Slashdot Mirror
Canada Considers Cellphone Jammers
Mark Cappel writes: "Computerworld reports the Canadian equivalent to the US FCC is considering licensing the use of cellphone jammers. One person quoted in the article says, essentially, if a property owner does not want people to use cell phones on his property, then why not jam 'em?"
Has anybody read Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6? They had a nifty little bit of software that would block cell calls within a cell unless the number was preceded by a specific sequence. They used it to keep terrorists outside a situation from calling the guys inside and telling them what the team was doing. Everybody else could use their phones if they knew the sequence.
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Opportunities multiply as they are seized. --Sun-Tzu
It should also be mentioned that original phone design didn't operate in full duplex mode - what you said was sent to the other end and not put in your ear. Result: people shouted on phones until newer phones added some wires so that what you said was played back in your ear. Result of that: people stopped shouting into phones... I guess history is repeating itself.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Your airwaves laws are a joke. Honestly, they own a medium that everyone should use? regs are confusing to us simple folk... we don't trust our government so well down here. PLEEEESE LET THE GOV'T OWN EVERYTHING!!! I WANT DOCTORS WITH THE ENTHUSIASM OF GOVERNMENT WORKERS!!! I WANT HIGHBROW OPERA AND DANCING DICTATED TO ME NEXT TO MY 18 HOURS OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMING. Hooray for publicly funded television! Please don't bash the US, and we won't make fun of You Can't Do That On Television. Canadians, don't think we won't pay you back for Loverboy and Tom Green. REVENGE WILL BE SWIFT!!!! MWAAAHAHHHHAAAAA.
Over and over and endlessly over, I read these inane scenarios where cellphone jamming might cause someone to die in a theatre because his wife's baby was being delivered and the doctor couldn't contact him.
Come on, people. What the fuck did you do *BEFORE* cellphones were invented? Was all of humanity grubbing in the mud, unaware that unendurable hardships were being placed on them?
Christ. If your wife's having a baby, wear a pager and use the cellphone. And if you're likely to keel over dead from a heart attack... well, hell, you're toast anyway. No cellphone is gonna do you good.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Amazing. A slashdotter who wants to jam a cell phone transmission because he doesn't like the *content*.
Do you work for Net-nanny?
Yes, why ?
Dear god, let's take out the bathrooms too. Damn peeers. Don't they know they're wrecking it for all of us!
Kevin Fox
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Kevin Fox
The problem needs to be solved, and jammers would help solve it, but with several drawbacks. In addition, it could create a market for unjammable phones (or at least, phones that diminish the effective jammed area produced by a jammer).
We've seen many examples of cell phones sellers incorporating new technology standards (eg the next generation is apparently required to have location tracking tech, so emergency services can find people via their phone), so perhaps a "Silent Mode/Off Mode" signal detector couldbe added (ie instead of a jammer, you use a transmitter in the theatre, which tells all phones in the area to switch to silent mode (if you're lenient about phone use in your theatre) or to switch off (if you're hardline about it).
The obvious shortfall in such a system is not implementing it (I don't consider cost much of a factor - these days in this industry it ain't a high tech solution), but complacency - people will assume that it's no-longer their responsibility to turn the phone off - "if the proprietor doesn't want phones going off, he can damn well buy a phone silencer for his premises" sorta thing.
Actually - that does make jamming sound good precisely because of it's drawbacks - it's saying to people "start using your phones responsibly NOW or you WILL lose their capabilities". Of course, while few will listen, everyone will bitch when they get their just rewards...
And social etiquette does not seem to be working. Much like smoking, it only takes a few inconsiderate people to make the considerate behaviour of others meaningless. Smoking in public is more stigmitised than cell-phones will be in the forseeable future, yet social etiquette hasn't solved that problem, so what hope for success against rude cellphone use?
Are there any solutions, or have we just added yet another permanent irritation to our lives?
Anyway, to get back on topic, what gives someone else the _right_ to screw up my cell service with a jammer? They don't own the airwaves and as I sit here typing in my office I can hear the traffic blast by. Does that give me the _right_ to lay a spike strip in front of my building to stop the noise? hell no. A business owner can do "whatever" the hell they want to their property but that shouldn't trample my basic rights as a human - If I want to carry on a conversation with a little rectangle attached to my head, that's my business and they have no right to intrude or disrupt that conversation. What's wrong with asking people to leave the premises to do their cell phoning? Hell, what's wrong with informing a cell abuser/noise poluter that they are annoying everyone with their noise and to please talk elsewhere?
HOWEVER as has been previously stated by many others, more considerate use of cell phones should be in order. My cell is rarely audible and I try to speak to it as if I were talking to a person beside me and DEFINITELY never in a recorded/live performace (etc...) to disrupt others enjoyment of paid/free event and I also use the handsfree stuff in the car.
Many people get way to picky and upset over a little noise.
--Clay
Great notion, in theory. Practically, a number of issues come up.
Better still would be any largish region requiring all cellular devices to vibrate. That'd bring the availability of vibrating devices up, and keep interruptions down in the first place.
IP is just rude.
Is there any torture so subl
General, I didn't think I needed to be so obvious as to say "pun intended" but whatever...
Kevin Fox
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Kevin Fox
The emergency call point is a good one, but step back for a sec: how did we manage before we all had cellphones? The answer is - we managed. A cinema has a landline, so no problems there. So too retaurants. As for highways - I can't see governments forking out money to fund the creation of jamming devices alongside all the highways.
But jammers are hardly available now. The ones that can be bought (black market, international trade, whatever), are not exactly as portable as the cellphones themselves. I suppose that a mugger could plug one in inside his house and then mug people right outside, but then you're committing a crime in front of your house, and it's probably a lot easier to find you when a witness watches you step inside your door than when you run away and somebody calls the police on their cell phone.
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Yes! That guy!
Serbia: Damn you western Europe! You destroyed valuable equipment! We demand reparations!
World: Wait a sec- wasn't that equipment specifically designed to exterminate ethnic minorities?
Serbia: What of it? It was still private property!
World: Oh, go fsck a goat, you genocidal bastards. As long as you ignore the civil and human rights of Albanians, we're ignoring your d*** property rights. Hell, we'll ignore the rights of your soldiers, or at least those regarding 'life, liberty, etc.', even though we'll obey the Geneva Convention. And what do you say to that?
Serbia: We'll sue!
World: Tough s**t. We'll shoot.
(Hmmm, I think I've drifted offtopic enough to almost count as a 'troll'.) Well, anyways, if the jammer works on their property exclusively, and they warn you, don't they have the right to jam you? I mean, even though you own your phone, who the hell gave you those frequencies? You don't own them, you're a renter, if anything, and the real owner (The FCC, or its equivalent) should have the right to evict you if you're a true danger/nuisance. If your phone access is that d****ed important, don't go in the building! They aren't breaking/shooting your phone, they're just making it unusable on their property. And I think they have that right.
There. Am I back on-topic now? :)
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
No more than you could sue the cell phone company for being unable to get a signal at a 911-moment. Or the state of Alaska for not providing a pay phone at a close enough location to call 911 in a timely fashion.
