[00:00:00] Brent: Let's face it, if the electric grid goes down, we're in some deep trouble. And if the electric grid goes down, so do the cell towers. And we all have a cell phone, pretty much, so if the cell towers go down, your cell phone is basically a brick. It's, it does nothing.
[00:00:14] Dave: This is Technologically Speaking, the official podcast for the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, or S&T as we call it. Join us as we meet the science and technology experts on the frontlines keeping America safe.
[00:00:28] Dee: Hi, I'm Deepak Sani, Media Chief at the Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate. We're joined by Brent Talbot, who's a Program Manager for DHS S&T in our Office of Mission and Capability Support. Welcome, Brent.
[00:00:43] Brent: Thanks Dee. Great to be here.
[00:00:44] Dee: So, I know today we're going to talk a lot about electromagnetic pulses, known as EMPs, or geomagnetic disturbances, known as GMDs. But before we dive into that and get into that science, Brent, tell me a little bit about you growing up. Did you always have a knack for science and technology?
[00:01:03] Brent: Yeah, a little bit. One of the great things from my high school was that we were very close to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation up in Richland, Washington. So, most of the kids were sons and daughters of scientists, engineers, chemists. So, it was very, technically oriented high school. To stand out as a geek there was really, really difficult, but we all tried.
[00:01:24] Dee: That's really fascinating. Okay, so, so as you were growing up, how did you navigate what you wanted to do with your life?
[00:01:30] Brent: Well, I wasn't really sure. A lot of things held my interest. Due to economic circumstances, I went in the military instead of going to college and wound up in signals intelligence, and that really helped me to embrace my nerd side. I followed that for nine years there and then continued following that basically in the same program as a civilian and worked as a government contractor for quite a while. And then eventually came over to the government side and eventually S&T about four years ago.
[00:02:01] Dee: What, was there anything about S& T that stood out for you?
[00:02:04] Brent: Yeah. It was exciting in that I came over as a, a detailee from Customs and Border Protection, where I was a systems engineer working on some IT programs over there. What interested me about S& T was being able to work on science projects. So, it's not just science to do science, but it's actually something that can be applied either as a knowledge product to enhance the knowledge of a particular area, kind of inform future research in that area, or actually creating something that can be used, by, as an example, the Customs and Border Protection agents out there. So that, that part of it really fascinated me.
[00:02:44] Dee: How did your background in signals set you up for success in your current field?
[00:02:49] Brent: Signals intelligence, you take the signal and you pull it apart and you figure out the waveform of the signal and how intelligence or communications or whatever was put onto that carrier wave. That prepared me for EMP, because an EMP is a very similar kind of event in that it is a waveform in the electromagnetic spectrum. Now, extremely powerful, not like your radio wave, which is not going to damage anything. But it's still, the EMP is a waveform if, like with the radio waves, an early way of putting information on that was amplitude, which is your AM radio. Okay, that's very susceptible for attenuation. So, they created frequency modulation, or FM radio, which is a lot less susceptible to attenuation. So, your FM signals will go a lot further, plus they're up at a near frequency. So, if you could actually modify or combine information onto an electromagnetic pulse. If you could find something that could withstand its power, you could extract the information off of it.
[00:03:54] Dee: So, now that you're at S&T, and the bulk of your work carries along EMP resilience, let's address what that even is. Some folks listening might never have heard of electromagnetic pulses or geomagnetic disturbances. I guess, how would you explain that to a grandmother or a high school student in more layman's terms? What is this even all about?
