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Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

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Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#191

Post by vacri »

akiselev wrote: post #170
derefr wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you care a lot about your life, and thereby about the quality-of-life of trauma surgeons. Do you think the movie theatre does? What's so wrong with having places that can only be attended by people who are fine with nobody will be able to reach them? Businesses don't have to serve everybody; in fact, selling exactly that escapism--that only people in certain classes and professions can afford the time to experi…

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I can't wait until movie theaters pop up that advertise walls covered with metallic paint to block cellular RF. As someone who dislikes push notifications and refuses to work in any profession with the concept of being "on call," I will go to those almost all the time. And when my surgeon isn't on call, he'll be even more relaxed! Thing is, I just can't think of a single sc…

Rights? What rights? You're talking about conveniences here, supplied by a private entity, not rights. You don't have a right to watch a movie with guaranteed phone access any more than you have a right to watch a movie not being illuminated by the bright screen of the phone from some idiot in front of you. You don't even have a right to watch a movie in the first place.

Seriously, get some perspective here.

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#192

Post by Jtsummers »

vacri wrote: post #122
Jtsummers wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, receiving calls is really the big one for me. I know a lot of people working in fields requiring them to be on call 24x7 unless they're on leave. A 2 hour delay in calling back is just barely tolerable for most of them, and unacceptable for some. It'd suck to have to stop enjoying something outside a couple vacations a year because some people are inconsiderate and other people can't tune them out. That said,…

That's assuming it's not an attacker who would prevent you from leaving in the first place. Is this really such a pandemic in the US these days?

Theater shootings and mass shootings, not really. But shootings do happen, sometimes over the dumbest crap, and by people you wouldn't expect ([EDIT: retired] police officer in FL in a theater, a veteran shot a woman at a gas station here in GA [1]). Shootings aren't nearly common enough, though, to justify a ban on jammers. But emergency situations do come up, especially in a country of 300 million people and some 40k theaters [2], each with several screens. It just strikes me as irresponsible and unnecessary to insist on such a hardline ban for the sake of shutting out a few rude jerks.

[1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/05/woman-k...

[2] http://chartsbin.com/view/32k -- I'm assuming this is accurate

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#193

Post by kalleboo »

elwell wrote: post #64
grecy wrote: post #14

Does anyone know if it would be legal to use something like this if it was sufficiently clear with big signs? I'm thinking movie theaters or coffee shops that have huge signs "Your cell phone will not work in there. If you don't agree, don't come in", etc.

So that no one can use their cell to call 911 if there is another movie theater shooting? That would be very bad.

I'm so glad to live in a country where "movie theater shootings" aren't a reason not to disable mobile phones in an single room.

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#194

Post by mikestew »

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.

I understand how they work just fine. Which part of my statement implies a narrow-band device? Perhaps I was unclear, but I think that I worded it such that a wide-band device was implied ("wide swath").

Regardless, jammers can be narrow-band or wide-band depending on the goal. The device in the article sounds to be wide-band, but that doesn't define the entire category.

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#195

Post by silencio »

nkozyra wrote: post #18

I've dreamed of doing this for a decade, even found some sources in the U.K. to purchase a few and looked up schematics for building wideband jammers. Ultimately it was the very serious approach the FCC takes that stopped me from really exploring it, even for fun. Everthing I'd read indicated that you'd be caught and fast, so I'm sort of surprised it took two years, even if it was on a highway. But lord I still might…

Actually, it sounds like the FCC moves fast once they know about it.

MetroPCS finally had enough of the interference on April 29, 2013 and informs the FCC. They determined the likely location and started monitoring the route starting May 7. By May 9 they figured out which car it was coming from and coordinated with the local sheriff's office to stop the car, interview the driver, and confiscate the jammer. It was the driver in question that said he'd been using it for two years and dug his own grave so to speak, I don't actually see anything that says they have evidence that he was using it for 24 months beyond what he said (although maybe MetroPCS can back that up).

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2014...

All that said...

> But lord I still might push it whenever I'm at the grocery store and someone's doing a remote, live shopping list with their wife down every aisle.

My husband can be hopeless when he's shopping for groceries, go easy on him ;) There's a reason we use Instacart/Google Shopping Express and I'm the one usually shopping otherwise, but I appreciate any of his efforts to help me out.

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#197

Post by PhasmaFelis »

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…

> 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...

I think your definition of "disruption" may not be entirely reasonable. It's one thing if someone is sitting there having a chat during the movie, but if a person quietly getting up and excusing themselves (in response to an unheard vibration in their pocket) is unacceptable, then we're going have to ban anyone who sits down to a three-and-a-half-hour film with a Jumbo Big Gulp from the concession counter.

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#198

Post by biff »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #197
biff wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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... I think your definition of "disruption" may not be entirely reasonable. It's one thing if someone is sitting there having a chat during the movie, but if a person quietly getting up and excusi…

If that was the reaction to an incoming cellphone call, every time by every person, I don't think anybody would have a problem with cellphones in public spaces.

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#199

Post by neil1 »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #138
neil1 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy and install a cellphone extender for your house.

Yes, it's a true fact that you can pay money for the privilege of extending the cell phone provider's network, while also paying the backhaul the cell phone company's traffic over your internet link, while also paying the cell phone for their "service" that you have to personally install and operate. I have no idea why people think this is an acceptable scenario.

It's a solution to a problem, that he faces. I understand that it makes no sense, but sometimes you have to do things that make no sense or switch carriers.

Re: Driver caught using cell phone jamming device

#200

Post by exhilaration »

kalleboo wrote: post #179
frandroid wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same thing in parts of New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy, Verizon refused to rebuild the landlines and installed 4G base stations instead.
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