[LINK] NBN secure against Cyberwar?

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Thanks Tom,

But, while one agrees re the importance of the NBN, can we really protect
it from a determined EMP attack? For example, who needs a nuclear weapon?

"Non-Nuclear EMP: Automating the Military May Prove a Real Threat" by 
Major Scott W. Merkle, www.fas.org/irp/agency/army/mipb/1997-1/merkle.htm


During one U.S. test, in July 1962, (one small) hydrogen bomb was 
detonated approximately 650 miles in space, roughly where today's space 
shuttles orbit. 

Simultaneously, 2100 miles to the northeast, street lights went dark and 
burglar alarms began ringing on the Hawaiian islands. 

According to a declassified U.S. military report, the explosion of *one* 
bomb about one megaton in size (the exact size remains classified) eight 
hundred miles over Nebraska would shower the continental United States, 
southern Canada, and northern Mexico with an EMP capable of disabling 
every computerized circuit. 

Weapons designers specializing in high-energy physics can now create 
electromagnetic pulses without going into outer space. 

One approach involves harnessing the force of a conventional explosion. 

Others are simply just modifications of radar. 

Whether fitted into cruise missiles or parked at the side of the road in 
a van, non-nuclear EMP weapons have the potential to devastate the 
electronic systems of areas as large as a city, or as small as a selected 
building, all without being seen, heard, or felt by a single soul.

Sound far-fetched? It did not in 1993 to the owners of automobiles parked 
about 300 meters from a U.S. Defense Contractor's EMP generator test site 
at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. 

Their alternators and electronic engine controls were accidentally fried 
by a pulse during classified field trials.

--

Cheers,
Stephen