Build Your Own HERF Gun

James writes "Rostislav Persion from Voltage Labs has successfully constructed a HERF gun (a device like EMP but directional) in his home that is capable of stalling cars at a distance and crashing computers as well. He has videos of the device in action as it lights up LED's at a distance and triggers motion detectors. Theres also a bunch of other security stuff and science stuff which is quite interesting and controversial, such as cell phone tracking, mood altering audio signals, gyro guns, and other things of this nature. The site owner was also featured in US News Magazine and MTV for some of his work."

Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

After learning about his device, the US military used their larger HERF gun to deactivate his HERF gun.

This Could Improve My Driving Record...

[GroundBounce]

Couple this with my radar detector and have it stall the police car as he pulls out to nab me. Hmmm, time to dust off the old lab bench.

Can someone check the server....

[johny_qst]

I think the HERF device may have gone off next to it again! :) Gotta be careful with those experimental weapons.

The answer to my prayers!

[Robber Baron]

Now will it fit behind the front grille of my Crown Vic?

Cut me off will you you asshole!!!

Logging.

[Daleks]

It's nice that this webpage says in caps "IP LOGGED" followed by your IP. I guess this way he can tell who's HTTP GET broke the webserver's back.

Best contraceptive

[aerogeek]

I was just worrying about not meeting my recommended daily allowance of EF radiation with this cellphone in my pocket and 10 PCs near my desk. Now I can build a HERF gun -- problem solved!

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[marbike]

No, There still is the as yet unaired "Who Wants to Marry a Middle Aged Producer?" or "When Shopping Carts Attack!: The Wallmart Files".

The hardcore porn will have a little time before it gets plastered over Fox.

MTV??

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when did MTV become the authoritarian reference on Slashdot? Are we supposed to be in awe? What's next - a story submitted by a guy who once in high school dated Britney Spears?

I bet it's not match for my...

[Anonymous Coward]

NERF gun.

NERF vs HERF. Hmmm...

One shoots harmless soft plastic objects. The other shoots EMPs. Hmmm...

I better make sure I don't accidentally give my 4 year old the HERF gun. It would suck for me to be in traffic, trying to threaten people with a lousy NERF gun.

Then, after coming home from a bad day, I'll find that my kid's new toy destroyed a cul-de-sac block.

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[antiquark]

I regret saying this already, it shows my age, and possibly my viewing habits.

In the brief remake series of Knight Rider, Knight Rider 2000 I think it was called, Kit could disable cars from a distance presumably with a similar device. I beleive the bad guys then did something to their Porsche Carerra 911's which made them impervious to this attack.

David Hasselhof's hair was similarly insulated from the radiation.

FCC Notice

[dracocat]

FCC Notice
This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions:

1. This device may not cause harmful interference.

2. This device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.

From the site, moments before the Slashdot effect

[Anonymous Coward]

64.105.67.47> u guys are gonna get slashdotted any minute now
67.118.175.173> bah
64.216.0.81> surviving slashdot very well

Good to see progress

[certron]

I'm glad to see someone is working on perfecting the HERF gun. After all, they have to keep up with the progress made since Slashdot perfected the website-killing HREF gun a few years ago. Just point and click, webserver goes down. :-)

Re:weapons

[John Whorfin]

Probably the same thing as one of those old-fashioned gas-expansion lead accelerators would do.

Re:Do we need more weapon ?

[Snover]

We don't need peacemakers in this day and age, we need warmongers, to drive out the filth of the arab nations. Silly person. ;-)

Re:Can someone check the server....

[Wingnut64]

This isn't good...
We've just slashdoted some guy with an EMP weapon...

Re:Do we need more weapon ?

[Cyclometh]

I suppose if you use it on someone with a Peacemaker, you'd get shot. :-) Not much electronics in those.

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[Rolo Tomasi]

You know...this would put an end to high speed pursuits

So would this [www.saab.se] (scroll down to Carl Gustaf). Probably much more fun to watch, too.

Re:gyro guns?

[Un1v4c]

I'd love to shoot people with Greek food.

No, that's not MTV

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, I think you meant authoritative. The authoritarian reference on slashdot is, was, and always will be Microsoft.

