Electromagnetic Pulse

March 11, 2006 7:44 PM

EMP's are not just for war, there are some everyday practical uses too such as instantaneous, non-recoverable destruction of data on your home or business pc. Good to know if you're a soon-to-be indicted politician.
posted by sluglicker (8 comments total)

Thanks!
posted by TwelveTwo at 7:48 PM on March 11, 2006

Neat. Kinda like in Cryptonomicon.
posted by brundlefly at 8:12 PM on March 11, 2006

Or you could just walk through the room with one of those handheld supermagnets, dodging the paperclips and toasters that inevitably fly toward you.
posted by mystyk at 9:04 PM on March 11, 2006

Do it like in the movies. Just shoot the monitor and all data will be unrecoverably lost.
posted by qvantamon at 10:26 PM on March 11, 2006

You could also present the computer with a paradox, causing it to repeat "Does not compute!" over and over until it explodes in a shower of sparks.
posted by brundlefly at 10:35 PM on March 11, 2006

I suspect a hammer is just as reliable (and cheaper) a method to permanently remove data from my HDD :)

Nothing like turning a platter in scraped, bent, chipped metal.

Harder to hide in the doorway like Cryptonomicon though :-)
posted by -harlequin- at 11:20 PM on March 11, 2006

When I worked at my high school radio station we had this huge magnet thing that plugged into the wall and which was used to completely erase the carts (short 8 track like cartridges) we used. It would shake and erase an entire tape in 2 seconds.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:55 AM on March 12, 2006

In soviet russia, computer erase you!

I loved the english on the .ru site!
posted by lalochezia at 10:44 AM on March 12, 2006