• HERF/NERF confusion gets +2, Funny.
• HERF/HREF confusion gets 0, Offtopic.

With EMP cannons, though, there's no need to acquire gov't controlled substances such as plutonium. It's all made out of common stuff that has everyday uses. What are you going to do? Require people to be licensed to buy components at Radio Shack? After all, them big capacitors can be used as a trigger in an explosive device, right?

The Soviet Coldbringer was actually a multiuse weapon that affected the climate in a more devestating way than electronics. Any simple atomic device will disrupt electronics. The real scary weapons are the ones that 'dirty' up vast areas of the biosphere. (And yea, Coldbringer is just a comic invention, but the concept of weapons that cause mass devestation specifically targetted at the biosphere is hardly new.)

What this whole post really tells me is that I have too much free time on my hands to read TDKR and The Watchmen and such...

--
Neurowiz (neurowizatneurowizdotcom)

Is that a HERF gun in your pocket or ....

Surely nothing you run around with under the jacket.

You could even make the device look like a cell phone itself, so that everybody around you (on the train, for example) will think their cell phone is broken, while you, for a change, bore them out of their skulls talking into your little gadget.

Here's the story on Electronic Telegraph: Immobilising the mobiles

I've adopted a somewhat more low-tech approach to the driving-while-phoning problem. I put a sign in my windshield that says, in reversed print, HANG UP AND DRIVE THE CAR.

If a trainstation is the place where trains stop, what is a workstation?

You're driving along and your radar/laser detector goes off. Automatically, electronics in your car wake up and direct a pulse of EMP back toward the radar source, turning the cop's radar gun into electronic quiche. Since you're driving a 1968 mustang with all mechanical linkages, your car really doesn't notice the blast. And you've taken precautions to shield the car's other electronics from nasty EMP blasts, so everything stays hunky and dory for you. The cop, on the other hand, can't even radio for help.

I'd hate to think what would happen if you EMP'ed a helecopter...

Hmmmm. That would be MUCH better than the two primary methods I have now.

Did you know a drunk driver is LESS likely to cause an accident than someone talking on a cell phone. The New england City (I forget the name) that passed the first seat belt law has now passed a law requiring you to keep both hands on the wheel while using a cell phone. (Read it in Time or People)

Usually, I just honk the horn and mime the motion of hanging up the phone. Actually had a few people mouth back, "sorry." and hang up! When a polite beep doesn't work, I use a much longer, less tactful foghorn-length blast. One guy just flipped me the bird and swung into my lane WHILE I WAS STILL THERE. Taught him a lesson though. Stayed behind him and kept my hand on the horn until he DID hang up, which was about ¼ mile from my turn anyway!

My favorite was when a 300 pound 40-something woman was talking on the phone and swerving between the lanes, effectively preventing all attempts to pass her. I beeped my horn, and when she looked I blew her a kiss. She lowered the cell phone and I pulled up beside her where I blew another kiss, then licked my lips. She just stared at me while I pulled ahead. I looked in my rear view mirror and she wasn't using the cell phone...

It didn't work so well at Burger King, though. The box that takes your order is usually NOT wired. It's RF! So I tried the same setup, so everyone could hear what the guy up front was ordering. Well, as soon as he spoke. A HUGE feedback loop resulted. Incessant loud squealing until I shut the PA off. Oops. :)

LOL. Something has been playing havoc with my very expensive DAC connected to my CD player. The DAC works fine everywhere, except at my house, which is near WCCP. I've sent the box in for repair 3 times, before I noticed that it worked fine at my parents house (and everywhere else I've tried it since). I've wondered for over a year now what the problem could be. Thanks for the post!

My pet fantasy du jour: Britney Spears with laryngitis.

Now, I wonder what FCC would think about the unlicensed use of a device "pushing a 20 megawatt burst of undisciplined radio noise through an antenna." Not much, I'll wager!

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"Cyberspace scared me so bad I downloaded in my pants." --- Buddy Jellison
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Go talk to your ham radio neighbor. If he's a typical ham, he'll assist you in eliminating the interference.