Except when it's Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lucent, or Intel, sex.com, the European Parliament, or George Bush. But those are just on Saturdays.

Monday through Friday, it's Microsoft.

And never MTV.

[BTW... MTV will never carry a show about a guy who once dated Britney Spears in high school, because the MTV viewers are typically not interested in fifty-somethings.]

Not true...

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

...I live accross the street from this guy and nothing unusual is going on. That 1-800-Flowers van has been parked at the end of the block for a few days, come to thing of it, but other thaH$^FHGHATDT^ATDT^h6[NO CARRIER]

Re:weapons

[aerogeek]

Even hydraulic actuators have electromechanical servo valves, which I assume could be affected. For a large plane without pulley-and-cable backups, this could be catastrophic. The only kind of plane that would potentially be immune would be a small piston-engine, which does not require electricity of any sort -- not even in the ignition system (magnetos).

mood altering audio signals

[Sandman1971]

mood altering audio signals

I want an instrument that plays the brown noise, damnit!

We're trying to find the Brown Noise! It's this one pitch, this certain frequency, that makes people lose bowel control!

Brown noise is an ausilation of sound that causes the bowels to losen! The Brown Noise is believed to be ninety-two cents below the lowest octave of E flat. The French experimented with it in World War II.

The $64 million question.

[AnotherBrian]

All I want to know is will it fry the cell phone of thoes people who can't seem to STFU in the restaurant. Perhaps a hand held version of this could be wielded by ushers in movie theaters.

Mood altering audio signals

[Eminor]

Mood altering audio signals, eh? You mean music.

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[haystor]

Hell, I want to be throwing harpoons manually from a flatbed trailer. Then winch the car closer, secure the rigging and I'll be first across in the boarding party. Think Road Warrior...that was a good start.

And his website was taken out by a HREF gun

[autopr0n]

How ironic.

"This Account Has Been Suspended"

[iamhassi]

wow won't he be pissed...

No, you have it backwards.

[autopr0n]

It's not about stopping people who are fleeing the cops, it's about stopping the cops when they are chasing you.

On a completely unrelated topic...

[caitsith01]

...Dick Cheney has a pacemaker, doesn't he?

Re:Knight Rider

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it was called Kit
Aw fer cryin' out loud. KITT. Knight Industries Two Thousand. And you call yourself a dork. (at least I'm assuming you would, posting with a 5 digit uid).

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[Grishnakh]

Simple: just embed some encryption software in the gun. The criminals then wouldn't be able to copy it since that's illegal under the DMCA.

That's the HREF gun.

[sulli]

Similar, yet different.

The obligatory

[Duck_Taffy]

Imagine a beowuÂÂÂâ'uylsffj-esufASD;LO8FU£ÃÃÃZâÃÃ" £Ã[NO CARRIER]

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[Mika_Lindman]

Where's the 'add this to cart'-button? I hate those site designs where you can't find the functions you're looking for.

HERF Gun?

[comet_11]

That's nothing, Slashdot has the HREF gun and it can take out an entire webserver.

My god...

[floydigus]

My god - what I wouldn't give to get my hands on one of these things.

Where I live, streets that contain straight stretches of longer than about 10m are a target for the local petrol heads with their turbos. The only thing is, that in order to get the turbo to fire (which they like - it lets people know they can afford turbo - even if they only have a hatchback and they work in the local supermarket), they need to over-rev the engine even when they're taking they're mum to the shops. The sonic effect is something like;

"BRRRMMM!! (phssh) BRRRRRMMM phsssshhh BRMMRMRM phssh"

I would like to hear something like;

"BRRRMMM!! (phssh) BRRRRRMMM ph...ZAP! SHAZAM! phsszzzppt. put...put......put."

Show those suckers.

Re:The $64 million question.

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Yes, but people sitting in resteraunts without cell phones don't tend to talk about their Colon Polyps, the results of a Pap Smear, or the content of their last bowel movement at the table either.

Re:This Could Improve My Driving Record...

[_ph1ux_]

Well then employ the new american way of dealing with such pesky problems;

Pre-emptively disable any cars that enter your path/line of site within say, 300 yards. That'll show em.

