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Stopping Cars With Microwave Radiation
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Researchers have created an electromagnetic system that can quickly bring a vehicle to a stop by sending out pulses of microwave radiation to disable the microprocessors that control the central engine functions in a car. A 200-pound unit attached to the roof of a police car can be used to stop fleeing and noncooperative vehicles. The average power emitted in a single shot is about 10 kilowatts at 100 hertz and since each radiated pulse lasts about 50 nanoseconds, the total energy output is 100 joules at a distance of 15 meters. One concern with the device is that it could cause an accident if a car is disabled and a driver loses steering control. The device could also disable other vehicles in the area so the most practical application may be for perimeter protection at remote areas. Criminals have a work-around too. Since electronic control modules were not built into most cars until 1972, the system will not work on automobiles made before that year."
Seams a lot more useful in a war zone. At a roadblock in Iraq i think people would appreciate their engine getting shut off a little more the getting shot at.
It could even be set up on a speed trap so that if you enter a road block at a certain speed it would shut off the car automatically.
I guess once again the problem may lie in the fact that most cars in Iraq and other hot spots may not have the Electronic components needed for this. But hey if it stops something like http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4323209.stm then i think its worth it?
-EL
Agreed - sounds like a cool way to disable pace-makers, hearing aids and the likes. I don't foresee this thing taking off not only for safety concerns, but because it just doesn't seem practical for police to outfit specialized vehicles with equipment like this. 99 out of 100 (made up statistic) police cars are run-of-the-mill cruisers/interceptors and the extra 1 is parked somewhere with no hope of being in the right place at the right time clear across town.
I imagine it won't be all that big of a deal at all. I really am missing how the thing works at all. The article mentioned that it had the possibility of shutting off bystander's cars as well. What's to stop it from killing the engine to the police car, or in your hypothetical, the suspect's car? I can't see this ever coming into wide spread usage. The on-star style kill-switch mechanism is much more likely to fill this product's intended niche.
I got a catholic block.
I wonder if military vehicles have their vehicle's CPU's shielded...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
To mess them up and make go out of there set limits and I just found this to day.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slot_machine
Modern slot machines are controlled by EPROM computer chips and, in large casinos, coin acceptors have become obsolete in favor of bill acceptors. These machines and their bill acceptors are designed with advanced anti-cheating and anti-counterfeiting measures and are difficult to defraud. Early computerized slot machines were sometimes defrauded through the use of cheating devices, such as the "slider" or "monkey paw" used by notorious slot cheat Tommy Glenn Carmichael. However, more recent attempts at defrauding slot machines involve manipulating the EPROM, such as by directing microwaves toward it to disrupt its proper functioning.[6] Casino insiders such as Ronald Dale Harris have also been discovered manipulating the software in slot machines in order to defraud casino operators.
REMOTE MICROWAVE JAMMER DEVICE
http://arcadenemy.freewebsitehosting.com/microwave.html
yotube video of it working on a us game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMdEZezkrZ8
No. Aeroplanes use entirely shielded electronics gear. Missiles (especially the nuclear type) are likely to be used in an environment with a high probability of an EMP burst and are built to withstand it (which is why "mil spec" usually equates to badass). Satellites? They contend with a helluvalot more than 100J of energy on a daily basis.
Which also makes me wonder why, if someone were intent on illegality, they couldn't put their own little faraday cage around the car's ECU. A little box made of copper with a drain wire to the car frame too hard to implement?
I keep trying to pick fights, but I can't shake this Excellent karma.
What happens when criminals get their hands on this and start disabling police cars as well?
What's to stop it from killing the engine to the police car?
What's to stop me from changing your quote to make it easy to counter?
..most of them are jack booted thugs. The honest ones with ethics soon leave police "work" (yes, I know some who did just that, saw it from the inside and quit as fast as they could). The number one criteria for recruiting new police officers in most jurisdictions today is prior military *combat* experience. It is not a degree in any sort of "police science". As the expression goes "wake up, fo!". The US is rapidly de evolving into just another typical tyranny police state. Any crime committed by the state is excusable based on "security". The "state" works overtime enacting new laws so that no single human can even exist without breaking one. Years ago, "no knock" raids were extremely uncommon, almost non existent, along with "courtesy checkpoints" and so on,now it is routine-routine like in east germany stasi action routine.
