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E-Bombs: Technology Update
vaderhelmet writes "'In these media-fueled times, when war is a television spectacle and wiping out large numbers of civilians is generally frowned upon, the perfect weapon would literally stop an enemy in his tracks, yet harm neither hide nor hair. Such a weapon might shut down telecommunications networks, disrupt power supplies, and fry an adversary's countless computers and electronic gadgets, yet still leave buildings, bridges, and highways intact. It would strike with precision, in an instant, and leave behind no trace of where it came from.' (Story from IEEE Spectrum Online)"
First, the geek in me says: "Cool!" I know the military has been working on these kinds of weapons for decades, and it looks like they're getting closer. Anything that adds to the arsenal is a win in my book.
Now, it's too bad we didn't have this weapon last year for use in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Imagine the effectiveness of such a weapon! We could have annihilated the entire high-tech infrastructure of Afghanistan far more quickly than we could have using conventional weapons. The invasion would have been far more effective if the Taliban's high-tech, integrated command and control technology could have been disrupted from the start. I'd just like to see those camel-jockeys try to coordinate their attacks without their iPaq's and virtual reality headsets! Good luck with that one, Ahmed!
However, I'm a little concerned with the effectiveness of this type of weapon from a ratings point of view. How exactly do you keep the audience entertained without any explosions or visible signs of destruction? I really don't think people are going to stay tuned through the commercials for this. "After these exciting messages from our sponsors, watch all the lights blink off!" Great... Perhaps, as part of this research, they could integrated a conventional weapon with an E-weapon. I guess what I'd like to see is a combination E-Bomb/MOAB. Then you still get the visual effects, sure to scare the poop out of Terrorists (and their camels), with the added bonus of disrupting their sensitive, high-tech infrastructures. It's a win-win! Just make sure the next invasion is during sweeps week.
i-surrender!
Just reading the story made my teeth tingle.
"Most types of matter are transparent to microwaves, but metallic conductors . . . strongly absorb them, which in turn heats the material."Maybe somebody with better physics can help me out here, but I think I'd rather be shot than have all my fillings melt.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
It would strick with precision, in an instant, and leave behind no trace of where it came from.' (Story from IEEE Spectrum Online)"
That's why they didn't have any EMPs at Zion - they were still waiting for IEEE Compliancy.
The government's moral compass is controlled by GPS.
In times of crises, they alter it to suit their needs.
It would also strike all hospitals, causing loss of life. Which is particularly bad, because the Geneva convention forbids attacks against medical facilities, which shall be marked with a red cross, and the e-Bomb *would* attack such.
(8-DCS)
Don't tell that to Rockstar games!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
It's actually a pretty useless weapon in the current war or terror really. As you say, it doesn't work on AK-47s and RPG-7s. The biggest problem with such a weapon existing is that the best target to use it against would be our selves, hence you then have the added danger of fabrication becoming common knowledge. But...
Could you use a directional version of it to disable bomb circuitry? Ok, actually that's a bad idea, cos the bomb would probably go off, but I'm pretty sure if you could design something with a directional capability - kinda like a big overpowered microwave, it'd make a great anti-missile system for commercial jets.
And in these times when men are willing to sacrifice their lives by crashing planes and strapping bombs to themselves, that EMP won't do you much good. How does an EMP stop the guy in a heavily populated area from emptying an M16 into a crowd, or blowing up a U-Haul full of kerosene and fertilizer? So long as people are dedicated to their cause, they will fight, with or without their Palm Pilots. The Romans did.
do not read this line twice.
Ever seen a rat after 15s in a microwave?
Yeah, the batter gets all mushy. They're better deep fried.
Trolling is a art,
However, terrorists would rather use low-cost/high-bodycount methods, like hijacking a plane and flying it into a building; no cost to Al Queda (they just had to pay for training and carpet knives).
That's why the Bush method for fighting terrorismn is not working: cost America 100 + billion dollars, Al Queda nothing (in comparison)
Well...obviously one type of weapon is not proof against all types of attacks.
Consider Desert Storm. This mght have been good against the Iraqi tanks semi buried and used as fixed gun emplacements. And against Saddam's command and control facilities.
For the lone suicide bomber, you employ other tactics.