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
I never got Kill, burn or maim people But I did get to have drunken sex with alot of hot chicks in third world countrys
And who says it would be a beautiful blonde that rapes you? More likely it would be some skanky chick with a weird hairdoo. If she is beautiful, then she's probably even more sadistic than the ugly chick, 'cause she can get gentle sex for free. So I don't think you'd like to be raped by a woman, esp. if they didn't remove the string and then you got gangrene or something...
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
Mail me about it, this is a little off topic.
Carpe Deez
I think this would only be an issue if your car accident involved you driving through the front window of a restaurant.
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
Payphone? The area I work and live in does not have many payphones. The ones that are still around are typically damaged from attempted theft of the coinbox or have been vandalized. On top of that Verizon is not installing many new ones because every is using their cellular devices to make calls.
Actually, my "babysitter" is typically my parents or in-laws, but I'm not enough of an asshole to expect ALL parents to be able to do the same.
Same token, if my parents are watching my kids and --sad story of the week-- happens, I have my phone. If my phone is blocked intentionally and my child dies, a lawsuit will be the least of those responsible's worries. Grief-stricken parents typically do not care about rational arguments!
The key point is that IF blocking is done, it MUST be made obvious WHERE it is being done.
Anything is possible given time and money.
Actually, the quote is originally attributed to a 19th-century French socialist philosopher named Jacques Renault.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
The idea of requiring all cellular devices to vibrate is an excellent one. Work has been handing out Nokia phones left and right. Bad: people leave them on in the office. Worse: there is no vibrator in the phone itself; you have to order a special battery pack to have the silent-ring option! Sure would be nice to declare those phones illegal....
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spam spam spam spam spam spam
No one expects the Spammish Repetition!
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
No, I carry my Nokia 6110 with me everywhere I go, or at least until this semester is over when I'll buy a Nokia 6210. :-)
I can take notes with it (albeit only with the numerical keypad), and *gasp* even make phonecalls with it.
Granted I'm in Europe where having a mobile phone doesn't make one big and/or important. Certainly is a lot easier to pick up a mobile phone instead of having to find a payphone and change to put in it
Well, that and the fact that I couldn't write write in a readable manner on paper to save my life.
From the "FAQ" at the first website:
I am in favor of blocking cellphones in theaters, but this use in hotels would be disgusting.
But what if grannie was calling from a pay-phone that doesn't accept incoming calls? Pager won't do you much good then, will it?
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
The other side to this question is the fact that drivers who use cell phones have the tendency to inundate 911 with unnecessary calls whenever they drive by the scene of an accident. This prevents real emergencies from being handled in a timely manner. Lives are lost.
This irks me. Cell phones typically don't give the user appropriate auditory feedback. On a regular phone, you can hear yourself through the phone, on a cell phone you can't.
Hmm.... I can hear myself fine on my phone. It's a QCP-2760 from Qualcomm/Kyocera. I also don't talk louder into cell phones then land lines.. but I've always had a decent cell phone.
- My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
No, crime rates were lower because decent people were allowed to carry handguns and non-lethal weapons like mace.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
It's simple: The place will have limited means to call for help, since cell phones don't work. Sure, there's landline, but you've got a better chance of keeping people from calling 911. There's only going to be so many phone, and I'm faily sure none of them are under tables or in bathroom stalls.
People have been rude and thoughtless throughout the ages. Really, just because we *CAN* do something and would *LOVE* to do something doesn't mean we *SHOULD* do something.
You want a *REAL* solution? Adpot standards of cell phone ettiqute. Teach them to children, as they are DEVELOPING their habits.
I've also seen comments with such statements such as "If you absolutly cannot be out of communication, then stay at home!" Some of us have family that we want to be able to reach us in an emergency. My great-great aunt for example. My late grandmother. Hell, my grandmother. Just the other day, she found a pothole she couldn't avoid and blew a tire. Rather then have her wait an hour for AAA (she wasn't the only one needing a tire change, seems like cars everywhere in central Iowa have become pothole devining rods), she called me to see where I was. I happened to be in town, 5 minutes away from her.
So I carry my cell phone like I'm someone important. I may not be important to you but I'm damn well important to someone. Several people, actually.
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Intelligence is definitely a recessive trait.
Dude, you've obviously never had a child.
Your doctor is your doctor, and when your wife goes into labor at 4am, your doctor is going to deliver the baby, not the one who happens to be on call.
Kevin Fox
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Kevin Fox
I personally would love to see the US allow this, especially in movie theatres and restaurants
Could we install them in all classrooms with more than 50 seats? Please?
Might work; if you can figure out how to build a Faraday cage around a 100 year old theatre.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
This seems like more of an issue of courtesy than technology. Loud cell phone conversations are no more (or less) intrusive than loud face-to-face conversations. What we need is fewer rude people n- and there's already a device that creates those. It's called good parents.
SONY. Because caucasians are just too damn tall.
I recently bought a cellphone because I have slowly degenerative hearing. This is a genetic defect. 90% of publicly available phones I _cannot_ hear adequately on due to my hearing loss. They simply aren't loud or clear enough. If it has any fuzz/distortion on it, I can't distiguish what the other person says to me. I wear two hearing aides, but they cannot correct my condition.
I CHOSE my cellphone because I _can_ hear on it as opposed to the publicly unreliable, soft, or non-working phones. All I want is the same basic life as someone who can hear properly. Why deny me, an innocent person (who _ALWAYS_ puts his cellphone on vibrate when in "quiet" places -- hopsitals, libraries, movie theatres, etc) because the rest of the cellphone users are idiots?
If it really bothers you all that much, SIMPLY ASK the person to shutup, leave, or wait. Is that so hard? If they refuse to do anything, talk to the management of whatever place you are in. I'm sure they'll support you. I know I would.
Just don't make life difficult for those of us who have a legitimate need for one.
There is no reason for Jammers. There is a reason to have both parties show respect to each other.
no spelling was never a priority thats why they make spell checkers unfortunatlly there is not a spell checker for /. posts
Jamming a cellphone in a hospital or other "high-risk" area would probably have an effect contrary to the intended. All you are doing is filling the air even more full of the waves you are trying to avoid.
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"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
It would be ironic if the accident was caused by a cellphone using driver!
That's all well and good. It's not as if restaraunts and theatres don't have regular phones. And any dangerous stretch of highway where this ought to be considered for safety reasons should have ample emergency phones (It would be real easy, just leave emergency phones every 1/4 mile like they do in Fl. and then set up the jammer to cut off cellular communications for a few hundred feet around each one. People stuck between them could call for help but conversations while driving would be made impossible.)
Fist Prost
"We're talking about a planet of helpdesks."
Fist Prost
"We're talking about a planet of helpdesks."
-Jaron Lanier
That outdated usenet definition is not applicable to slashdot. Sure, it's occasionally used, but mostly trolls are both pointlessly stupid and offensive posts and the people who post them.
How did this come to be? Well, I think the moderation system is largely to blame: seperate troll and flamebait categories (at best, the classical troll is just a particularly subtle flamebait) and nothing else remotely applicable to the "all Natalie Portman's hot grits are belong to penis bird" crowd (okay, "Offtopic" might do, but they're often at least somewhat topical, having crude references to the current story). With every such post marked "troll", you can hardly go around criticizing people for defining it that way.
Besides, I think most people here are more familiar with smelly, obnoxious, vaguely humanoid annoyances that live under bridges and in holes in the ground than with fishing by moving along slowly with a line in the water.