Indeed, a true HAM radio operator would be eager to take steps to ensure he wasn't causing you any interference. On the other hand, if you're dealing with a CB'er running some ungodly amount of power through an illegal amplifier, you're more likely to be told to screw off...CB and HAM radio are completely different services, with completely different philosophies, kind of like the difference between Linux/BSD/Open Source Whatever OS and MS/Proprietary whatever OS...

If he's not willing to work with you to eliminate the interference (You can usually get cheap little doohickys from Radio Shack that will fix it) find his co-ax and stick some pins in it. Clip 'em off with wire cutters and the next time he keys up he'll get all that wattage back into his radio, which his radio won't like.

• You're driving down the highway, blissfully ignorant of the speed limit. Suddenly, you see those blue and red lights flashing behind you. Panic? You? Nah. You hit that extra button below the rear defroster, and suddenly you're in the clear. Or better yet, you let yourself get pulled over, and then while waiting to ask if there's a problem, the other car starts acting funny...
  
  
• From the book: Someone in a van drives around the computing center of a bank. Hits a button. Computers start to drool. Wait a random amount of time, do it again.
  
  
• Your (former) employer doesn't believe that they need to worry about information warfare because "the firewall will protect us." Wait for the night before a drop, or the day of a demo, and suddenly the development machines, not to mention the firewall, are dead.
  

Grasping here at another opportunity to be wrong, but I think a high-quality wok is pretty doggone close to a paraboloid. I think I'd still rather be several thousand yards away & pull the trigger by remote control, just the same.

imagine disabling your competitor's server/network/... just for The Right Moment(tm) ...

:)

Yes I do, but not with me at the moment - I've been readig a book called Major Impact (or something similar) all about asteroid impacts and PHA's (Potentially Hazardous Asteroids). Project HAARP gets several pages devoted to it. I'll see if I can dig the info out from home and follow-up in here....

Lovepump - MVS Operations Analyst. Knows weird stuff like JCL, LE/370, SPUFI, etc.

The reason it goes down inverse square with a point source, is that the energy stays the same, but it's distributed on a bigger and bigger sphere. It has nothing to do with light, it has to do with the fact that you are spreading the light around in a (bigger and bigger) sphere.

But you can spread it in most any shape you like. It's just that sphere is the easiest to do.

You want to calculate energy per square metter. The number of square meters goes up. But the total energy is constant. You simply figure out how fast the number of square meters goes up per distance.

-Ariel

For those who haven't seen the Glubco microwave weapon, it's even simpler and cheaper than the HERF. It's also a hell of a lot more dangerous.

All you do is find an old microwave oven, tear it open, and remove the magnetron and associated HV power supply circuitry. You then build a small waveguide behind it so as not to fry yourself too badly. Point and shoot.

Now that I've said this, and the script-kiddies are off Darwinating themselves out of the gene pool, here's what happens to them:

1. Stupidity I. The capacitors in a high voltage supply on a microwave oven might not drain themselves automatically. If that happens, and the script kiddie is using both hands to play with the supply, he could fibrillate and die on the spot.
2. Stupidity II: If he's using one hand to play with the supply, when he gets zapped, he scrapes his hand to hell when jumping away from the shock. A Dejanews search on why you have to discharge the anode of a TV set before working on the tube will provide much amusement.
3. Stupidity III: All the nasty 120VAC bits are exposed, and our script kiddie doesn't use an isolation transformer, or does something similarly stupid. Bzzt, game over, thanks for playing.

1. Leakage. They get internal burns because the waveguide wasn't built well enough. Visions of fingers turned into fried chicken wings come to mind as someone makes a waveguide that's short and easily-concealable, but that accidentally gives very wide dispersion.
2. Reflection. More of the same. Y'know how your microwave oven works? Script kiddie points magnetron at a metal wall.
3. Fire. Ever throw a CD in a microwave and not turn the microwave off after the pretty light show? The CD starts to smoke and burn. I'd imagine it'd be very easy to get the same thing to happen with the house wiring. And downright trivial to get it to happen to the traces on any printed circuit board.