Sorry, skinhead violence bent steroid popping cops are JBTs now more than anything else. "Officer Friendly" whistling and walking his beat in the neighborhood greeting everyone by first name is from long ago, that just doesn't exist anymore, and especially since they started the extremely lucrative and power accumulating "war on some drugs" and since the Feds started funding local police departments and since they all went to paramilitary setups complete with all the modern weapons they want. Abuse is *common* now, it is daily across the US, it isn't "a few bad apples". Want proof? Go out start taking some pictures of cops in a normal public place, get back to us with what happens to you. Want to try another, you know, test out "no unreasonable search and seizure"? Go find a roadblock, then say "no" to everything they say and then drive off, which by our born with rights you are able to. Go ahead, try it. Try saying no to a search of your car, try saying "Do you have a warrant or probable cause? No? Sorry, I am leaving, get out of my way officer"
that will be the last thing you say before "ouch!" (go ahead a do a review of our most basic born with rights, not state granted, born-with before you comment indignantly)
You'll wake up with a concussion and taser burns in a jail cell, probably cracked ribs leading to a punctured lung as well, perhaps permanent kidney damage from the boot treatment you will get from around 5 or 6 cops, with charges ranging from assault on a police officer, to resisting arrest, to failure to "obey instructions" and probably a host of other things, along with the drugs they "found in the suspect's vee-hick-el", which they will plant on you, along with most likely a cheap handgun.
Sorry, cops are just another mercenary force now, following orders to protect the elites in our society, their masters, and allowed as much sport on the street as they can handle, keeps them amused and their masters want a completely cowed and intimidated population, because this is how tyrannies stay in power. The state induces a terror into the population until such a point as all resistance is futile. Look around the planet today and in past history-there's no difference. The king's thugs are the king's thugs, doesn't matter the flag flown or the language spoken. sure, the US isn't quite as bad as say north korea yet, so what? That's the direction it is headed, they haven't retreated on one single issue, they keep coming up with more sophisticated weapons, more surveillance, more laws for you to break. Do you get it yet, see the pattern? Look back ten years, now turn around extrapolate out ten more. Feeling lucky?
After you get out of jail, you can go protest in a "free speech zone", unless you feel like protesting outside of that..lather rinse repeat of the above.
Car chases? Get rid of the war on some drugs, eliminate 90% of the crime. It used to be booze prohibition drove most crime. There is a clue there. Of course, they could get by with only 10% of the cops and lawyers and judges and so on then. think about that. that and all the paramilitary cop paraphernalia, the ability to restrict voting to huge swaths of the population, the ability to use thei
I have an old diesel powered mid-1970s backhoe. Like any diesel engine, it does not have a distributor or spark plugs. Diesel engines use compression ignition instead of spark plugs. It has a purely mechanical type fuel injection system. When I turn the key off, the engine just keeps on running while the electrical system has been turned off. To actually turn the engine off, I need to hold down a small lever, which is hooked to the fuel injection system, for several seconds. I am not sure if the newer diesel vehicles have any microprocessors or electronics in their fuel injection systems or not. The old ones at least were purely mechanical.
The article said that the microwave radiation system would not affect cars manufactured before 1972. Apparently, the old points and condenser type ignition systems used in gasoline engines built before 1972 are not affected.
When flying in a small airplane back in the early 1980s, I was surprised to learn that it's engine used dual-magnetos. Magnetos had also been widely used in old antique cars, back before being replaced by distributors with points and condenser. Magnetos spun a magnet inside a coil to generated their own electricity and used a contact breaker and had ignition wires going directly to the spark plugs. I doubt that engines with magnetos could be stopped by microwave radiation pulses. Do newer airplanes still use magnetos? Do they now use microprocessors or fancy electronics somewhere in either the fuel system or ignition system? In the airplane, the key could be turned to different positions to choose to use either magneto or both magnetos at once. If the rest of the electrical system failed, the magnetos could generate their own power and keep on working.
When I was teenager, I remember my uncle showing me an old magneto which had come from an old car. He said "hold these two wires for a moment. Don't worry its not hooked to a battery, I just want you to hold them while I spin the shaft slightly." Of course, a magneto doesn't need to be hooked to a battery, or anything else, to produce high voltage ignition pulses.
So if they are zapping someone and hit another car are they responsible if that car crashes? Will this affect on board safety equipment as well? ABS? Airbags? There is a lot of reliance on microprocessors in many new cars.
It would not be long after entering service before they hit the wrong car and the question becomes, how will the courts treat that?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Planes at takeoff or low level military aircraft would be easier targets with very high power and very directional microwave, which is (relatively) easy to make directional. Although getting enough power is going to require a big machine.
...
But I think this technology will become almost common military weaponry in the future, especially as so much military hardware is going remote or fully autonomous.
That said there are ways to screen out some RF. For example
http://www.techtickerblog.com/2006/04/14/paint-will-turn-your-cell-phone-off/
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
Its not "ignorant", and its not "misuse".
The transitive form "Begs the question foo" is distinct from the intransitive form "Begs the question" (the latter with no object). The latter only makes sense when referring to the petitio principi fallacy, the former is equivalent to "raises the question". The are different in form, and therefore unambiguous, they are both in long use, and it is purely misguided and ignorant to claim that the fact that the latter is proper means that the former is somehow improper, incorrect, or wrong in any way.
Phrases in natural language—like functions in many programming languages—may have different semantics with different argument structures.