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Re:The Consensus on Havana Syndrome Is Cracking by Willingham on Sunday January 12, 2025 @08:11PM (#42678901)
Can’t you make these weapons with the magnetron out of any old microwave? I’ve always wondered why these devices aren’t more prolific than they are…
Re:The Consensus on Havana Syndrome Is Cracking by CamperBob2 on Sunday January 12, 2025 @08:28PM (#42679021)
No.
Re:The Consensus on Havana Syndrome Is Cracking by vibrio on Sunday January 12, 2025 @10:05PM (#42679650)
My guess is there would be a strong selection against impulsive non-experts. That’s on my “No-MacGyver” list with garage door springs and AC unit capacitors .
Re:The Consensus on Havana Syndrome Is Cracking by grobbyy on Sunday January 12, 2025 @10:41PM (#42679856)
Yes, I could, but I'd have a 90% chance of hurting myself. Ditto for giving some cancer with radiation, many covert poisons, and similar. I can name a dozen ways I could kill or harm you, but:

1. I'd need to be wacko enough to want to harm you

2. I'd need to be sane enough for a major engineering project

3. I'd need to be competent enough to succeed without hurting myself

The set of individuals with all the traits required is small. It's not zero -- we had Ted Kazinsky -- but very small. Most major crimes are also never solved, and many more people can just take a gun and shoot someone. That's probably even harder to track down since a lot more people have guns than labs and PhDs. Esoteric technologies make for easy investigations.

So in the end, I think state actors have these. They also make good plot lines for a novel or video game (I have about a dozen I came up with in the context of a half-baked creative project).

But for real life individuals, I don't see how they'd become prolific. We'll probably see a crazy someday, but nowhere close to gun homicides. They just don't make much practical sense for an individual.

Re:The Consensus on Havana Syndrome Is Cracking by whycome on Monday January 13, 2025 @12:15AM (#42680284)
The top of my “I’m surprised it’s allowed” list is large lithium batteries in airplanes. If phones weren’t already so ubiquitous, they would have been mostly banned.
Re:The Consensus on Havana Syndrome Is Cracking by itishappy on Monday January 13, 2025 @10:15AM (#42684279)
Yes, and you don't even need to dig into the dangerous bits (microwave transformers are some of the biggest killers of electrical hobbyists), just remove the door and defeat the interlock.