Janner Posted December 6, 2018 Share Posted December 6, 2018 A salutary warning about what will happen when someone develops an electromagnetic bomb? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46464730 John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Jones Posted December 6, 2018 Share Posted December 6, 2018 Yep, except the EMP would kill all networks equally and voice as well....... The wailing and knashing of teeth would be immense but difficult to share! As a giffgaff user I’m theoretically affected by the O2 outage. Or I would be if my Nokia 6310i “wireless telephone“ actually had any use for data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeTRacted Posted December 6, 2018 Share Posted December 6, 2018 1 hour ago, Janner said: A salutary warning about what will happen when someone develops an electromagnetic bomb? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46464730 John What do you mean 'when' ? https://fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/docs1/00374018.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4APete Posted February 3, 2019 Share Posted February 3, 2019 That was then. I got involved in Directed Energy Weaponry (on the defensive) in a very small way back in the 90s. At that time the "pointy" end of the weapon was quite small, maybe 3 feet long. The power supply however was the size of a pantechnicon. I imagine things have progressed quite a bit since then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnD Posted February 3, 2019 Share Posted February 3, 2019 Oh. My. Gods. No mobile phone, I mean, like complete disaster, darlings! Come on, man up. The whole point of the internet is and was resilience by redundancy. From its foundation in ARPANET, it was designed to work even if major parts were taken out by a REAL, nuclear bomb. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4APete Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 Donald Davies at NPL had a bit of influence on the Arpanet work - way back in 1965. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnD Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 Donald Davies? No relation, AFAIK. Davies comes third after Jones and Williams in Welsh surnames! John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeTRacted Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 12 hours ago, JohnD said: The whole point of the internet is and was resilience by redundancy. From its foundation in ARPANET, it was designed to work even if major parts were taken out by a REAL, nuclear bomb. John Net system redundancy perhaps John - but all the 'net needs mains power so if the electrical generating or distribution network is taken out, you lose everything in the area affected. Grid power distribution systems are controlled using electronics these days and in England and Wales It's all run from one point in Wokingham. I hope that system is emp-proof ('hardened' is the term used). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnD Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 We have some people here who know things that I really, really don't want to know! J. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AB|W Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 When I started working life in a telephone exchange each block of subscribers equipment had an isolation switch. In the event of war / disaster the switches would be thrown and your telephone / broadband would be disabled apart from certain "priority" subscribers. Presumably with the rise of electronics the disconnect methods have changed but I wonder if the national principle of disconnection of the masses and retaining "priority" circuits only still exists. At any time, with or without a bomb, all communications could, probably still can, be withdrawn. Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnD Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 That certainly happened at the London 2005 bombings. My son was in Lonodn, but we couldn't contact him to check his safety - he was fine, of course. The rationale was that bombs could be ignited by phone and successive explosions could be planned to lure people and emergency services into their destruction zones. In addition, there would of course be a flood of calls, just like ours, both ways, and it was considered that 'bandwidth' (don't ask me) should be preserved for the emergency services. I imagine that in an old hard-wired switchboard the same would apply - there are a non-infinite number of connections possible and in a disaster, is it better to use what you have to coordinate services or tolet the victims chat, even to let their families know they are OK, or not? Its a Utilitarian, greatest good for the greatest number argument. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterC Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 Too many just-in-time commercial operations depend upon internet. Supermarkets have only 2 weeks supplies to hand. The next Carrington event will a test of resilience. No bomb needed. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4APete Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 Preference is still in the voice and mobile networks. It’ll be all IP in 5 years or so which enables sophisticated shaping of traffic flows. On the voice network the philosophy runs that if your call has no chance of completion because lots of people are trying to connect to the same destination the you will be bounced at source. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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