Home-made e-bomb could bring down planes
Just because we don’t already have enough to worry about on the road, there is now a brand new weapon that terrorists could use to down an airplane: the home-built e-bomb.
The so-called e-bomb is an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon that produces a large microwave pulse which destroys electronics, including the kind of electronics used to build flight-control system like those used in modern airliners. It would be possible to use such a device from inside an aircraft, or even from the ground, to bring down an airplane.
EMP was discovered with the first nuclear weapons, which often produce very large pulses as a side-effect of the explosions themselves. Since that discovery, all of the major military powers have experimented with EMP devices that broadcast radio-frequency shock-waves in the 100,000 volts per meter range and higher. Now, thanks to Moore’s law and the Internet, any terrorist or other malcontent can build an e-bomb with inexpensive components purchased online.
The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, Israel, rediscovered the e-bomb while analyzing electromagnetic weapons that were currently under development. They found that there was enough information and cheap equipment currently available on the Web for terrorists to build a weapon of sufficient strength to fry nearby electrical systems, including the ones keeping your 737 aloft. Popular Mechanics estimated the cost of building just such a weapon at $400, according to a CNET article.
Yael Shahar, the IICT’s director warned, during an interview with New Scientist, “These will become more of a threat as the electromagnetic weapons technology matures. Once it is known that aircraft are vulnerable to particular types of disruption, it isn’t too much of a leap to build a device that can produce that sort of disruption. And much of this could be built from off-the-shelf components or dual-use technologies.”
New technology being used in airplane construction is making the exposure worse. The increased use of carbon-fiber reinforced composite in aircraft fuselages, according to aviation officials, weakens the airplane’s defenses against EMP. Composites, compared with metal, provide little defense against electromagnetic radiation, so that it would take a lesser pulse to damage airliner electronics. Shahar says, “What’s needed is extensive shielding of electronic components and the vast amount of cables running down the length of the aircraft.”
So the game of cat and mouse continues in counter-terrorism, much as it does in the more mundane world of the computer virus. The good guys develop better systems for mankind, which are then made vulnerable by the bad guys, so that the good guys have to change or even undo the improvements that they have made. It is a battle as old as the sword and the shield, and it shows no sign of abating any time soon.
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