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Except some of those emergency phone systems actually use the cellular phone system. :)
Now...
These jammers will ultimately become available to unqualified persons (probably the same ones who don't know they need to cut coax to an appropriate length or they'll have reactance, and bad impedence mismatches), these people will set up the crapiest jamming systems you've ever seen and they'll end up interfereing with a lot more than cell phones...
Maybe we should set power density or other field strength limits for this too. No more than x1 mw/cm^2 off your property and x2 mw/cm^2 on your property, these regulations on top of the rf exposure limits.
Aside from that I would love to see it in the US too!!!!!
Unresponsible jammers, please read:
If you interfere with me I give you notice, you don't stop I contact FCC enforcement...
as the cancer rate in canada mysteriously rises....
I personally would love to see the US allow this, especially in movie theatres and restaurants. I'm personally tired of hearing someone's phone ring in a movie or listening to other people's conversations while I'm eating dinner, but of course, here in the US, someone will consider it your right to have your cell phone ring anywhere and anytime you want.
I think....therefore I am
I reject your reality
When someone yells "Stop" or goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over.
Perhaps someone will explain the difference between "laughing at" and "laughing with" to you someday. Not that your intentions were all that bad... just weird.
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Slashdot: News For Zealots. Stuff That's Hypocritical.
You missed my point, I believe. If people can't use their cellphones, there won't be any accidents -- therefore, the need to call for help won't exist, either. ;-D
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Still, it's quite scary that people think it could be true.
Hey, it's not as though ordinary phones have suddenly disappeared. Maybe you aren't that old, but there used to be a time when cellphones didn't exist, you know.
Not according to the DCMA (if it's an encrypted digital signal). :)
Couldn't resist.
Asikaa
Asikaa
Come in, twenty-seventy-seventy, your time is up.
I read an article saying that bluetooth devices could be set up that would turn off the bluetooth phones within their range. Movie theatres were given as an example. Of course, a wireless spokesperson stated that there was no plan to implement this capability because there was no demand for it. Sucksperson is more like it.
Yeah, like there'd be anything you could do about it.
But I bet you'd sue anyways. A few million from a deep pocket organization... turn a 'tragedy' into a holiday. Sounds like Susan Smith.
Besides, this thread was about telling phones to vibrate, not jamming them. If someone really wanted to jam them they'd just build fine mesh into the walls and ceilings. No overt device needed, no lawsuit liability. ("No, we didn't do it to jam cellphones, we did it to block potentially harmful EM radiation.")
Until you have to mow the lawn... :-)
There's a fence around most houses. That's to keep the people out, right?
"Piter, too, is dead."
Deliberate pun?
Yes, they almost certainly would.
In 1973, my uncle died in a Tulsa movie theatre after getting stuck to the floor in an awkward position that caused a bloot clot in his leg. It took several hours for help to arrive, because nobody could find a nickel for the payphone in the lobby. My aunt successfully sued the owner of the theatre for Operating a Public Venue Prior to the Widespread Availability of Lifesaving Cellphones.
A few months ago a woman here in town slipped and fell in the French Cultural Center gift shop and punctured her spleen on a miniature Eiffel Tower. Nobody in the store happened to have a cell phone to call 911 with, and she sued every last one of them. A jury awarded her over $24m in combined damages.
Just this morning I was walking down the street and a police officer ran up to me and demanded to use my cell phone to call his dispatcher because his car had been stolen. My batteries were worn down and he was unable to make the call. I was then arrested, and only got bailed out a few minutes ago.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Unless you don't object to someone having a phone conversation in the seat behind you in a theatre? Or a regular conversation for that matter. It's all communication.
And if cell phones stop annoying people, the jammers will not be used anymore.
Of course this probably won't have the effect you're looking for...
... as drivers whose phones mysteriously start cutting out on them decide to glance down at their phones to check the signal strength, look around for overhead power lines, or generally just get irate at the lost connection as they hang up and redial (dialing on a cell phone being one of the most dangerous things you can legally do while driving) all the while not watching you on your motorcycle.
Driving a bike is hazardous enough with all the idiots on the road - I certainly wouldn't want to be on one with an interference device attached to it :)
Living better through chemicals
Unfortunately, there are millions of people who are "too important" (at least to themselves) to be out of touch for one minute. But it's getting out of hand.
I've seen people in the National Guard who feel the need to take their cell phone out in the field with them - never mind that even if Junior took his first step right then you're not going him till Sunday. Oh, and the phone probably won't work anyway. I just don't get it...
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You most certainly are not. As I described in more detail higher in the thread, you are only allowed to say what you want. You do not have freedom to say it where you want, and you do not have the freedom to force others to listen.
It is for precisely reasons like these that they are talking about licensing the devices. This means that they are studied to ensure non-interference before they may be sold or used.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Hm, this ain't going anywhere :)
Everytime I'm in class and some guys phone rings during class I shout "FAG!"
/. first, folks. Anyone receiving a cellular phone call in class is a homosexual.
You heard it on
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Everytime I'm in class and some guys phone rings during class I shout "FAG!"
It sounds like you're the social problem.
wake up call? bwahahahahaha! MORON
And if you talked to me in one of them there classes like you talked in that there post of yours, there would be a lot of things getting jammed.
:o}
Up yer ass, that is.
forth ?love if honk then
Santa Cruz, CA
bad thing: lack o' housing
good things: just about everything else
Im from Australia and we just had our national laws changed to make it illegal to drive while talking on a mobile phone without a hands free device. It has worked well, too bad about smokers and those who do their makeup while driving tho, they still cause problems.
Why? Because driving drunk is really not THAT dangerous, assuming you aren't totally blasted. Its an unnecessary risk, of course, and you shouldn't drive drunk, but its sure not the certain death that the propaganda makes it out to be. I don't drive drunk and I bitch at people that do it, but I am also realistic.
But really, why all this talk about jamming cell phones. We really should jam people with loud stereos too, since they could potentially make it impossible to hear that rescue vehicle that is about to run the red light opposing your green.
Luckily, it's apparently not as "cool" to have a stereo so loud that you can hear it miles away anymore. I'm glad.
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I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Ever heard of a concept called "intentional interference"? I am a ham radio operator, and as such pretty familiar with FCC regs, and this system would be very very very illegal. $10,000 fine and a bunch of nasty letters. (They usually waive the fine if you suck up to them and you aren't rich, but if they catch you doing it again, thats a different story.)
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I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Non-metallic things are invisible to radio waves. No glass will ever stop radio waves, unless it is doped with something metallic.
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I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Not sure I follow. Who exactly lost $5K when someone gets up to go to the bathroom? You the moviegoer may have lost a delicately built atmosphere if the person had to step over you. Is that tatamount to making it not worth having gone, thus losing $8?
Even so, the theater didn't lose a dime. Not trying to make a counterpoint, I'm just wondering...
Kevin Fox
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Kevin Fox
Now you take your bulldozing 4wheeler, give them a cell phone and put them in congested traffic, which exists pretty much everywhere now, and you have people pulling out guns and shooting them. (Seems someone from Texas once said, if everyone has a gun they'd be all be a lot more polite. Believe that? I don't.)
I can certainly see reason for a doctor to have a cell phone while driving, but I sure can't see it for anyone else. Chances are, what will transpire in Canada, as in other locations, is limited use, for commercial extablishments or anywhere a cell phone might interfer by way of RF emissions.
