Rumors about HERF guns
...perhaps the most frightening technology--Herf Guns which generate incredibly high levels of electromagnetic radiation that will either crash the target machine (if you're lucky) or else crash it, erase the disk, and possibly even fuse the silicon barriers on the chips! A typical herf gun is backpack sized, costs about $150 to build, and puts out an incredible 16 Megawatts of pulse. We learn that the United States actually deployed these type of weapons in bombs against Iraq in 1991--RFI weapons destroyed the Iraqui air defense system.
...Winn Schwartau spoke next on electromagnetic eavesdropping. He said NSA had a classified program called TEMPEST and that it only came out of the closet after a paper was written in Europe. He then played a tape produced by the BBC on electronic eavesdropping. While the film was somewhat dated, it showed the threat to totally unprotected commercial systems is real. Even with this demonstration, the British had a hard time generating a commercial market for TEMPEST products. Mr. Schwartau then discussed Magnetic Weapon Systems, such as HERF guns. He distributed a drawing of a 16 megawatt HERF gun that he contended could take down systems up to 100 feet away. He then showed another video on EMI at low levels. The video presented many serious EMI problems related to airlines and hospitals, such as wheelchairs out of control. Many of the people attending the conference found these stories funny. Mr. Schwartau then said the rumor that we used a virus in a printer to defeat Iraqi air defenses during the Gulf War was incorrect; instead we used magnetic weapon systems on cruise missiles to jam the Iraqi air defenses. He concluded by saying that we must consider some terrorist organization using magnetic weapon systems to damage our financial systems.