With the ever increasing chances of heightened solar activity (Nasa’s 2012 prediction) and the possibility of an emp attack in the coming future years, who of us are preparing by putting together a Farraday cage for our data & pc’s? Or by any other hardening steps.
Granted, if there is such an event, much or most sites will be down for some time, as will the vast infrastructure of the internet, depending on the position of the earth when it occurs.
But do we really want to wait for a trigger event to happen in order to “learn” from it, as with so many other things?
From what I’ve seen, assembling the cage isn’t all that involved, assuming such plans will work when being put to the test.
Those site operators that can go back up and running, it seems, will be at a great advantage, if and when this does happen. Those that cannot, will likely loose all prior efforts in their totality which can amount to years of hard work. Unless, they happen to have thought of non-magnetic backups such as cd’s/dvd’s (if these would in fact survive)
[CENTER]This is a serious post – please treat it accordingly!
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I’m wondering what the cutoff point is for what had been hardened. Meaning at least the governments list of priorities. Certain military applications, sure, but what about other things like say, nuclear power plants. Not to gain electricity, though that would help, but toward the aims of preventing a meltdown. They must be tended to on a regular basis.
True dat! The right biblical ones still shoot for seven!
Anyway. End of Days? At any moment? But I never got my nipples pierced! This is so unfair.
I’m going to make toast while my toaster still works and sulk.
I thought it was a rather obvious point myself but…
Anyway let’s postulate for a moment that everyone with pacemakers survive due to magical pacemaker shielding.
Assuming they don’t die from starvation, exposure, disease or animal attacks they’ll be dead within 10 years anyway because no one is going to manufacturing pacemaker batteries after the collapse of society.
The collapse of society is something that should be taken more seriously, but these comments about hardening PCs and worrying about people with pacemakers really trivialize things.
Interesting fact, CLDS members (mormons) are expected to always have a one year supply of food and water on hand in case the **** hits the fan.
Would a farraday cage make any real difference to the average person? If they have not got any power as a result of an EMP then whatever data they have stored on a farraday cage protected computer would be useless as they wouldn’t have the power to turn the computer on and access it.
A Faraday cage’s operation depends on the fact that an external static electrical field will cause the electrical charges within the cage’s conducting material to redistribute themselves so as to cancel the field’s effects in the cage’s interior. This phenomenon is used, for example, to protect electronic equipment from lightning strikes and other electrostatic discharges.
Faraday cages cannot block static and slowly varying magnetic fields, such as Earth’s magnetic field (a compass will still work inside). To a large degree though, they also shield the interior from external electromagnetic radiation if the conductor is thick enough and any holes are significantly smaller than the radiation’s wavelength. For example, certain computer forensic test procedures of electronic components or systems that require an environment devoid of electromagnetic interference may be conducted within a screen room. These screen rooms are essentially work areas that are completely enclosed by one or more layers of fine metal mesh or perforated sheet metal. The metal layers are grounded to dissipate any electric currents generated from the external electromagnetic fields and thus block a large amount of the electromagnetic interference. See also electromagnetic shielding.
Pointing out your constant nit picking and irrelevancies is quite useful actually since you do have a habit of hijacking threads into discussions about tiny little minority considerations which add nothing to the general thread, calling you out on it is becoming something of tiresome but necessary task.
And they would have much bigger problems than accessing their computers anyway, like starvation, violence, looting, disease, etc…
Western society is only two-three weeks away from total chaos at any point. Our entire economies are based on just in time inventory principles and the large scale importing of food and the such from thousands of miles away. It’s gotten us this far quite well but it’s one Jenga piece away from chaos.
Actually it would be approximately 683 000 people not 683 million (based on your estimate of 6.83 billion people) but why not introduce bad math into an already silly debate about whether we should harden our PCs for potentially the end of the world as we know it?
6.83 billion * 0.0001 (or 0.01%)
What that out of the way JJ has some valid points. In a worse-case scenario (world wide electrical systems fried, all vehicles useless, no more oil/gasoline, nuclear reactors going boom, drill rigs rupturing due to lack of safety equipment, etc…), I assume that we would be looking at least 70% of the Western world’s population dying off within 5 years so the 0.01% that dies right at the start really is quite irrelevant.
The people who will be able to help me will be the people with hard skills like carpentry, plumbing, farming, etc… If they hardened their PCs then great for them, maybe I’ll buy their PCs off them for two cans of beans and a litre of water, but at the end of the day it won’t be a question I ask.
This forum is a place to discuss opinions openly and while you have just stated that you think 0.01% of the population are irrelevant, I happen to disagree (if that were an accurate number, according to population demographics would account for approx 683M people - not an extreme minority IMO). It’s not illogical to account for a wide ranging field of factors which could ultimately play a part in how people may be affected by a global event, I would prefer to have an open mind and consider the larger scale of a problem than discriminate only to subjective high-impact issues alone (which shows a lack of scientific logic in accounting for all variables relevant to the situation). You say you think my viewpoints are poorly thought through, that’s your opinion… but rather than retorting with dictatory proclamations implying people must meet your select quota of relevancy or thoughtfulness (or not contribute), in the future could you please either add something useful or not at all.
tke71709,
You might just find those people who hardened their data might be the ones able to lend you a hand. Or maybe not.
JJMcClure,
Umm, well, you seem to have quite a unique viewpoint. Just know that no personal attacks were intended, not sure why you wanted to take it that way.
In what way is it unique? I think it’s pretty logical, there are only two scenarios:
EMP is strong enough to take out PCs and pacemakers = catastrophy where just surviving will be tough enough, loss of HTML files and 0.01% of our population will be irrelevant
EMP is NOT strong enough to take out PCs or pacemakers = why mention pacemakers in the first place?
I don’t ‘attack’ people, just poorly thought through viewpoints.
You say these things, even though Nasa has predicted much increased solar activity http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20100609/sc_space/moreactivesunmeansnastysolarstormsahead. There is a reasonable likelihood that the event will occur over the next several years. Then again, the Iranians have been observed testing missiles on trajectories that meet the profile of emp delivery.
It’s a very real issue that the earth could potentially be hit by an asteroid which would wipe out all life on the planet
Then why aren’t precautions emplaced? It’s all rhetoric.
What’s the point in spending your days worrying about every potential issue…
Whoever said you should be wasting energy worrying? Don’t.
Those that are convinced that they cannot affect the outcome won’t act. If it’s not worth the time putting your files on non-magnetic media, like cd/dvd, that might cover against such things (as well as lightning, pc theft, house burning etc, at the same time, if you happen to keep off-site.) then the increased risk might be worth bearing.
No doubt there will be major happs to deal with in the near term. I’m surprised nobody mentioned total economic collapse & worldwide depression. We’re not that far off. Farmable topsoil for growing crops is severely diminished ( by more than 1/3) and will come to an end, its only a matter of time. We live like there is no tomorrow and nobody else or any other life form to even consider. A black hole of self-absorption.
