We're Going Down Sugar!

[Kyuuketsuki]

Bugger!

Quote:Aircraft could be brought down by DIY 'E-bombs'

ELECTROMAGNETIC pulse weapons capable of frying the electronics in civil airliners can be built using information and components available on the net, warn counterterrorism analysts.

All it would take to bring a plane down would be a single but highly energetic microwave radio pulse blasted from a device inside a plane, or on the ground and trained at an aircraft coming in to land.

Yael Shahar, director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, Israel, and her colleagues have analysed electromagnetic weapons in development or used by military forces worldwide, and have discovered that there is low-cost equipment available online that can act in similar ways. "These will become more of a threat as the electromagnetic weapons technology matures," she says.

For instance, the US and Russian military have developed electromagnetic pulse (EMP) warheads that create a radio-frequency shockwave. The radio pulse creates an electric field of many hundreds of thousands of volts per metre, which induces currents that burn out nearby electrical systems, such as microchips and car electronics.

Speculation persists that such "e-bombs" have been used in the Persian Gulf, and in Kosovo and Afghanistan - but this remains unconfirmed. But much of what the military is doing can be duplicated by others, Shahar says. "Once it is known that aircraft are vulnerable to particular types of disruption, it isn't too much of a leap to build a device that can produce that sort of disruption. And much of this could be built from off-the-shelf components or dual-use technologies."

[Read More Here]

I swear I'm never flying again!

Kyu

[LukeMC]

Oh no, I just don't feel safe anymore.

[Demonaura]

Weapons technology develops close enough to defence technology that I doubt this will take off in the form of taking planes out of the air. Newer aircraft will come with EM shielding (plenty of them already have it) and old ones will be retrofitted with said shielding.

However, our world is getting so sci-fi lol.

[Tiberius]

Why did you have to post this, knowing full well I have to fly back from the US. Bastards.

[Kyuuketsuki]

(1st April 2009 22:44)Tiberius Wrote:  Why did you have to post this, knowing full well I have to fly back from the US. Bastards.

Sorry (actually had I connected the two I would have waited ... flying is stressful enough without paranoia getting in the way).

Kyu

[Tiberius]

Actually my recent flight out here was pretty good. Terminal 5 is so awesome, I arrived and went through check-in and security in about 40 minutes. The plane had a new entertainment system where you could actually choose what you wanted to watch, and the library was packed full of the latest films and a load of tv shows.

[Eilonnwy]

I always find it silly that people get super scared about plane crashes when you're chances of dying in a car crash are MUCH higher. Hell, I was in a plane the same day as another plane crash and it still will not make me nervous about flying. besidies whenever I see an article that is all hyped up with "You could die by *name ridiculous reason*" I never take them seriously. The media super hypes up these things.

[Demonaura]

You COULD die of a anurisim right now. But, you didn't.

(Shit I hope not anyways, that'd be ambarassing)