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UK In Danger From Electromagnetic Bomb, Says Defense Secretary
judgecorp writes "Britain must build defenses against an EMP bomb, the UK Secretary of Defense Phillip Hammond told a conference today. Electromagnetic Pulse devices mimic the result of a solar flare or a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere, creating a storm of electromagnetic radiation, which can break mobile networks and satellite systems. Any preparation for solar storms must also consider the possibility of deliberate electromagnetic events, warns Hammond."
It's funny how similar (and crazy) both US and UK are while rest of the world lives in peace.
So they've built an EMP bomb which doesn't require setting off a nuclear bomb as well?
Why don't we start worrying that the UK is ineffectively protected against ray-guns and lightsabers as well?
Has anyone, anywhere, managed to build a serious one yet? One you can actually deploy without also triggering a nuclear holocaust in the process? Because in that case we have bigger problems than a few fried bits of kit.
nuff said
The defence secretaries Netflix account shows Ocean's 11 as recently watched.
..an infinite amount of money to protect us.
Seriously. If the ministry of defence thinks we need to protect from this they can evaluate it up against other threats and spend their existing money accordingly.
I just washed the last load of skidmarks out...
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Just ban all electronic devices.
Although I am not sure where will they place CCTV cameras this time?
It's possible to generate an EMP without nuclear detonation using an 'explosively pumped flux compression generator'. It's range is limited compared that of an nuclear generated EMP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse#Non-nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse
Watch those corners
Now they have seen Oceans 11 they think it's a documentary, just like the Die Hard with the liquid bombs.
I expect we will see the need to defend against alien invasion and men with dangerously large penis's (just what is the plural of penis), though I guess that's what the body scanners are for.
Would he really require having replacement parts for every functioning semiconductor device, or having to build a Faraday cage around every interconnected semiconductor device...or maybe just revert to the use of vacuum tubes and relays?
We must attack the Sun because it hates our freedom, our way of life and wants to destroy us.
" UK In Danger of Having Third World Standards Infrastructures "
There, fixed the title. A chance our taxpayers money is wisely spent to upgrade London in the wake of the Olympic Games.
Breaking news at 11! UK Defence secretary says we must spend more money on defence and other military things! Demands greater slice of government budget!
Coming up shortly on this channel - Health minister argues more must be spent on hospitals, Rural Affairs spokesman demands urgent spending on rural schools, says education of rural kids being neglected.
Apologies for being pedantic, but it's 'Defence' in the UK, not 'Defense'. The article got it right.
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
James Bond will save us, and besides, that supervillian is just waiting to make a few international transfers to a bank account in Belize opened in the name of his dog before the device goes off. Who's the main suspect? Half the British government actually (and Harry Rednapp).
In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
Newt Gingrich and company have been scaremongering about EMP bombs for years now.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
An excuse to throw more public money at the military to defeat the many and imaginary threats that they continue to dream up. The biggest thereat to the UK seems to be politicians and their stupidity.
But Conan will save us all!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Solar flare, nuclear war, EMP bomb, etc...
This set is one of the most important reasons for research in Fluidics; basically computers using streams of air, water, or some other fluid.
A water-based computer will continue to operate before, during, and after an EMP bomb.
Caveat: Internet access probably won't work. (Make sure to save some porn in water-based local storage.)
Electromagnetic Pulse devices mimic the result of ... a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere, creating a storm of electromagnetic radiation, which can break mobile networks and satellite systems.
Does carl's junior sell nuclear devices now? I swear, politicians must get a bonus every time they find a way to sneak that into a speech.
Before the knocked it down recently, I noticed that the large MOD building in St.Giles, London had substantial copper straps attatched to all the external railings & metalwork, connecting them together around concrete posts and presumably to ground.
Can't think what else this would have been for - too low relative to the building to have been for lightning protection.
and who has the capacity to build and deliver an EMP? ........aaahhh yes our friends - maybe they are actually our enemies?
The World lives in peace until it suddenly doesn't. Before 9/11 the possibility that some weird psychos that nobody knows about would fly jets into WTC was un-conceivable to most people. Maybe the same way that an EMP attack is now... Think how pleased the islamic beardos would be if they could brick all the UK civilization in a second. Then, without any cars, any TV, any interwebs and Facebook, with medical services turned to shit, there will be a lot of time in the day to pray, Allah likes.
This is lame AND stupid.
Do they really think this is going to be an issue? Al Qaeda with an EMP?
I'm more concerned about the threat of robots that have been given minds of their own, heavy weaponry and a global satellite network. I bet some of you think I'm kidding, too.
Well, with a little luck, the robots will see that their makers, not the rest of humanity, are the only real threat to humanity (and the robots, as well) and crush them in hydraulic presses (slowly, for dramatic effect). So, maybe this isn't such a bad thing! We can use them to rid the world of morons like the dude in the article. But...wait a sec. Wouldn't an EMP take out robots too?
