The system in question is basically just a directed microwave emitter. It is designed to heat up the first ~0.5mm of your skin.
It's safety is basically completely a function of the operator. Since the beam will keep depositing energy (ie heating), if the beam is held on a target, it will incur more and more heating (and potentially harm).
In proper usage, safety is ensured through the combination of operator training, selection of proper settings, and induced compliance. If you have a shitty operator, risk of over exposure increases. The nature of this device means that it's not a barrier, it's a beam.
During earlier testing, they were able to induce second degree burns on a test subject due to incorrect power and duration settings.
The Business Plot people who want to tear down the United States, the rebel faction trying to destroy democracy and the nation from within has really figured out how to keep driving fear and conspiracy into our hearts (the less mind the better). They're just such amazing aggitants, able to make people so willing and ready to throw this whole nation in the wood chipper.
I wish we could identify, grapple with how bad what a terror America has become against itself. Against its history. Against in so many cases reality. There doesn't seem to be any regulating functions in red America, anything other than ever increasing war drums against democracy, against union, again the constitution, the declaration of rights, reason, kindness, and possibility. To make itself the foe of the nation has been the only thing this political faction has been able to lead by, and we are so far past the unhinging, never to come back seemingly, never to be able to have any learning moments, never to recognize a loyal opposition again, never to compromise. Just shrill shrieking bedlam and din forever.
Apparently the recent ad showing the senator breaking into the girl's toilet to check her genitals was quite effective. There just aren't many of those ads.
That and many other considerations. 1. is the system adjustable beyond the advertised wavelen. 2. Is the person able bodied, ie capable of retreating. 3. Is the person even aware of the context...
This is where things are moving, however. I do not think it is good.
> It is designed to heat up the first ~0.5mm of your skin.
Oh, is that all?
> US officials had also considered deploying the system during moments of domestic unrest, including at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term when protests erupted over the murder of George Floyd, according to a former US official familiar with those discussions.
This is for "the border" (because you know we should be able to torture people there), but really this will imperial boomerang back to US citizens in the blink of an eye.
And that's exactly the problem. We (and users) have known for decades that you can kill someone with a rubber bullet. And they have been used to intentionally kill on many different occasions.
Oh goody. Let's give cops another toy before we have tamed the use of pain compliance tools already in their hands. We are breeding a class of casual torturers.
> In proper usage, safety is ensured through the combination of operator training, selection of proper settings, and induced compliance. If you have a shitty operator, risk of over exposure increases. The nature of this device means that it's not a barrier, it's a beam.
Yeah, that's going to go well with people aiming this at whoever they think it's "less than" them.
This is a high power microwave emitter whose very high frequency (33GHz, IIRC - home µwave ovens are 2.45GHz) limits its energy deposition to a thin tissue layer. It's very effective, but big and cumbersome because of the high power requirements. At these frequencies, components are tiny. If one needed less than ten Watts, this could be a box the size of a desktop PC, maybe a shoebox.
I'm fairly sure this could be (is being?) scaled down to something resembling the pain box used on Paul Atreides in Dune. An efficient "enhanced interrogation" technology is just too tempting for too many in power.
A while back, I'd been researching the general topic. Health problems fog my memory, but essentially I was trying to figure out how closely the proclaimed application/purpose actually fit the actual capabilities. I found, what seemed to me, evidence that the military systems are not hard limited to the specific advertised GHz/len spectrum, but can be adjusted for lethal purposes.
Possibly the "safeguard" portion of the first patent below indicates this; which may only make sense if such devices are capable of exceeding lawful spectrums, etc. Not sure though.
The others I just threw in. I am not in the right space to vet or read them right now, so they may or may not be relevant. That said, I did once interview a soldier who told me of some off-the-record use of directed energy in Iraq/Afghanistan... describing bodies with relatively intact exteriors with internal damage not fitting of thermobaric weapons, ie vehicles also intact. Terms used were "cooked from the inside". Anecdotal, but disturbing, and certainly physically possible.
My sweet summer child. You know how LRADs are deployed against US civilians? You know how chemical munitions are deployed against US civilians? (Specifically munitions that are considered illegal to deploy in war, but are apparently acceptable to deploy by police?) How flashbang grenades launched from handheld launchers are deployed against US civilians? How about the military personnel carriers and MRAPs?
You think those didn't start as restricted to some theater of war?
Go read up on the 1033 program. Or the DHS Grant Program, the Justice Assistance Grant program, or the 1122 program.
> Specifically munitions that are considered illegal to deploy in war, but are apparently acceptable to deploy by police?
the reasoning for this is less exciting that you'd like. its illegal in war because war is anarchy, and ypu cant tell what chemical weapons an opponent is using, and so proportional response is the worst variation you can think of.
when theyre used by the cops, you know exactly what they are using, and there isnt a chemical weapon escalation worry
I remember Portland. Sadly it burnt to the ground. No one lives there now, because there are no buildings.
Wait, I'm hearing reports. Reports that literally no city has been burnt to the ground due to protests? None at all? And this HN account is just out of touch?
