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Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb./Operator: We get signal./...CATS: All your base are belong to us.

The United Kingdom's Defence (sic) Secretary Phillip Hammond, scheduled to speak at the third Electric Infrastructure and Security Council (EIS) Summit, is expected to highlight vulnerabilities of Britain's current defense and commercial infrastructure to electro-magnetic pulse bombs.

Destructive EMPs can come from a variety of sources -- specialized bombs/weapons, nuclear strikes in the atmosphere, and even naturally occurring phenomena, such as solar flares.  The UK defense official first raised the EMP issue several months ago, and the government has since responded with an analysis warning of a "known and significant" risk to sensitive sectors such as satellite communications and the nation's power grid.

The UK is determined to go beyond "conventional" technologies in preparing for EMPs.  of primary concern is not only potential terrorist strikes, but also a repeat of 1859's Carrington Event -- a massive solar storm which knocked out the telegraph system.  Experts say a solar storm of that magnitude could leave a large portion of modern electronic devices fried if it were to occur today.

The U.S. is also nervously eyeing the prospect of a massive terrorist or naturally-occurring EMP event.  Comments Avi Schnurr, the chief executive officer of the US Electric Infrastructure and Security Council (EIS) and a White House adviser on the issue, "We are beginning to realise that, unfortunately, all our societal eggs are in one fragile electric basket, and we are not sufficiently protecting ourselves.  We have become potential victims of our own technical advancement. The evolution of national electric grids and key infrastructure components means that we are more vulnerable to EMP than ever before."

Solar storm
A once-in-a-lifetime massive solar storm could fry satellites and modern electronics, as could an EMP weapon strike. [Image Source: NASA]

His UK counterpart says a key obstacle is convincing the public to pay extra taxes or divert money from current programs in order to beef up infrastructure to withstand EMP and to invest in space-based efforts to detect solar storms before they strike.  One such effort is the €2.54 million European Union SPACECAST project, which aims to make government solar weather data available to private satellite operators.

While expensive, such projects could allow for power grids to undergo protective shutdowns in the event of a catastrophic solar storm, and could allow satellites to undergo automated shutdowns in an attempt to ride out the storm.  Such precautions could prevent millions -- if not billions -- in damage to vital communicates satellites.

Sources: UK Parliament, Telegraph


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WW III
By chromal on 5/15/2012 7:52:17 PM , Rating: 2
This. This is a topic that I actively worry about. It would be one extremely effective way to destroy an economy and bring an unprepared infrastructure grid down, and the weapons technology exists. What do you do when you car won't start, your faucets don't deliver water, there's no grid electricity, your generator won't work, and your battery-powered solid-state radios won't receive. You have no money because your bank's database is offline, the ATMs are dead, and that piece of plastic in your wallet isn't currency. What if it's the dead of winter? Etc, etc.




RE: WW III
By StevoLincolnite on 5/15/2012 10:51:50 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
You have no money because your bank's database is offline, the ATMs are dead, and that piece of plastic in your wallet isn't currency.


I'm all for collecting bottle caps!


RE: WW III
By ThisSpaceForRent on 5/16/2012 1:40:29 PM , Rating: 2
Nuka-Cola for the win!


RE: WW III
By Ammohunt on 5/15/2012 11:17:28 PM , Rating: 2
Long past time to stock up on food water and ammo.


RE: WW III
By Reclaimer77 on 5/15/2012 11:59:03 PM , Rating: 2
I think this is just fear-mongering. An EMP wouldn't be that effective unless it's a very high altitude air-burst of a large nuclear device. A ground level device would just cause highly localized effect. In that case your cell-phone would be the LAST of your problems.

I mean something like this just isn't in the terrorists playbook anyway.

Now if we're talking about another country doing this....well I don't think that would happen either. They know we can assure their destruction utterly.


RE: WW III
By maugrimtr on 5/16/2012 8:40:25 AM , Rating: 2
Fear mongering on the part of another nation using an EMP, yes. On the part of a natural event? No... The main risk is a natural occurance which would be just as devastating as a manmade bomb. Consider the past record...(quoting, I'm sorry!, from wikipedia):

quote:
Ice cores contain thin nitrate-rich layers that can be used to reconstruct a history of past events before reliable observations. These show evidence that events of this magnitude—as measured by high-energy proton radiation, not geomagnetic effect—occur approximately once per 500 years, with events at least one-fifth as large occurring several times per century.[9] Less severe storms have occurred in 1921 and 1960, when widespread radio disruption was reported.


