness where you run out of gas and freeze to death will hopefully be averted by the application of common sense and a recognition that something in the system has gone wrong. But these failures do occur. I don't see them all landing as front page news on all of the major news networks. But when one of the Evil Monsters of Big Tech is involved these failures get trumpeted to the world, and will likely result in the CEO being dragged before a congressional committee to explain why this was ever allowed to happen.
To be shocked one must be "In the circuit" in some fashion. To be lethally electrocuted your heart must be in the circuit, with current flowing through the heart itself. This challenge doesn't really put you in the circuit unless by chance the penny were to touch the hot spade and your other hand or bare foot was grounded. What would most likely happen is the penny would short the socket and become red hot almost instantly. The circuit breaker would kick in after a moment and stop the flow of current. GFI or other similar breaker might break the flow faster and the penny would not get hot.
In a modern installation, this is incorrect. Even 50 years ago this was only correct in old houses. Modern installations have Earth Leakage Protection and that trips the power almost immediately.
40 years ago, the only house which did not have this protection was my grandparent's farm and I got zapped quite a few times trying to repair stuff not knowing what I was doing (e.g. isolating only 1 phase while working with 3-phase powered equipment).
If there would be enough current to get the penny red hot (even for a moment), then you are dead.
Yup, I was going to say that in older homes like mine, built in 1956, there is no GFCI in the bedrooms or living room, although it can be added at the panel. The plugs are not even grounded. It’s just a hot and a neutral wire. The neutral carries full voltage in such a setup. The kitchen and bathroom have been modernized in my case, and at some point I’ll redo the rest, but all in all, it’s foolish to play around with live current in such a fashion.
It is physically impossible to insert a plug in a socket and touch the life metal parts, not even with a penny. Plug and socket are constructed that way. Both have to follow strict standards. If both are constructed as imposed by those standards, nothing could happen to the girl.
That’s not to say Alexa should have such a challenge. That’s not acceptable behaviour for a smart speaker. But the little girl was never in danger. Not even when she had done what Alex instructed her to do.
You can absolutely do this in the US. Our plugs are a terrible design.
I haven’t tried it but I also don’t see why it would be impossible. And the way kurtvdpoel is describing it is not what the article is saying. The article is saying to insert the plug halfway and then touch a penny to the prongs that are still sticking out. I haven’t tried it so I don’t know what the result would be but you absolutely can insert a plug halfway and touch a penny to the prongs.
It not that it's impossible to touch either of the live prongs (UK uses 230V os both prong are live) with a penny, but that it's nearly impossible to get a shock when doing so.
That's because since the mid eighties, UK plugs live prongs were required to be insulated half way from the plug to the tip. When the tip of the prongs make contact with the live contacts in the socket, only the insulated part of the prong is exposed outside of the socket. Unless the insulation on the prong is compromised, there's no way that any foreign object can come in contact with the bare metal of a live prong. Very clever design.
Even more clever is the design of the socket. The socket has a "shutter" that prevents anyone from sticking a paper clip or small screwdriver into one of the hole for the live prong and touch the live contacts. This "shutter" opens to allow the plug prongs to make contact with the live contacts when the ground prong is inserted part way into the socket.
I knew this about 15 years ago when my sister in-law was married to an Englishman that travel back home frequently and I inquired why the UK plug in his electrical adapter travel kit was so big, compared to that of the US plug.
Plus there's a fuse built into the UK plug.
The UK plug can also be placed on the floor prongs facing up to make booby traps.
It is physically impossible to insert a plug in a socket and touch the life metal parts, not even with a penny. Plug and socket are constructed that way. Both have to follow strict standards. If both are constructed as imposed by those standards, nothing could happen to the girl.
That’s not to say Alexa should have such a challenge. That’s not acceptable behaviour for a smart speaker. But the little girl was never in danger. Not even when she had done what Alex instructed her to do.
I literally had a quarter drop down into the gap between the plug and outlet and send sparks shooting out a few years ago. Impossible may be too strong of a word here.
