All I Really Need to Know in Life, I Learned From Technical Electronic Intelligence
Be sure to thank your oscilloscope
If you’re of a certain age then you remember posters throughout primary school with titles like, All I Really Need to Know In Life, I Learned From Space; or Kindergarten; or Bloodsport1.
I propose lessons about the electromagnetic spectrum taken from technical electronic intelligence training helps us understand life and see seemingly unrelated phenomena are interconnected in complex ways.
Technical electronic intelligence is a subdiscipline in military intelligence necessarily involving familiarity with the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. This training carries lessons applicable to real life as well as to imagination.
In life and business, as in machine-generated EM radiation, it's important to appreciate the connections between people (waveforms), events (signal emissions), and ideas (capabilities), as this can reveal novel solutions and foster a more holistic understanding of the world.
The Electromagnetic Spectrum
Let’s start with some brief background.
All I Really Need to Know in Life…
20 years ago I detached from my Linux terminal that had been intravenously connecting me to the IRC channels I’d replaced a normal adolescence with and embarked on an adventure my libertarian-leaning erstwhile hacker friends could later endearingly use to accuse me of selling out to "The Government."
Or in normal terms, let’s just say I found myself in the middle of West Texas getting stared down by prairie dogs while running in formation along Goodfellow Air Force Base’s defunct flightline at dawn. I was at the U.S. Air Force’s intelligence training school in San Angelo, one of the largest cities in the United States without access to an interstate — it’s that popular — to train as an electronic signals intelligence analysis journeyman, or “Scientific & Technical analyst.”
This field is a core component of electronic warfare.
TechELINT/Electronic Warfare
My specialization assignment was technical electronic intelligence, or TechELINT, a branch of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT). The US National Security Agency is responsible for SIGINT collection, processing, analysis, production, and dissemination.
A main purpose of TechELINT is to obtain signal parameters which can define the capabilities and the role that the emitter plays in the larger system, such as a ground radar locating aircraft, and thus lead to the design of radar detection, countermeasure, or counterweapons equipment. The overall process, including operation of the countermeasures, is part of electronic warfare.
(Read more about ELINT from the NSA’s website here)
In the small SIGINT community2, it was often described by outsiders as “that job where you stare at squigglies and lines.”
It entailed everything from analyzing radar signals emitted from foreign adversary aircraft for defensive radar warning receivers to analyzing flight tactics based on collected emissions. Details are classified3, but suffice to say several years of my life were spent in front of something like this:
Analyzing “Squigglies”
You had to take half a university degree worth of unclassified and classified coursework on signals analysis and electronic warfare courses from the National Cryptologic School, mostly best-suited for electrical engineers — not me — and learn about the EM spectrum with a fair bit of physics, electronics theory, and math. Plus of course a massive dose of on-the-job training regarding hostile radar systems, aircraft, and satellites.
I found myself at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, just after the Boston Red Sox broke the Curse of the Bambino.
I spent nearly four years digging through terabytes of radar signal data, trying to translate the abstract into concrete and the concrete into abstract, and marveling at Cold War veterans who could recognize a radar by glancing at a series of pulses on a green pane of glass.
I was out of the esoteric world of waveforms and emitters by the end of the GW Bush administration and onto civilian life in Washington, D.C.
But I have regularly applied lessons from those four years toward understanding our world ever since.
… I Learned From Technical Electronic Intelligence
For example, take Remembrance of Earth’s Past (Three-Body Problem trilogy): The mechanics behind the signal broadcast, and the incorrect but highly imaginative science within, and many of the creative concepts separating the Trisolarian civilization from Earth’s often hearken back to radar and signal theory.
Or drawing from the real world, cybersecurity vendor product segments like security ratings services within the cyber risk market depend on pattern identification and analysis within noisy or seemingly unrelated sources of information.
EM & The Real World
You don’t have to be a physicist to understand the most basic concepts here. TechELINT sheds light on at minimum helping contextualize almost everything.
Eyesight (plus, aliens?). How do we see, what don’t we see? Humans and animals communicate using body language and other non-verbal cues. We can relate it to the concept of EM waves, as both involve transmitting information without spoken words, but we can also begin to understand how tiny our range of vision is: wavelengths from approx. 380 to 700 nanometers. As certain animals on Earth can see different wavelengths from this, what’s to say extraterrestrial life would evolve eyesight the same way as humans? Talk about changing your view of Star Trek.
Demystifying cellular networks: Studying the EM spectrum helped me understand how cellular networks operate and how different frequencies are used for communication. It’s no longer a mystery to me why my GSM/2G cell phone made my speakers buzz before a call. That 800-900 MHz frequency is no longer inducing current in my speaker coils with newer generation protocols.