As the Cell phone industry scrambles with declining sales and profits, you can fully expect them to fight jammers tooth and nail.
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
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Probably the same people who can't set the time on their VCR's, or the same people who buy CD-RW's and can't figure out why their 10 year old 2x cdrom can write to it .....
For cellphone jamming to be permitted it would have to be posted in the establishment that jamming is occuring. Imagine the confusion at an R&B club:
But, I believe in Japan jamming is permitted. It would be nice if the whole country had cellphone jamming, with the exception of a few one person sized sound proof boxes scattered around the country, we could call them phone booths or phone boxes or phone kiosks!
On a more serious note: many cell phone users are annoying, they talk too loud and the ringing noise that most cellphones emit is obnoxious. Until society develops a suitable etiquette for mobile phone use we're stuck with the obnoxious side of it, or until better mobile phones are created. Obviously, not much can be done with obnoxious people who use cell phones!
I have a very small mind and must live with it.
-- E. Dijkstra
well I'm to lazy to look up links not to mention the vodka ;-) but its simple you just have to know
the freqency band and buld a transmitter with noise as an input instead of a mic
I geuss it would make sence to start with a old cell phone you can get them pretty cheap at pawn shops but you have to know basic electronics
it's a bit more then I can explain in my current
state they probably have some info in the 2600 FAQ
sorry
You're right.. in SF here the leather jacket crowd seems to have them attached to their heads. I carry a cell phone with me too. I keep the volume down, and if I do get a call, I try to find a dark corner, or tell the caller that I'll call them back. I'm hoping we can solve this by making it a strong norm to use vibrating modes, headphone alerts, or other non-intrusive methods. We must socialize these people to respect others because it's right, not because they have no other choice.
Josh
i think you missed the point....
the original poster was asking if the owner of the establishment (etc) would be liable for blocking the call to 911 (and all other calls) and preventing emergency medical attention from arriving (or arriving as quickly)
Need a Catering Connection
OK, some have you may have noticed this already my 4th post to this story... Maybe I just hate cell phones more than the average person, but since when did making a cellphone call go from being a privilege[1] to a right?! Will a sys admin sue an airport without net access for the crime of preventing him from remotely administering his network during a downtime crisis? This can cost a company money, but the notion is ridiculous. As someone aptly said "We managed before cell phones".
[1] Thanks to dictionary.com for saving the spelling Nazis the trouble of correcting my mangling of the word privilege.
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
Whenever they try to open yet another branch or take over a competitor, somehow the necessary documents get misplaced. Bureaucratic incompetency? Nope -- satellite mind-control rays!
We live, as we dream -- alone....
if the building's owners warned you that they'll jam cell phones inside their building
That sounds reasonable, that way when I'm on call I'll know not to go into the building with the sign that says Cellphone Jamming Zone. It will kinda suck, but then so does being on call. As long as it's not an "Oh shit, my boss got woken up because the NOC couldn't get a hold of me while I was mainlining caffeine at the starbucks!"
I work for a cell phone company, and I always have my phone/pager on silent ring. I can't stand the weasels who have decide they can't miss a call and that their phone has to play the entire ninth symphony as a ring. Hell, I think that if you have an accident while on the cell-phone they should treat you just like you were DUI. Bleah, brain-damaged cell users suck.
So, I'd object to jamming the President's cell phone, especially if we're pissing off China, but I think the vast majority of cell phone conversations aren't that d***ed important. Certainly not important to justify pissing off a whole ballet audience, esp. if the building's owners warned you that they'll jam cell phones inside their building. If the jamming extends beyond their building, then you might have a legitimate complaint.
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
What about in hospitals? or areas where it poses some kind of medical risk? Or even in highschool classrooms?
Do any of you people have morals are you only worried about yourselves? Yes, a cell phone ringing in the middle of a movie is extremely rude and annoying. Instead of jamming cell phones, teach people courtesy. In the event of an emergency, a cell phone is valuable and the time it saves could save a life. Imagine an emergency taking place in a parking lot or right outside of the theater, since the signal cannot be completely contained in the building the jamers meant only to jam phone in the movie jams a phone in the parking lot that is trying to call 911 because they are witnessing a car jacking or something like that. Lets put all of our selfish feelings aside here and not take ourselves so seriously.
I don't disagree with you on the subject of your common-or-garden radio wave, but our mobile phones are right near the top of the range labelled 'radio' (the 3G band is a significant fraction (either 1/4 or 1/2, can't remember which) of the bottom of the microwave spectrum, which gets blocked easily. Combined with the aforementioned low power our impromptu experiments in private (plus a quick play in the pub) showed that there was no danger of being blocked outside the door of the establishment - we couldn't even block phones at the other end of the room.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Statistically, in europe, the vast majority of them will own phones. Market penetration in the teen-thirties group is huge, way over 50%, closer to 80%.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
I'm a ham as well, so of course I've hear of this. However, the context of the discussion was that Canada is considering allowing the use of jammers: broadband signal generators. Therfor, the FCC had nothing to do with it, nor did illegallity since the regonal controlling authority was going to be allowing it.
Now, I'd much rather have the theater owners running narrow band microcells than broadband jammers if they are going to run anything. You will also not that my suggestion did not involve blocking the system, rather just controlling it.
Remember, it's the jackasses that yap away on their cell phones in [theathers|their cars|airplanes|...] that are creating the drive for legislation that will prevent you and I from using our HT's in those situations.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Unfortunately, you don't own the airspace over your house. Your property rights only extend a few hundred yards into the air, and then end. The planes in the airspace above you can fly back and forth all they want... in fact YOU can get in serious trouble if you, say, launch a homemade helicopter into the air and it collides with a plane above your house. YOU were the one trespassing on air traffic routes...
Yeah, that would explain why I'm able to sue the New York Times whenever they refuse to publish my stories on their front page, as well as why I'm able to go to presidential press conferences and scream out my opinions without being ejected. You seem to be a little confused about the First Amendment.
A phenonema which I see an increase of is cell phones ringing during lectures. That annoys me to no end. Nothing is more lame, disrespectful, and disruptive than someone's phone ringing in the middle of a class and having the person answer it, or get up, make a lot of noise, and leave class to talk to the person calling them. I'd love it if they could ban use of these in lecture halls by any means necessary.
Tcl my Pico! There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
I think that a better idea would be to check in all phones at the door, and then to have an employee or employees be an answering service for all phones that are currrently checked in, and go and get the people who get called. So no loud movie theatres, and makes sure people won't annoy others if they need to talk.
Some restaurants in my area do this, taking messages instead of getting the customer. While it seems to work, I can't see it happenning in a 500-seat movie theater. Instead of phones ringing every five minutes, ushers would be getting people every five minutes. Would it be quieter? Perhaps. Less annoying? No.
Put my clarinet beneath your bed 'till I get back in town.
When are moderators going to get +/- 1 for obligatory Simpsons references?
I'm having a heart attack- call 911!"
"Sorry, it's not good etiquette here, you will have to go outside to place that call."
Secondly in the US most folks are not shielded by any Good Samaritan protection. Indeed that's the point of the article you referenced. If you collapse in front of me in a heart attack & I crack your ribs attempting CPR, or I pull you unconscious from a damaged car (in some TV-fueled belief that they all explode in a ball of flames) & permanently injure your spine in the process...
