Confirm Kill

From 22C3

Great work! I knew there was some reason I was saving those used single-use cameras! :-) TheGoblin 15:44, 4 January 2006 (CET)

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I picked up a bunch of used cameras at Walmart for the capacitors. Just go in right before the photo place closes (8pm where I live) and ask nicely. User:jon787

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hi all

Plz suggest any job oppurtunity in your place for me as I am working on RFID R&D

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Are you asking us? I'm sorry, we can't offer any jobs, since we aren't a company or anything comparable. And you didn't leave your username, so we have no option to contact you.
Mahajivana Tue Jan 10 22:19:06 CET 2006, 1136927946

Mmmmmmmm

I hope this thing doesn´t kill anything else. I´d pretty much kill someone if he manages to fry my hearing aids with it.

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Then don't use it next to your hearing aids. It hasn't got much range.
Mahajivana Tue Jan 10 22:19:06 CET 2006, 1136927946

easy and cheap source of really big capacitors

To sanitize an even bigger area, I'd suggest possibly using bigger capacitors with a big bank of SCRs to fire them. The bass-boomer subculture has created a market for really big capacitors, and they're not that expenensive. These are usually 30 volts in the 1-2 farad range. You could probably create a sizable EMP with a bank of these...maybe enough to cover several feet, I don't know. This gives me another idea...railgun.... next post...

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Such capacitors might not be able to supply the coil with enough volts. We didn't test it (had no opportunity), but we're quite shure about that. As far as we know, you need about at least 100 V.
Mahajivana Tue Jan 10 22:19:06 CET 2006, 1136927946

The emp pulse is a factor of power, power is a combination of voltage and current. The amount of current from low voltage caps like those mentioned would vaporize any small diameter wire used for a stealth device. To generate a very large pulse with such caps would require stringing several of them together in series, each cap accounting for 30v of supply voltage. The 30 volts rating is their breakdown voltage, with a safety margin. The actual breakdown voltage will be higher than the stated rating but cannot be determined precisely (think of them as batteries and remember their nominal voltage is between 10 and 15 volts when used in automotive applications, so 30 volts may be close to their theoretical limits.) Four such large caps in series would handle the 100+ volts needed to produce such a pulse which because of their massively heavier current sourcing ability would be on orders of magnitude greater than the flash unit could generate. (will still vaporize small diameter wire) For a large application designed to cover a wider area perhaps a capacitor bank capable of charging up to perhaps a thousand volts would be appropriate. As voltage rises the current required for a given power output drops.

It would be possible to use the flash unit to charge a bank of the small capacitors if the individual caps were in some way isolated from each other (possibly with diodes or relays) so that the voltage/charge capacity of the small charge pump wasn't taxed beyond it's limits. It would only be required to charge each cap individually (may need some logic here to alternate between loads to bring them all up to full without allowing them to bleed off, the time required to charge the unit would be dramatically extended depending on the number of caps used) and then they could be triggered in the application as a single unit. Ten of the small 100v caps could produce a cap bank capable of charging up to 1000+ volts and still be concealable. 20 such small caps could charge up to 1000 volts and source double the current.

But wouldn't modifying a stun gun make more sense?

Military EMP bombs (theoretically since they are classified) use large caps and charge systems similar to this discussion. They also use high explosives. The trick is that a coil of wire is arranged around the diameter of the device which is energized by the charged capacitors at exactly the same moment the device detonates and as the casing ruptures it shorts the coil from one end to the other, chasing and forcing the current into fewer and fewer turns of wire. (did someone mention rail gun?) The device goes off like an explosion but really it is carefully designed to explode in a wave fashion. This forces the current to occupy fewer and fewer turns of wire as the explosion progresses, the device self-destructs leaving the massive accumulated wave of current (in the form of a large electromagnetic field devoid of any return path or metal atoms to take it's anger out on) no place left to go but out in a flash of electromagnetic fury.

My two cents.

Careful....

Dudes...serious fun can be had with all this stuff. However if you want to play with higher voltages or big EMP bursts, remember your own blood is highly electrically conductive and therefore susceptible to high voltage discharges ( like camera flases ) with unknown results and possible DNA damage......the electromagnetic fields generated by high voltage ( e.g. 11.000 Volt power lines ) can erase bank ATM cards etc so......

If you decide to design and build big RFID killers, you could create a tin foil ( aluminium foil ) screen which is earthed to ground between you and the device you are playing with. This will reflect the EMP burst and protect your bodies organs. It would be worth learning about wave propagation and how an electrical wave would travel through the air. A device like this sends an EMP burst in all directions at once, so if you have electrical gear nearby you want to keep working, discharge it somewhere else.

Small devices ( like the camera ) would be probably fine, but big stuff with several farads and high voltage ( i.e. > 100 Volts ) of capacitors etc should be handled with GREAT CARE as these can **KILL** if you short them out and they discharge through you. Its not the voltage that kills usually - its the current which will fry you. You only need 0.05 Amps to stop your heart.

• DO NOT USE A DEVICE LIKE THIS NEAR MEDICAL EQUIPMENT - YOU MAY KILL SOMEONE DUE TO A ELECTRICAL MALFUNCTION

Have fun, do not harm other people and be responsible.

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He's absolutely right about safety. We added questions of safety to our article. Since this is the wiki of a hacker-congress-homepage, we didn't think such things worth mentioning, since everybody there knows it anyway. But since this webpage has become so popular and we're just not fast enough to get our own finished, we enhanced this article. ACT RESPONSIBLE! SWITCH ON YOUR BRAIN BEFORE SWITCHING ON ANYTHING ELSE! Know also: http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/
Mahajivana Tue Jan 10 22:19:06 CET 2006, 1136927946

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WOW

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How amazing!!!

Still, I'm not enough an electronic geek (...not yet) for getting the whole picture of how to do exactly to turn a single use camera into that thing. I know I have to replace the film roll with a tesla coil, and add somekind of switch somehwere, but I'm diving into darkness here. Can anyone give me a little bit of direction on how to built that thing, or tell me if more detailed infos will be edited any time soon here?

And by the way, could'nt it be better to simply put the device into somekind of tin foil "dish antenna" that would protect the body of the user while deflecting the waves into a narrower angle, and perhaps making the emission somewhat more powerful? Would look strange to bring that in a large store, but that'd be even more effective and safer.

Thanks! Fantastic job, dudes!

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We're working on a construction manual. Should be finished within the next week. Writing the german version was easy, translating it takes a little longer.
Mahajivana Tue Jan 10 22:19:06 CET 2006, 1136927946

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Essentially you have created a micro-HERF gun out of a disposable camera. You might think of it as a EMP but nothing like the real-world stuff (Lighting bolts, Sun CME's, nuke detonations, and a special little suitcase job that the boys at Los Alamos whipped up), which whacks transistors in electronics (has no effect on tube-based electronics) from a decent distance. Be very careful if you extend your project to using big caps (1-2 Farads), it could be as dangerous as using a HERF gun.

As far as destroying RFID tags at home, you should be able to do it with a good EM tape eraser (don't go anywhere near TV CRT's with it on, etc.) laid right on top of the tag.

The 0.05 amps of current to stop the average human heart is a figure that entails the path is directly across the heart... not a realistic figure unless you hold two conductors directly across from each other with the heart inbetween, and electricity will always take the path of least resistance.

Rich2741

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Ouch, they weren't kidding about the capacitor's charge hurting. It wasn't fully charged but it still really hurt. Nonetheless great little hack. --Teknorat 06:09, 4 February 2006 (CET)

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