It is physically impossible to insert a plug in a socket and touch the life metal parts, not even with a penny. Plug and socket are constructed that way. Both have to follow strict standards. If both are constructed as imposed by those standards, nothing could happen to the girl.
That’s not to say Alexa should have such a challenge. That’s not acceptable behaviour for a smart speaker. But the little girl was never in danger. Not even when she had done what Alex instructed her to do.
You can absolutely do this in the US. Our plugs are a terrible design.
Yes we can do that in the US, but I prefer the convenience of US plugs over European’s overly complex and large plugs
Story checks out — Americans are really into convenience at the expense of safety.
It is physically impossible to insert a plug in a socket and touch the life metal parts, not even with a penny. Plug and socket are constructed that way. Both have to follow strict standards. If both are constructed as imposed by those standards, nothing could happen to the girl.
That’s not to say Alexa should have such a challenge. That’s not acceptable behaviour for a smart speaker. But the little girl was never in danger. Not even when she had done what Alex instructed her to do.
You can absolutely do this in the US. Our plugs are a terrible design.
Yes we can do that in the US, but I prefer the convenience of US plugs over European’s overly complex and large plugs
Story checks out — Americans are really into convenience at the expense of safety.
And the world is a better place as a result. Not kidding.
It is physically impossible to insert a plug in a socket and touch the life metal parts, not even with a penny. Plug and socket are constructed that way. Both have to follow strict standards. If both are constructed as imposed by those standards, nothing could happen to the girl.
That’s not to say Alexa should have such a challenge. That’s not acceptable behaviour for a smart speaker. But the little girl was never in danger. Not even when she had done what Alex instructed her to do.
I literally had a quarter drop down into the gap between the plug and outlet and send sparks shooting out a few years ago. Impossible may be too strong of a word here.
Don’t your plugs have half the prongs covered by plastic insulation?
I haven’t seen a new plug for years that doesn’t have this simple protection.
It is physically impossible to insert a plug in a socket and touch the life metal parts, not even with a penny. Plug and socket are constructed that way. Both have to follow strict standards. If both are constructed as imposed by those standards, nothing could happen to the girl.
That’s not to say Alexa should have such a challenge. That’s not acceptable behaviour for a smart speaker. But the little girl was never in danger. Not even when she had done what Alex instructed her to do.
You can absolutely do this in the US. Our plugs are a terrible design.
Yes we can do that in the US, but I prefer the convenience of US plugs over European’s overly complex and large plugs
???
European plugs are basically the same as US plugs, just with cylindrical prongs instead of flat ones. UK plugs are the larger (slightly) and more complex (with actual safety features!) ones.
UK plugs may be massive by comparison, but they are massively safer by design. Genius design.
Nope, US plugs are much safer. If you step on a US plug, it's going to hurt. If you step on a UK plug, that horrible thing is GOING THROUGH YOUR FOOT. Horrible design.
UK plugs may be massive by comparison, but they are massively safer by design. Genius design.
Nope, US plugs are much safer. If you step on a US plug, it's going to hurt. If you step on a UK plug, that horrible thing is GOING THROUGH YOUR FOOT. Horrible design.
I've never stepped on a UK plug. My father did once in a moment of carelessness that got him laughed at, but it certainly didn't go through his foot. Your concerns are overblown. How often are you stepping on plugs?
I daresay there's a greater chance of the US plug going through your foot, the UK prongs are very blunt.
It is physically impossible to insert a plug in a socket and touch the life metal parts, not even with a penny. Plug and socket are constructed that way. Both have to follow strict standards. If both are constructed as imposed by those standards, nothing could happen to the girl.
That’s not to say Alexa should have such a challenge. That’s not acceptable behaviour for a smart speaker. But the little girl was never in danger. Not even when she had done what Alex instructed her to do.
You can absolutely do this in the US. Our plugs are a terrible design.
Yes we can do that in the US, but I prefer the convenience of US plugs over European’s overly complex and large plugs
???
European plugs are basically the same as US plugs, just with cylindrical prongs instead of flat ones. UK plugs are the larger (slightly) and more complex (with actual safety features!) ones.
The newer EU plugs are designed like the UK plug - the body of the prongs is an insulator and the conductor is is confined to the end.
