In response to my post last night about the countermeasure I wish I’d thought of, Ben asked me if it would really be effective.  Specifically, he asked:

How could you have fried the kids’ computer and Android cell phone without at the same time frying your own cell phone (necessary to control your drone) and the drone’s on-board computer itself? I think this option would likely have had the effect of destroying all computing activity within the radius of its effectiveness–and thus creating an “everyone dies” draw.

My response was simple:

Two responses, one technical and one strategic:

On the technical end the gaussian field explains that power has to be exponential while distance is linear.  Given the budget we had my back of envelope WAG is that we couldn’t have built anything with a range of more than 2-3 feet.  So standing behind your kids I’d fry them so long as my pilot, Ryan, stayed say, 20 feet away.  And if the kids figured it out (unlikely) and went and stood by Ryan, I’d just fry your controller (which, come to think of it, is another offensive move).  Of course, we haven’t tested this so I might be wrong on the technical end.

But I am reasonably confident of the strategic point – that’s exactly how WMD works isn’t it?  I’d be changing the rules of the game to mutually assured destruction for everyone and so long as you believed me that I would prefer death and a draw to a loss, you would also refrain from using your cyber weapon.  My small EMP would be exactly equivalent to a nuke – best only if not used.

And, as my post noted, the real problem with that is my credibility – I probably would never wax your delightful son’s computer!

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