I'm totally & completely liable for any injuries you suffer as a result of my actions.
True there are some places in the US where these actions would be protected and even a fewer where my actions would be required but this is not the case in the majority of the US.
But since the original articcle is all about Canada (big country to the north of continental USA, 2nd largest in world, #1 in UN livability ratings, bilingual, not-US) it's all moot.
I am not a lawyer nor assert these statements to be accurate. You should obtain competent legal advice in your own jurisdiction.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Uhuh, check the quote marks, I obviously meant that the net functional result is the same : no incoming calls. Tho' I concede vibrate slipped my mind :)
there are many people who, because of their job, need to be reachable at all times, and not simply for selfish reasons (doctors being the most salient example). They therefore can never go to movies?
I doubt that there are people who really must be available 24/7 ad infinitum. For a while, perhaps, but if new patients are roundrobin'd, I can see how a doc can claim some true time for himself once every few weeks or whatever. But when the time is there to really be available, yes, I don't think you can justify going to the movies. If the chances are high that you'll be called, you know you'll be interrupting the experience of everybody around you (even by merely walking out the door, see below).
Did you misunderstand the 'set to vibrate' concept, or am I missing your point?
Twofold reply, ;)
:)
1) if you're using vibrate mode because the area requires silence, you'll need to leave to handle the call and that in itself is a disturbance; if you ever went to a movie where apparently half the theatre needs to use the bathroom, you know what I mean
2) most comments point out that the conversation itself is often more annoying than the ringing, and I wouldn't be surprised to see people think otherwise and happily take a call, assuming they've been polite by using vibrate
So : I still don't expect docs to show up at movies, not even with a phone set to vibrate, ergo jam away :)
What would happen, say, 20 years ago if there was an emergency and the baby sitter had to contact you?
I use base 5 when I'm counting on my fingers... you can't count as high, but it's easier to keep track of and convert.
(ie, my left hand is the "tens" column, or 5^1, and my right is the ones column.)
I can count up to 30 this way, which kinda breaks the base-5 thing (since I count all five fingers on both hands, which is 55, and that can't exist in base 5).
Lotsa fun.
-Jason-
"What? No, no, no, 'All your bases belong to us.' No 'are'!" -me
Nuff said. She has no respect for you or others around her.
Torg, come out of the spaceship. Nothing can stop Torg.
And please limit where you do THAT as well, kind sir.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Yeah!!
That said, I think it's time I changed my
ever hear of land lines? You know, normal phones still exist. Or does everyone just use cell phones where you come from...now that's scary.
-smile- I'm not a gun buff, nor a coward like you. I would have serious problems with someone who shot another human being without very good justification (as in self-defense). However, trespassing is against the law, and technically it is allowed to shoot trespassers. It's just not vey nice. FYI, Americans hardly invented the concept of property. It existed at least as far back as the old Romans. You know, the ones where by law the (male) head of the household owned his house and all the things (and people) in it, to do with as he pleased? As to your other accusation, yes, I'm an animal, and so are you. The difference is that I'm an intelligent animal, and you are not.
I admire any teacher with the guts to do that. Part of the problem is that some of these teachers are just concerned about their paycheck, and don't really care if someone is interfering with other students learning.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
it's called grammar
Now, if you're having a heart attack in the middle of the wilderness, because you are so hung up on being in contact that that thought of being so far from civilization gives you a coronary, fine, use your cell phone.
Cell phones are great for staying in touch when a phone is not readily available. But there are limits, one of them being, "Shut the hell up, I'm trying to enjoy a film." They say you can't shout fire in a crowded theater. I say you shouldn't be saying anything anyone else can hear in any event. Besides, cell phones are a priveledge, not a right. Many people would do well to remember that. Anyway, I'm not offended by talking on the phone, I am offended by the sheer arrogance that says that you talking with your friends about what bar to meet at is more important than my enjoyment of a film or a meal.
Do not touch -Willie
Hey! Let's have the USAF jam Canadian Air
Traffic Control. The resulting chaos ought to
prove truly profitable for the U.S. media outlets.
;-)
Right, and my point is that we should not legislate etiquette.
"Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness." -Robert A. Heinlen
(joke, joke)
-Legion
And in this world, bandwidth is only useful so far as there is not much interference, so someone has to co-ordinate frequency usage. And frankly, the system works well enough, (I know I couldn't create a cell phone system, personally.) so I'm content with my status as a frequency renter. If you can come up with an improved system, I guess I'll listen, but I'm not the one to convince. If you improve the way we use the radio spectrum, give your ideas to the FCC, talk to broadcasters, you know... get some strength and money behind you, ok? Anyways, that's where the current ownership of the radio spectrum comes from, and I can live with the situation as such.
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
Welcome to the wonderful word of Satire.
I work at a coffee shop (not Starbuck's), and it never ceases to amaze me how many people are unable to pull themselves away from their phone long enough to place an order.
Put my clarinet beneath your bed 'till I get back in town.
Your problem is that you've started from the assumption that I'm ignorant, which I'm not. Stop it, you're annoying me. Oh, and get an account.
I fully appreciate the irony of claiming ownership of a piece of land - I think it's somewhat akin to claiming ownership of your parents.
The reason trespassing laws exist has to do with concern that the person doing the trespassing intends harm to the person 'owning' the property. If this is indeed the case, then shooting them just might be in self defense. Nine times out of ten (or better), though, it's probably not the best way to handle the situation.
"What it all comes down to" as you say, is that people perceive that an injury has been done to them, whether it is trespassing or violating the quiet of a movie theater. Don't laugh, that was serious. That's what this is about. The cellphones themselves are nearly irrelevant. The problem is the behavior that is associated with them - rude and inconsiderate when applied to theatres and fancy restaurants, potentially dangerous when coupled with moving vehicles.
To actually get back on topic, though, jamming is not likely to be the answer, as other people have pointed out. The problem is behavioural, not technological, and we therefore should not be looking for technological solutions to it.
KdL
P.S. Why in hell did the original parent in this thread get 3, Funny, and my reply to it 3, Insightful? Neither was either.
Some people -- like my girlfriend -- don't know how to switch their phones to 'silent' mode. And she has the nerve to answer the phone and talk during the movie, AAAUUGGGH !
Wasn't there an article a while back about theatres in the US considering doing this?
:)
Or maybe I'm on crack
That reminds me: back in my cell-scanning days, I heard one guy telling his friend, "Oh shit, I just ran a red light."
-Legion
> Just out of idle curiosity, does anyone else out there see cell phones, pagers, etc. more as leashes and choke chains than anything else
That's how I see them.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
However, trespassing is against the law, and technically it is allowed to shoot trespassers.
Actually in most states in the U.S. shooting someone involved in simple trespass is a good way to become bubba's boyfriend. In the case of a home invasion you are right, (in most states).
My Weblog
While there is definatly opertunity for abuse, this is something I've been wanting for a long time. Good places to use:
-movie thearter
-classroom
-Starbucks (probably wont happen but I can dream right?)
Humor is a wonderful thing, provided you understand it.
-Legion
Jam 'em on the freeways!
I'm not too sure about the majority of the Slashdot crowd most days, either :)
But if I'm using binary, I can count to 1023 on both hands
... of course, that still may not be enough
Living better through chemicals
Tomorrow I'm going to try thinking while I drive to work and listen to the radio -- it's a short trip and I think I can handle it.
