Some of you will howl about this being off-topic, but I think there are some good points made in this article that may apply to Y2K. This article comes from the Journal of Civil Defense.

EMP Article

High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse
by Kevin G. Briggs

What would you do if the lights went out  and stayed out for weeks? What if your phone and computers went out too? All this (and more) could happen from a single jolt of HEMP  "high-altitude electromagnetic pulse."

Over the summer, the House National Security Committee explored how adversaries could use HEMP to zap virtually every electronics-dependent device in the United States  from TVs to cars to ATMs  and potentially bring the country to a standstill.

It wouldn't be hard. Any nation or rogue military group that exploded a single nuclear weapon at an altitude as low as 20 miles could blanket large regions with electronic destruction. Indeed, a 200-mile-high nuclear explosion over the central United States would cover all of the contiguous 48 states with a strong electromagnetic wave that could collapse our entire electronics-dependent infrastructure.

HEMP was first tested in 1962 when, according to testimony at the congressional hearing, a 1.4-megaton nuclear weapon was detonated roughly 250 miles above Johnston Island. The nearest cities, more than 800 miles away in Hawaii, were shocked by electrical system failures.

That was before the "computer information age." If the test were conducted today, havoc would likely result from widespread electronic failures.

Testimony from Dr. George W. Ullrich, deputy director of the Defense Special Weapons Agency, indicated that when the Russians conducted a test over their landmass, "all protective devices in overhead communications lines were damaged at distances out to 500 kilometers."

At the same hearing, Dr. Lowell Wood of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory stated "The EMP robustness of the civilian infrastructure of the United States... is entirely nonexistent." The country would cease to exist in its present form, he said.

Dr. Wood went on to question "how" or "if" we would strike back if we experienced HEMP from the detonation of an orbiting bomb from China, Russia, India, or even Iran or North Korea.

These are troublesome prospects, but here are some things you can do:

* Ask your congressional representatives to assure reasonable government defenses against potential orbiting HEMP bombs and missiles as well as a stronger civilian infrastructure against this type of attack

* Prepare for what could be months without power, telephones, etc., by buying nonperishable food supplies and other necessities like water purifiers, medicines, and things that would help if your job, grocery store, and bank were to be unavailable for an extended period.

Kevin Briggs is president of The American Civil Defense Association.

Views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or U.S. government.

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), August 23, 1999

Answers

Center OFF!

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), August 23, 1999.

My lights go out after several jolts of HEMP, usually I get the munchies first though.

(sorry, I couldn't resist..:)

-- CygnusXI (noburnt@toast.net), August 23, 1999.

Cygnus: LOL

It wouldn't be hard. Any nation or rogue military group that exploded a single nuclear weapon at an altitude as low as 20 miles could blanket large regions with electronic destruction.

I said the same thing two months ago and was branded an ignoramus by our resident EMP genius Maria.

-- a (a@a.a), August 23, 1999.

Well, who am I to disagree with Maria, but she just possibly might have been misinformed on that issue, a. But in her defense, she was probably too busy analyzing the latest classified Russian missile data or saving MCI from the Y2K bug to keep up with the effects of EMP.

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), August 23, 1999.

You guys are just too funny. Never said that a, I was stating that EMP threats have been around for over thirty year and now you just found out about them, like a little boy discovering his unit. I forgot more about EMP than you'll ever know about it. You used it to re-enforce the Milne scenario and believe it or not the two are unrelated. Isn't it like the doomers to misquote.

Nabi, never did explain how you missed those fine little words on Russian naval operations, did you?

Yeah, yeah, I know everything is related to Y2K, even the MCI mishap except those things that are truly related to Y2K such as the GPS rollover.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), August 23, 1999.

Maria,

How is the GPS rollover "truly related to Y2K"? I'm sorry, I don't understand the explicit relationship between the two. Could you please explain this so my feeble mind can understand it? Thank you in advance.

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), August 23, 1999.

Nabi, I'll explain it to you when you tell me how I misread that Russian article.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), August 23, 1999.

GPS was only related before it happened, now that it's over and a bust it wasn't related at all. There are several critical dates that went like this that the Doomers magically put out of their mind once the theatrics are over. Namely April 1, and July 1, both FY2000 dates. September 9 is related to Y2K , until it comes and goes with no effect, then it won't be. October 1, January 1, ditto. I imagine that Paul Davis was right, some Doomers will still be crying about Y2K in the year 2005.

