For all of the dumb policies and harsh criticism that the US government gets, it seems to me that the UK has a government that takes the level of insanity offered by the US government, and adds several layers of nanny-state craziness and general noxiousness.
"Let's ban tiny phones" - UK Government
41–50 of 79 posts
Re: "Let's ban tiny phones" - UK Government
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious about two things. Firstly, how do you charge a phone? I wouldn't have thought cells had plug points. Secondly, is there any realistic way of stopping phones getting in? Building higher fences, and putting sensors on them, sounds like one way of stopping throwovers for example. T
New UK startup: We deliver your package by anonymous drone. Drop from any height with or without parachute at any hour of the day. You mail us your package together and a form specifying when, where and how your package should be delivered. Use the calulator on our webpages to calculate the price of the delivery. Cash or check is accepted. Any change can be delivered with your package. Specify drop height, parachute,…
My thoughts exactly (except for the part of making it an underground startup): in these days of drones and copters boom, I wonder how much time will pass before we hear about phones, guns, tobacco or whatever being smuggled into prisons by swarms of elusive quadrocopters.
Re: "Let's ban tiny phones" - UK Government
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can stab people with keys. I have a VW flick key. Sharpen it up, and its a great little weapon.
You can stab people with almost anything. Toothbrush, piece of paper carefully folded, shoelaces melted into a soap mould... stopping one more thing getting in won't matter. I think the idea was to make it easier to notice them, as parent suggested.
It is not hard to notice an RF transmitter. If the police thinks their size matters in any way, they completely missed the point.
Re: "Let's ban tiny phones" - UK Government
#44Banning tiny phones is stupid. These people have already shown that they don't care about the law - that's why they're in jail[1] and having a cell phone in prison is already not legal. What's it going to be now? Double plus unlegal? Surely faraday cages and cell-phone jamming would be easier and less restrictive for regular people. (The BBC article says they're changing legislation to allow them to block signals in…
>These people have already shown that they don't care about the law - that's why they're in jail While I agree banning small cellphones is useless, I don't care for this generalization. Not everyone in jail has a blatant disregard for law. For some it was just a moment of desperation, for some it was for some silly reason like weed, some may just be young people making mistakes and had the misfortune of being one of…
But still a good proportition of them ends up spending their lives in there by returning again and again if not being sentenced for life straight away.
It's as if being a criminal was a lifestyle some people choose to adopt from the beginning. They don't even want out of it, and some want back "in" because that's where the culture strives.
Re: "Let's ban tiny phones" - UK Government
#45they should also consider drugs. and crime.
Re: "Let's ban tiny phones" - UK Government
#46Yes, yes! Ban it! We should also travel back in time and ban the fist mobile phones. Who needs it when you have the remarkable British telephone wiring system? http://www.google.se/imgres?q=telephone+wiring+pole+mess&biw... But wait... how about British plumbing? Can't the prisoners climb down the wall on the pipes that are conveniently located outside of the wall? Ban it!
That's all "legacy" telecoms and plumbing. It's not like that any more.
It's much worse now.
Any basic problem involves digging up your entire garden and the street to find the pipe / cable which is pissing out water / gas / shit and piss.
Oh and OpenReach can now charge you £150 to fix your line because it's a pain in the arse to dig everything up (for the 8th time in the year) because the ground is flooded and the SNR ratio goes off the scale.
Keeps the contractors in business I suppose by my lawn looks like a fucking chess board...
Re: "Let's ban tiny phones" - UK Government
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
>These people have already shown that they don't care about the law - that's why they're in jail While I agree banning small cellphones is useless, I don't care for this generalization. Not everyone in jail has a blatant disregard for law. For some it was just a moment of desperation, for some it was for some silly reason like weed, some may just be young people making mistakes and had the misfortune of being one of…
But still a good proportition of them ends up spending their lives in there by returning again and again if not being sentenced for life straight away. It's as if being a criminal was a lifestyle some people choose to adopt from the beginning. They don't even want out of it, and some want back "in" because that's where the culture strives.
Sure, some... but the system is also set up in such a way that once you're in, it's pretty hard to get out. For one, depending on the crime your background-check is all screwed up now, making it pretty hard to make an honest living. I recently found out some companies don't hire anyone with a felony on record. It's a horrible cycle and I think it's because a lot of people make money with prisons & correction-facilities, so actually making a path to escape the criminal-system is not in their interest.
I actually don't think that even half of them actually want to be in jail. I think they've been made to believe there's no way out.
Re: "Let's ban tiny phones" - UK Government
#48Totally ridiculous and not justifiable. Just install jammers at the jails. The real reason for a ban must be elsewhere.
How about putting a cell tower right on the jail's roof? Woulds you use your smuggled phone if you knew the signal was going straight through the warden's cell tower?
How do you guarantee that the calls/texts from people around the prison won't go through that tower?
Re: "Let's ban tiny phones" - UK Government
#49Why not ban all the criminal activity? It will surely stop the criminals.
Like banning guns.
Re: "Let's ban tiny phones" - UK Government
#50Wouldn't it make more sense to make prisons mobile signal dead-zones?
I believe there was an issue with guards needing to be able to use their mobile phones in an emergency. The majority of the Prison service use TETRA radios now which can be linked in to the rest of the UK mainland emergency services so it shouldn't be an issue but there seemed to be a lot of reluctance so that there was a backup in the event everything else failed.
I think that TETRA are very similar to GSM phones, in both the technology and the frequencies. So it would probably be hard to avoid any jammers interfering with them.