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Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

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Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#231

Post by thaumasiotes »

chrisseaton wrote: post #193
UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #35

Baofeng's, Baofengs everywhere. Of all the images I have seen of the attempted coup, I have only seen baofeng radios. These are very cheap ($20'ish) radios that work very poorly (they splatter all over the bands) even when equipped with decent antennas. They barely work when equipped with the stock rubber-duck antennas. It's easy to be a snob about the type of radios that they are using, but that's not even the point…

> These people are idiots. I think 'these people are idiots' is an easy thing to think but almost always the wrong thing. Few people are idiots. Most people are just as smart as you are. More likely, these people fundamentally aren't looking at the situation like you are. Probably, they don't care what you, or the police, or the FBI, or anyone else, think about what they're doing and don't care how they're being trac…

> Most people are just as smart as you are.

For this to be true, you would have to be below average. That's just half of everyone.

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#232

Post by thaumasiotes »

Neeek wrote: post #224
Scaevolus wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people are just as smart as you are. That's a pretty bold assertion on a site filled with engineers.

What, you've never met a stupid engineer?

Asserting that the average engineer is stupider than the whole-population average is indeed pretty questionable. The odds that chrisseaton was correct are not good.

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#233

Post by Neeek »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #232
Neeek wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, you've never met a stupid engineer?

Asserting that the average engineer is stupider than the whole-population average is indeed pretty questionable. The odds that chrisseaton was correct are not good.

I believe the original assertion was that the word 'idiot' is often used as shorthand for people that have different priors and indoctrination as you, so to propose that engineers are somehow less susceptible to that seems like the more questionable take here.

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#234

Post by technick »

I remember someone told me at Defcon one year, "Getting your FCC license acknowledges the rules and regulations". Therefor if you ever do anything stupid, they can nail you extra hard for violating that agreement. Its better to not have a license because the first few violations will result in warnings.

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#235

Post by tonyedgecombe »

akira2501 wrote: post #211
minikites wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most people are just as smart as you are. These people don't believe in objective reality (Biden won the election and there was no meaningful voter or election fraud) and I'm having trouble thinking of a definition of "idiot" where something like that doesn't qualify.

> where something like that doesn't qualify. Desperate people mislead by skilled con-artists. You can focus on the fact they got conned, and judge them harshly for it; or, you can focus on the fact that they're that desperate in the first place. I think we only stand a chance at solving the latter problem, so sorting the "idiots" from the enlightened doesn't seem like a meaningful activity.

One of the things that surprised me is many of these people aren't in a desperate situation. One of them even flew in on a private jet.

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#237

Post by technick »

chmod600 wrote: post #16

Related: Mexican drug cartels using radios: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21109605 A lot of that is probably to reach areas the cartels need to operate that don't have other reliable communication, or have little enough that it would be easily surveiled. Not sure if it applies to urban criminal activity, which is what the ARRL is worried about.

I remember coming across a job ad for a radio engineer position with the cartel. Can't remember what site it was on but they did offer some pretty good pay, housing and discount programs.

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#238

Post by technick »

walrus01 wrote: post #69
chmod600 wrote: post #3

What is the practical implication? I guess they are saying: "don't involve radios in your crime, or else the feds will be after you, too".

It's actually quite hard to get the FCC to fine you, you have to do something very clearly illegal for a very long period of time, and ignore the warnings given... Such as the WISP in UT some years back which continued to operate PtMP last mile 5 GHz stuff in the DFS radar bands, and got fined $25,000. If you go through the notices of apparent liability issued by the FCC, which are all public, the individual persons…

Back after Trump cut the FCC budget, I heard the number of active staff patrolling the airwaves went down to < 11. Think of that... 11 people for all of the United States. I know they have listening stations in various areas, but still 11 people can't effectively police the whole United States.

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#239

Post by akiselev »

vorpalhex wrote: post #225
minikites wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it does have a simple explanation, just different from yours. I think that they assumed they wouldn't be punished, because they never have been. Cops don't shoot white protestors.

There's a corpse in a morgue that'd like to disagree with you.

She was at the head of a mob of people breaking through the door into a Congressional chamber during a core part of the peaceful transfer of power. Suffice it to say that's a much higher bar than normal.

Re: Radio users reminded not to use radios in crimes

#240

Post by pengaru »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #231
chrisseaton wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These people are idiots. I think 'these people are idiots' is an easy thing to think but almost always the wrong thing. Few people are idiots. Most people are just as smart as you are. More likely, these people fundamentally aren't looking at the situation like you are. Probably, they don't care what you, or the police, or the FBI, or anyone else, think about what they're doing and don't care how they're being trac…

> Most people are just as smart as you are. For this to be true, you would have to be below average. That's just half of everyone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution
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