-- (Doomers@suck.com), August 23, 1999.

Good ploy, Maria. When you cannot answer a question, divert attention to a different topic. OK, I can accept that, coming from you. But the burden of proof is on you, Maria, to prove that GPS and Y2K are "truly related."

If you cannot or will not attempt to prove your point, then why don't you just drop this sad, tired refrain that "GPS was nothing, so Y2K will be nothing." Y2K may or may not be a problem, but whether or not it is has NOTHING to do with the GPS rollover.

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), August 23, 1999.

Nabi, you brought up the subject not me, and I quote, "she was probably too busy analyzing the latest classified Russian missile data or saving MCI from the Y2K bug to keep up with the effects of EMP". You mentioned the missile data. So you poke fun at me for NOT reading the article (though as it turns out you were the one not reading the article) and then you poke fun at me for reading the article (looking at the words and not just the pictures). Now you tell me I change the subject. Nabi do you even read what you write?

GPS was related to Y2K because it provided an example of a rollover (albeit a week rollover, a rollover nonetheless). We did not know of the readiness expect for the "self-reported" status reports from the omni-spinning gov. We saw the interconnectedness between the GPS and banks and power grid and and ... We couldn't find out about the conversion of the terminals, unless of course you could believe the manufacturers' reports. Just take a look at some of the threads on this forum.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001HQT

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001F3Q

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001E2y

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001FOy

And the list continues under the Technology category at the end of the forum new questions.

You doomers (including Eddie and Gary and Milne) kept relating GPS to Y2K, not me. Now as doomers suck says, since nothing happened, it's not related. Why is that?

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), August 23, 1999.

Maria: wouldn't you say that, even assuming that the MCI frame relay debacle wasn't Y2K-related (and I believe that it wasn't), (1) this outage demonstrates that we (and our businesses) really do depend on computer networks, and (2) the Y2-OK assurances of people who have financial/career/reputation stakes in technology companies aren't worth the electrons they're printed with, until the rollover tells us for sure? In other words, you've been assuring this forum for some time that there will be no major telecom problems due to Y2K. I'm afraid that I will be skeptical of any assurances on any such topic from anyone connected with MCI, from now until next year.

Thanks,
Scott Johnson

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), August 23, 1999.

Okay, Doomers Suck, I'll take on the resposibility of the "sin eater". I'll confess to having concerns about GPS rollover. I don't recall posting anything in particular about it, but nonetheless, Saturday evening was a bit of an apprehensive time for me. There! I said it! Go ahead and crucify me! How dare I be so human, as to be occasionally wrong about something!

It's like I said a million times before:

Not every potential problem comes to pass, but not every problem that is only a potential, can be ignored.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), August 23, 1999.

Nobody wants to crucify you B,

They want to crucify the Gary North's of the world who have been predicting disasters ever since 1970. All of them wrong, and all of them got people stirred up over nothing. Now he is back with an army of flunkies and the failed predictions keep mounting. Date after date rolls by without so much as a yellow flag raised. The CIH virus wiped out millions of PC's in Asia for a while but they got over it and you or I never felt a thing huh?

It's time the Scary Gary's of the world shut the hell up about things they have no knowledge or prior experience with. And for North, that is computers and mainframes in general. Unless maybe you want to know about the History of technology, which is what North has a PhD in, History.

The typical Doomer mantra is that this is something we have never expeienced before in any way or in any similar scale. But that isn't true, when you consider the catasrophes in the past that were Extinction Level Events for some cultures. (Pompei, Tunguska, WW2, Earthquakes in Mexico) They came, they went, life goes on. April 1, July 1, August 21, came and went and life goes on. I wonder what the odds are that September 9, October 1 and Januray 1 come and go in the same short order. Probably pretty high. High enough so that I'm not going to alarm my family and have them sit around for four months in a state of semi-panic.

-- (Doomers@suck.com), August 23, 1999.

What any of this has to do with EMP, I don't know, but:-)...

Maria wrote:

You doomers (including Eddie and Gary and Milne) kept relating GPS to Y2K, not me.

Maria, cite ONE single post of mine that even mentioned GPS. I have never made an issue of it or compared it to Y2K.

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), August 23, 1999.

---

OFF!

I'm HTML challenged today, it appears...

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), August 23, 1999.

