Have a digital lock on your safe?? (important)

[rbad]

Check out this important thread going on at AR15.com

(potential for a digital lock to be damaged by EMP)

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?id=26119

 

[PreserveFreedom]

hmmmmm

 

[Libertarian]

If the safe is well grounded and the face of the lock is shielded with a grounded sheet of heavy tin foil, the lock should be fairly well EMP proofed (at least to levels that will not also kill you too.

Do a search on "Faraday cage" for more info on shielding devices from RFI, EMP and eavesdropping.

 

[ChickenHawk]

Isn't the EMP thing the whole basis of the "Dark Angel" show on FOX???

ChickenHawk

 

[444]

Paranoia runs deep.

 

[Coronach]

EMP is a real thing- it kills electronics dead if strong enough. However, don't most or all keypad locks have a key override? Mine does.

Mike

 

[croyance]

That was paranoid. I don't see that a computer would be much help in getting through an electronic lock. Very little similarities in electronics. Of course, that is not the type of electronics I work with. I assume that electronic lock would allow only so many consecutive bad tries before being deactivated and needing a reset from the other side of the door.
And I was also under the impression that most electronic safes have a manual override?

 

[El Rojo]

Best way to defeat EMP!

I bought my safe with a anti-emp device! It is called a combination dial with a convience lock. It is gaurenteed to withstand all EMP waves.

 

[Borf]

I'm sure the resultant EMP from a nearby nuclear yield would be disruptive - We could also make sure the safe is tempest grade while we're at it

Seriously though, how strong an EMP would one need to mess with most solid state electronics? Would it be more of a timing based attack (i.e. pick some common quartz freq. or somesuch)?

 

[Quartus]

Seriously though, how strong an EMP would one need to mess with most solid state electronics? Would it be more of a timing based attack (i.e. pick some common quartz freq. or somesuch)?

[engineer mode on]

No, it's raw power. However, if you are close enough to a nuke blast that has an EMP strong enough to fry your safe lock, you have other problems. Like dying soon. EMP is more of a military issue. They have to try to fight back. If we get nuked here, you probably aren't going to care much if your stereo (or safe lock) is fried.

[engineer mode off]

And, as has been pointed out, you should have a manual override.

 

[Andrewh]

Actually that is not true. You don't have to be that close to a nuke blast to be hit by the emp.
They did one back in the 50's that took out most of Oahu. It was a high atmospher nuke blast, and the emp took out the power grid and cars on the island.

 

[Quartus]

You'll have to document that one for me, Andrew. Cars then didn't have anything that EMP would bother.

 

[Libertarian]

A little follow-up

The destruction that an EMP could cause is due to the burning of the effected circuitry. The EMP wave would cause sparking between grounded and non-grounded parts which is why anything Tempest rated is completely wrapped (shielded) and grounded.

The different layers in a chip are seperated by dielectric (silicon) and, due to the thinness of the layers and short distances between the different traces, would be very susceptable to the static charge created by the EMP. Even quartz clocks are susceptable because of the burning power of the EMP generated static discharges.

As has been said, an EMP would probably kill you too if it were strong enough to knock out your safe's lock.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Sure enough, EMP is a real concern in the nuclear age. I bet there are people checking their digital locks and are more concerned about EMP than more realistic and more threatening concerns. I would hazard to guess that some of us with digital locks on our safes don't have a home fire extinguisher.

If you take the time to make your lock EMP proof, have you added the biological, chemical, and nuclear air filtration system to your bomb shelter as well. After the EMP burst, chances are, your lock is going to work since you protected it, but you aren't.

 

[Quartus]

As has been said, an EMP would probably kill you too if it were strong enough to knock out your safe's lock.

EMP will kill electronics loooooonnng before it get's strong enough to kill you. (Though your description of its effects is essentially correct) Actually, I don't think a bomb exists that can produce an EMP that strong. People aren't bothered much by electromagnetic waves.) See the thread on the new radar gun detector.)

I was thinking more of things like blast, fallout, etc. If you are close enough for EMP to be a problem, you are in a targeted area, and (Thank you :barf: Clinton) now that the ChiComs have (or will soon) multi warhead capability, surviving one nuke doesn't count for much.

 

[moa]

EMP has been a concern of the Pentagon for decades. At one time, it was estimated that if the Soviet Union detonated two or three 100 megaton H bombs over the USA at about 300 miles elevation, they would wipe out all unprotected electronics in the USA.

So, the trick was to devise protection for various commo, weapons, etc. systems. I knew one guy who worked at Harry Diamond Labs. in Washington DC who was on a team perfecting EMP protection for self-propelled artillery and tanks.

 

[Andrewh]

captainHoek- I would if I could, I just remember the artical on it, and the picture of cars bumper to bumper. It has been at least 10 years since I read it. I just remember it as one of those great government tests done on an ususpecting populace type things.

 

[Andrewh]

Did a quick search.
"Are you still there?" was the first radio transmission received at Johnston Island hours after the TEA thermonuclear test on August 1, 1958. The 3.8 megaton, 77-kilometer-high blast trigger electromagnetic pulse (EMP) which stopped radio communications throughout that large area of the Pacific. The EMP was so severe that military and civilian aircraft had to be grounded in Hawaii. The TEAK fireball could be seen as far away as Oahu Island, approximately 525 nautical miles from Johnston Island. Eyewitnesses said the colorful display rivaled the "Southern Lights," also referred to as the Aurora Australis. Several scientists viewing the test had to duck into a shelter quickly because an error with the launch vehicle, a Redstone rocket, caused it to detonate directly over Johnston Island instead of
20 miles down range.
This one says a different date
Cikotas, a scientist who has been compared in stature to Edward Teller, still recalls when he first discovered EMP in July 1962 during the last U.S. nuclear test
conducted in the atmosphere. That test involved the detonation of a 1.5-megaton weapon at an altitude of 400 kilometers (248 miles) over Johnston Island in the
Pacific. “Eight hundred miles away in Hawaii, streetlights went out within seconds,” Cikotas says. “Fuses failed on Oahu, telephone service was disrupted on Kauai
and the power system went down on Hawaii itself. What caused it was the high-powered electromagnetic pulse set off by the nuclear explosion, which hit Hawaii
like a lightning bolt.”
Guess I was wrong about the cars, but there was an emp that hit oahu. No deaths due to the nuke.

 

[bastiat]

Also, you supposedly don't need a nuclear blast to generate an EMP. Check out http://www.theregister.co.uk/990910-000015.html - you can reportedly build one for only about $500.

I imagine the ATF might be requesting one of these in their budget soon - would make conducting raids on 'dangerous' gun owners much safer for them.

 

[chink]

Ahhh. Just the people I have been looking for. My friend and I want to enter a robot into robot wars/battle bots. We haven't read the rules, but we think the perfect weapon for a robot is a small EMP. Stop all the other robots in the arena along with all the clocks. And then methodically destroy the stopped robots with a large sledge hammer.

How would we shield our machine against our own EMP?