[00:04:16] Brent: Oh, that's a great question. So, if you're not into science fiction, you probably haven't seen electromagnetic pulse referred to in a movie or anything. But, if you have, if you've watched, for example, The Matrix or even sort of Oceans 11, that kind of thing is described. So, an electric magnetic pulse is, it's a man-made phenomenon. And it's a very pronounced waveform of energy that blasts and destroys everything electronic in the area. Typically, what we're looking at, what we're trying to understand and mitigate against is an explosion in the atmosphere, whether that's a nuclear or a bomb that's designed to create an EMP that can have long or widespread devastation for electronics and for the electric grid. Let's face it, if the electric grid goes down, we're in some deep trouble. And if the electric grid goes down, so do the cell towers. And we all have a cell phone, pretty much – that’s an ubiquitous thing. So, if the cell towers go down, your cell phone is basically a brick. It's, it does nothing. So, one of the things that came out, and this was an Executive Order back in 2019 that said, “We really need to look at this and try and protect against it.” it's a low-risk event, in that it would have to be a nation state or somebody with a whole ton of money that would be able to create something that would create an electromagnetic pulse that could cause that kind of devastation. So, it's a low probability of that happening. But, if it does happen, it's got a tremendous impact on the country. So, not only does it fry your electronic devices, it can take down the electric grid, as I mentioned, and that we rely on so much for all of our communications and the interoperability of just about everything. I mean, we wouldn't have this conversation if it wasn't for being able to have the electronics that power the laptops, the microphones, the everything else that we're using right now, the internet that we're doing this over.
[00:06:25] Dee: Yeah. So if it's a low probability, high risk event, I was curious to see, like, how that would impact. And you said, you know, mostly manmade, right? In terms of the cause would be explosives or bombs or anything similar to that. Are there any chances where this could also happen naturally, just in terms of perhaps, maybe magnetic fields with the earth or anything along those lines?
[00:06:48] Brent: You mentioned the geomagnetic disturbances, and that is that a naturally occurring phenomenon. There is a big difference between the two phenomena. So, the electromagnetic pulse is going to have a very strong, very powerful initial part of that wave that's going to fry your computer chips and small electronics. Then, as it continues on, the wave kind of loses some power, and then it goes into kind of a longer period. And that's where it can connect to, or couple with your, power lines. And, once it does that, that huge amount of energy is going to disrupt your transformers and take down your power grid. Now, the geomagnetic disturbance is much like that last part of the EMP, in that it's a much longer but yet powerful thing that's going to interfere with your radio communications. It, too, can couple onto your power lines, and that amount of energy can take out transformers and take down your grid. One thing I do want to reemphasize is that, while an EMP event is low probability, high impact, a geomagnetic disturbance is a lot higher probability, because it is a naturally occurring thing. It has a potential because it's a naturally occurring. It's solar flares. Those happen on a fairly regular basis. Now, it's more rare when one of those hits the earth because of the whole orbit mechanics and all of that. That has a higher, much higher probability than an EMP.
[00:08:23] Dee: Got it. Are there any other movies or science fiction books that you can think of that capture the science that you deal with accurately?
[00:08:31] Brent: No, none of them deal with it accurately.
[00:08:35] Dee: That's a loaded question.
[00:08:36] Brent: Here's the problem. No, it's no, it's. So, when you look at something like The Matrix, which came out in what, 1999, something like that. So, they're in their hovercraft, whatever it is, and they get ready to set off an EMP. And it, they set it off, and it fries everything within, everywhere they can see. Okay. The amount of power that had to use was tremendous. Could it have come from the hovercraft? I don't know. Then, you go through the series of movies, and they set off another EMP inside a dock. And they've got these machines coming through a hole in the ceiling. And somehow that EMP goes through that hole up into the earth's crust and fries a bunch of machines. Now, that's impossible because the roof would have attenuated the strength of that EMP, and it would not have any kind of power beyond another, you know, 30 feet, 40 feet with, through that small hall. Again, it looked great in the movie. It was wonderful in the movie, but while I'm sitting there watching, it's like, “No, that can't happen.”
[00:09:42] Dee: Can you talk us through the significance of S&T's work in this space and how we're able to contribute something very unique to this effort?
[00:09:53] Brent: Yeah, so, what we've been doing is we've been working with our colleagues over at CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, with the national risk management folks over there, and they're helping us to determine what is the highest risk to the country. And we have separated things out, where the Department of Energy is really working on the electrical grid part of it because that's their meat and potatoes. We, at S& T, we're working more along the communication lines. So, what are the things that are in communications that are vulnerable to an EMP? And, once we find those things, how do we mitigate against it or help recover from it? So, working with the National Risk Management Center, one of the things that we understand is that the cell towers are really one of the backbones of our communication systems, especially with our cell phones and other communications. So, what we looked at first was, let's test out the 4G towers. And the reason for that is that they have a much longer range. Your 5G towers only have a range of about, about half a mile. Your 4G towers, the range is about 25 miles. The lower the frequency, the longer the range of it, the slower the communications. The higher the frequency, the shorter the range, the more information you can pack into it. So, the 4G and 4G LTE towers are going to be the main bearer of the communications, if you will. So, we were able to put the tower components in there, shoot some electromagnetic pulses at them and see how they did.