If that works out, then I'll try thinking while I post to Slashdot and drink coffee, 'cause I'm just a multi-tasking fool!
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
I'm pretty sure the expression you're looking for is "pissers".
Cell phone users drive worse than drunks, by a long shot. I want to build a mobile one and attach it to my motorcycle.
Carpe Deez
Once again we're trying to apply a complex technical solution to a problem because the simple solution seems too hard... Phone rings in a theatre? Eject them 10 minutes into the movie. Same with restraunts, etc. Clearly advertise the fact that this will happen if you take the chance of leaving your phone on whilst in the establishment, and people will soon learn. These types of people get away with it time and time again because people are too afraid of confrontation these days (perhaps rightly so).
'sapientia potestas est'
I'm not sure about the majority of the Slashdot crowd, but I need more than my own two hands to count the number of times an annoying cellphone user has interrupted or disturbed others. For example, this technology could be well-used in such areas as concert halls, classrooms (yes, kids *do* bring cellphones to class), and maybe even certain stretches of dangerous highways in order to prevent accidents caused by drivers yapping on their phones too much to pay attention to the road.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
When you enter a place of business, which is where the vast, vast majority of this will come into play, you are under the rules they choose to employ. Don't like it? Goodbye! Perhaps if there was a shred of consideration or courtesy remaining in this disgusting world, things like cellular jammers wouldn't be necessary. There isn't, so it is. I probably shouldn't be surprised that there's a black helicopter faction around here that feels oppressed by a technical possibility like this, but it still never ceases to amaze me how some of you people can't see the forest for the trees on repeated occasions.
I don't mean this as flamey as it sounds, but I am so freaking sick of hearing about how everything but rain on a Sunday is a violation of someone's freedom that I just had to stick my big stupid nose in here. Guess what? You simply cannot do whatever you like, whenever you like without repercussion.
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Slashdot: News For Zealots. Stuff That's Hypocritical.
Something I wrote elsewhere once upon a time:
If I'm completely in left field, please let me know so I can finally get to the bottom of this.--- [DrPsycho] Coping with reality since 1975.
-DrPsycho - Coping with reality since 1975
Because then you are interfering with public/private property. Just because a plane flies over your house doesn't give you the right to shoot it down for tresspassing. Think about it.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I posted that as a reply to the wrong comment 8-P. You can tell I was in a hurry because I didn't even grammar check it first.
The real troll is here, and yes, he is a troll, according to the defination.
Actually, I fould your post quite funny, and apologize for the inconvience.
Jordan Bettis
``Wherever you go, there's another stupid sigfile quote.''I'd love to know how the world went on before everyone had a cell phone.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
What if there were a problem on the premises if the phone lines go down? Would you want your cell phone jammed then? I'm all in favor of this I just thought I'd bring to light a hypothetical situation.
Colm Atkins
I imagine most thieves (smart or not) assume, when they pull a gun on somebody, that person will not whip out the cellphone and dial 911. :)
-Legion
Just because cell phones currently annoy people, doesn't mean they always will. I think ANY method of limiting communications is stupid and counter to civilization. I wholeheartedly agree that many people talk on cell phones today for the wrong reasons (status and image) but I see them as eventually becoming ubiquitous devices that will be used by almost everyone. Jammers only destroy, we want things that can create and facilitate creation here in our world.
Josh
I'd worry about a smart thief who decides to jam a person's cell-phone just prior to mugging them.
I'd also worry about the technical support calls from customers unaware of cell phone jammers.
-B
Are a good idea. They're also useful for keeping the mind control rays out of your head. Much more fashionable than hats made out of aluminum foil. Keep up the good work, Canada!
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Health care is not a monopoly.
The health insurance is a government run.
But I choose my doctor, and what hospital I go to.
If a service center (hospital/walk in clinic/test lab) doesn't run well, people don't go there, they don't get the money.
Although this is more applicable to walk in clinics and private practices.
I don't think thats a very good example because an establishment blocking cell phones with a jammer would very likely have a phone line in to the place, which would not affected by the jammer.
i can see where jamming cell phone where they are horribly annoying is good... however it would be better if there was some kind of cell phone maker organization that setup somethign were you could buy a device that would make tell cell phones that they are in a 'quiet zone' and then they would not ring audibly and if their user doesn't pick up, inform the person on the other side that their use is in a 'quiet zone' and take a message...
:)
there could potentially be override ability for actual need (ie emergency type things) somehow (*shrug* i'm not going to actually make a device, i'm just throwing out ideas
Need a Catering Connection
If someone had a heart attack or something, and a cell phone jammer prevented someone else from dialing 911 (or its equivalent), could the owner of the cell phone jammer face legal liability?
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
expounding on "classroom", how about a public library?
:)
I am still amazed when some fuck gets/makes a call in the library and talks at full room volume. dirty looks don't work. sometimes flipping the bird gets the point across, but I usually have to throw books and shout, which just annoys other people trying to study. a portable jammer would be a great tool to have in this situation. I'm certainly not going to go whine to the impotent librarians.
crying babies and coughing homeless people are all that library patrons should need to tolerate.
-Legion
Granted, most use of cellphones are for personal reasons. But, say you get in a car accident, or somethings happened to your landline phone. But you can't call, because your being jammed. Something less prohibiting would be better, telling the cellphone not to use its ringer. Not as feasable, but alternatives are always good. I have a cell phone, and I usually keep it on silent mode, unless i'm at home or something.
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Insert Witty Sig Here
However, the most important questin I have is....Where can I get one and do they have a car kit available??
-Daniel
P.S. I apologise if these issues were brought up in the article, my browser refused to open it.
P.P.S. I can't spell. Deal with it.
Ownyourphone.com. Custom ringtones, cheap and easy
Sometimes a phone call from a theatre or restaurant can be life-saving. Of course most of these places have traditional phone lines available as well, but these should be easily accessible.
It would however be perfect if such a device could jam incoming signals but still allow people to make (important) phonecalls. (On the other hand, what if the doctor is in the theatre and he needs to come to the hospital ASAP because he is the only one who can... argh!)
Healthcare system? I almost got paralized because of incompetent doctors, and also due to the fact that so many people are abusing the system and get notes from doctors to get sick days off, that when you have something that is other than "standard" problems, especially if your symptoms fits in the "standard", you face a serious nightmare because they won't push it, to save cost due to abuse. When you have to PAY for something, you get a lot less abusing. There's not a perfect solution. Oh and if you keep the same system and charge a low fee per use, you'll get those people on wealthfare screaming "injustice" so you never win.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Damn those computers, don't people have pencils and paper any more? Or am I the only one who calculates pi using a pencil and paper? Nobody needs then newfangled computer thingies when you've got a pencil and paper.
Strictly speaking we don't NEED cellphones to buy the groceries, but what if you decided to stop by to pick up some milk on the way home?
What about people with boom boxes? Or people who are loud without having cell phones (talking to themselves, shouting to people across the aisles, yelling out the windows...)? Or the bus driver who was having a conversation with the microphone on, enabling the entire bus to hear (yes, she knew it was on)?
I don't have any problem with people using cell phones on public transit. Obnoxious people will be obnoxious, regardless of technology.
Put my clarinet beneath your bed 'till I get back in town.
