an EMP makes my Powerbook sleep
I set my Powerbook 12incher Alu on top of my Sony Trinitron 32inch Cathode TV and turned it on (from cold sleep, I never keep stuff on standby).
Curiously enough, the electromagnetic pulse that results from the turning on of the set results in the PB going to sleep.
Is this normal? I thought it wouldve been shielded enough.. or is it really that powerful when it does happen?
Curiously enough, the electromagnetic pulse that results from the turning on of the set results in the PB going to sleep.
Is this normal? I thought it wouldve been shielded enough.. or is it really that powerful when it does happen?
Comments
It's the magnets in the tube triggering the magnetic sleep switch in the lid latch.
BTW, that should tell you right there DON'T DO THAT. The magnetic flux is going to play *havoc* with your hard drive.
I'll take the advice about the HD especially since I have a couple thousand unique pictures I havent backed up yet
However, this is not an EMP simply because it is not a pulse.
KEEP LAPTOP AWAY!
Hard drives...OK
Anything in a Faraday cage no matter the EMP power...OK
Faraday cage = grounded copper mesh.
Highly secure government computers and certain buildings are usually in or near a faraday cage.
To note:
A single atmospheric nuclear detonation releases enough electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to equal 100,000 volts per square centimeter on the ground. A single detonation 200 to 400 miles over the center of the continental United States would fry every unprotected computer chip from coast to coast, and from the middle of Canada to the middle of Mexico.
maybe apple should start marketing the powerBook as an elite government supply to agencies around the world? eg. like on Alias season 3 and 4 they were all using powerbooks that was cool....
the copper-carbonfiber thing would kick ass. carbonfiber for all the human-contact parts, eg, the bottom, and wrist wrest, etc... while copper for the internals and the external parts where it draws the heat off
Originally posted by Electric Monk
All an EMP does is fry electronic circuitry.
Hard drives...OK
Anything in a Faraday cage no matter the EMP power...OK
This isn't entirely true. There are most definitely cases where PWM controlled, shielded motors pass noise through the shield. This is generally a byproduct of the skin effect, etc. (I don't think it's worth getting into it. If you're curious try google)
Something kind of cool, the Mig-25 that defected to Japan in the Cold War used all kinds of EMP protection stuff including vacuum tubes near the outer skin because EMP doesn't effect them. Whether or not the shielding it had would be enough or even that helpful is of course up for debate.
And Sunilraman a faraday cage must be grounded to be effective. Not always possible with a laptop on the move.
Ebby, if it's any consolation the NSA over in Fort Meade would probably be number one for an EMP attack (of course you're number two assuming you're in Washington D.C.), but go high enough up in the atmosphere and it doesn't really matter...
Originally posted by Electric Monk
And Sunilraman a faraday cage must be grounded to be effective.
A closed surface does not, however. If the mesh of the cage is smaller than the wavelength of the pulse components, it'll act like a solid surface, and the effective penetration is zero.
Originally posted by Electric Monk
Ebby, if it's any consolation the NSA over in Fort Meade would probably be number one for an EMP attack (of course you're number two assuming you're in Washington D.C.), but go high enough up in the atmosphere and it doesn't really matter...
Quite the opposite actually. You wouldn't EMP Washington DC or similar sites because they are protected against that sort of thing. Over here in Northern California is where all the "Top Secret" technology is concieved, built and vulnerable. If you want to piss off the average american, you could screw everyone's computers to oblivion, but the active infrastructure nessessarry to run this country is shielded against EMP.
A atmospheric detonation would fry the most technology, but more importantly would spread more radiation faster than a ground explosion.
Note to FBI: I watch a lot of Star Trek and Hollywood movies.
Wheeeeeee!
Ebby, you'd still hit them because people always screw up. And if they screwed up badly enough then you just lucked out. Taking down the NSA is by far a higher priority then distrupting top secret projects. Although I'm sure Dreamland and surronding area would be on the list.
And please, define active infrastructure. Power? Shipping? (Most trucks and cars have all kinds of stuff that would be fried, trains I don't know, airplanes... well heck yeah. Power plants would depend, but I think a lot of them are going down too.) Telephones (copper and fiber optic) would work, but switching stations would have to revert to mechanical.
Remember there are literally no processors running, assuming the EMP is indeed set off in a high atmosperhic burst and that it's a big enough nuke. No cellphones. No computers (embedded or otherwise), no routers, no internet or cell network. No processors that make the processors to bring everything back online.
Sure some military, government, and intelligence stuff is up. Highly secure private companies. A few paranoid people. Some banks, maybe.
Not a lot.
I have to wonder how many keywords this hits Echelon on.. Hi NSA, GCHQ, DSD... Heh.
While I believe what you say, I don't believe critical things are unprotected.
Remember, the whole point of the internets was to communication in case of nuclear war and whatnot. It wouldnt stop.
The critical stuff must be not only hardened, but totally immune to EMP.
Yeah, sure, my router, computer, cell will fry, but I think all the rest is good to go.
IBM et al make "Nuclear Hardened" processors for military purposes. There is a difference between hardened and resistant, I know. AirForce 1 was delayed a number of months before rollout many years ago because the wiring had to be EMP-proof, not just hardened.
