Technology risk without safeguards

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1

Hello,

I believe the below described method of causing intentional (1) damage to equipment in data centers and (2) physical injury to a person at the workplace is on-topic for the NANOG community, if not, I look forward to your feedback. As a software developer who has subscribed to the NANOG mailing list for a number of years, I post this note relying on intellectual honesty that I have had the opportunity to observe since 1996-97.

The below described technology risk is applicable to computing/communication equipment rendered vulnerable by Intentional Electromagnetic Interference (jamming an electronic device) and the risk of health sabotage affecting people (jamming a human) managing the Internet infrastructure enabled by intentional application of powerful radiofrequency fields (RF) emitted by re-purposed components salvaged from a kitchen heating appliance (Magnetron) or from an outdoor high gain/power Line of sight transceiver (unidirectional microwave radio) which has a harm causing range up to 25 meters (estimated using a Spectral Power Density calculator like www.hintlink.com/power_density.htm).

This risk from mis-application of powerful RF is from human operated or IoT apparatus** with an avenue of approch from (a) subterrain placement aided by a compact/mini directional horizontal drilling machine (eg. principle of placing a stent in the heart) and/or (b) strategic placement in an obscure over-surface location to maximize negative impact on the target of opportunity.

With building materials or ground offer insufficient* protection to block the passage of powerful RF and the absence of diagnostic/forensic tests to detect biomarkers expressed post-overexposure to harmful RF (combination of RF frequency, Spectral Power Density/Specific Absorption Rate incident on a person and duration of exposure), intentional damage to electronic equipment and people is at present unrestricted.

The purpose of bringing this method of exploting technology to your attention is with an interest to build the momentum for ushering in the much needed safeguards in this context.

Thanks.
Suresh
https://competitionunlimited.wordpress.com.

  • Stone WC. Electromagnetic Signal Attenuation in Construction Materials. In:
    NISTInteragency/Internal Report - 6055. 1 Oct 1997.

** Ling H, Ram S. “Detecting Human Activities Through Barriers: Doppler Radar Signals Become Animation”. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080925094719.htm.

2

Hello,

Did you test against common equipment deployments or did you just
measure the field strength?

In common equipment deployments, the electronics are wrapped in two
layers of Faraday cage: the steel case of the equipment itself and the
steel cabinet into which the equipment is installed, both well
grounded. Penetration from even strong EM fields is limited.

Also, if you go to the expense of boring under someone's data center I
have to think dynamite will be more effective at disabling it.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

3

Matt Harris​

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4

Maybe someone is just looking for “inspiration”.

There is other venues to work this out “safely”, IMHO.

5

To that end, anyone working around RF should be properly trained and use the safety tools provided them, they should be fine. If an untrained individual does something and gets hurt with high power RF, it is unfortunate and happens all too often because of people thinking that the worst case things don’t happen to them…

Can you provide a case where this may have happened? Any RF in a Data Center should be on the roof, and isolated from the room at all times. This is standard practice in every RF data room we’ve ever been in, whether it be commercial or Government.

Regards,

Nathan Babcock

6

Hello,

Did you test against common equipment
deployments or did you just measure the field
strength?

I have not conducted any test, only going by the field strength that is capable of causing EMI.

In common equipment deployments, the
electronics are wrapped in two layers of
Faraday cage: the steel case of the equipment
itself and the steel cabinet into which the
equipment is installed, both well grounded.
Penetration from even strong EM fields is limited.

I agree. Depending on the magnitude of down side, ie., to mitigate an attack to induce electrical failure (Magnetron + horn antenna), it may be necessary for metal clad walls and floor housing the electronic equipment. The thickness of metal clading would need some testing with an RF emitter discussed at https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/analysis/emp-the-suitcase-that-can-close-down-your-site/.

Also, if you go to the expense of boring under
someone’s data center I have to think dynamite
will be more effective at disabling it.

If all data centers without a floor beneath are hardened to repel a sub-surface horizontal drilling apparatus, that’s great. For data centers that do have a floor beneath, the above said metal clading is relevant.

Your comments gives me an overall impression that data center equipment are on average adequately protected, that is good. Also, public discussion on the risk of intentional EMI is a big positive. However, targeting a human using powerful RF is uncharacterized (please see https://github.com/sureshs20/De_Risk_Technology). If the RF emitters conducive for getting re-purposed for malice were prohibitively expensive or the expertise to re-purpose RF for malice was very complex or if there were diagnostic/forensic tests to detect foul-play using powerful RF, I would not be pursuing this initiative to safeguard unsuspecting/defenseless targets of opportunity.