If the summary of the article is correct (I can't say because it looks like the article is Slashdotted), I'm all for it. I have nothing against cell phones. Hell, I'm shopping for one right now. However, I do have something against the jerks who won't turn them off in places like restaurants and movie theaters, then insist on yakking away and disturbing everyone around them. It's too bad it's come to this because cell phones in places like restaurants wouldn't be so bad every now and then, if the call was really necessary, but it seems that some folks think it's cool to make everyone around them painfully aware that they're "connected". These are the same people who don't heed the signs asking them to turn off the ringers or set them to vibrate. These are also, I suspect, the same people driving along, ignoring everything around them, like the woman who smashed into a friend's new truck not long ago because she was so absorbed in her phone call that she ran a red light. IMHO, common courtesy should be voluntary, but if we need cell phone jammers to shut these boors up, so be it.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
Sure it sounds nice to guarentee no interruptions in a movie theater, and while it seems like everyone has a cellphone, some people do, in fact, need them.
Your wife (or you) go(es) into labor, and the hospital pages your doctor, only they're at a movie because labor is two weeks early and they have a baby expected during any 4 week span. They don't find out because their cellphone and pager are jammed.
Also, unless you can build a farriday cage around your house, your jamming will affect people on adjacent properties. And if you could build a farriday cage around your house, then you wouldn't need a jammer to begin with.
The deal here is the need for social rules. they're already here, and getting stronger. Now that most phones come with vibrate settings, and it's getting easier to switch between 'profiles', the problem will get better.
Add bluetooth to the mix and soon you'll have devices that know when they're entering 'quiet areas' and they'll switch to silent operation automatically while they're in the theater.
You don't want a speed governor on your car, and I don't want someone jamming cellphones. Sure it's annoying to be interrupted during a movie, and yes, I'm completely supportive of ways to prevent that, but it's obnoxious to assume that nobody has duties so important that they need to be interrupted during a meal, movie, or play, and it's closed-minded to think that there aren't more ingeneous ways to solve the problem than aggressive wholesale jamming of signals.
We're smarter than that, and we can go beyond '50s technology.
Kevin Fox
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Kevin Fox
My only concerns would be about the radiation from the "jammer", and maybe the civil liberties issues of blocking communication. :)
It would also be nice if the CHP would do something about the SOB in the blue Ford F150 License 5K83179, who cut me off on the drive home today. I'll take this matter up with someone other than dispatch tomorrow. I'd like it if we could get some laws and enforcement of the no-deliberate jerks, though. Barring that, it would be nice to just cut their link.
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Freedom of speech impared. I don't know what the freedom of speech laws in Canada are, but here in the US you are (normally) allowed to say what you want. where you want, to whoever you want. I don't know if this would be considered limiting this or not.
:)
No, it wouldn't. See the decisions regarding freedom to broadcast (i.e. the regulations that prevent pirate radio.) You can still say whatever you want, to whoever you want, whenever you want. However, you have no given right to the method to do so. Cell service is neither a god nor government given right.
For the record, I love my phone. For the record, I'm currently researching the difficlty of building a jammer myself. For experimental purposes, of course.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
What if he's 200 feet underground in a mine? Is he going to sue the mine for not having cellphone transponders in the mine shaft? Get real.
If it's clearly indicated that cellular phones will not work in the theater... so be it.
Also.. consider this.
I could, if I so wished, build my house as a farraday cage, so no radio inside can communicate with outside. I don't need a license to do this.
How is active jamming within the bounds of my own property any different?
One of my friends bought one; they are depressingly weak. As a test (don't worry, no calls were made) one person sitting in the middle of a movie theatre couldn't block the signal level of another sitting at the back. Most of these devices (in order to not get in too much trouble over people playing with them inappropriately) only work about line-of-sight for blocking.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
"I'm having a heart attack- call 911!"
"Sorry, it's not good etiquette here, we jam cell phone signals. You'll just have to die because we are just so offended by people talking on the phone."
I was refering to Low-Flying airplaines, helicopters as well. If you don't think you own a lot of the sky, you need to take a look at a skyscraper some time and see how much airspace they've taken over above their property.
Secondly, if you decide you don't like what's broadcast on Channel 4 you don't have the right to just interfer with that signal, and you sure can't broadcast over it. In fact, read the FCC note on any electronic device... It has been certified not to generate any harmful interference. If it does, it can't be sold in the USA.
Despite what you may believe, you do not own the airwaves just as you don't own the airspace above your property. CB bands are open to whatever you want to do with them, but the frequency cell phones use was sold to the companies. If you block or interfere with it in any way, you are damaging their property.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I've actually seen tests of the blocking devices, and they are quite low-level radiation. Any decent piece of wall, even window glass does a good job of negating their effects. Blocking seeping out into the street is highly unlikely unless the cafe owner was to try blocking their outside tables, in which case they should not be awarded their license for the things.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
In a position paper released in November, the Mobile and Personnel Communications Committee of the RABC said, in part, "Denial of service of (especially emergency service) may have legal repercussions on the service providers, Industry Canada, the jammed provider and the public venue operator (concert hall etc.) where some perceived harm or loss has occurred, particularly in situations where lives could have been or were lost."
..
;-)
As much as I would enjoy seeing the obnoxious guy in the cinema get an earful of +20dB static, this could have some extremely bad spinoffs.
Say someone's having a heart attack or an anaphylactic shock episode in the theater, and their SO is trying to call 911 to get EMS to save their life. Oops -- can't do that, sorry
Or, say someone with a (gasp) *illegal* jammer decides to block cellphone calls, say, to facilitate a robbery. Robbery victim dials 911 and continues to hit SND-END-RCL-SND- until knocked unconscious or shot.
I could go on.
Here's a better idea: If you want to control cellphone use in your venue, don't indiscriminately block all cellphone access. Make the arena reasonably RF tight and set up microcell transceivers on the ceiling that accept emergency calls and reject all others. (Design of these things is left up to enterprising developers, but it is possible..) Presto -- no lawsuits, no interference with other services, and the best part is, when someone *does* call 911, they don't have to backtrace to the nearest tower, they know exactly where you are and can find you RFN.
Any takers?
73 de N5VB (ex-KD5BIV) AR SK
just compare that to holding a cigarette or holding your french fries
You are ONLY holding those, you still aren't trying to talk, hold on to the phone, and drive at the same time.
it's no different from talking to a passenger
you also aren't holding anything extra, you're driving. Doing 2 things at once insn't the problem, its just three (or more). I know people who use their blackberries while driving. I'm staying out of thier cars from now on...having to drive, hold, type, and think about what you're saying....eep
Strangely, this is the one technology I've really avoided trying, for just this reason.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
...but it's gone on too long. (Thank you Ogden Nash.)
I totally disagree with this idea. Cell phones will probably always annoy me, especially when wielded by clueless teenagers on crowded streetcars. Wait 'til you get home, you morons! Being free from the ubiquitous cheesy beeping classical music knock-off (or cutesy TV theme song, etc.) ringing, and brainless people's inane conversations for once without fear of legal reprisal from stomping the offending gadget into powder would be nice, as well.
Of course, we all know how this one is going to go (unless the CRTC, in its infinite wisdom actually decides to grow a backbone), so my fond wish of actually obtaining and using a cell phone jammer is more than likely just a moot point.
