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Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

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Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#171

Post by InclinedPlane »

mikestew wrote: post #33
mhurron wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add someone going around blocking emergency radios to that last things list. http://tbo.com/news/business/fcc-seffner-man-was-using-cell-... "When Hillsborough County Sheriffs deputies stopped the SUV, their own two-way radios were jammed."

By default I assume law enforcement is exaggerating for effect, but lot of emergency radios are on 800Mhz, AT&T (as one example) uses 850Mhz, so it wouldn't be hard to imagine a radio transmitter that cuts a wide swath (e. g., jammer) and interferes with other radios.

Do you not understand how jammers work? They are not narrow-band devices.

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#172

Post by Fuxy »

harrystone wrote: post #48
michh wrote: post #20

My guess would be driving around with a relatively short-range jammer actually increases the odds of being hit by a distracted driver. Rather than people driving near you being distracted by conversations on their phones, they're going to be even more distracted because their call just got dropped, prompting them to look at the display waiting for the bars to come back so they can re-dial.

I agree. Most people aren't smart enough to put down their phone even to save their own life. The guy has good intentions but some people just can't be saved.

Not to mention it's plain stupid.

What if there's actually a legitimate need to use a cell phone like a big car accident.

Or all the data connectivity some devices need for navigation.

If you want to jam signals jam it on your farm/house but keep it out of public range.

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#173

Post by anonymousDan »

incision wrote: post #6

Certainly a terrible idea on every level, but I can't help but sympathize with the intent. Too much of the public simply aren't responsible about driving and there doesn't seem to be any good way to identify and prevent or penalize them for it.

Until we have self-driving cars at least.

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#174

Post by vidarh »

biff wrote: post #168
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that the world doesn't end if Dr. Jones isn't allowed to go the movies, or if Mr. and Mrs. Smith get to watch the end credits before finding out that their baby's in an ambulance. But the world also doesn't end if you have to suffer through a rude teenager on the phone for a minute and a half. You talk like your leisure experience is an absolute moral imperative, but everyone else's is just frivolous goofin…

The goal of a movie theatre is leisure experience. If you know a movie is 90+ minutes, and there's a significant likelihood of you or your devices causing a disruption to the other 100 people in the audience in 90+ minutes... On a different note, me and my friend and his wife went to see Roger Waters perform The Wall a couple years back. The tickets said "No photography", but the band was very careful to say "When yo…

I've been to the cinema several hundred times over the last decade. There was a period we used to go 1-2 every week. In that time, I've never once been distracted by anyones phone going off. Maybe half a dozen times I've been momentarily annoyed by someone checking their phone with an overly bright screen. That's it.

It would seem letting people have a signal doesn't have to be a problem.

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#175

Post by rcxdude »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #171
mikestew wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By default I assume law enforcement is exaggerating for effect, but lot of emergency radios are on 800Mhz, AT&T (as one example) uses 850Mhz, so it wouldn't be hard to imagine a radio transmitter that cuts a wide swath (e. g., jammer) and interferes with other radios.

Do you not understand how jammers work? They are not narrow-band devices.

This depends on the jammer. They range from jam-almost-everything, to jamming only specific wavelengths (configurable or not), to jamming only specific protocols (which is more technically a DOS attack, but still functions like jamming).

Assuming the driver was using a wavebubble, it's likely that it would jam police radios as well (depending on configuration).

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#176

Post by prof_hobart »

Bluestrike2 wrote: post #79
incision wrote: post #6

Certainly a terrible idea on every level, but I can't help but sympathize with the intent. Too much of the public simply aren't responsible about driving and there doesn't seem to be any good way to identify and prevent or penalize them for it.

I can't. There are accidents where even seconds matter and the effects of the jamming can mean the difference between life and death or even simply a shift in the a victim's odds. Or consider emergency services whose radios were affected: maybe paramedics were radioing in status updates to a hospital, or perhaps police officers were in the middle of receiving an Amber alert. Or, imagine that he's injured in an accide…

I could be wrong, but I think you're misunderstanding incision's comment. The way I'm reading it, he's not arguing with the fact that having a jammer operating in the guy's is pretty idiotic.

What I think he's saying is that he's got sympathy for what drove the guy to go to these idiotic lengths - the fact that a large number of drivers give pretty much no thought to safety by using their phones when they drive.

On my daily 5 minute walk from the bus to work, I will typically see upwards of a dozen drivers staring at their phones, presumably either reading or writing a message, whilst they are moving - ranging from people inching along in slow moving traffic in places that pedestrians could easily (and legally) be crossing, to ones doing 30mph+ in free flowing traffic or even pulling away from the lights based presumably on nothing more than seeing out of the corner of their eye that the car in front has started moving. I've fairly regularly seen cars meandering quite a long way through red lights simply because the driver was clearly paying no attention to what was happening on the road in front of them.

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#177

Post by ibmthrowaway218 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #91
georgemcbay wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if that is his stance, why stop there? Let's just ban cars altogether and everyone can walk everywhere they need to go. Not only would it be much safer for everyone in the short-term but the exercise would improve long term health as well.

> Let's just ban cars altogether No, let's just ban human-driven cars altogether. This is actually a good solution. Can't wait until the day it becomes reality. In the meantime, maybe the society should start approaching driving cars the way they approach flying airplanes? That is, actually train the people operating the vehicle. Current driving license exams are a joke, and people still complain they're too difficul…

> In the meantime, maybe the society should start approaching driving cars the way they approach flying airplanes?

And the training (and reassessment) in flying aeroplanes is ongoing, unlike most countries approach to driver education.

I passed my driving test(s) 20 years ago and since then there's been a huge number of changes in technology, laws, road layout, etc and yet my license is valid for another 30+ years.

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#178

Post by galuggus »

I wonder if he was jamming or doing something else

There has recently been a crackdown in China on people driving around with a device that can hack and spam cellphones.

I think the way it works is by spoofing a basestation.

It's range is short and it has to be kept on the move to avoid detection so the scammers drive it around busy areas all day.

I'll try to find more info if anyone is interested.

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#179

Post by kalleboo »

frandroid wrote: post #140
lotu wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is we are dismantling our land line network. So if you don't have cell phone there might not by any phone in the building that works. Next what about emergency workers? They need to be able to be contacted. Or what about people on call for their jobs? All of these things could be blocked by jammers and the idea that we survived once without it unconvincing we survived once without vacancies and antibiotic…

Huh? Where are "we" dismantling our landline network?

In Sweden we are. After a big storm a few years ago knocked out the phone lines to some remote homes, the telco calculated that it was cheaper to let them use 4G than to repair kilometers of telephone poles.

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#180

Post by chrisBob »

If you don't like people driving and talking on their cell phones while driving near you then there is on easy solution. It is hard to find many good tech jobs near the radio observatory though, so this option might not be good for the HN crowd. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Radio_Qu...
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