Don't. Make Me. Repeat. Some of the. Speeches. They Would Give.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
High Technology always loses! Hasn't anyone ever seen Stargate? Camel-riding nomads will always destroy their teched-out overlords!
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Where it wouldn't work is a place like Afganistan, where a local irregular knows how to use a camel and a kalashnikov. (Unless this device melts guns).
So, in summary, it seems like the perfect underdog weapon, where the underdog is not the US, but, say, Palestinians or Baathists. Terrorists could use it in the US, and we would be virtually defenseless, and it would render our expensive, high-tech army useless overseas.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
I think it was called Nimda!
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
If I were in charge, I would pre-emptively put a pace-maker inside any president upon election, healthy or not.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
That would depend on who the teroists are. Al Queda are not the only teroist group, and they are considered unusual because they are prepared (even eager) to commit attrocites with a high civilian death toll.
According to conventional doctrine a rational terrorists group will avoid killing large numbers of civilian bystanders in order to avoid aleanating the community from which they draw their support (and funding). For such a teroist group, a weapon capable of causing billions of dollars of economic damage to an enemy, while killing few if any civilians would be quite attractive.
An example of and economic attack would be the IRA (Irish Republican Army) bombs in the City of London financial district, which killed few if any people, (I can't remember the details) but did close to a billion dollars of damage. Had microwave weapons been avalable to the IRA at the time, it is likely that they would have used them.
I fail to see why the war is a failure because it cost money.
Well both Osama Bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein are still have not been captured or killed. The primary objectives of this war against terrorism.
Also, Al Queda *does* spend quite a bit of money too (remember the U.S. trying to freeze assets?). Arms dealers aren't working for free ya know.
Which is still nothing compared to what America is spending
And what I'm trying to say is, the way America is trying to fight this war is, like trying to kill a fly with a nuclear bomb. Maybe they should use there resources more effectively
Believe it or not, most modern pacemakers are fairly well shielded against EMP. Most of the problems that were had with people being near microwaves, etc. were with older designs of pacemakers. They have to put the warning signs on microwaves because you never know who has an old pacemaker. However, the amount of old (unipolar lead) pacemakers still around is rather small. Any EMP which damages the new designs is going to make every muscle in your body twitch, and do heart damage to those without pacemakers too.
I'm afraid I don't have a link, but I could refer you to the Report of Task Group 34, from the American Association or Physicists in Medicine, section IV. Don't ask why I have that paper lying around my office - it's a long story. The basic gist is, pacemakers are already encased in a Faraday cage.
Shockingly, we are one of the worst violators
Ok, since everyone else replying to this post doesn't seem to get it, I'll put it in terms /.ers can relate to...
Think of it as MS vs Open Source. The US military gets to be MS (more $$ than god, everywhere, and nearly all-powerful). And the "terrorists" get to be Open Source (devoted to some ideal, hard/impossible to discourage, and extremely decentralized).
Just as you can't kill Open Source because it's too decentralized and adaptive, you can't win Bush's "War on Terrorism". It's just not possible. The only way to stop it is to somehow come to terms with it.
Instead of trying to wipeout all these people, why not try to figure out why they see us as such a threat and such a hated enemy that hundreds of people each year are willing to violently kill themselves in an attemt to hurt us. Everyone here knows (or at least suspects) that the US has done many terrible things over the decades to many different people around the world in order to shape things to our liking. We can never win a war against terrorism, but we will destroy ourselves trying to, and you all know it.
- sig? who is this sig of which you speak?
You and many others have forgotten one of the fundamentals in life: Never get in a fight with someone who has less to lose than you.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
The military must prepare for The Next Enemy, whomever that may be. That's how you stay ahead of the curve and assured your not blindsided by something (say Sputnik and the possibility of living under a Commie Moon). Most nations out there have a varied mix of irregular and regular land, sea, and air branches. Predicting their national government, culture and outlook (and their possible hostility towards us and our friends) 40 years into the future is the domain of the State Department and think tanks.
So, yeah, an e-bomb might just gather dust... now. But in 10 years when it's in production? 20? Back in 1983 could anyone here predict the path of events that lead us to now?
