EMP......???? Wanted first hand knowledge....?

**Sourdough** · 04-30-2008, 11:22 AM

Does anyone have training in EMP, I am not looking for imported data. I want to know is this a really remote possibility, or probable via natural occurrence, or direct attack. Or is this one more boogyman......? And do small electronics need to be stored in special enclosures like ammo cans....?

**DOGMAN** · 04-30-2008, 11:38 AM

I am feeling pretty dumb here...what does EMP mean?

**Sourdough** · 04-30-2008, 11:46 AM

Electro-Magnetic Pulse.......I did not know about it till three years ago, when my sister started sending me novels about peoples life after EMP. In theory the (our) SUN or a comet passing close to earth could cause an EMP. Also a thermo-nuclear devise set off at high altitude would cause EMP.

**klkak** · 04-30-2008, 11:50 AM

Electro
Magnetic
Pulse
EMP's are real. However I dont feel they are that big of a threat. After all, a microwave oven, Cell phone or Television give off EMP's. But I am no expert by any stretch of the word.

**grundle** · 04-30-2008, 12:00 PM

It is a somewhat negligable threat. If someone utilizes a direct EMP attack on your computer they will ruin it. The problem with that is it has to be a focused and directed "attack". That would require a lot of power and they would have to be close to the unit.

For a wide scale EMP, a nuclear explosion releases a natural EMP as a result which will also destroy any electronics. The shockwave generally does a better job of it though...research has been done that indicates if a nuclear device were detenotaed at a higher altitude then the EMP would be more wide-spread (i.e. - size of a continent). That is really the only major threat that would possibly cause major problems.

For now EMP's arent' much of a threat since they require high power output and it also takes place in a specific frequency so you have to know quite a bit about electronics and wave theory.

**Ole WV Coot** · 04-30-2008, 01:09 PM

Degause everything. The Navy did carriers in WWII by wrapping the ship in cable.

**SGTD00m** · 04-30-2008, 01:20 PM

Hey Hopeak check these 2 articles out on EMPs

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1219/p25s02-stct.html

http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/rp/factshe...41elecpuls.htm

should make u feel a little better

**bulrush** · 04-30-2008, 02:42 PM

Sun spots routinely cause satellite blackout for a few hours every now and then. Almost all communications goes through satellites: TV shows, radio shows, cell phones, even the internet uses satellites for some connections (we're talking between certain countries, as well as between the regular internet and home connection).

But I never heard of a comet going close to the sun causing an EMP, and I have been reading science mags for 20+ years. If it were true I would have heard about it by now. The mags regularly do an "apocalypse" article once a year. It might cause solar storms/sun spots, which will then cause a temporary communcations blackout (all you would get are radio or TV shows broadcast from your local stations, no national shows).

**Alpine_Sapper** · 04-30-2008, 03:00 PM

Ever seen Fast and the Furious? Remember those little limpet mine looking things the cops shot at the cars to shut down it's electrical system? Same concept. They do exist. Not very widespread, but EMP weapons have been around for a few years, mainly marketed for specific purposes to law enforcement agencies.

They used to use a similar concept in the blackhat world to wipe your data from your drives if you had advance word the feds were coming for you. Datarecovery has advanced to far for it to be effective anymore. They can recover data so deep nowadays even blowing the platters apart won't work.

**grundle** · 04-30-2008, 03:06 PM

Yea but there are two ways you can still defeat that (data recovery that is). You can use active encryption (i.e. all data on your machine is encrypted and only unencrypted when accessed. When it is re-written to disk it is once again encrypted so that nothing on disk is ever in an unencrypted state.) Mostly a unix style system could handle it, Windows is too bloated to even think about doing something like that.

Most of data recovery involves going through "deleted" information on your hard disk. When you delete a file from the hard drive a pointer is simply removed and the operating system is told that the area can now be used to write other data. The data has not been altered or removed at all. It will only be truly erased when a new program writes over it. If you write a program (or use one) that simply makes a file that writes random strings of data to your disk until the disk is full you have erased any hanging bits of data and now all the data has been truly erased.

Just some food for thought, a little off topic for this forum, but interesting nonetheless.

**Rick** · 04-30-2008, 03:20 PM

Hopeak - Here is a thread that was posted earlier.

http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...lectromagnetic

**Alpine_Sapper** · 04-30-2008, 04:41 PM

Originally Posted by grundle

Yea but there are two ways you can still defeat that (data recovery that is). You can use active encryption (i.e. all data on your machine is encrypted and only unencrypted when accessed. When it is re-written to disk it is once again encrypted so that nothing on disk is ever in an unencrypted state.) Mostly a unix style system could handle it, Windows is too bloated to even think about doing something like that.