There's an old Nelson DeMille novel with this as a premise. Of course it's the Soviets next-door (on Long Island) who are plotting this. Not as good as some of his, like THE CHARM SCOOL about how the Russians train(ed) spies...

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), August 23, 1999.

Doomers Suck,

That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.

(That 'Man and Superman' guy, who's name I always mispell)

I do not try to inspire fear. Fear is the mind-killer - Fear is the little death. But what I do aim for, is for people to take a long hard look at the potential challenges ahead of us.

The way I see it, is this: To be prepared means you have good odds to overcome the challenge. To be unprepared, is to be a victim.

I'm not tossing out some happy-crap, that I never have a fearful moment. But do I sit and shiver and bite my nails all thru the long dark night, over Y2K? No. I prepare, and I do lot's of preps, but in the middle of that, life still goes on. I still pay bills, write music, do my work, enjoy life with my wife, and stop to gaze at the stars.

The Polly picture of everyone who prepares is a quivering, neurotic life-aphobe, is just not the reality.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), August 23, 1999.

Maria, GPS was not a rollover into a new millennium, it was a rollback. And the rollback did not pass over a new millennium timeline. And it was a planned rollback at that. It was the question of the receivers beging programmed for the rollback.

Now since you feel you deserve a response from Nabi. I will ask that you respond to my question to you which you so cleverly avoided. I haven't forgotten and until you answer, whatever you say won't really matter much. Do you remember the question when you went and hid behind your classified documents. Let me refresh your memory:

WHAT PROOF CAN YOU PROVIDE ME THAT RUSSIA'S MILITARY IS Y2K COMPLIANT?

This is the point that will determine whether a Russian attack is imminent not the eleven points.

-- BB (peace2u@bellatlantic.net), August 23, 1999.

Maria, GPS was not a rollover into a new millennium, it was a rollback. And the rollback did not pass over a new millennium timeline. And it was a planned rollback at that. It was the question of the receivers beging programmed for the rollback.

Now since you feel you deserve a response from Nabi. I will ask that you respond to my question to you which you so cleverly avoided. I haven't forgotten and until you answer, whatever you say won't really matter much. Do you remember the question when you went and hid behind your classified documents. Let me refresh your memory:

WHAT PROOF CAN YOU PROVIDE ME THAT RUSSIA'S MILITARY IS Y2K COMPLIANT?

This is the point that will determine whether a Russian attack is imminent not the eleven points.

Nabi, Thanks for the post.

-- BB (peace2u@bellatlantic.net), August 23, 1999.

Picture this in your mind, but DON'T TRY IT... (You could end up quite thoroughly killed. Ask any of the electronics folks that lurk here.)

 

Create a simple two-transistor inverter using a hand-wound step-up transformer that cranks oh, about 1,500 VAC at a few milliamps from a 12-volt source. Feed the HV to a rectifier bridge made of seriously high-voltage-rated doides, such as microwave oven rectifiers. Then, send the now large pulsating DC through a ten-pound spool of #30 magnet wire by way of #0 power cables. Slide the largest soft-iron bar you can find that fits, into the core of the spool. Add a resistor between the positive side of the rectifier bridge and the corresponding coil connection, say 75 ohms at fifty watts, to lower the current to a safe level. Now, take five photoflash capacitors of the 330 microfarad, 450 volt variety and connect them in series with massive wire as well. Do this with twenty total and connect each group of five across the coil of wire. Now, take five microwave oven triacs (these are nice, often rated at about 600 volts at 10-15 amps) and connect each across the coil as well, again using massive power cable and tying their gates together. Finally, connect three 470- kilohm resistors in series with each other and a neon bulb, tie the resistor end to the positive terminal of the HV side and the neon bulb end to the gates of the triacs.

 

Apply the 12 volts from whatever. The inverter stage starts that unmistakable sound of a camera flash charging. Only when this one reaches about 1,200 volts, the neon bulb breaks over and dumps a charge into the triacs, which short the capacitors across the coil of wire to unleash about six hundred joules of stored energy into the coil. A rather loud ticking noise occurs once and the charging whine repeats.

 

 

Only when it made that ticking noise one good time, any magnetic compass within several hundred yards just went nuts. Heaven help anything electronic with reasonably poor RFI/EMF shielding that was within about fifty yards.