[00:11:31] Dee: Yeah, that's super fascinating. I want to go over some of the major milestones you've achieved.
[00:11:35] I understand in 2021, you coauthored a guidebook, based on work done on the secure and resilient mobile network infrastructure, which, this involved gaps that were identified by CISA with an emphasis on 5G security risk management. I would love to hear about that, how that worked out and how it went and how impactful it's been.
[00:11:56] Brent: So, that was a lot of work that we did again with private companies, and we were really looking for vulnerabilities in your mobile devices, your cell phones, your tablets, and their interaction with cell towers. So, that was a lot of great work and also looking for new and unique ways to find if your device had been hacked. One, one of them was that they developed a probe that you would lay alongside the device, and you take a brand new, one of those make and model devices. You start it up several times. Now it's learned that it's kind of a machine learning AI kind of thing. And now you can take any same make and model device, start it up and it will determine whether or not a nefarious, something has been put on there that's not part of the normal device in the boot up sequence, because it will notice the out of pattern computations. So, that, that was one of the more, to me, more fascinating, results of that. That doesn't have a lot to do with the EMP, but it does help to understand the 5g realm a little bit better
[00:13:07] Dee: You contributed to a best practices guide on EMP shielding mitigations. So, from what I understand, this would assist critical infrastructure owners and operators in protecting critical assets in case of an EMP attack. Can you just walk us through the nuts and bolts of this as well?
[00:13:25] Brent: Sure. The publication you're referencing is a result of some of the testing as we were requested by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to look at the IPAWS system that they had built or had built to withstand, an electromagnetic pulse. And this sits next to your radio stations and is part of the emergency broadcast system. So, that in case of. an EMP or some, you know, huge natural disaster, the IPAWS system would still be functional. Still be able to get the message from the president of the United States out to folks via the radio stations as part of the emergency broadcast system so that we would know, you know, we could be instructed on what to do, where to go, where to find the help that we need in case of such a natural or a manmade disaster.
[00:14:19] Dee: You do very impactful work. And I think EMPs, there's a lot of fascination around this. How does it feel knowing that, you know, the research that you're doing is being helpful, or at least, it's helping different types of audiences understand this scope?
[00:14:36] Brent: This is exactly why I, I love the fact that the research we're doing, the things we're finding out we're able to take the most precious dollar in the world, which is the American taxpayer dollar, and we're giving them a tremendous benefit as a result. Sometimes it's common-sense guidance – that's what it is, and sometimes it's not common sense, but here are the things that you can do if you know something like this is going to happen. These are the simple things you can do. Unplug your electronics, turn them off. Put them into a room that doesn't have windows. You and I both know that if you go into the next room, you can't hear me as well because the walls are shielding me from you. Right? So, it's the same way with a radio wave or an electromagnetic pulse, which is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, just like a radio wave. So, if you put a wall between you and an EMP, that's going to protect it. It's going to protect you and your electronics. Now, we've got radio waves going through us all the time. An EMP isn't really going to hurt you unless you've got a pacemaker.
[00:15:41] Dee: Are there any current projects you're working on that you would love to highlight?
