Glitch Your Way to Reverse-Engineering Glory with the PicoEMP

PicoEMP EMFI tool

Most of our projects are, to some extent, an exercise in glitch-reduction. Whether they’re self-inflicted software or hardware mistakes, or even if the glitches in question come from sources beyond …read more Continue reading Glitch Your Way to Reverse-Engineering Glory with the PicoEMP

Is that an EMP Generator in Your Pocket or Is My Calculator Just Broken?

Ah, what fond memories we have of our misspent youth, walking around with a 9,000-volt electromagnetic pulse generator in our Levi’s 501s and zapping all the electronic devices nobody yet …read more Continue reading Is that an EMP Generator in Your Pocket or Is My Calculator Just Broken?

How to Test a B-52 Against EMP: Project ATLAS-I

Audacious times generate audacious efforts, especially when national pride and security are perceived to be at stake. Such was the case in the 1950s and 1960s, with the Space Race that started with a Russian sphere whizzing around the planet and ended with Neil Armstrong’s footprint on the Moon. But at the same time, other efforts were underway to answer big questions of national import, such as determining how durable the United States’ strategic assets were, and whether they could withstand the known effects of electromagnetic pulse (EMP), a high-intensity burst of electromagnetic energy that could potentially disable a plane …read more

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Radio Apocalypse: The GWEN System

Recent developments on the world political stage have brought the destructive potential of electromagnetic pulses (EMP) to the fore, and people seem to have internalized the threat posed by a single thermonuclear weapon. It’s common knowledge that one bomb deployed at a high enough altitude can cause a rapid and powerful pulse of electrical and magnetic fields capable of destroying everything electrical on the ground below, sending civilization back to the 1800s in the blink of an eye.

Things are rarely as simple as the media portray, of course, and this is especially true when a phenomenon with complex physics …read more

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Are Microwave Guns For Real?

Almost exactly one year ago, [Kreosan] published a video detailing an EM “weapon” built out of three magnetrons, some batteries, and a taser. It all seemed a bit too good to be true, so [Allen] decided to try and replicate the results for himself.

[Kreosan]’s original video was impressive, showing everything from home stereos to a humble moped exploding when in the presence of their powerful device. However, many of those watching the video doubted the footage. Most criticism centered around the nature of the power supply to the magnetron falling short of the usual 700-1000W seen in a microwave …read more

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Pulsed Power and its Applications

Pulsed power is a technology that consists in accumulating energy over some period of time, then releasing it very quickly. Since power equals energy (or work) divided by time, the idea is to emit a constant amount of energy in as short a time as possible. It will only last for a fraction of a second though, but that instantaneous power has very interesting applications. With this technology, power levels of more than 300 terawatts have been obtained. Is this technology for unlimited budgets, or is this in reach of the common hacker?

Consider for example discharging a capacitor. A …read more

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Electromagnetic Pulse: Pure Hollywood?

Imagine you’re in charge of a major heist. Right as your crew is about to rob the main vault, you need all of the electronics in the building to fail at exactly the right moment with no other collateral damage (except, maybe, to your raggedy panel van). Obviously you will turn to one of the entertainment industry’s tired tropes, the electromagnetic pulse! The only problem is that if you were to use a real one rather than a Hollywood prop either there would be practically no effect, a large crater where the vault used to be, or most of humanity …read more

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