 

 

It doesn't take anything more than basic electronics skills, a rudimentary understanding of how capacitor-discharge ignition systems work, and a couple hundred dollars' worth of easily obtainable parts to make a portable suitcase-sized mini-EMP weapon. My experiments in homebrew pulsed-ruby lasers (which in my case used potent photoflash systems to "pump" the ruby rod into lasing) revealed that it's bad news to electronics when you drop a few hundred joules of power into a large electromagnet.

 

We live in weird times, when high-school-level information can grant people the capacity to lay waste to any magnetically-sensitive device within fifty yards of a device that can be easily carried. I don't fear Y2K nearly as much as I fear the human element...

 

The infamous...

 

-- OddOne (mocklamer_1999@yahoo.com), August 24, 1999.

Maria, are you ok? Any input you can make to my question would be appreciated. b

Yes, oddone, the human element is scary, but fill it with satan and you have a great capacity for evil.

-- BB (peace2u@bellatlantic.net), August 24, 1999.

Yeah, I'm just fine, thanks for asking BB.

No, I have no proof that Russia is remediating their systems. And, let me suggest that you have no proof that Russia is not remediating their systems. No data is just that, no data; it doesn't prove one thing or another. If based on this lack of data, you want to believe that Russia will attack before 12/31/99, have at it. I base my beliefs on a totally different system: years of experience and a knowledge base quite different from your open sources. Time will tell who is right.

Any other questions you need anwered?

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), August 24, 1999.

A sincere thanks for not wimping out Maria. I applaude your honest reply. You have stated that you have no proof and also that I have no proof. The following article is evidence that they and their military are not ready. I will post an article about their Navy.

But let's forget that there is any evidence for a moment. Our differences can be summed up like this: The pollys see the computers as innocent until proven guilty. The realists see the the computers as guilty until proven innocent. (Thanks Ed!)

Now, let us just assume that the weapons systems of Russia are not compliant. If you had evidence/proof that that was true would you then believe that Russia faces a 'use it or lose it' policy?

If you say no, then our main difference is not on the y2k status of the Russian military but on Russian strategy and objectives.

Russia faces potentially severe problems from the millennium bug. Despite having fewer computers than other leading nations, it is generally ranked in the bottom category in dealing with the Y2K problem.

On 12 July, Alexander Ivanov, head of the State Communications Committee, announced that only one third of the country's 28,000 vital computer systems were ready for Y2K.

He said the Russian Central Bank and most fuel and energy companies were prepared, but the number of flights would be reduced and some dangerous industrial processes halted for safety reasons.

A question of cash

Russia did not really begin taking steps until May 1998 and is desperately short of cash. Estimates of how much the government needs vary wildly, from an initial $500m, to $3bn but then back down to $187m on 12 July.

The higher figure represents 15% of the annual federal budget and a figure which the precariously financed government simply does not have.

The lack of cash led the Duma to order government and private bodies to develop plans to avoid chaos, but at their own expense.

Although there are concerns across the board, there are two areas of particular concern for the rest of the world - Russian nuclear missiles and Russian nuclear power plants.

When the screens go blank

The missiles themselves are not thought to be a major risk in practice. After the purchase of new hardware and reprogramming, launch and warhead control systems have been declared Y2K safe.

Early warning systems are more of a problem and US military experts have been working with their Russian counterparts to avoid major problems. The fear is that the screens could go blank or even give false readings of a nuclear strike - prompting a counter-strike.

Cost is again a factor, however, with the Russian military saying it has only $4m to spend on Y2K.

Power station worries

As late as June 1998, a nuclear industry spokesman was declaring that he and his colleagues would wait until the year 2000 itself before trying to tackle any problems.

These would probably hit control systems, temperature and radiation monitoring and automated emergency-response procedures. Although Chernobyl is in the Ukraine, there are worries that the 1986 incident could be repeated if too many systems fail at the same time.

One mitigating factor is that former Soviet nuclear reactors are less dependent on computers, with analog devices controlling most critical systems such as water cooling pumps.

In March, the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry said 97% of date-sensitive components had been checked and that all those which dealt with reactor operations or radiation containment had been declared safe.

The Ukraine is another area of international concern. It has 14 reactors including some still online at the Chernobyl site.

However, nuclear industry head Olexander Parkhomenko stated in March that most of them were too outdated to suffer from the millennium bug.

-- BB (peace2u@bellatlantic.net), August 26, 1999.