Moral of the story: It's a cool idea. And in a situation of civil disorder (East Timor, anyone?) might be a handy field-expedient terror weapon - plug it into a wall socket in the target building, turn it on, and get the hell out of dodge while everything burns. For anything else, it's merely a quick and easy ticket out of the gene pool. Just like the bogus recipies in the "Anarchist's Cookbook", think of it as evolution in action.

Original Magnetron page

Original Railgun Page

Original Oxygen Cannon Page

He'd have to have at least three stages of RLC circuits to get an efficient power coupling into the antenna and then radiated off into the ether (maybe he has, it doesn't show in the photo). Yes, it can be done by winding your own coils, and buying an old 20kV capacitor from an electric company auction or scrap dealer. Then you would have a very effective disruptor of unprotected electronics (but not likely to cause permanent damage except with a proximity of a few inches). Making it highly directional is left as an exercise for the student ;-)

Making it higly directional would just require a very smooth parabolic mirror similar to the one inside of a car's headlight. Put the source of the radiation and the vertex of the mirror and head to Seattle.

I'm not creative enough to come up with a signature

I've always thought that one of these would be a nice way of getting ahead in business. What, you say our competitor will get his release out a few weeks before ours? No problem.

The international terrorism aspects have struck me as being overblown. I'd guess the first incident could be something like a domestic group detonating an EMP device on the campus of a high profile high technology company somewhere in the Northwest. Such an incident could dramatically change corporate IT strategies. Hardened machines may will be purchased, but the majority of the money will be spent on centralized hardened data warehouses.

IMHO all car manufacturers should be required by law to restrict their engine sizes to 150HP maximum and design around that. Screw the "car aficianados" and "rice-boy" put putters, let's make driving safe for a change.

Just think if Chris Carter gets tired of putting up with David Duchovny ..

The Smoking Man pulls out his HERF gun while Mulder is on his omnipresent cell-phone, and
poof! .. end of franchise.

Anyone wanna take bets on when (not if) this technology gets butchered to fit into an X-Files episode?
-----
"I sometimes wonder why some people don't like John Tesh. And then I realize it's because he sucks." - Anonymous

Weapon of mass destruction for $189
Today, a large corporation released a computer product that, when used on computers, could crash the system, killing any user logged into it. These crashes can happen at any time, turning a Minesweeper game into a blood bath. IT professionals around the globe are searching for protection against this monster, backed by the power of marketing.

"I was playing Minesweeper... and i just crashed! *sob* All my defenseless programs..." a distraut secretary explained.

Any terrorist from the Middle East could go to Best Buy and buy this weapon for $189 dollars. But the most destructive aspect of this weapon are the people who use it on themselves voluntarily.

A hotdog vendor installed it on his home computer. "This bright blue screen came up right in the middle of my Minesweeper game. oh.. it was horrible. that mocking tone... and it GPF'd for no reason!"

It is not known if this terror will ever stop, as the company is rumored to have a new version made explictly for the year 2000. There are reports that many computers will become useless around that year as well. Is this a coincidence or some marketing genius' evil plan?

Heh, I'm not normal down on Micros~1 so much, just think this kind of journalism is funny.
--
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics won't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty

I don't just want to crash your system I want to destroy it. Oh, I'm not limiting myself to PCs, I need an EMP gun to get cell phones, cell towers, and most importantly assholes with giant subwoofers in their cars. Snoop, your days are numbered!

EMP weapons have been around for years and have been deployed commercially since the 80s. If you know the right people you can buy a unit which you just fit over the road from you competitor and they suffer severe IT problems! (Not to mention cancer etc!)

A single cellphone can bring down a 747, so what is the big news?

If security is important, then put your equipment somewhere it can't be hit by radio or magnetic pulses. More to the point, the radio the computers emit cannot be intercepted either!!

Check out www.thebunker.net for a safe haven for all computers! Nuclear proof!