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."

No More High Speed Pursuits

[the-dude-man]

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

What will fox air....guess they will have to resort to hardcore porn

Cataracts

[Anonymous Coward]

And radiation burns await those who wish to play with the innards of a microwave.

weapons

[DNS-and-BIND]

So, what would this do to an airplane? One that's, say, in the takeoff phase, heavily loaded with fuel and hundreds of passengers on board?

Re:Unfortunately

[lewp]

It was funny until you felt the need to explain it :(

Do we need more weapon ?

[aepervius]

What happen if you use it on an auto at 100mph on the quick road ? (yeah autoroute but I dunno how they call it). What happen if you use it on somebody with a peacemaker ? Did even the guy putting the to-do kit up think of that ?

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[PissedOffGuy]

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

i wonder if they consider it riskier than the strips of little hollow tubes that puncture and slowly deflate your tires.

without your electrical system and your engine spinning down you could lose power steering, power brakes, your lights would go out (at night at high speed most probably), various automatic transmission problems, etc.

i guess its still safer than the PIT maneuver.

Re:The answer to my prayers!

[Anonymous Coward]

So your plan is to stall his car while it's going down the highway RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU? I hope you have good brakes. :)

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the loss of power steering and the loss of reasonably effective brakes. Best hope the driver doesn't have a pace maker either cause you just killed him. ;-) Actually, that makes me wonder. Given our rather sensitive internal electrical system, I wonder what a HERF gun fired at a human would do? Out autonomous system relies on electrical signals from the brain. That's why people with serious head trauma sometimes can't breathe on their own or their heart has to be forced to beat manually. The autonomous system shut itself down thanks to brain trauma. Hmm... that makes me wonder. Surely someone has answered that question though.

Re:The $64 million question.

[WhiteDragon]

I never will get why people talking on cellphones in a restaraunt is annoying, but people talking just as loudly to people sitting next to them is not a problem.

Re:This Could Improve My Driving Record...

[JanneM]

I don't _really_ get that. I would think the police would welcome that technology more than most. After all, thesea are people that toting their gun along all day, in close proximity to potentially or actually violent people that may be able to get hold of it. If I've understood correctly, that kind of situation does occur from time to time, something that the 'normal' gun owner is far more unlikely to face.

Having it on privately owned guns would lessen the value of the gund for criminals and make it harder to steal, but having it for police officers could save their lives.

Re:weapons

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

There'd be some protection from the fact that the airplanes are designed to withstand a lightning strike. A tube of aluminum thick enough to carry its own weight is a really good conductor, better than most electrical connectors. Windows and antennas are all that keep it from being a Faraday cage.

I would never forgive anybody who tried it outside a lab, though.

Re:weapons

[xbytor]

Military planes are already protected from EMF. I wouldn't be surprised if non-military aircraft had at least rudimentary protections since it should be easier, in theory, for an avionics manufacturer to have a single production line for an instrument instead of having one for EMF resistant and one for EMF susceptible.

Of course, FAA safety regs are, on occasion, written in blood. If a plane falls out of the sky because of this, they would have real proof instead of theoretical proof. Fatalities tend to to accelerate the definition and adoption of new safety regulations.

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[fucksl4shd0t]

Other than the loss of power steering there is no danger to just stopping the engine in a high speed persuit

You also forgot the fact that the power brake booster in your car is likely powered by engine vacuum. In some exotic cars, it's hydraulically powered. In either case, it requires a running engine. At low speeds, failure of these components isn't dangerous because under federal law they're required to have enough boost stored in them to provide for stopping in case of failure. However, at higher speeds, you can easily drain the system of it's reserve and find yourself having to stand on the brakes to stop.

Loosing power steering at high speeds is relatively safe, on the other hand. Most/all power steering systems kick off anyway over 35 mph, some kick off even earlier. The only purpose power steering serves is to counteract the wheels gripping the road at a stop or at low speeds. THe reason why your steering gearbox (or rack-n-pinion) is designed to work without power assist isn't a safety issue, it's because the power assist automatically cuts off during regular operation.

Finally, back to brakes, some newer ABS systems behave in a fashion that can be dangerous in a high-speed failure. Once again, they're designed not to fail in these cases, so the risk is relatively low. However, the assumption made in these cases is that the valves will be able to close. If the valves were unable to close (and this proposed device could cause that, but it'll take a real engineer to tell me), then it's possible that the 2000 psi stored up in the accumulator would be applied in the regular brakes, causing the wheels to lock up. At a high speed, this could be fatal to more than just the people in the crime car.

Now, blowing up the motor somehow would be more effective. Of course, I'm using the slang "blowing up the motor" which doesn't resemble explosives at all. A laser burn through the radiator, and then it's a race of attrition. Get the guy to overheat the engine and his electrical system will keep working. Better yet, a laser burn through the block. Of course, a laser that powerful would probably be a lot more dangerous than it sounds. Keep his tires, brakes, and steering intact, and burn the radiator. If his transmission is automatic, you might be able to target the tranny cooling system instead, but it'd be a harder target to hit then the engine. But if you could hit it, you could leave him with a running engine but not torque to the wheels. Then he's still got ABS, vacuum assist, AND power steering, and still can't move.

Anyone else think Slashdotting is criminal?

[BobTheWonderMonkey]

/. has willingingly just exceeded this guy's bandwidth. He now owes his ISP money (and probably lots of it) because /. linked.

Now, does anyone else think that the Slashdot Effect is getting to be criminal? C'mon, people, we GAVE IT A NAME. It's not like we don't know what posting to /. is going to do to someone's servers.

Editors of Slashdot: you guys are getting criminally negligent. If no one has sued you so far, you better start getting the lawyers ready.

Re:"This Account Has Been Suspended"

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Or better yet, mirror the website in a cache.

What I used to do Philly2Nite's website I had a Tcl script that downloaded the first 3 levels of their lotus notes system to static pages under Apache. The apache system could deliver millions of page hits, the 1998 era NT system running Notes on the other hand...

My program would also transparently rewrite the links to look at a cached version when appropriate. The cache software would update the static content every 15 minutes or so. It worked well for years.

Re:The answer to my prayers!

[theLOUDroom]

The EMP will fry the anti-lock brakes. ABS systems are designed to lock the wheels in case of system failure. (Ironic in a way...)

Bullshit. It would be totally stupid to design the system that way. If it fails while you were going down the road at 70MPH you'd have a very good chance of dying. I can't even imagine what would make you think it works this way.


From http://www.abs-education.org/faqs/faqindex.htm [abs-education.org]:

What if the ABS fails? Anti-lock brake systems are designed to be fail-safe. Nevertheless, they are equipped with a diagnostic feature that automatically activates and tests the major components each time the car is started and monitors them throughout the journey.

In the rare event of a failure, the ABS would be deactivated by its own safety circuit. A warning light goes on indicating to the driver that the vehicle is now in conventional base-brake mode.