Politicians start wars. Armies finish them. The military is just preparing for any contigency our governments decide to point and click them towards.
What is music when you despise all sound?
I wonder what sort of effect this would have on our lives if one just "accidently" gets dropped on the Microsoft campus? Hmmm.
Wow, 'The perfect weapon kills all of your enemies' reads like the logic of an 18-year-old. Since I turned 18, I've learned:
Injuries are preferred in combat: Kill an opposing combatant, and you take one enemy out of combat; wound him and you take out two or three people (to carry him, provide medical support, etc.). Plus, screaming comrades are a lot more demoralizing and distracting than dead ones.
Most combatants are not eager and hateful. They're conscripts or patriotic supporters of their government. When governments say the fighting should stop, they're happier alive than dead, and within decades most citizens can reconcile the deepest of rifts with former enemies, if their leadership doesn't continue to incite animosity.
In that vein, a man wounded in combat will reconcile, generally. His kids will, too. Kill him, and they'll never forget and are somewhat less likely to forgive.
Most importantly, your argument is hugely simplistic. Ignoring the lack of a pure litmus test that allows you tell the difference between friendlies and enemies, you can't kill *EVERYONE*. There's always a compassionate bystander. Kill a man, his family resents you. Kill a town, and you piss off a lot of friends and relatives. Kill all Iraqis and you just piss off all of the other arab nations. Kill off all the arabs, and muslims worldwide will hold a deep grudge. Once the damage exceeds the personal level, the circle of influence grows.
Sorry for the ad-homenim about you sounding like an 18-yr-old, but you got rated as insightful. Nothing could be further from the truth.
According to conventional doctrine a rational terrorists group will avoid killing large numbers of civilian bystanders in order to avoid aleanating the community from which they draw their support (and funding).
You are confusing Terrorist with Guerilla. A terrorist by definition is doing things to cause a general sense of "terror" in his enemies civillian population. This is best achieved if the targets are essentially random so every member of the population is at potential risk and if the attacks are as horrific as possible. So a bomb in a crowded pizza parlor is an act of terrorism while a sniper targetting a soldier is an act of guerrilla warfare. Either act is a matter of tactics so any particular group can be engaged in both kinds of activities.
Obviously as in the case of the IRA bombing in the City of London a single terrorist act can have multiple advantages. It WAS a terrorist attack in that it killed a number of people that belong to the "opinion class" and thus invokes terror throughout that class. It also did financial damage to a much wider group so they felt it have an impact on their lives personally. The whole point of their terrorism was to demoralize the enemy population so that they would conclude that Northern Ireland was not worth the cost of having to live in fear. A technological attack that did even more economic damage may have been effective but part of what the terrorist wants is the graphic scenes on TV of bleeding civillians running from the blast and the sight of all that damage (the City of London bombing was dramatic). Being TOLD about a bunch of computers being disrupted doesn't move public opinion the way that the random and horrific deaths of large numbers of people *just like you* does.
Ummm, you woudn't just drop dead if your pacemaker was disabled. Most people with pacemakers have them to augment their normal SA node pacemeaker, account for skiped beats. Other are combination defibrillators/pacemakers that help quell superventricular tachycardias, or speed up theur hearts during periods of bradycardia.
Very few people walk around with a pacemaker as their soul rhythm generator. These are the people that generally get heart transplants.
The disabling all electric devices and motors by an alien from outer space was the gave the title to this 1950s movie, consider among the best in the genre. The alien could show more discrimination in turning off devices than an e-bomb. The movie was considered a metaphor for the cold war, where the alien represented a powerful Soviet Union.
"Gort, Klaatu barada nikto"
It might make the general population of "liberated" countries like Iraq, even more hostile if you blow up their computers and Internet connections! Nothing worse than a horde of angry Iraqi children denied their Quake time.
Are you trying to be funny here?
Iraqis are pissed off because they had, for almost a month after their "liberation", no *FOOD* to put on their tables, no *WATER* to drink, no *MEDICINE* to use...
Even now, *GAS* and *WATER* electricity supplies remain sloppy.
Nobody gives a fuck about the internet.
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
Yes, most people use a Discman with a Marvin Gaye CD as their Soul Rhythm generator.