Topic: The coming EMP attack is sure to take Bitcoin down. (Read 1978 times)

Had to google what an EMP attack is!
What is the probability of an EMP attack?
Not significant to actually worry about. 

EMP? That sounds scary!   

Has someone demonstrated that they can do a worldwide EMP that will destroy every instance of the blockchain?

Should I be packing my things tonight to go to a cave? Let me know soon, I'm going to start packing and come back to check.

Let's scare them back and talk about on site solar electricity. They certainly don't want to buy electricity from you when they sell it to you now. Perhaps in the future their only revenue will come from renting out the transmission grid so that users can share/sell what they generate?
Now that is scary!  lol

That's not the point. The point is that they are scaring us into a fearful frenzy so we don't know which way to go. With the efficiency of modern diesel engines, we don't need power companies any more. But, if we realized it, we would move towards freedom, and they don't want that.

I dunno man. If the government launched an EMP attack in the US they would be the primary loser. It would destroy millions of cars and other things with electrical circuits. It would require billions and billions to rebuild. For what?

Government promotes an EMP attack that would be devastating. How? Except if you live in a sparsely populated area, they won't let your neighborhood get together and purchase a Kabota diesel (very efficient) and provide electricity for your whole neighborhood.

Government DOES want to keep us under their thumb... so THEY can rape and plunder us with power company ripoff, using fear of EMP, while they don't let us do anything about it.

The strongest argument against this is incentive. The Chinese could not afford an EMP attack. Any such attack would be limited in scale but huge in geopolitical relations. They would become a pariah state. China has become the most powerful nation by selling stuff to the west. If that went away they would be hurting more than us. We wold not be plunged into the stone age. The effect would cause chaos in one or two cities, But we could fix it all in a few months tops. A nationwide EMP would require a thermonuclear war that would make the the EMP part trivial.

I'm sure the Chinese, and every other country, are interested in EMPs. They could be used to knock out satellites or specific targets. But the context is using them as part of a broader war, by themselves they will only piss off your enemy.   

ok SO let me bring this back as a serious topic. I am not hoping or saying that the Chinese are even considering an EMP attack as i have read in the various forums and articles, BUT what is being done to safe guard against a possible long term power grid failure. we all know tat the power grid infrastructure is fragile. power outages happen all the time. What do we do is there is one that lasts a week? I am all for crypto-currencies. I think decentralization is the way this world needs to go. paper wallets are a great back up I just hope and pray that you don't put them all in one wallet. i plan to make my own denominational backups. Solar flares have been well documented as disrupting the primitive power grids of the past. We have not done much to change it to protect from another large EMP producing solar flare. i am suggesting paper wallets and taking a step away from the main grid. if we are going to truely embrace this new technology and this decentralized way of thinking and way of life we must put safe gaurds in place. the gov't doesn't like it what is to stop them from shutting of the powers to continue on wit their fiat. Pull your heads out of your butts and be true forward thinkers. they would have no trouble throughing america into the 3rd world to force us to stick with the old ways.

Well didn't you hear about that new acid that instantly corrodes any conductor withing seconds and propels itself along the conductor?  All somebody has to do is drop a few drops into the electrical socket and the whole US electrical grid will be destroyed in seconds!  Argh, run for the hills!

Well with the stupidity I witness around here sometimes I can imagine more people freaking out about their Bitcoin wallets than pottable water, food or medical supplies.

With an EMP attack, bitcoin would be the least of your worries.
And it would secured by the rest of the world.

I totally agree, but do you think that Bitcoin would be where it is at without them?  It's possible that it could have had a long steady climb of acceptance only to be outpaced by some other coin that stole the Bitcoin idea and had a ton of capital behind it.  It's happened over and over in the tech world:  Banyan, Novell, Apple(LOL), Blackberry, early tablet PC's... Never underestimate the power of effective marketing.  Just a thought.

Let me get this straight an EMP over 10% of the earth will take out Bitcoin..

Do you even computers?

{Believe it or not} Huge sections of the net can be disrupted by cutting a "few large cables" in the ocean.
I looked into this a couple months ago and the 'standard' web is much more fragile than I ever expected.
FYI: The network(s) created to "survive a nuclear war" are not the same as the "common, everyday Internet."

On the bright side, a recent story (in the Press section here) has a company 'broadcasting' bitcoin on a new TV network (or very similar), so the net will not be required for BTC to function.

Amen.
People seem unwilling to accept that their lives are little and boring. They always want to be part of some grand cosmic battle with arch villains and secret plans. Alex Jones knows that "giving them what they want" sells. 

usually its weed smoking, glue sniffing hippies that only have one TV channel, the sci-fi channel. because they spend all their money on drugs instead of a new TV.

i hate the silk road-bitcoin link of pre2013 more because of the customer 'type' it attracted, if only bitcoin started with a legitimate ebay style of thing or had some other niche to start the ball rolling.. the whole bitcoin community may be a few IQ points higher on average, even if itmeant bitcoin would have had a slower start.

This is 2nd or 3rd doomsday thread today....wtf  is with all the doomsday topics in this last few days? Should i unlock my private atomic shelter?

EMP attack on the United States will take out a world currency?

All signs point to a lack of critical reasoning on the part of the OP...

I love this paranoid Alex Jones type nonsense. It always entertains me. They're just trying to get webhits and sell books and crappy products at the end of the day and there's an endless supply of suckers to suck it up. If something like this effects bitcoin then it'll effect everything else too.

dooms day apocalypse dreamers.. article linked has no mention of bitcoin, pure sci-fi (belongs in trash or off topic)

wil the tin foil hat people please go to the sci-fi forums

Large solar flares are more likely to take down the internet than an EMP attack.

Lol, you mean it will take down the Dollar and Euro which are close to 100% virtual (digital), and totally dependent on the internet.

Bitcoin on the other hand: paper wallet backups FTW.

http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2014/07/25/all-signs-point-to-a-coming-emp-attack-upon-the-united-states/