[00:15:46] Brent: Yeah, absolutely. So, one of the projects we've had ongoing for a while is one we're doing with one of the national labs. and they're looking at the communication components around power plants. What are the things that are doing the sensing and relaying of information that keep that power plant operational? So, it doesn't matter whether it's a nuclear power plant or a coal power plant or a gas power plant. It's still the same communication devices that are doing the, the sensing and the, the information flow of what is the state of operations of that plant. The reason that's important is because those kinds of components are around all kinds of other things, your water treatment plants, all kinds of things that operate to keep us safe and to regulate things. Going back to the example of the water treatment plant. There's a lot of critical infrastructure there. If we lose even one of them, it's a problem. So, these communication systems. We're looking for things that are common to them that make them vulnerable to an EMP. And some of the things that we're looking at, that they're finding is, just the installation of things makes a difference. So, when you're putting in an electronic piece of gear, make sure it's fully grounded, make sure that the electronic wires don't have, what's called a rat tail. So, you know, clip off the ends. We're looking for things that the critical infrastructure owners and operators and the American public can do that don't cost a lot of money. How can we fix this with processes, procedures, or low-cost resolutions? And getting that information out into the public is of huge value because it gives them an improvement without costing them money. Now, we're not a regulatory body. So, we can't say, “Oh, do this, or we're going to fine you, or you're going to go to jail.” We don't have that, nor do we want it. But what we do want to be able to do is give the information to the American public, especially the critical owners and operators, “Here are the things that you can do to improve your posture without costing you a lot of money.”
[00:17:57] Dee: Do you have some testing over the summer with Sandia National Labs?
[00:18:02] Brent: Yeah, we're going to be doing a lot of testing with the communication components around the couple of power plants that they're, that they're investigating. So, they're going to take some of those components, they have a chamber where they can shoot electromagnetic pulses at this equipment. So, we're going to see, then, how vulnerable those pieces of equipment, those common pieces are against an EMP. And based on that, the results of that, we can figure out, first off, what needs to be protected. And then we can start investigating how we can do that.
[00:18:36] Dee: And I understand you might have a handful of projects also that are going through some negotiations, but is that something we can talk about at this point?
[00:18:46] Brent: So, one of the things that we're doing is actually determining how much attenuation or how much reduction of power do common building materials have against an electromagnetic pulse. So, we're looking at glass, we're [00:19:00] looking at concrete, we're looking at wood. The reason that's important is if you want to protect your electronic equipment, you need to know how much attenuation you need. So how much does it need to be behind complete concrete?
[00:19:15] Dee: Oh,
[00:19:15] Brent: How many layers of wood? Right? So, this is going to give us a scientific measurement and you think, “Why hasn't this been done before?” Well, it kind of has. DoD does this, has been doing this for years. But they're doing it against weapons. They're doing it against tanks. They're doing it for armored personnel carriers. And the stuff that they've done is wonderful, but it doesn't do you or me any good because we're not driving tanks. We're not driving armored personnel carriers.
[00:19:42] Dee: hopefully not.
[00:19:44] Brent: We're driving our cars. So, giving that to the critical infrastructure owners and operators, they can now figure out, “Okay, how much protection do I need for this data farm, this cloud that I've created? How much protection do I need against an EMP? Where do I need to put this in my building? Do I put it in the basement or is the first floor okay?” So, this is going to give them the information they need to make those kinds of decisions because, let's face it, every business pretty much it seems these days has gone to the cloud. The cloud needs to be protected. So, the people who, you know, the Googles, the whoever's that have created those clouds, those data, those server farms, they need to know where to put them, whether it's inside a fully enclosed concrete room or whatever.
[00:20:27] Dee: Yeah. That's really fascinating. As you dive into this work, what do you find the most interesting about working on mitigating the threat of an EMP?
[00:20:35] Brent: hat I'm finding is interesting is, we're not just looking at EMPs and GMDs. We're also looking at your Intentional Electromagnetic Interference or IEMI devices. Again, I'm going to reference the movie Ocean's Eleven. So, for those that haven't seen that movie, they have a device, it's in the back of a van, they back the van up next to a hotel, they fire off the device takes down the electric part of the hotel, they go in, they rob the safe that's electronically controlled, whatever. So, these devices actually exist. The movie is several years old, but now technology is catching up to Hollywood, as is often the case. So, we've contracted with an independent company that actually bought one of these devices off the internet, and it's the same one that did the 4G tower testing. So, they're using the same equipment to test the IEMI device. So, we're starting to understand a little bit more about how much power is needed. What is required technologically for this kind of device. And the reason that's important is we need to know what do we need to protect against.
[00:21:43] Dee: That's always the biggest thing, right? And in doing this work, Brent, was there anything that's come of surprise to you or like, some sort of an out there interesting tidbit that you're like, “Huh, even I didn't really realize this before.”