There’s somewhat of a debate in the US over the ‘proper’ orientation of a grounded plug. Does the ground pion belong on top, like the UK orientation above, or on the bottom so it looks like eyes and a nose/mouth. One of the arguments for having it on top is to prevent something from falling across the conducting leads.
UK plugs may be massive by comparison, but they are massively safer by design. Genius design.
Nope, US plugs are much safer. If you step on a US plug, it's going to hurt. If you step on a UK plug, that horrible thing is GOING THROUGH YOUR FOOT. Horrible design.
I've never stepped on a UK plug. My father did once in a moment of carelessness that got him laughed at, but it certainly didn't go through his foot. Your concerns are overblown. How often are you stepping on plugs?
I daresay there's a greater chance of the US plug going through your foot, the UK prongs are very blunt.
That's not likely at all. The difference is the UK plug is more likely to land on the flat back with the prongs up, while a standard US plug (which doesn't look anything like the above picture) is most likely to be laying sideways on the ground. Regardless, I can't imagine the damage to the foot outweighing the potential damage from the US (and many other county's) plug design. Even then, the same safety features could still be in place with the cord attachment design being moved so that UK plug would most likely sit sideways or down.z
UK plugs may be massive by comparison, but they are massively safer by design. Genius design.
Nope, US plugs are much safer. If you step on a US plug, it's going to hurt. If you step on a UK plug, that horrible thing is GOING THROUGH YOUR FOOT. Horrible design.
I've never stepped on a UK plug. My father did once in a moment of carelessness that got him laughed at, but it certainly didn't go through his foot. Your concerns are overblown. How often are you stepping on plugs?
I daresay there's a greater chance of the US plug going through your foot, the UK prongs are very blunt.
That's not likely at all. The difference is the UK plug is more likely to land on the flat back with the prongs up, while a standard US plug (which doesn't look anything like the above picture) is most likely to be laying sideways on the ground. Regardless, I can't imagine the damage to the foot outweighing the potential damage from the US (and many other county's) plug design. Even then, the same safety features could still be in place with the cord attachment design being moved so that UK plug would most likely sit sideways or down.z
The thing with plugs is that they're most often plugged in. Very little chance of stepping on them at all, so the point is pretty moot.
Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth-leakage_circuit_breaker
40 years ago, the only house which did not have this protection was my grandparent's farm and I got zapped quite a few times trying to repair stuff not knowing what I was doing (e.g. isolating only 1 phase while working with 3-phase powered equipment).
If there would be enough current to get the penny red hot (even for a moment), then you are dead.
https://cbsloc.al/3ECeAoz
Same video of the white concrete block school wall as the one Marvin posted, but has other footage. It has a nice image of a penny that's been melted into the prongs. Apple angle: they used an Apple 5W charging brick (USA version).
Best outcome is the circuit breaker trips fast enough such that notion happens and no damage is done. There are all kinds of worst case options. People are highly suggestible, for surely evolutionary reasons, where they are willing to do stupid shit to be part of a group or their curiosity of "what happens" if they do this or that action is overwhelming. For both, any thought of future consequences is the furthest thing in their minds. Kids certainly have this curiosity as you will certainly know someone who stuck a metal wire, fork, whatever into an outlet to see what happens. Some don't grow out of it until well into adulthood.
I haven’t seen a new plug for years that doesn’t have this simple protection.
European plugs are basically the same as US plugs, just with cylindrical prongs instead of flat ones. UK plugs are the larger (slightly) and more complex (with actual safety features!) ones.
Nope, US plugs are much safer. If you step on a US plug, it's going to hurt. If you step on a UK plug, that horrible thing is GOING THROUGH YOUR FOOT. Horrible design.
I daresay there's a greater chance of the US plug going through your foot, the UK prongs are very blunt.
There’s somewhat of a debate in the US over the ‘proper’ orientation of a grounded plug. Does the ground pion belong on top, like the UK orientation above, or on the bottom so it looks like eyes and a nose/mouth. One of the arguments for having it on top is to prevent something from falling across the conducting leads.