Please also note that I have been at the threshold of cancer post-overexposure to a combination of powerful RF and X-ray (re-purposed X-ray tube) during this lifetime to be committed to developing diagnostic/forensic tests and making you all aware of this in the spirit of ‘fore warned is fore armed’.

Regards,
Suresh

7

I’m a bit confused as to what this message
is trying to ultimately get at

The superior tactical advantage of causing intentional harm with high power beam-forming RF and escape detection. Meaning, assault with powerful RF leaves a victim and bystander unaware of being attacked and my intention is to mobilize interest to plug the gap in safeguards.

it should be noted that folks who work
with RF… well aware of the necessary
precautions and take them on a day to day
basis when working with this equipment…

At an employer where I developed Wi-Fi based SOHO device, an adjacent group was testing Line of Sight transceivers. Nobody warned me of the inclement health (a general physician in 2007 suspected cancer looking at a blood test) from close quarters exposure to the side lobes emanating from the microwave radio.

…let’s hear that out specifically and I’m all
for working to rectify that.

Applicable to workplaces pertinent to the NANOG community and elsewhere, there is need for publicising policy on curbing harassment using powerful RF along the lines of curbing gender/race based harassment. Why publicise? awareness among non-RF professionals of the leading health symptoms expressed post-overexposure to harmful RF/X-ray voids the element of surprise on an unsuspecting victim.

The former is relatively difficult to do by
virtue of the amount of power necessary.

For instance, RF from Magnetron salvaged from a kitchen heating appliance focused using a horn antenna when positioned on a roof renders the person one floor above within 2 meters effective range of harm.

Quite basically, there are much easier ways
to go about injuring someone if that’s what
you want to do

Without a doubt. However, other methods are very well handled by existing forensic tests to minimize repeat offence. With negative use of RF on humans, the perpetrator is fearless of law.

jam RF communications has existed for as
long as RF communication has, and the
knowledge of how to accomplish it is
relatively widespread

Very good point, the FCC has enforcable regulations and the DoJ armed with statutes to curb jamming electronic devices. However jamming a human is not yet present.

…but lacks specificity with regard to what
safeguards…

Thanks for asking. Safeguards I can think of:

  • Anti-harassment policy diplayed at a workplace, hospital, hotel etc. to raise awareness of failing health post-overexposure to harmful RF/X-ray (EMF).
  • Diagnostic/forensic tests that identify biomarkers expressed post-overexposure to harmful EMF.
  • Forensic tests that make visible transformation of paint and characterize the alteration of microbiome exposed to harmful EMF.
  • Detectors worn by firefighters^*^, civil law enforcement, military and outdoor wireless developers and field technicians.

^*^ Curtis S.D. Massey. The Facts and Dangers of Rooftop Transmitting Devices on High-Rise
Buildings. Mar 31st, 2005. https://www.firehouse.com/safety-health/article/10513827/the-facts-and-dangers-of-rooftop-transmitting-devices-on-highrise-buildings.

8

Your comments gives me an overall impression that data center equipment are on average adequately protected, that is good. Also, public discussion on the risk of intentional EMI is a big positive.

I watched a T.V. program a few years ago where an investigative
reporter did a piece on the risks of malicious electromagnetic
interference (EMI). He did a demonstration where he tried to cause a
car to malfunction. A bad actor could cause highway crashes! He had a
great big apparatus about the size of the car's engine compartment and
pointed at the car. Nothing happened. So he moved it about 3 feet from
the car. Nothing happened. So he opened the car's hood and pointed it
right at the engine. Finally the engine started sputtering and the
dashboard electronics malfunctioned. The car, of course, remained
completely controllable and when the EMI generator was turned off it
resumed normal operation undamaged.

I've also had lightning hit about 50 feet from my unshielded computer
room. It fried a little plastic COTS router that was connected by
about 100 feet of UTP ethernet to my core router. The core router
crashed but worked fine after a reboot. No other equipment was
affected.

Vulnerability to EMI is a lot less than folks imagine.

However, targeting a human using powerful RF is uncharacterized (please see https://github.com/sureshs20/De_Risk_Technology). If the RF emitters conducive for getting re-purposed for malice were prohibitively expensive _or_ the expertise to re-purpose RF for malice was very complex _or_ if there were diagnostic/forensic tests to detect foul-play using powerful RF, I would not be pursuing this initiative to safeguard unsuspecting/defenseless targets of opportunity.

Malicious use of EMI emitters to harm human health is definitely out
of scope for this list.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

9

There is other venues to work this out
“safely”, IMHO.

