Today's computers and EMP

[pitz]

How vulnerable is a typical computer (ie: let's say, your typical home-build, i7-4770k, Z87 mobo, HDD, SSD, etc.) to a potential EMP attack (ie: say, a high-altitude detonation of a nuclear weapon, for instance, the sort of explosion used in the Starfish Prime tests)?

Are EMP-hardened computers available? Is there any way for an "enthusiast" to EMP harden their own computer?

 

[SecurityTheatre]

Yeah, easy. Put your workstation in a faraday cage.

Then put sensitive fuses on all of the wires that leave the faraday cage.

That said, a computer case is a reasonable faraday cage, though it has too many gaps in it and too many wires going into unfused circuits to be terribly effective.

 

[sm625]

People get the wrong impression of an EMP. The power falls off by the square of the distance, so it doesnt take long for it to lose its destructive power. You'd have to emit pulses so large they would do much more than just harm electronics at close range, in order to actually harm electronics at a longer range. If we were to get hit by huge EMPs that actually did take out everything electronic, they would take out quite a large chunk of the population in the process.

 

[kevinsbane]

People get the wrong impression of an EMP. The power falls off by the square of the distance, so it doesnt take long for it to lose its destructive power. You'd have to emit pulses so large they would do much more than just harm electronics at close range, in order to actually harm electronics at a longer range. If we were to get hit by huge EMPs that actually did take out everything electronic, they would take out quite a large chunk of the population in the process.

Your nuke doesn't have to be that big to cause a noticeable EMP effect:

Starfish Prime caused an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) which was far larger than expected, so much larger that it drove much of the instrumentation off scale, causing great difficulty in getting accurate measurements. The Starfish Prime electromagnetic pulse also made those effects known to the public by causing electrical damage in Hawaii, about 1,445 kilometres (898 mi) away from the detonation point, knocking out about 300 streetlights, setting off numerous burglar alarms and damaging a telephone company microwave link. The EMP damage to the microwave link shut down telephone calls from Kauai to the other Hawaiian islands.[5]

 

[bryanl]

Is there any way for an "enthusiast" to EMP harden their own computer?

Get rid of the window in the side of the case and replace it with metal.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I imagine you would need pretty thick lead walls or something. Your cell phone or other radio devices will still work inside an enclosed metal cabinet of sorts and were talking fairly low wattage power. Ex: if you wrap your cell in foil it will still work fine (you can try to ping it for example, or call it). Not sure what it takes to block that, but I imagine it would take much more to block an EMP. I imagine you'd want to ground it too.

 

[Blue_Max]

Your nuke doesn't have to be that big to cause a noticeable EMP effect:

It's been speculated that 2-5 large nukes burst at high altitude would EMP-blast the entire continent without directly killing anyone.

Don't forget that the poor man's Faraday cage is a microwave oven. Unplug it and dump some electronics inside for your peace of mind. 😉

 

[Blain]

Another 1989 Carrington type event would cripple us all.

Having saved a BF4 game aster such an event would only make us chuckle.