RE: WW III
By tng on 5/16/2012 9:06:42 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Fear mongering on the part of another nation using an EMP, yes. On the part of a natural event?
One thing you can count on is that the 1859 event will happen again. Might be next year, might be 100 years from now, but it will happen.

They had reports of telegraph wires melting off of the poles in the 1859 event. Think of what that would do to our electronic society.


RE: WW III
By PrinceGaz on 5/16/2012 9:49:42 AM , Rating: 2
They didn't have aluminium foil in 1859. We would have advance warning of an 1859 strength event so provided you have aluminium foil at home, all you have to do is unplug your electronic devices from everything and wrap them in the foil and they're shielded. I think.


RE: WW III
By tng on 5/16/2012 9:01:16 AM , Rating: 2
RC77, consider this.

North Korea and Iran both have medium range missiles that are capable of launching nuclear weapons (that is still just an assumption).

Put that missile and launcher on a container ship and launch it 200 miles off the West or East coast, detonate it 800 miles over Kansas. Currently there is no defense against this type of attack, and no way to tell who was behind the launch either.

Yes, everything goes down. How prepared are people in this country to live for months without the infrastructure support that they currently have? There will be no food deliveries to stores, no gas deliveries, no electric heat or cooling.

How much food is currently stored by the average person? How long before there is mass chaos in all of the affected metro areas? Face it, millions of people will die of just starvation or the ensuing riots over food.

MAD is now outdated thanks to our pursuit of better and faster computers. Now our enemies don't need hundreds of nukes, they just need one and a halfway decent delivery system and the US and the majority of Canada is out of action.


RE: WW III
By Reclaimer77 on 5/16/2012 9:48:35 AM , Rating: 2
So it's the Cold War all over again is it? Where we cook up doomsday scenario's of what North Korea or Iran "might" be capable of, and act on them? Then spend 10, 20, however many years massing for a war or event that will never happen. Sound familiar?

If we thought North Korea or Iran had plans for such an attack, we should be at war with them TODAY. Not sitting here living in fear of the possibilities, spending god-knows how much money, just waiting for it to happen.


RE: WW III
By tng on 5/16/2012 10:14:18 AM , Rating: 2
Not saying that you are wrong, but yeah, we should spend some time looking at this and some money to defend against it.

In a government that already wastes billions, there is a huge upside in money spent on this type of defense.

The reason is that unlike the Cold War where standing armies with conventional arms and nukes were the norm, now just one well funded nutcase with a small nuke could do as much damage.


RE: WW III
By Reclaimer77 on 5/16/2012 12:03:44 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
The reason is that unlike the Cold War where standing armies with conventional arms and nukes were the norm, now just one well funded nutcase with a small nuke could do as much damage.


Don't be shocked to hear a Conservative saying this, but I disagree.

I'm seeing more and more that "terrorism" is being used to justify an alarming number of expenditures and pork projects. Not to mention expansion of Gov powers and losses of privacy. And while we should always remain vigilant, whipping people up into a hysteria about an EMP wiping out civilization is just abhorrent to me. With Bin Laden dead and Al Queda and other terrorists groups completely reduced to almost nothing, now is not the time for such fantasies in my opinion about some "nutcase" with a "dirty bomb" wiping us out.

EMP travels in a linear path, straight. For EMP to have any major effect, one nutcase with a small nuke wouldn't cut it. It would have to be a high altitude burst of a military-class thermonuclear device in the high megaton range. Hello? Come on lets be real here.


RE: WW III
By knutjb on 5/16/2012 5:43:46 PM , Rating: 2
I do not think you have a clear understanding of the potential problem. What if a small, low-level EMP burst happens over the northeast? Pretty much everything made of silicon will be fried in line of site. As well as much of anything connected to the grid in the region. Silicon chips are fragile to free electrons. As much as 1/3 to 1/2 of the grid could be tripped. Will there be enough spare parts available to get it running in weeks, months, maybe even years? Unless a backup generator is nuke hardened it will likely not work either. I have worked around nuke-hardened equipment and it is VERY EXPENSIVE. The only electronic device that is immune is a vacuum tube. It stops working during the pulse and resumes, provided the rest of the components did not fry.

Grocery stores run on a 3-day inventory. The need for potable water. Just look at the brownouts and blackouts that have occurred in that area, very ugly.

The suitcase size you refer to could be put in a small airplane. In addition, EMP bursts do not require a "military grade" high yield device. Your argument is naive.