Otherwise just have a switch that you can flip that will disable all cars behind you in a large swath when you feel you ability to drive at a comfortable speed is under direct - or perceived threat.

Re:weapons

[MythMoth]

That's, uh, Boeing. The Boing 777 would be made of rubber.

Hmmm

[Querty]

Slashdotted already...

I'd say /. pretty much performs as "a device like EMP but directional" for web sites.

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[Shanep]

Taser to the block

Bah! Taser shmaser! There is only one definitive answer to stopping crooks in cars...

McDonnel Douglas AH-64D Apache. [aladdinsoft.com]

Works every time (just ask some former relatives of some Iraqi families).

Re:The $64 million question.

[Quixote]

Because when you listen to a cellphone conversation, you are listening to only one half of the conversation.

Hey, if *I* am taking the trouble to evesdrop, I want the full monty, dammit!!

:-)

Re:My god...

[Zakabog]

The turbo isn't controlled by the ECU though. You can put a turbo on anything with a timing belt and exhaust. You don't really need to over rev the engine but turbo boost comes in at a higher RPM. Which means that if you're taking your mum to the shops, you're probably not getting any turbo boost (why would you need high rpms going to a place that's nearby.) Now if they're racing it's a different story but if you totally killed their car it'd be like

"BRRRMMM!! (phssh) BRRRRRMMM ph...ZAP! SHAZAM! phsszzzppt. put...put......put. Oh shit I have no control over my car *smash into a tree, burst into flames, set the entire neighborhood ablaze*" and it'd be all your fault for killing some idiot's car.

CNN

[psyconaut]

Monday May 12th 2003
CNN is reporting that there have been a huge number of HERF gun attacks on telecom and financial systems installations in the United States in the past two days. The attacks have seriously impacted the ability of Americans to conduct day-to-day life, knocking out many telephone, TV, and radio stations and forming large lineups at banks where customers desperately try to withdraw money from stressed teller staff.

CNN has learned that the attacks were performed by the Linux fraction of al Queada which is referred to as "al Tux" in CIA circles. Apparently the group learned of concise plans to make HERF guns from a story on the geek website "Slashdot.org".

Editors at Slashdot could not be reached for comment as they had suffered malnutrition from not being able to eat microwave burritos or pizza pockets for the past 48hrs.

Great for Noise Pollution

[nurb432]

Just zap those idiots with their car stereos blasting crap at 2am.. Problem solved, peace and quiet again.

Too bad the site is toast.. slashdot effect or 'homeland security' ???

Re:weapons

[Unregistered]

CARDIVORE SYSTEM: ALERT
POST CONTAINS HIT WORDS:
-DO TO AIRPLANE
-LOADED WITH FUEL AND HUNDRED OF PASSENERS

SUSPECT NAME: DNSANDBIND
SUSPECT FOUND AT:
11:50 EST 5/10/2003 - WWW.SLASHDOT.ORG - KNOWN SUSPICIOUS WWW SITE
ACTION TAKEN: LOGGED, SUSPECT TO BE MONITRED, 3 FBI TEAMS DEPLOYED

how is it that /. never gets /.'ed ??

[pair-a-noyd]

I think that prior to a story release /. could mirror the piddly little site and do us all a favor. Apparently /. has the pipe to cope.

Secondly, I want to see a device that will cook these assholes with that 400db, 6hz THUMP THUMP shit. These punks drive past my house and split my skull with that horrid shit. It's an invasion of MY PRIVACY. I don't want to hear that, I don't want to FEEL THAT. I want QUIET in my house. These sorry assholes think it's cute to thump that shit into my house and make ME suffer that trash..
I hope that it's causing them brain damage, like brain tumors and other nasty things.

I would pay BIG MONEY $$$$ for a device that I could aim at them and totally fry their stereos as they drive by, and I mean fry it beyond repair.

They deserve it. They are breaking the law and they deserve to be punished.

Re:weapons

[IdahoEv]

So what would a Bong 777 be made out of?

-Ev

Dont you mean...

[Codex The Sloth]

Don't you mean the Flowers By Irene van?

Re:weapons

[Exatron]

Nobody knows for sure. The project was cancelled early in its design phase after the engineers started saying things like "They call them fingers, but they don't fing."