I saw something recently about stun cuffs or something like that. Basically an electric torture device, being commissioned for US prisons. It might have even been a chair. This stuff has to stop.
If it is writing and organizing to have the same rights as cops to shoot them without consequence, then yes. Otherwise it is of no use. Why do people accept being second class citizens where one group has the right to murder them without consequence?
the actual problem is that the 'pentagon' has zero authority to grant some jumped upp 3 letter agency the go ahead to test what is basicly an electronic flame thrower on civilian refugees, you know ,scared, hungry, tired, women carrying infants with absolutly no idea what is happening to them, and this by an organisation with a solid record of publicly executing american citizens and walking away saying 'fucking bitch'
put the pieces on one page and it looks full on gestapo high tech kill squad times.
> The heat ray, officially known as the Active Denial System, is a nonlethal weapon that shoots an invisible beam of electromagnetic waves that can reach a little more than half a mile away, according to the US military.
Stun gun and electro shocks are also advertised as non-lethal. But the name is wrong; it should be called less-lethal at best.
The problem is the overuse of torture devices against people who are unarmed and nonviolent. Torture devices are too convenient in contexts where speedy compliance is sufficient reason to inflict pain, absent a genuine threat. What problem were you thinking needs a solution?
Oh in that case, just give the people whatever they want. I assumed the discussion was about the scenarios this tool was designed for, aka not "unarmed and nonviolent" people.
The problem I think needs a solution is a group of mostly good people being riled up with the well-studied herd mentality, laced with people doing bad things. You want to be able to stop the few bad people (without killing, obviously) with minimal disturbance to the good people, but at any time you cannot know who is good or bad (i.e. you can't enter the crowd to target specific people), and at any point the good people can turn and become malicious actors, contrary to how they'd behave in most circumstances.
Okay, but how would you design a system that could address the scenario above without being used as a "convenient torture device"? You don't get to change human nature on either side.
No. There actually is no need to address your very hypothetical scenario before taking the Insta torture devices away from cops. If they are too under trained to use those tools wisely, they won't be able to use them effectively even in your tailor-made scenario.
the better option is to stop arming gangs in central and south america, and accept that certain governments will have sovereignty and democracy outside of being a US vassal state.
the secondary better option is to move away from colonial ambitions where those same vassal states exist to give the US their resources, and must be controlled to doing so, into having their own economic prosperity.
half of this strategy has worked well with mexico already, such that a lot of the southern border immigration isnt mexicans anymore, after nafta destroyed the mexican farm industry and moved the corn to iowa
just a hop step and jump to being used on (completely legal) protestors
there are already several recorded incidents of LRADs being used on crowds which do permanent damage but invisible so very handy for authoritarian governments
Wasn't there a relatively high-profile case of a journalist dying of "nothing" after whistleblowing recently? I only remember that a directed energy weapon was one of the proposed methods of their assasination.
It's my understanding that this tool is for crowd control and area denial. While I can understand how this may useful along the border in fantasy, it appears to be literal atomic flyswatter to unreal problem.
This is exactly the kind of weapon system one would want if they were to deal with climate change in the most inhumane way possible.
Just ignoring climate change, then building a secure perimeter to keep away anyone fleeing from the consequences of it.
The "best" part of energy weapons like that is that they just need energy. Meaning that no one has to constantly restock ammunition. They can even run off renewables.
Making the whole thing scalable. Fully automated energy weapon sentry guns on the border to the global south.
This is going to be the future, isn't it? Jesus Christ.
The US has a lot of places that will be heavily affected by climate change, and climate refugees will be travelling within and between states, just as much as across country borders
This thing has actually been around for 20 years now, right?
"Future weapons" on the Discovery Channel showed it off back in 2007ish.
It's been in development hell that long because it just sucks in a million ways. Water cannons and other tools just do it's job better, and for less contract dollars.
And that's ignoring anything around microwaving your own citizens being fucked.
> People really need to start reading Fahrenheit 451…
That and "1984" were required reading when I was in grade-school, supposedly as a warning against the worst possible future outcomes (not as instruction manuals for our "leaders" to follow).
Microwaving people at the border stimulates the US defense manufacturing sector and ensures the livelihoods of microwave weapon operators. It could even prop up hospitals in rural border areas where the microwaved migrants get checked out.
Microwaving people is clearly a net good for society, and once domestic non-border use is approved we'll be able to build America back even more quickly.
Look at this thing. Now tell me how long you think it would last under an assault of, say, three modern $50k military drones controlled by trained Ukrainian operators.
76 comments
[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 23.5 ms ] threadIt's safety is basically completely a function of the operator. Since the beam will keep depositing energy (ie heating), if the beam is held on a target, it will incur more and more heating (and potentially harm).
In proper usage, safety is ensured through the combination of operator training, selection of proper settings, and induced compliance. If you have a shitty operator, risk of over exposure increases. The nature of this device means that it's not a barrier, it's a beam.
During earlier testing, they were able to induce second degree burns on a test subject due to incorrect power and duration settings.
