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-Cui Bono?-
Statement of
Mr. David Schriner
before the
Joint Economic Committee
United States Congress
Wednesday, February 25, 1998
"The Design and Fabrication of a Damage
Inflicting RF Weapon by 'Back Yard' Methods"
Note, this paper reflects the personal views and opinion of the author.
The material in this paper has been deemed unclassified by those who hold his
security clearances but it does not specifically represent their views. This
paper is a very brief statement on the subject and it is written from a
non-technical point of view to provide an easy look at the subject manner by
non-professional people or groups. Further elaboration on any point can be
requested in either a technical format or at a classified level with the
proper security restrictions in place.
For many years research activities in different countries have focused
on the use of radio frequency (RF) waves as a weapon. Most of this work has
been titled or described under the title of High Powered Microwave (HPM).
Worldwide, large amounts of money have been invested in this technology to
support both the military interests but also the industrial heating needs.
Like most technologies, with maturity the applications increase and the costs
to use it become lower. One primary point of this paper is that as these
technologies mature they also become affordable and usable by criminals and
terrorists. Most military programs are classified and the general public
knows little concerning their nature but as the technology becomes available
to criminals and terrorists, it may be directly applied to the infrastructure
elements of our society. This paper addresses the question concerning the
possibility of certain types of this technology being used against the
society.
The primary focus of this paper will be on a different and new form of
HPM called Transient Electromagnetic Devices (TED) that could, in the hands
of enemies, criminals, pranksters, or terrorists pose a significant threat to
much of the United States infrastructure components that are based on
micro-circuits and computer or micro-processor control. This includes
financial institutions, aircraft, security, medical, automotive, and other
critical equipment used everyday in our society. The systems necessary for
the production of this form of energy are much easier to construct and use
than the earlier and more well known conventional HPM narrow-band systems
that are currently in development for military use. Millions of dollars have
been spent on the conventional HPM, systems and it is the type that DOD
managers and their funding offices are well acquainted with. This paper will
briefly speak to these but the main focus of it will be on the very different
type, the TED systems, which is less well known and may be the RF weapon of
choice to the modern cyber or infrastructure RF warrior.
Conventional HPM systems generate RF wavessimilar to those used for
many different purposes including communications, heating, and radio location
purposes. We are all very familiar with the term frequency as expressed in
mega-hertz (MHz) when we tune our FM radios over the FM band from 88 to 108
MHz. Likewise with the AM radio band from .55 to 1.5 MHz. These expressions
of frequency describe how many complete RF cycles occur each second from the
radio transmitters that generate them. Radar systems also generate RF signals
but these are in thousands of MHz each second (the term Giga-Hertz or GHz
applies). This is the type of signal that conventional HPM systems generate
or radiate, a sine wave. TED systems do not generate a sine wave and operate
entirely differently than narrow-band systems.
Narrow band HPM systems are similar to microwave ovens in that they use
high powered sine waves to cause material placed in their field to generate
heat. This is exactly what narrow band HPM systems do, they attempt to use
extremely high powered RF sine waves to cause a target system to burn out.
Other types of HPM use high powered, but conventional wave-like signals to
enter a target system and cause some of the conventional effects that a
jammer or countermeasure system might. All of these narrow band HPM systems
employ sine waves that are very different than the signals generated and
radiated and employed by the TED systems.
RF power is expressed in Watts and one million Watts is expressed as
"megaWatts" or MW. A kitchen microwave oven, for example, uses a magnetron
tube to produce a continuous wave (CW) .5 to 1 MW RF signal to provide energy
to heat the material placed in its presence. In a simple way of describing
the heating, the powerful microwave signals cause the molecules of the
material to rub together at the frequency generated by the magnetron and heat
results in the material exposed to the field. Materials such as meat, many
materials containing carbon molecules, and even water heat well when placed
in such a