[00:21:56] Brent: Absolutely. And so, and again, I'm going back to the 4G tower component testing that we did. Because of the way it's designed to protect itself against weather, sunlight, and everything else, that also helped make it more resilient against an electromagnetic pulse. So, and the other thing is you look at your cell phone. You put a case on it, like most of us do, because we know we're going to drop it. We know it's going to hit the floor,
[00:22:21] Dee: Every day.
[00:22:22] Brent: Right? Every day, right? That case actually provides you a lot of protection against an EMP. And we didn't realize until we started testing things.
[00:22:30] Dee: What were some of the biggest challenges related to the testing and evaluation you've done over the last few years?
[00:22:37] Brent: So, not only do we need to make sure that the equipment is functioning, the test equipment is functioning correctly. So, you want to make sure that everybody in the area, their communication systems are either shut down or they're far enough away, or you at least have their permission. “Look, we're going to be testing at this time, in this frequency range. Be prepared. Is that okay with you?”
[00:23:01] Dee: Yeah, a lot of paperwork, a lot of rules, regulations, processes, which are obviously all important, right? 
[00:23:06] Brent: Correct. And then the other surprising thing, you would think that an EMP would be an exciting thing, right? You see it in the movies. You see the shock waves going all over the place. It's not like that in real life. It's…
[00:23:19] Dee: You don't see actual, like, you know, waves?
[00:23:22] Brent: It's just like the radio waves that, you know, you're listening to the radio, whether it's satellite or over the air. Do you see the radio waves? No
[00:23:29] Dee: No. 
[00:23:30] Brent: So, what they would do, great folks that we worked with, they would say, “Okay, we're getting ready to do a shot.” And we were outside of the volume, they'd say, “Okay,” and they'd count it down. And it was just like that. 
[00:23:43] Dee: No, no palm trees swaying or… 
[00:23:45] Brent: You don't see anything. And because the equipment did really well, there was no impact to the equipment. You didn't even see sparks or smoke or anything out of the equipment. It was just boring. But it was really cool at the same time from a geek standpoint.
[00:23:57] Dee: Oh yeah. That's the dichotomy there, right?
[00:23:59] Brent: Right. 
[00:24:00] Dee: As you're looking forward to the next five to 10 years, what do you think is next in EMP resilience?
[00:24:06] Brent: Once we get done with the things that we're planning on doing with EMP, then we need to look at, “Okay, what's the next thing?” As technology improves, we've already started looking at this. So, when 6G comes along, which it's probably within the next 5 to 10 years, that's going to be as commonplace as 5G is now. So, we need to, and have started looking at that technology and how is that going to be more, less, or the same amount of vulnerable against the EMP. Because, again, that's going to use different techniques, perhaps different frequency ranges. And so, we need to be prepared to test that when it comes along.
[00:24:49] Dee: And that's the tough part of folks that have jobs like yours, right? Is your feverishly working on what's in front of us, but it's, I imagine it can be hard to determine what's around the corner
[00:25:03] Brent: Oh, Dee, you call it tough; I call it fun. This is the exciting thing, right? This is the puzzle that you haven't figured out. That's the fun part of this job. It's the never-ending new puzzle to solve, which I find fascinating.
[00:25:17] Dee: And, you know, with the collective work you do together with your entire team, why should Americans sleep better at night knowing about the work that you do?
[00:25:27] Brent: That's a good question. And knowing that we're doing this work should help them sleep better at night, that we're looking out for the dangers they may not even be aware of. And we're trying to ensure that the critical infrastructure that they rely on every day, clean water, fresh air, the electricity, we're here looking at the hard problems of what are the dangers out there? How do we mitigate against them? And even if they do happen and it does have an impact, how do we recover from themas quickly as possible?
[00:26:02] Dee: What advice do you have for anyone listening that might be interested in a career, you know, whether it's, doing exactly what you do or perhaps anything related to tackling Homeland Security problems?
[00:26:13] Brent: Be curious, read a lot, do puzzles. It, it sounds simple and it, but it's not. So, what really helps is having a broad background in a lot of things. So, you don't have to necessarily be the expert. You don't have to have a PhD in X or Y. As long as you have a curiosity and are willing to learn. 
