[kwlug-disc] EMP attack from the sun

[L.D. Paniak]

On Thu, 2011-05-19 at 15:11 -0400, John Van Ostrand wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> > I just had an interesting question posed to me. If there were a huge
> > solar flare, it would look like a large EMP attack, possibly lasting
> > weeks.
> > ... 
> > Any thoughts?
> 
> Expecting something special on Saturday?
> 

BBQ!

Stay away from long conductive objects (>10s of meters).  Otherwise I
think you are OK. There is little ionizing radiation (on the ground),
just "low" frequency EM fields.  I would expect RAM, hard drives, SSDs,
tape, etc. to be fine.  It certainly makes the case for optical
networking over long distances.

Then wait for the power to come back on.  Too bad we couldn't capture
all that induced current.

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