Slashdot Mirror
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.
..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.
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
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
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.
There are some small scale versions but I think the bigger reasons to research protective measures would be natural events (like solar flares) or the fear of an rogue nuclear device. The later is rather improbable (apart from the primary issues of having a nuke exploding in a major city) and the later usually not strong enough to cause widespread serious damage. Still it might be a field worth at in order to protect sensitive and expensive electronics.
The military grade EMP hardened chips provide probably more protection than you really need and are much slower and more expensive than standard industrial grade hardware.
Car analogy: A reinforced frame, airbags and seat belts provide enough protection for the more common scenarios, even though driving a tank would offer more.
Even if you where truly paranoid, a safely stored replacement system for some key infrastructures would do. Which wouldn't be such a bad idea anyway.
Newt Gingrich and company have been scaremongering about EMP bombs for years now.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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?
Yes
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?
And plants! Do not underestimate the triffids or the Happening. Though plants could be our allies against the zombies and we should treat them politely.
Solar flares are very different from EMP, as the change in field is much slower, so it mostly effects transmission lines, not computers.
The range of NNEMP weapons (non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse bombs) is severely limited compared to nuclear EMP. This is because nearly all NNEMP devices used as weapons require chemical explosives as their initial energy source, but nuclear explosives have an energy yield on the order of one million times that of a chemical explosive.
In fact, weaponized NNEMPs are only possible for surgical strikes at strategic locations. These are typically hard to access; if terrorists can get to them, EMPs are the least of your worries.
To paraphrase: if terrorists in a western country had 1000 kg of explosives sitting around, they wouldn't use it as an EMP.
for i in `facebook friends "=bday" 2>/dev/null | cut -d " " -f 3-`; do facebook wallpost $i "Happy birthday!"; done
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.