[00:26:38] Dee: That's so, I'm so glad you pointed that out because I think every day our lives are so busy. Think about how many devices or things we use or rely on or depend on to function, and we don't even think twice about who's behind ensuring that it's working or that it's protected or that it's safe from threats.
[00:26:57] Brent: We have in many ways, a fragile system in which we live, you know, your electricity, you know, your clean water, your, all these things, they are vulnerable to a lot of things. And there's bad actors out there. We know this. There's folks that are, you know, looking to take down our way of life. It's our job to protect against that, and that's what we do. That's what we, that's what we, that's why we wake up in the morning. And we enjoy the job.
[00:27:22] Dee: Did you have a favorite subject in school that kind of more directly carved your path to a career in EMPs? 
[00:27:32] Brent: I'd like to say yes, but kind of no, kind of yes. So, basically, my favorite subject was band, music, which, when you think about it, it is a signal. It is something at a, within the electromagnetic spectrum that your ear can actually hear, unlike radio waves, whether you're getting that from satellite radio or over the air, that has to go through a conversion process before you can actually hear it coming out of the speakers on your, in your car or whatever. But yeah, band, the sound, it's a wave. It's interesting from a scientific standpoint in that it's got different characteristics for each tone, so…
[00:28:12] Dee: It's uncanny how science and the arts can really go hand in hand, don't you think?
[00:28:17] Brent: Absolutely. And, in fact, music has a lot of mathematic properties to it. If you really look at it from that standpoint. It's a, all music are, is a combination of sine waves. And when you combine things with it, you can manually impose things on those sine waves, add, you can add intelligence to it.
[00:28:40] Dee: Do you have any hobbies or, or how would you usually spend the perfect day off?
[00:28:44] Brent: Every morning I do several puzzles just to get the brain working. But one of the things, and you're probably going to laugh at this, but one of the things that my son who loves video games, and he got a degree in computer game development. One of the things he got us hooked into during COVID – because remember, you know, we were all pretty much locked down. You stayed with, you know, the people you live with. One of the things he got us into was Pokemon Go.
[00:29:15] Dee: I love it.
[00:29:15] Brent: It got us out of the house every day to go spin gyms and cookie stops. Right? We were just out talking about this silly game and we're still playing it, my wife and I. And he does too.
[00:29:28] Dee: No, definitely. I mean, I love hearing that, right? That was a very difficult time. So, I love that you and your family found a way even using technology to bond and, you know, to exercise your brain a little bit, and you're still doing it. That's fascinating.
[00:29:43] Brent: It's a guilty pleasure. It's fun.
[00:29:44] Dee: Yes, yeah, 100%. Alright, I'm gonna, I'm, last one and then you're off the hot seat. If you could instantly solve any scientific mystery, which one would you choose?
[00:29:55] Brent: Origin of the universe. 
[00:29:56] Dee: Yes! You know what that would do? Is put to bed  the question of science or religion. I don't know, that could be, uh…
[00:30:03] Brent: Yeah, because I mean that, think about that though. That has baffled people forever. I mean, you look at the Big Bang Theory. So, out of nothing, something exploded. How did something explode out of nothing? I mean, it's a great theory, explains a lot, but it doesn't explain how something exploded out of nothing. Again, you know, that's the, it is the core essential question of “How did we get here?”
[00:30:28] Dee: Yes. And I feel like it would resolve a lot of current day issues and conflicts. Brent, it's been great having you here. I've really enjoyed talking to you. It's been nice to unpack your brain, you know, dive deep into electromagnetic pulses and geomagnetic disturbances. I'm honored to talk to you.
[00:30:47] Brent: I hate the sound of my voice.
[00:30:49] Dee: No, you have a great voice. You do. You honestly really do have a great voice. Like you could do radio or voiceovers for sure hearing how passionate you are and you, you carry so much passion in your voice, which excites me, you know, as the media chief at S&T to help amplify the great work that you do. Thank you so much for being here.
[00:31:09] Brent: Dee, thanks for having me and appreciate the conversation and I really appreciate you not giving me questions that were too hard,
[00:31:16] Dave: Thank you for listening to Technologically Speaking. To learn more about what you've heard in this episode, check out the show notes on our website, and follow us on Apple Podcasts and YouTube, and on social media at DHS SciTech. D H S S C I T E C H. Bye!