Plus a lot of this infrastructure that goes down is infrastructure that makes the infrastrucutre. Fabs especially. I doubt Intel runs EMP hardened fabs. The military might, but they buy most of their stuff on the market these days (including paying a preium for obsolete processors because their computer hardware is heavily out of date by the time stuff rolls off the assembly line).
The question becomes can the government keep order in a situation where nearly everybody's stuff has just stopped working to a greater or less extent.
Limited transportation (Subways almost certainly, probably Toronto's streetcars and San Fran's trams assuming power, older buses, older personal vehicles, trains, maybe light rail depending on the age). basically complete distruption of the transport net for at least a day or two, then ramps back online.
Transport trucks 3/4 value and 2/3 weight of all goods in the United States. Based on ton-miles transport trucks and rail each account for 40% of freight.
Just in Time shipping is going to be killed, with a corressponding effect down the chain.
The Russians estimated one nuclear weapon would take down the US's power grid and communications for 6 months.
About EMP http://commdocs.house.gov/committees...hsy80337_0.htm
Dr. ENGLE. The characterization is correct. I mean the military had word of this problem for quite a long period of time.
Quite frankly, it's been focused on our nuclear response strategy, and so the technology that we have invested in over the years to ensure ourself some capacity to respond in a nuclear war is for a limited portion of our military assets, and I guess the message there is that we can survive that kind of attack. That technology is available.
Mr. BARTLETT. Excuse me. You mean militarily we can survive that kind of attack?
Dr. ENGLE. Certain parts of our military.
Mr. BARTLETT. We hope that we will be able to launch our inter-continental ballistic missiles to an EMP. That is not a certainty.
Dr. ENGLE. Well, not a certainty, but a very high probability that we would be able to do that.
Now, that doesn't say much for the rest of our conventional force structure. And I guess the thing that we worry mostly about right now is ruining our satellite infrastructure, commercial satellite infrastructure. Some of the military satellite infrastructure is hardened and secure.
Mr. BARTLETT. Two middle star satellites.
We would probably lose with one single high altitude burst $10 billion worth of satellites. It's the softest part of our infrastructure. All of those within line of sight we'd lose from prompt effects and the others would die quickly because the Van Allen belts are pumped up. And even if you'd launch a new satellite, it would survive for a very short period of time because of the pumped up Van Allen belts.
Dr. ENGLE. That's exactly correct.
And as a result, our research is focusing on a number of different areas. One is the mitigation of the pumped up Van Allen belt energy levels, and there is some very promising work at the basic research level at this point in time that portends that we can get to some solutions in that regard. And there is a significant amount of protection of systems that we're investing in at the same time, not just the United States Air Force but more pervasively.
From the standpoint of reconstitution nationally, in our national infrastructure, this is not necessarily problematic if we do the right kinds of things in industry to protect critical data and information because you can reconstitute it. I mean it doesn't take six months to reconstitute the ground-based infrastructure. It could take six months or longer to reconstitute the space-based, which is, again, probably one of our biggest focuses at this time.
Mr. BARTLETT. If this resulted in the loss of major transformers in our power grid, for those large ones there are none on the shelf and it takes 18 months to two years to get them.
In the attack on the Pentagon, we lost four transformers. We tried to patch two together from the parts of those four because with the priority of the Pentagon it's going to take six months to get those little transformers.
Most people do not know this, but there are no large transformers on the shelf. If you need one, they will build one for you.
Mr. TRITAK. If I may, Congressman. I think one thing we have learned from 9/11 is that the implausible is not impossible, and I think that is important to keep?I mean people you talked with before 9/11 and told them you could turn airplanes into cruise missiles, it would have been hard for some people to take. Okay.
And I also think the other important point is, is that the extent to which EMP could be created, the sort of thing you described also needs to be looked at. I'm not a scientist, so I can't say. But targeted use may also have its value in connection with broader effort that's being undertaken by a terrorist.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. And I appreciate very much the answer from some of the other members. But, very quickly, following up on Dr. Bartlett's comments about our satellites. We know we can deal with our home based cyber systems with maybe software improvement. But the satellite does pose a big problem, and here's an issue of collaboration.
Can NASA play a role? And what role would NASA play in helping us with the securing and/or research regarding our satellite systems?
Dr. MARBURGER. NASA does play a role in this type of research. And, in fact, immediately after the 1962 blast that Congressman Bartlett referred to, NASA went into a major program to find alternate sources of power generation for satellites and radiation damage studies. And in the intervening 40 years, it has been possible to make strides on this. NASA has been an important contributor and, of course, NASA sits on all the panels, the crosscutting coordination panels that share in the construction of our research program for cyber security.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Although as the Chairman knows that I'm in the great State of New York, I come from Texas and we have great interest in the valuable work that NASA does. And so I wanted to make sure?and I hope, Dr. Marburger, if you take that message back that they can be valuable?they will also have the financial resources that might help them be even more successful in providing the support systems that are needed.
Let me conclude by posing this question and maybe others can answer if Dr. Marburger answers and leaves.
You did an assessment of the critical infrastructure areas that needed to be insured, if you will. Can you share with us some of the areas of vulnerabilities that we in the local community should be concerned about and should be looking to be helpful with?
Dr. MARBURGER. I wouldn't want to share too much detail about that. I think that the right response is to look at the obvious and that the systems of telecommunications and energy distribution, food distribution
From
2003
HOMELAND SECURITY: THE FEDERAL
AND NEW YORK RESPONSE
FIELD HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JUNE 24, 2002
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