Most of data recovery involves going through "deleted" information on your hard disk. When you delete a file from the hard drive a pointer is simply removed and the operating system is told that the area can now be used to write other data. The data has not been altered or removed at all. It will only be truly erased when a new program writes over it. If you write a program (or use one) that simply makes a file that writes random strings of data to your disk until the disk is full you have erased any hanging bits of data and now all the data has been truly erased.

Just some food for thought, a little off topic for this forum, but interesting nonetheless.

The feds can bust any of the disk encryption programs, and they can recover data that has been, last I checked, overwritten 21 times. Even if you take the drive out and smash it with a sledge hammer, they can still get the data. I have "friends" that have first hand experience. It used to be you only had to overwrite it 7 times.

EDIT: They can even bust programs like pgp or gnuPG. It takes a server farm to crack the algorithm, and it's going to take them a while, but they don't have a problem letting you cool your heels in jail while they do it.

**grundle** · 04-30-2008, 04:48 PM

Originally Posted by Alpine_Sapper

The feds can bust any of the disk encryption programs, and they can recover data that has been, last I checked, overwritten 21 times. Even if you take the drive out and smash it with a sledge hammer, they can still get the data. I have "friends" that have first hand experience. It used to be you only had to overwrite it 7 times.

EDIT: They can even bust programs like pgp or gnuPG. It takes a server farm to crack the algorithm, and it's going to take them a while, but they don't have a problem letting you cool your heels in jail while they do it.

I find it hard to believe they can bust through a pgp program. Are they basically brute forcing the password key until they get it? That seems to be the only way you can break through that kind of encryption.

As far as busting through overwritten data, I am sorry but that is a myth. Once you have completely overwritten your drive with nonsense that is all that is there. Your friends probably used some crappy program to do it for them that still left hanging sectors, or they used a disk defragmentor which does nothing to remove your data.

Please provide links to that sort of info because I am highly doubtful. Breaking a 256-bit PgP key is on the scale of impossible, so is recovering data that isn't there.

**Alpine_Sapper** · 04-30-2008, 05:05 PM

Originally Posted by grundle

I find it hard to believe they can bust through a pgp program. Are they basically brute forcing the password key until they get it? That seems to be the only way you can break through that kind of encryption.

As far as busting through overwritten data, I am sorry but that is a myth. Once you have completely overwritten your drive with nonsense that is all that is there. Your friends probably used some crappy program to do it for them that still left hanging sectors, or they used a disk defragmentor which does nothing to remove your data.

Please provide links to that sort of info because I am highly doubtful. Breaking a 256-bit PgP key is on the scale of impossible, so is recovering data that isn't there.

lol. I work in IT and deal with data recovery issues on a semi regular basis. I also do forensics on hacked servers. *shrug* you can believe me or not. Here's some arcticles for ya though:

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/70753,...-software.aspx
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?si...36257&from=rss
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/emergingtech...2078233,00.htm

Now, if a couple of open source geeks can beat a 108 bit key in 2000, what do you think the NSA think tank has done with that in the past 8 years?

As for the "NSA Overwrite Standard", you can believe the data isn't there all day. Personally, I've seen it recovered when the feds come in to prosecute.

Here's a pretty good thread on it for ya though:
http://seclists.org/bugtraq/2003/Feb/0025.html

Of course, the NSA is not really all that forthcoming with data on what they can ACTUALLY do, so other than what I've seen and read, it's all speculation. Take your chances as you want, but for me, I believe that encryption is only to keep out the prying eyes of other civilians, and that if the feds want you, they've sniffed your connection long before you can think about overwriting data you've deleted. I've seen server farms setup in datacenters brought in by the suited sunglassed fellas. A little creative editing on the routers and voila, instant sniffer+packet capture. What kinda software you think is running on that farm? Sure ain't a counterstrike server.

Even though this is a thread about EMP's, like you said, this is really off topic for this forum. We should probably move this to pm if you want to discuss it further.

**crashdive123** · 04-30-2008, 05:22 PM

Hopeak - shielding will help against most EMP. The problem that arises is that it is a bit impractical to actually do it. Do you have concerns about specific electronics that you own?

**Sourdough** · 04-30-2008, 05:27 PM

OK, what about the large transformers on the power grid. Not the ones mounted on the utility poles, which I understand to be step down transformers. What about those big GREEN momma's that have 20' high chain link fence.

Is not the sun and the stars really nuclear reactors, and even a burned out star passing some distance from earth could it cause a problem......?

**grundle** · 04-30-2008, 05:31 PM

The earth is protected by its magnetic field. Most of that stuff is filtered out, but the satellites are affected since they have no protection. They are effectively "exposed to the elements"

**crashdive123** · 04-30-2008, 05:34 PM

Large transformers are probably going to go. They can be repaired, but it will take awhile. Don't know about burned out stars, but solar flares will cause alot of disruption. One of the things I worked on in the military were the satellite navigation systems, and when there was high solar activity it made for some long days and nights.