I started this effort for safeguards in July 2007. Until 2018, I did exactly what you mention. The FCC’s Office of Engineeting and Technology in 2015 has been the only government agency that replied to my email query on jurisdiction stating the FCC does not regulate/enforce negative improvisation of outdoor high power wireless transmitters. By 2018, I had collected sufficient supporting data that was burdensome to send via email and absent response of multiple governments to address this significant gap in rule of law prompted me to put up the website competitionunlimited on Wordpress.

If some institution innumerable to count had agreed to investigate, I would be very content writing code for commercial data communication systems which is what took me to the U.S. in 1994. During my overseas deployments with the U.S. Army National Guard, my reports to higher regarding vulnerabilities was consistently met with unambiguous response/acknowledgement indicating my concern is being investigated. Since I have not had that benefit from civilian organizations, I finally reasoned that common awareness reduces the element of surprise from an incognito perpetrator.

Please note that I have wrestled with “Maybe someone is just looking for “inspiration”” for almost 13 years before bringing this to your collective notice today.

10

Vulnerability to EMI is a lot less than folks imagine.

I hope that is true.

Malicious use of EMI emitters to harm
human health is definitely out of scope for
this list.

I am of the belief that people are as important as electronic equipment in the gamut of workplace safety in the ambit of internal sabotage, be it data center or elsewhere.

11

I think the actual risk is the opposite of transmitting signals to damage or sabotage.

I have read about many cases of receiving weak signals from things like monitors and wireless keyboards that could be snooped in by receiving and decoding them. I suppose routers and switches could leak signals representing actual data packets like this too. Perhaps even before they are encrypted.

I could imagine a scenario where a neighboring cage in a DC attempted something like that. It would be much harder to detect than a physical breach.

Brandon

12

My first instinct is to let this be because the level of conspiracy theory nuttiness seems to be very high and the level of knowledge of basic physics seems to be very low, but since this list is archived in a way that lay-people may reference it at some point in the future, I’m going to go ahead and reply just this once more and just one point here so that a lack of response here won’t be used as fodder by conspiracy theorists.

Matt Harris​

Infrastructure Lead Engineer

816‑256‑5446

Direct

Looking for something?

Helpdesk Portal

Email Support

Billing Portal

We build and deliver end‑to‑end IT solutions.

At an employer where I developed Wi-Fi based SOHO device, an adjacent group was testing Line of Sight transceivers. Nobody warned me of the inclement health (a general physician in 2007 suspected cancer looking at a blood test) from close quarters exposure to the side lobes emanating from the microwave radio.

There is no scientific evidence that RF emissions in the bands used for communications have any causal relationship with cancer in humans. This is an internet conspiracy theory with no basis in reality or science. If your doctor suspected that you had cancer caused by something related to microwave band communications equipment, you need to find a new doctor.

13

Hi,

Not that I'm into conspiracy theories, or believe at this point that RF emissions
are in any way related to cancer, but Suresh' statement is not very scientific:

This is an internet conspiracy theory with no basis in reality or science.

RF emissions are absorbed by the human body. Your kitchen microwave works at
the same frequency as your 2.4Ghz wifi. We all know it's a bad idea to put your
head in a microwave oven.

The hypothesis that RF may cause damage to human DNA is not at all conspiracy. The
fact that we haven't been able to identify a factual relationship, does not mean
that there isn't any. For example:

In large studies published in 2018 by the US National Toxicology Program (NTP)
and by the Ramazzini Institute in Italy, researchers exposed groups of lab rats
(as well as mice, in the case of the NTP study) to RF waves over their entire
bodies for many hours a day, starting before birth and continuing for at least
most of their natural lives. Both studies found an increased risk of uncommon
heart tumors called malignant schwannomas in male rats, but not in female rats
(nor in male or female mice, in the NTP study). The NTP study also reported
possible increased risks of certain types of tumors in the brain and in the adrenal
glands.

Source: Does RF Radiation Cause Cancer? | American Cancer Society

If your doctor suspected that you had cancer caused by something related to
microwave band communications equipment, you need to find a new doctor.

On the contrary. Few people are more exposed to higher-powered RF radiation
than a MW techie. That would make them an excellent subject for scientific
research. Dismissing a medical professional's opinion based in your own
firm beliefs is counterproductive to the advance of scientific knowledge.

Thanks,

Sabri, M.Sc

14

The hypothesis that RF may cause damage to human DNA is not at all conspiracy. The
fact that we haven’t been able to identify a factual relationship, does not mean
that there isn’t any. For example:

If you are going to cite that American Cancer Society article, you should cite all the relevant parts. The parts you skipped are bolded.

RF waves don’t have enough energy to damage DNA directly. Because of this, it’s not clear how RF radiation might be able to cause cancer. Some studies have found possible increased rates of certain types of tumors in lab animals exposed to RF radiation, but overall, the results of these types of studies have not provided clear answers so far.