RE: WW III
By m51 on 5/22/2012 10:08:51 PM , Rating: 2
EMP is a phenomena that occurs when some of the energy of a nuclear burst is converted into an electromagnetic wave. There are actually 3 different waves and they are created by a large number of different physical processes during the burst. Without getting into hairy details the major points are that to achieve a large emp pulse with wide coverage the burst needs to occur in a vacuum. An atmospheric burst results in most of the energy ending up as thermal energy, not emp.

A low level burst is not going to produce a massive emp pulse unless it's a very high yield weapon, even then the range will be limited. This is clear from the historical data of the many air burst atomic tests conducted and the data does not support catastrophic doomsday emp catastrophy.

There are some similarities of emp with static discharge. The medium speed emp wave is very similar to what you get from a lightning strike. Modern electronics are extensively designed to withstand static discharge because they are constantly exposed to such phenomenon. So Electronics are not THAT vulnerable. The high speed wave is difficult to protect against, but it's also the shortest range, line of sight limited. The long wave pulse is only a danger to long conductors such as power lines, and it's strength is very much dependent on a high altitude burst and the strength of the earths magnetic field lines under the burst.

EMP can be a threat, but you have to do a space burst to affect a large area. That requires significant rocket technology. It shouldn't be over sensationalized though. It's not some catastrophic doomsday scenario available to anyone with an atomic weapon.


RE: WW III
By m51 on 5/22/2012 10:12:21 PM , Rating: 2
I should further point out that Natural phenomenon only produce the long wave type of EMP. A CME event from the sun can damage long conductors like power lines (simple fix is discconnecting them with early warning) but is not a significant threat to terrestrial electronics.


RE: WW III
By kattanna on 5/16/2012 10:30:16 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Put that missile and launcher on a container ship and launch it 200 miles off the West or East coast, detonate it 800 miles over Kansas. Currently there is no defense against this type of attack, and no way to tell who was behind the launch either.


just how ignorant are you?

every ship that comes in/out of north korea is tracked. the minute they saw a missile being raised up into a launch position, it would be sunk. end of story.


RE: WW III
By mmatis on 5/16/2012 11:42:09 AM , Rating: 2
I hate to tell you this, but Iran has successfully launched at least one satellite into orbit. That means they don't NEED to put the missile on no steenkin' ship.

And for those of you pooh-poohing this as no big deal, look up the results of previous EMP tests by the US and USSR:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse

The issue is the transformers on the long lines in the electrical power grid. The lines act as antennas and channel the EMP through those transformers, which then blow up spectacularly. And when a significant number of them are destroyed, we neither have the spares to replace them nor the capability to make their replacements in this country. Just how long can YOU survive without electrical power? And then think of all your friends with their EBT cards in New York, DC, Chicago, Detroit...


RE: WW III
By Reclaimer77 on 5/16/2012 12:44:26 PM , Rating: 2
Why are we talking about EMP like it's new phenomenon? We've studied it and researched it since the 1950's!!


RE: WW III
By bh192012 on 5/16/2012 2:55:47 PM , Rating: 2
True, however society wasn't quite as vunerable to it then. There were humans working at the bank with local paper trails and people carried physical money etc. I could see access to money when banks have no electricity or phones being an issue. The local grocery store might have similar issues when getting goods from it's suppliers. People are more dependant on these networks now.

It's probably not something to freak about or "fear monger," however it should be prepared for reasonably. Perhaps a few study groups and a few extra transformers produced and stored strategically etc. Some flyers or guides printed out for communities to help manage obvious problems.


Defence (sic)
By Chernobyl68 on 5/15/2012 4:39:52 PM , Rating: 4
I don't think you need to say "spelling included" on that...some words are different in the UK, such as Colour, Defence, etc...




RE: Defence (sic)
By aharris02 on 5/15/2012 5:07:11 PM , Rating: 5
I took it as Jason knocking the British English's spelling of the word and found it quite humorous if that is the case.


RE: Defence (sic)
By drycrust3 on 5/15/2012 6:06:37 PM , Rating: 2
I think it would have been better for people learning English as a second language if America had stuck to UK spelling.


RE: Defence (sic)
By geddarkstorm on 5/15/2012 7:22:53 PM , Rating: 1
Why stop there? It would have been better for people learning English as a second language if everyone had stuck with Middle English. Or better yet, if we had all just stuck with the first language ever invented, then no one would have to learn a second language in the first place.


