Let me take a shot at what I remember (think I remember) from my physics
class. Compact Flash, is SRAM, static based ram, kind of like bubble
memory. The gate states are moved, and stay moved when there is power.
Given that it requires very little power to actually move the states, yes,
the ram is suseptable.
Xray is too high of an order of waves to effect it (I think). BUT, the
problem is, the Xray machines use a lot of energy. Given the "tunnel" your
camera goes through, the scanner tunnel, being made of metal; apply enough
electricity current by/through/around it, and you've created a Guassian
field. That means you block everything from entering that field (assuming
you pump enough juice through it) and you can erase whatever is inside.
Now, most people would not trust running their harddrive through one of
those, so why would you trust your digital camera??? Guassian fields can be
picked up on very slow film (800-3200ISO), and "should" give you either a
blank out of the film, or else the magnetic energy spectrum should be
yielded on your film, thus causing a nice "Rainbow" effect on your film..
Kind of like holding a magnet to your tv or your computer monitor.. I don't
assume there are any digital camera's right now that come with magnetic
shielding (hmm.. maybe a marketing suggestion!!) so without such, it seems
difficult to determine what might happen.
Given things are in compact flash, why not just remove the memory before you
walk through the scanner??? That seems easy enough, shove it in your
wallet, and drop it in the plastic bin as you walk through the scanners...
So they don't get scanned..
Radiation is not the primary worry, radiation bombardment will shorten the
life of the memory, BUT, it's the electromagnetic field that is induced that
you should worry about IMHO.
Albert
> Hmmm. Do we actually know this to be true for current and future
> (presumably more powerful) xray scanners? If you throw enough alpha
> particles at a DRAM (which is volatile memory) you can change its
> state. I don't know anything about the technologies used in our static
> memories like Compact Flash and Smart Media. Are these also susceptible
> to having their data bits knocked about with enough radiation?
>
> Chuck Norcutt
> Woburn, Massachusetts, USA
>
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