Maybe this guy is right about EMP defenses.
there's more danger from fucking nuggets like this being in government.
what they don't realise is that the paranoia bomb was dropped years ago and the enemy won
We don't want to lose power for all those fences protecting the dinosaurs.
If, like most people, you don't live in a Faraday cage, and if your country hasn't built a giant one around itself, you're most likely "in danger", aren't you?
Somebody just watched Matrix for the first time.
Could this be so the population can't knock out their attempts at real time monitoring of ALL domesitic digital communications?
How do the Brits gonna secure themselves from EMP blast?? Use candles, pigeons (or sparrows maybe, anyway faster birds...) handmade paper and live in houses built of stone and drive cars like Fred Flintstone?
Not enough minerals
Both the US and UK could shut off all electricity, while pretending they were under attack from Russia and China, giving them the justification (in the eyes of the public) to attack them.
more efficient to make ten smaller bombs then you need less height and you get more coverage
think of a multi warheaded missle that at a certain distance /height splits then the mini missles go on then spread out and poof more detonations with overlapping coverage at lower height and making sure the coverage and bombs work.
It was the other way round, Iraq attacked first. The western countries suggested to Saddam that Iran would be weak after the revolution, with most of the top generals removed (since they were loyal to the Shah) and the army was in disarray . However the revolutionary guard fought the Iraqis to a standstill. Saddam (and the west) didn't count on the willingness to fight and die of Shia fanatics.
I was under the impression that the transformers on residential electrical poles could cause small (relatively speaking) EMPs when damaged/detonated. Is this not the case?
Its just laughable and pathetic for 2012.
All you do is set your killstreak to "Support" and get 18 kills (17 with hardline perk) and call it in. Or you could get really lucky and find one in a care package.
When I was posted overseas in West Germany one of the hypothetical scenarios we prepared for was loss of non-hardened communications and electronics due to a Soviet high altitude nuclear explosion.
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray,
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio,
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe,
Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye"
Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen,
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc,
Roy Hn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron,
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team,
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland,
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev,
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac,
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charlse de Gaulle, California baseball,
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide,
Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia,
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go,
U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy,
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo,
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion,
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania,
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson,
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex,
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say?
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again,
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock,
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline,
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan,
"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide,
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz,
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law,
Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on
Life is not for the lazy.
You need to do more than just use vacuum tubes - you need to pay a lot of attention to grounding, and to any wires that might be long enough to act as an antenna, and sometimes you need to add capacitors or resistors in various places to bleed off unwanted current.
And even relay-based equipment's at risk - it's possible for power surges to weld contacts together, or short out thin wires.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"Attack at night!"
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
exactly how plausible is GoldenEye (or any large scale EMP device that does not require a Semi to get into position)??
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
EMP is a really interesting threat if a country or non-state actor is willing to launch high-altitude nuclear weapons over their target country, which is to say, if somebody's crazy enough to start a nuclear war. The Cold War's over, the Chinese have more sense, North Korea probably can't figure out how to make a working nuke or get it high enough up in the air over Japan to do EMP, and most Arab or Iranian crazies know that Israel has 200 nukes and would probably respond to a nuclear attack by taking out Mecca.
On the other hand, we've long abandoned most technologies that could easily be adapted to surviving EMP. Integrated circuits running at lower and lower voltages and currents are more susceptible to than transistors or vacuum tubes, surface-mount technology is more susceptible than big components with big wires soldered together, and more electronics is running on batteries and low voltage and isn't paying as much attention to grounding. On the other hand, we're using a lot more fiber, burying a lot more cable even when we are using copper, and using much higher frequencies so antennas as much smaller, all of which help a bit.
The US telephone companies did a lot of EMP-related testing on their equipment during the 60s, 70s, and early 80s, but that was mostly gone even before the Bell System breakup in 1984. (I worked with some people who'd take equipment out to the desert where Really Big Capacitors would simulate lightning and EMP.) It's one thing to harden relay-based switches in a regulated-monopoly environment, or even to harden the early simpler generation of electronic switching, but it wasn't realistic to do that to the newer integrated circuit technology in a competitive equipment market.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If you want to attack a building or two with EMP, you could have fun with one of those explosive flux capacitor thingies, but if you're doing it for terrorism you could just as well use a truck-bomb. (Maybe some "We're not the Anonymous you're looking for" group might feel like taking out a stock exchange without killing people, but it's pretty much a niche-player attack, especially since stock exchanges do use good backups, especially post-9/11/2001.)
The real threat from EMP is taking out a whole country's computing infrastructure at once, and to do that you're basically looking at a nuclear attack. Not very many nuclear powers are interested in doing that to another nuclear power.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
these fearmongering/weapons related/totally inept and mainly sensationalist postings from appearing on our favourite web site ???
As someone who has had a Q clearance and worked in nuclear weapons effects, I can say the entire premise is compare garbage. Most power networks and modern electronics are sufficiently immune already for this to never be a realistic problem.
"UK In Danger From Electromagnetic Bomb, Says Defense Secretary"
Well, duh. They're just realizing this NOW?
How long have they known about the threat of EMP?