A few studies have reported evidence of biological effects that could be linked to cancer, but this is still an area of research.

In large studies published in 2018 by the US National Toxicology Program (NTP) and by the Ramazzini Institute in Italy, researchers exposed groups of lab rats (as well as mice, in the case of the NTP study) to RF waves over their entire bodies for many hours a day, starting before birth and continuing for at least most of their natural lives. Both studies found an increased risk of uncommon heart tumors called malignant schwannomas in male rats, but not in female rats (nor in male or female mice, in the NTP study). The NTP study also reported possible increased risks of certain types of tumors in the brain and in the adrenal glands.

While both of these studies had strengths, they also had limitations that make it hard to know how they might apply to humans being exposed to RF radiation. A 2019 review of these two studies by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) determined that the limitations of the studies didn’t allow conclusions to be drawn regarding the ability of RF energy to cause cancer.

Still, the results of these studies do not rule out the possibility that RF radiation might somehow be able to impact human health.

The majority of science to date finds no causal relationship between EM radiation and cancerous mutations. If someone wants to claim otherwise, scientific proof is required.

15

Since the Science is not settled… I still won’t put a wireless earbud so close to my brain, and I’m especially worried about people doing this over extended periods. Personally I try to use a wired earbud when I’m using my cell phone.

But I’m overly cautious I guess. I wear a mask when I go to the store and I use list specific email addresses - so ignore everything I say on this subject.

Geoff

16

It's a bad idea because you'll get burns. EM radiation isn't some sort of covert superweapon where by the time you get cancer, the attacker is long gone. The potential harm is getting burned. As I'm sure everyone is aware, burns are painful, so you'll know right away.

17

The fact that we haven't been able to identify a factual relationship,
does not mean that there isn't any.

just wow

and, for all we know, the back side of the moon is green cheese

18

Existing research on health effects from RF signals dwell on emissions from regulated sources, (mobile handset, base of a tower etc), my overriding concern is, unrestricted/chronic exposure for extended duration of time for which there are very rare research efforts devoted.

Chronic exposure to RF is found to induce DNA instability^1^. Even if RF at chronic exposure levels are not found to cause DNA strands to break, it creates upstream conditions such as excess Calcium influx^2,3^ into the cell’s cytoplasm with implications on cardiac arrhythmia^4^, invoke and/or worsen neurodegenerative^5^ diseases to name a few.

Labeling any discussion on adverse health from OVEREXPOSURE to RF is a cop-out from doing a threadbare analysis.

Suresh S.

^1^ Mashevich M, Folkman D, Kesar A, et. al. Exposure of human peripheral blood lymphocytes to electromagnetic fields associated with cellular phones leads to chromosomal instability. Bioelectromagnetics. 2003;24:82–90.

^2^ Arber SL, Lin JC. Extracellular calcium and microwave enhancement of membrane conductance in snail neurons. Radiat Environ Biophys. Jun 1985;24(2):149–156.

^3^ Rao VS, Titushkin IA, Moros EG et al. Nonthermal effects of radiofrequency-field exposure on calcium dynamics in stem cell-derived neuronal cells: elucidation of calcium pathways.
Radiat Res. 2008 March. 169(3):319-29.

^4^ Grace AA , Camm AJ. Voltage-gated calcium -channels and antiarrhythmic drug action.
Cardiovasc Res. Jan 2000;45(1):43–51.

^5^ Leal SS, Gomes CM. Calcium dysregulation links ALS defective proteins and motor neuron

selective vulnerability. Front Cell Neurosci. 2015;9:225.

19

Hi,

The fact that we haven't been able to identify a factual relationship,
does not mean that there isn't any.

just wow

and, for all we know, the back side of the moon is green cheese

I don't think you got the message buried within my message. True science
is open to change, based on learning new facts. Like I said initially, I
agree with Suresh that at this time, there is no scientific evidence that
links RF with any kind of bodily harm.

The parts that Tom cited, are very much relevant, and only reinforce the
notion that at this time, we simply do not know enough. We do know, that
at the low doses we generally receive, there is no evidence for harmful
consequences.

My point is that we should not dismiss the physician who thought that he
may have found something, as some kind of conspiracist. That's not how
scientific progress is achieved.

Thanks,

Sabri

20

Hi Suresh,

I’m not disputing anything you or Tom wrote. The current scientific consensus is that most RF exposures are sage. We agree on that.

My point is simply that, as Tom wrote in his citation, the biological effects of RF are still an area of research.

And for that reason, it’s unfair to dismiss a physician’s suggestion to look into a case as an “internet conspiracy”. That’s all.