Medical imaging: Knowledge of the EM spectrum is essential in understanding how medical imaging techniques like X-rays, MRIs, and ultrasound work. Just scroll up and look at the spectrum. These technologies use different parts of the spectrum to create images of the body's internal structures, aiding in diagnosis and treatment planning.
Wildlife migration: It seems like magic birds and sea turtles know how to navigate during migration. But the EM spectrum provides plenty of insight: they use Earth’s magnetic fields. Some probably use blue light wavelength sensitivity to detect the magnetic field.
Night-vision goggles. The same as understanding visible light, but shift the frequency to approx. 430 THz down to 300 GHz.
Using Wi-Fi to see through walls. Researchers periodically explore how to leverage Wi-Fi signals now saturating most of our lives to recreate images of physical presence through walls. EM helps you understand why certain wavelengths penetrate specific materials, and helps demystify or even help you predict this would happen. And why it is trivial to accomplish.
EM & Imagination
Besides practical applications we’ve widely exploited as a technological society like night vision goggles, imagine you were writing a story leveraging what you learned about electromagnetism in technical electronic intelligence coursework or trying to understand new hardware product potential. How about:
An alien species with “built-in Ethernet." Imagine a species that communicates primarily through electromagnetic pulses, allowing them to transmit information instantly and discreetly over vast distances without the need for verbal or written communication. Could this be how the aforementioned Trisolarans communicate telepathically?
Emotional EM detection wearables. Simple EM application helps you imagine something like people wearing devices that analyze the EM emissions generated by their bodies to detect and visualize emotions. These wearables would convert the unique EM patterns associated with feelings like happiness, sadness, or excitement into visual cues, allowing others to "see" the emotions of those around them. (Might be a little dystopian here).
A twist on AR glasses. Street artists might use create invisible in 380-700 nm, non-destructive graffiti. They could manipulate EM emissions to form intricate designs and messages that are only visible with special glasses or devices. This form of artistic expression would challenge the concept of traditional graffiti, turning cityscapes into hidden galleries of electromagnetic art.
Exploit brain waves to visualize dreams. Imagine a device that captures and translates the EM waves produced by a person's brain during sleep into a visual representation of their dreams. Create a vivid display of dreamscapes, allowing individuals to view and analyze their own dreams or share them with others.
Aliens, part III. Conceive of a subculture that has developed its own language and customs based on the manipulation of EM waves, with individuals creating intricate patterns and sequences to express themselves in ways that are unintelligible to those outside the group — such as humans unable to “see” outside the narrow 380-700 nm range — without special equipment, like a radio.
Abstract Into Concrete, Concrete Into Abstract
You can apply the same concepts above to working with a team or a team of teams.
We may see one narrow part of the spectrum (i.e. your perspective), but what’s beyond that?
Who are the “birds” able to see it, or the “radios” able to receive it?
How are you unlocking that communication?
What “technology” (i.e. leadership techniques) are you applying to receive those transmissions so you can listen (their message), or modulate signals to broadcast to those who need to receive them (your message)?
Better Thinking Through Electromagnetism
It may seem trite, but I maintain those early career experiences helped develop a better understanding of the world and unlock more potential for novel business solutions, creative thinking, and better sportsmanship.
Starting my career in such an unorthodox fashion was the first of several key “shaping events” that helped me in so many areas as a leader and thinker while still resonating decades later — from launching software products to instinctively inviting neurodivergent opinions into crucial strategic discussions in the workplace.
So whether you're diving into the world of electronic warfare or pondering the possibilities of alien communication, remember the electromagnetic spectrum holds the key to unlocking new perspectives and insights.
Appendix: Experimenting For Yourself
If you haven’t already exhausted all your brain-time can afford to learn about physics-adjacencies, you probably won’t join your nation’s Navy or Air Force just to learn how the electromagnetic spectrum works.
But you can pick up a Raspberry Pi, an inexpensive USB receiver, and start exploring low-cost Software-Defined Radio (SDR) hobbyism. Processing power is trivialized relative to the past and oscilloscopes are no longer necessary, especially for hobbyists. You can start down this rabbit hole and start listening to smart meters within a few hours.
Or you can enlist.
There were approximately 800 of 1N5 personnel in service by the end of my active duty tour. Many were in process of augmentee training to support the hamstrung US Army at the height of the Iraq war and the career field eventually experienced an “overage,” through which I attempted unsuccessfully to argue for a one-year early separation in order to hasten my start date following my civilian job offer in the Federal Government. Alas, I first had yet more squigglies to unravel.
Anybody keenly interested in ELINT or EW will know how to find more dry manuals and details, so I don’t have to go in-depth here even on the unclassified topics.