From: "Peter Trei" <trei@process.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 01:32:30 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: [NOISE] Re: Police prepare stunning e
Message-ID: <199608121156.EAA02006@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



 pjn@nworks.com writes:
Someone writes:
>> The car stopper works by focusing an intense electromagnetic
>> charge on the electronic systems that manage most modern
>> engines, disabling them and paralysing the car. In the jargon
>> of its inventors, the 150 kilovolt charge is a nemp, or non-nuclear
>> electromagnetic pulse. Contractors are bidding to produce a
>> police version.  
 
>  Is there any dif between this and a HERF gun?

Only that this is pretty real, while "HERF guns" have only appeared
in science fiction novels, and in newspaper articles which seem
to be from the 'Weekly World News' school of journalism.

Go over the the amateur radio newsgroups, and you'll find that the
interference of mobile ham radios with car ignitions is a well
known issue.

On a more speculative note,  many years ago Harlan Ellison
wrote an anti-statist short story entitled '"Repent Harlequin!"
cried the Tick-Tock Man.' , in which the government required
all adults to be surgically fitted with 'cardioplates', which 
allowed the state to turn off the hearts of  uncooperative
citizen-units by radio.

Peter Trei
trei@process.com