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The forgotten war on beepers

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Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#271

Post by caseyy »

vel0city wrote: post #218
caseyy wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm sure you understand that there is a broader theme here, given how central it has been to public discourse and lawmaking in the last several years. But should that not be the case, here's data collected via cell-phone that was mishandled - https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/local/southwest-valley/2... .

But those VHF pagers transmitted all the rest of your data in the clear unprotected, it just didn't have your location or any knowledge if you received the message.

Well, you are right. But the message as well as the medium can be privacy-respecting. Even with encrypted messages, a lot can be extracted from metadata that is a part of the medium.

These days pager tech has advanced to support public-private key encryption for messages. So the messages being in plain text is less of a concern.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#272

Post by hunter2_ »

chimeracoder wrote: post #250
fein wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's over the air, not even phone lines. PDW, SDRSharp, and an rtl-sdr dongle is all that's needed. And yes, there is a lot of patient info in that traffic. It's not illegal for the hospital to broadcast this, and it's not illegal to listen in and decode the signals, but it is very much illegal to do anything with the information gathered.

> It's over the air, not even phone lines. PDW, SDRSharp, and an rtl-sdr dongle is all that's needed. And yes, there is a lot of patient info in that traffic. It's not illegal for the hospital to broadcast this, and it's not illegal to listen in and decode the signals, but it is very much illegal to do anything with the information gathered. I'm not familiar with this particular technology, which is why I didn't make…

Maybe it uses particular spectrum that is considered illegal to tamper with, just like analog cell phone signals, and HIPAA (inappropriately IMHO) leans on that to explain away an exemption from encryption?

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#273

Post by stoperaticless »

throw_pm23 wrote: post #138
munchler wrote: post #96

In the 90's, I was a project manager for a software consulting company. I carried a beeper onsite so my superiors could reach me when needed (e.g. to discuss growing the account). During a lunch meeting one day, two of my bosses at the consulting company suggested that I upgrade to a cell phone, like they had done. I said I was reluctant to do that, because I valued my independence and didn't want to be on a short le…

I had the same thought process in the 90s, and it is the reason why I still don't have a smartphone :)

Keep strong!

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#274

Post by brewdad »

Izkata wrote: post #263
sokoloff wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> removes common sense This happened about 5 miles from where I grew up: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/7-year-old-suspende... In the 80s, kids would have bows or hunting rifles in the car or truck in the school parking lot. Now eating your pastry the wrong way gets you sent home.

In the early 2000s my middle school had archery for a few days as part of gym class as a special event. Only the girls were actually allowed to do it though, they had something else for the boys (don't remember what though).

Same was true in my middle school in the 80s. In hindsight it really was the right call. That same year we had a sub in gym class playing tennis and four of us boys managed to launch about a hundred tennis balls over the fence and into the woods home run derby style. We would have definitely put an eye out with archery equipment.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#275

Post by max-ibel »

arp242 wrote: post #63
afandian wrote: post #45

Forget the beeper. The idea of arresting a child at school for anything (short of maybe violent assault) seems to be madness.

I don't know what it is in US culture and society that makes it so hostile towards anyone and anything even vaguely suspected of a crime, but this sort of thing is shockingly common, even when dealing with children. Here's another case I encountered a few weeks ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Brown_case – there are so many things wrong with the entire thing, starting with charging an 11-year old as an adult…

> what kind of school brings this matter to a judge in the first place...?

The kind of school that prevents a student with dreadlocks to attend schold indefinitely [1]? This is happening right now. In the past, there was also the role playing game (dnd) satanism scare...

Granted, I'm not sure if there have been actual arrests, but it's the logical next step to take.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68377156

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#276

Post by philwelch »

ubermonkey wrote: post #104
munchler wrote: post #96

In the 90's, I was a project manager for a software consulting company. I carried a beeper onsite so my superiors could reach me when needed (e.g. to discuss growing the account). During a lunch meeting one day, two of my bosses at the consulting company suggested that I upgrade to a cell phone, like they had done. I said I was reluctant to do that, because I valued my independence and didn't want to be on a short le…

There were several years where having BOTH was desirable. Cell service was expensive, and battery life was short, so many folks carried a beeper that was always on, and a phone they turned on if they needed to make a call and had no land line option. I've never understood the "it's a leash" thing. Pagers and phones are MY devices, and I get to decide how I will respond to them.

I have actually enjoyed having both at previous jobs. If you’re oncall and you use your phone to receive oncall pages, you can’t turn it off or turn off notifications or even silence it. Having a separate physical device you can receive pages on keeps you less tied to your phone.

If I end up in this situation again I might try and get a cheap burner phone and only install the pager app on it.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#277

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk »

bruce511 wrote: post #266
throw_pm23 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same thought process in the 90s, and it is the reason why I still don't have a smartphone :)

I resisted having a phone at all until 2013. People were amazed even then. I ended up getting one for development. It proved useful enough that I used it myself, but I've managed to limit usage to WhatsApp (and SMS), web reading (like HN now) and not much else. Lots of Web stuff (especially financial stuff) requires 2FA so SMS is now more-or-less required. People have learnt though that my phone is always on silent,…

Mines usually on silent too because certain individuals abuse it and I don't like hearing it ping and boop and beep every 30 seconds. None of this is urgent stuff.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#278

Post by Izkata »

cdchn wrote: post #235
ghaff wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are hardware tokens. But, yes, not everyone supports them.

Maybe there is a market for minuscule TOTP devices. Just 7 segment displays for the code and the lowest res camera that can decode a QR code.

Or even lower-powered? https://www.amazon.com/Token2-miniOTP-2-NFC-programmable-Two...

I remember my dad worked at a bank in the 90s and had one shaped like this to enter one of the buildings: https://www.amazon.com/HyperOTP-Time-Based-6-Digit-Services-...

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#279

Post by infotainment »

cyberax wrote: post #256
asveikau wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you underestimate the rate of wrongly accused and wrongly convicted. Estimates vary, iirc I've seen some papers claiming 5% and others claiming as high as 20%. There is a lot of over-charging going on too. Then, most cases don't get to trial, so you have people pleading guilty to things they did not do because they fear wrongful conviction for something worse.

Sorry, not buying it. There's no way 20% of convictions are wrong. Even 1% is honestly pushing it, especially these days. Extrapolation from convictions overturned via the DNA evidence also results in about 0.5-1%. I volunteered as an unpaid IT support at a non-profit working with ex-cons who were trying to get back to normal life. So I got to speak with lots of people who were actively trying to get away from the pr…

> (that's also why the death penalty is useless, btw).

I’d argue that if a criminal is dead, they can’t commit future crimes, therefore the death penalty is quite useful. Why waste space and resources on prisons when there is a more efficient option?

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#280

Post by cdchn »

Izkata wrote: post #278
cdchn wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe there is a market for minuscule TOTP devices. Just 7 segment displays for the code and the lowest res camera that can decode a QR code.

Or even lower-powered? https://www.amazon.com/Token2-miniOTP-2-NFC-programmable-Two... I remember my dad worked at a bank in the 90s and had one shaped like this to enter one of the buildings: https://www.amazon.com/HyperOTP-Time-Based-6-Digit-Services-...

Yeah RSA made these for a looong time.

But if you don't have a phone to program it you'd need a camera or some way to manually enter the data.

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