RE: Defence (sic)
By Reclaimer77 on 5/15/12, Rating: 0
RE: Defence (sic)
By hexxthalion on 5/16/2012 6:46:35 AM , Rating: 2
Am I reading your comment correctly? Are you saying that UK spelling is wrong? UK English is the English not the US version.


RE: Defence (sic)
By JKflipflop98 on 5/16/2012 7:50:51 AM , Rating: 2
Can't tell if serious?


RE: Defence (sic)
By Paj on 5/16/2012 8:05:13 AM , Rating: 1
You're a worldly guy! If you think Received Pronounciation is hard, you should try visiting Liverpool or Manchester. Or Chester. Or maybe even Lancashire. Or a place where one of the many other English accents, with their own dialects, pronunciations and spellings can be found.

Personally, I've always found the New York accents sound like gangsters, Boston accent sounds strange, and Southern US accents sound like rednecks or oil magnates. But thats stereotypes for you.


RE: Defence (sic)
By mmatis on 5/16/2012 11:35:32 AM , Rating: 2
And then there be Ebonics...


RE: Defence (sic)
By acer905 on 5/16/2012 12:38:50 PM , Rating: 2
No.... Just, no.


RE: Defence (sic)
By GPig on 5/16/2012 4:32:11 PM , Rating: 3
Or more importantly - a logical date format! It has been the bane of many IT & software engineers jobs at one point or another.

Enough of my ranting, it's a rather late 34 seconds past 9 and 29 minutes...


RE: Defence (sic)
By geddarkstorm on 5/15/2012 7:18:47 PM , Rating: 3
Or so that the spelling nazis wouldn't blow a gasket.


RE: Defence (sic)
By JasonMick (blog) on 5/15/2012 7:54:27 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Or so that the spelling nazis wouldn't blow a gasket.
Ding, ding, ding, winner.

As much as I love your emails, I'm not sure I want to see 3-10 emails telling me I don't know how to spell "defense" properly or that I'm being inconsistent. :)

No affront to UK folks, of course.


RE: Defence (sic)
By probedb on 5/16/2012 9:52:49 AM , Rating: 2
I always find the term "British English" amusing as if it's somehow different to "English". We do have some silly spellings for words though.


$700 billion defense budget
By tayb on 5/15/2012 4:47:23 PM , Rating: 4
With a $700 billion annual defense budget I think we should be able to squeeze out some money for this. Extra taxes should not be necessary.




RE: $700 billion defense budget
By Dr of crap on 5/16/2012 8:38:23 AM , Rating: 2
You do know how politicans and the govt works don't you?

They never have enough money for anything and NEED more tax revenue always!

$700 billion, ha, some senator could spend that with his mouth tied behind his back!!


RE: $700 billion defense budget
By FITCamaro on 5/16/2012 1:33:07 PM , Rating: 2
First, you're about $70 billion high.

Second, how about we also cut Medicaid, Food Stamps, Unemployment, etc. Those programs budgets have ballooned more than the defense budget has over the past 10 years. Especially in the past 3 years.

Somehow I think you won't agree with that.


Hats, hats! A hatmaker please!
By MrBlastman on 5/15/2012 4:50:04 PM , Rating: 5
And not just your average milliner but a hatmaker extraordinaire! Craft me good sir a hat so divine. Not of the finest tweed or silky woven thread, no not such soft cloth but aluminum, please! Make it bold, make it grand, make it a dome about my head.

Hats, hats, hatmaker, please, could you make me one of these?

Quantum computing, oh we yearn for thee, rescue us from this helpless plea!




no electronics
By ssobol on 5/16/2012 12:10:14 PM , Rating: 2
J.J. Abrams is creating a network show for the fall that will explore effectively the same thing.

"The show takes place 15 years after an unexplained phenomenon has crippled the world, effectively shutting down anything dependent on electricity."




By Beenthere on 5/16/2012 5:07:01 PM , Rating: 2
To produce an effective EMP is more difficult than a chemical or bio attack so while an EMP is possible I'd worry more about the other, easier avenues of attack including cyber terrorism.




Pic reference...
By Ramstark on 5/16/2012 6:37:57 PM , Rating: 2
Ok, I haven't seen enough anime, it's the first pic in DT that I don't get...info please??




"I'm an Internet expert too. It's all right to wire the industrial zone only, but there are many problems if other regions of the North are wired." -- North Korean Supreme Commander Kim Jong-il











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