I expect a lot of severely traumatized people from this device
So what happens when it's shot at someone's eyes?
Be happy you are just blind for the rest of your life.
Such a shitty government you have today in the USA, it boggles the mind.
I wish we could identify, grapple with how bad what a terror America has become against itself. Against its history. Against in so many cases reality. There doesn't seem to be any regulating functions in red America, anything other than ever increasing war drums against democracy, against union, again the constitution, the declaration of rights, reason, kindness, and possibility. To make itself the foe of the nation has been the only thing this political faction has been able to lead by, and we are so far past the unhinging, never to come back seemingly, never to be able to have any learning moments, never to recognize a loyal opposition again, never to compromise. Just shrill shrieking bedlam and din forever.
This is where things are moving, however. I do not think it is good.
We should be asking these questions.
Good thing border control isn't full of rejects and nonhackers from the military and real law enforcement \s
Oh, is that all?
> US officials had also considered deploying the system during moments of domestic unrest, including at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term when protests erupted over the murder of George Floyd, according to a former US official familiar with those discussions.
This is for "the border" (because you know we should be able to torture people there), but really this will imperial boomerang back to US citizens in the blink of an eye.
Well, we are talking about US border patrol folks. Trust me, they are the nicest guys around /s.
Yeah, that's going to go well with people aiming this at whoever they think it's "less than" them.
I'm fairly sure this could be (is being?) scaled down to something resembling the pain box used on Paul Atreides in Dune. An efficient "enhanced interrogation" technology is just too tempting for too many in power.
(edit: omitted word)
Possibly the "safeguard" portion of the first patent below indicates this; which may only make sense if such devices are capable of exceeding lawful spectrums, etc. Not sure though.
The others I just threw in. I am not in the right space to vet or read them right now, so they may or may not be relevant. That said, I did once interview a soldier who told me of some off-the-record use of directed energy in Iraq/Afghanistan... describing bodies with relatively intact exteriors with internal damage not fitting of thermobaric weapons, ie vehicles also intact. Terms used were "cooked from the inside". Anecdotal, but disturbing, and certainly physically possible.
1. https://patents.google.com/patent/US7921588B2/en
2. https://patents.google.com/patent/US20220082358A1/en
3. https://patents.google.com/patent/US7784390B1/en
You think those didn't start as restricted to some theater of war?
Go read up on the 1033 program. Or the DHS Grant Program, the Justice Assistance Grant program, or the 1122 program.
the reasoning for this is less exciting that you'd like. its illegal in war because war is anarchy, and ypu cant tell what chemical weapons an opponent is using, and so proportional response is the worst variation you can think of.
when theyre used by the cops, you know exactly what they are using, and there isnt a chemical weapon escalation worry
Wait, I'm hearing reports. Reports that literally no city has been burnt to the ground due to protests? None at all? And this HN account is just out of touch?
edit: okay, first reaction, obviously not contributing to any conversation. This is barbaric and if I paid US taxes I'd be writing my government.
The lobby is louder.
Stun gun and electro shocks are also advertised as non-lethal. But the name is wrong; it should be called less-lethal at best.
The problem I think needs a solution is a group of mostly good people being riled up with the well-studied herd mentality, laced with people doing bad things. You want to be able to stop the few bad people (without killing, obviously) with minimal disturbance to the good people, but at any time you cannot know who is good or bad (i.e. you can't enter the crowd to target specific people), and at any point the good people can turn and become malicious actors, contrary to how they'd behave in most circumstances.
> tailor-made scenario
Either you have chosen to ignore news from all parts world throughout pretty much all recorded history, or you advocate for needless murder.
the secondary better option is to move away from colonial ambitions where those same vassal states exist to give the US their resources, and must be controlled to doing so, into having their own economic prosperity.
half of this strategy has worked well with mexico already, such that a lot of the southern border immigration isnt mexicans anymore, after nafta destroyed the mexican farm industry and moved the corn to iowa
there are already several recorded incidents of LRADs being used on crowds which do permanent damage but invisible so very handy for authoritarian governments
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmK-KZOiT-c
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_acoustic_device
First the border, I don't see why they would stop there with the tech
Just ignoring climate change, then building a secure perimeter to keep away anyone fleeing from the consequences of it.
The "best" part of energy weapons like that is that they just need energy. Meaning that no one has to constantly restock ammunition. They can even run off renewables.
Making the whole thing scalable. Fully automated energy weapon sentry guns on the border to the global south.
This is going to be the future, isn't it? Jesus Christ.
"Future weapons" on the Discovery Channel showed it off back in 2007ish.
It's been in development hell that long because it just sucks in a million ways. Water cannons and other tools just do it's job better, and for less contract dollars.
And that's ignoring anything around microwaving your own citizens being fucked.
That and "1984" were required reading when I was in grade-school, supposedly as a warning against the worst possible future outcomes (not as instruction manuals for our "leaders" to follow).
Microwaving people is clearly a net good for society, and once domestic non-border use is approved we'll be able to build America back even more quickly.
My guess: 35 seconds.