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Comment by malandrew | Hacker News Reader

What I found odd/amazing is that just after 38 seconds in the embedded video the pulse is strong enough to cause the computer in the middle back to eject the CD/DVD rom so hard as to throw out the disc.

Also, would it be possible to shield against such a pulse, the same way that data centers can be shielded against EMP using things like grounded copper "wallpaper" and adding shielded energy filters on the incoming power supplies?

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The cd was thrown because it was spinning inside the drive (ie being read). The eject motor didn't eject any harder than usual.

The real question is were the computers destroyed or did they just reboot. I've got a welder in the garage that made my "garage computer" reboot whenever the arc is struck, but it caused no harm. Grounding the metal chassis of the old box (to a real earth ground) fixed it right up in any case.

Where I work we use Faraday cages [1] to stop radio emissions from leaking out and interacting with scientific experiments. The thing is about the size of an industrial freezer with a large door. I guess you could use the same idea but in reverse for very sensitive things.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

If you have a small computer or electronics that need sheilding you can just place them inside a microwave (obviously not one turned on) as by design they are faraday cages designed to sheild against microwaves leaking out. They also work to sheild microwaves getting in. Cheap, simple solution.

There again most milatary equipment and the like are generaly made to counter EMP type exposures so I do wonder what this new toy's feild of play will actualy be.

The camera that recorded the video of the computers had to be shielded.

That was pretty funny, and yes if your room was in a faraday cage it would be impervious to this particular threat. But your wall paper (if you did it as wall paper) might catch on fire :-)

hehe. Foil I guess is a better word, but I didn't think of it at the time when I posted my comment.

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