Originally published at: How to open an electronic padlock with an EMP generator | Boing Boing
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fun. thankee Got curious about an EMP generator schematic, only to discover that salvaging a flash circuit out of an old camera seems to be the lazy solution; here’s one. Just dump the capacitor discharge through a loop instead of the flash tube. So cat meet mouse: build a Faraday cage out of aluminum foil (out of a spare tin-foil-hat perhaps)
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And so the brief period of IOT-enabled chastity belts being targeted for ransomware came to a close.
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Just don’t go thinking about a high-power version.
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BRB, going to test this on some alarm system control panels…
Time to exercise this in the vicinity of internet-connected door locks.
Somebody needs to write a heist movie, which starts out like:
Hardened Boss criminal lays out ballsy heist plan
Naysayer: “That’s crazy. We need someone with every lockpicking tool ever made! Where are you going to find someone like that?”
Boss: Turns laptop around to show Youtube video
Later, some of the team gets busted and thrown in jail.
Lockpicker: Don’t worry guys, I’m also a high powered lawyer
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What you don’t think the LPL can pick a cell door lock from the inside?
I am a little concerned that EMP tech may be a really serious issue in our completely vulnerable high tech future. This video just makes one’s head spin.
The EMP generator sounds like someone attached a magnetic coil to a stun gun… 
Any time I had a problem and used a EMP generator…
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In case anyone is worried, this is more like an “EM noise generator”. Poorly made electronics are vulnerable to this, yes, but half decent ones are not. We have certifications for this, to make sure refrigerator compressors don’t change the channel on your TV and such. Enclosures have shielding, busses are terminated, etc. This is basic electrical engineering.
The “EMP” that people think of that universally destroys electronics requires a nuclear explosion. Electromagnetic power decreases by the square of distance, so you can’t do any real damage with much less than a nuke.
Calling this black box an “EMP” is a bit of disingenuous stagecraft.
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He did call it “low power”, and it didn’t affect the electronic video camera near by at all.
I think the reason we haven’t seen this device on his channel before is that it’s rare for him to find a device so poorly made that it works on.
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