Ehhhh, shouldn't'a got me started. This is one of my sore points.
Just out of idle curiosity, does anyone else out there see cell phones, pagers, etc. more as leashes and choke chains than anything else (gee, yeah, I want my boss to be able to get hold of me no matter where I am or what time it is--even though he doesn't have to? Sure...)?
?!
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
I'm an American, but I'll be the first to admit that Canada is leading the information-technology revolution and leaving the US in the dust. Thirty years ago, parts of New Brunswick still didn't have running water. Now they're hotbeds of technological innovation.
Canada is ideal for two reasons: a small disperse population and a friendly regulatory environment. Unlike the US to the south, Canada's governments know how to spur economic and technological innovation by adopting stimulative regulations; a best-of-both-worlds approach where economic competition is suppressed in favor of great horizontal development. Monopolies become numerous, but the market is best served by maintaining control in the hands of the few where it can be best put to use. Take the Canadian health-care system, for example. The government has a monopoly on health care, but access is guaranteed to all. Perhaps the DOJ and its zealous persecution of Microsoft can learn something from this.
The American film industry is moving to Canada, as are giants in the IT industry. Fifty years ago, technology like this would've had to have been developed and deployed in the US if it were to be taken seriously. Now, it can be developed, deployed, and perfected in Canada, where it can then be exported to the rest of the world. Canada is about to replace the US as the world's largest exporter of electronic and devices and will likely supplant the US as the world's biggest superpower within a few decades.
Cellphone-jamming technology, whatever its moral and legal implications, is just another step in Canada's conquest of the twenty-first century. Expect more from Canada.
Read the rest of this comment...
What if the babysitter is trying to tell me there's been an emergency at home, and my phone doesn't even vibrate?
You'll have to give her the number of the restaurant, just like in the old days, and _maybe_, just _maybe_, she'll only use that in an emergency.
-Andrew
You, coward, are obviously not a parent. The only person I truly trust my kids with is ME. Being reachable by phone is a thing I rely on when I can't be with my kids. Should a blocking device be employed in a location without notifying me and I missed an important call , then said location owners could expect a long and messy lawsuit from me.
Anything is possible given time and money.
>if you decide you don't like what's broadcast on Channel 4 you don't have the right to just interfer with that signal
You can transmit 100mW on virtually any set of frequencies you like. How do you think that those tiny FM radio transmitters get away with it?
Hell, I *OWN* a device *designed* to transmit at a low power on a choice of channel 3 or 4. It is availiable for any home user to let them watch their satellite in another room without running cables. I'll find you one of each for sale in the US on the net if you like.
It's 100mW because that isn't likely to disturb people next door. On your property you DO own the airwaves.
And, to further the point you own your own airwaves, HBO tried to stop people from putting up satellite dishes, saying they were "stealing" their signal. The US governement said that any signal landing on your property is yours. You own it, and HBO needs to protect it from you if they are to continue to allow the signal to land on your property (hence VideoCipher).
>It has been certified not to generate any harmful interference.
Somewhat. FCC certification labels will also tell you the device may cause harmful interference, and should that be detected, you are required to either discontinue using the device or remedy the problem.
In other words, if it is your property, you may intefere with those airwaves (at a very low level, probably just enough to put hum bars in the picture, remember, only 100mW). If your neighbour phones and complains, though, you must turn off the device and have it repaired immediately.
Just my 2 cents.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I had assumed it was because stuff like insulin pumps, mechanical drip systems etc are not EM sheilded, and (regardless of frequency) the presenece of large EM pulses can cause them to crash (which is not a good plan if you're on the end of the equipment)
Sgt. Cryptnotic, Vocabulary Police.
My other first post is car post.
I'm sick of these yuppie kids with their cell phones. Phone rings in the middle of the lecture, usually with some annoying song that they think is so clever. The professor pretends to ignore it, even though all 200 people in the lecture hall turn around to see who it is. Half the time the yuppie has the nerve to answer it. "Yeah? I'm in class, what are you doing? I don't know, what are you doing this weekend?..."
They deserve their brain tumors.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
In Australia you can be fined for using a cell phone while you are driving, unless you are using a hands-free kit.
Given how dangerous these drivers can be, I for one think this is a smashing idea...
I am not a lawyer but my sister is, so don't mess with me
Can we spell "Faraday cage". And no, it's not Nicholas's brother.
It is probably the worst analogy I've seen.
If someone came into my house and started yelling loudly, and woke me up from my nap, I would be in my full right to shove the bastard outside.
It is _excactly_ the same here.
If someone is so rude as to talk loudly, or answer calls during a movie in MY movie theater, I would be right in throwing them out.
I could demand that people surrender cell-phones into my custody for their duration on MY property.
If they don't agree, then they cannot visit my property. Jamming cell-phones is just a more convinient way, both for the property-owner, and the visitors.
Of course, they should ADVERTISE that they jam cell-phones, so that people who really need to be available, can avoid visiting such places.
SIMPLY ASK the person to shutup, leave, or wait
My wife and I are too passive/aggressive for that; we usually just talk loudly about how stupid the person is and belittle his or her sense of self-importance (of course--we never do this in the theater. That would only add to the problem).
In either case, though, property owners/managers should take the initiative to *ask* irritating people to leave, not rely on technology to do their dirty work for them.
-Legion
-Legion
I work in the I.T section of my university, which is located in the Library and Information Services building. Users blatantly abusing the "no mobile phones" rule are simply ejected from the building by security. Their student I.D is noted, and 2 abuses in one semester = banishment from the library. We find that not many people abuse the system more than once : their education is at stake if they do!
Super Awesome Broadband
So what you're implying is that the crime rates in restaurants, etc. Were higher before cell phones were in common use? Thank God for the cells!
This is why Americans are commonly considered assholes by the rest of the world.
If you don't trust anyone else with your kids, Einstein, then don't leave your kids with anyone else. Period. Full-stop.
And if you really must be separated, then do like they do in every part of the world where the family hasn't been systematically destroyed: leave them with your parents.
--
Change is inevitable.
Change is inevitable.
Progress is not.
.. that people had babies long before cellphones were invented, right?
I pseudo-agree!! Before you know it murder's will be claiming freedom of speech and expression. In their minds it may be art, what they did, but does that make it okay?
--- I used to moderate, then I read the -1 articles and decided having to filter through them was not worth it.
Not if the end result you're looking for is to stop rude people from making phone calls in restaurants and movie theaters. I say more power to them. I'm sick of people picking up their phones and holding conversations in front of you while you're trying to watch a movie or talking loudly on their phone in the middle of dinner as if they're too damned important to go out into the lobby. I want to kick them in the head, strangle them with piano wire, and throw their damned cell phone against the wall. Thankfully I'm not a violent person and just sit back and grumble.
But to be fair to responsible cellphone users, I've also seen women putting on makeup and construction workers reading the paper and drinking coffee (paper in one hand, cup in the other, steering with pinkie) on the highway.
-Legion
*awaits a troll to cite sayings from 'South Park' as proof that Canada is an inferior nation*
I find it interesting that my government is finally doing something like this. Usually we try to preserve individual rights even if we find them morally disguisting. We have even allowed ownership of child pornography in order to do so. Although I do understand the difference between the two issues, I still find it odd that our government would pass a law like this.
I have begun lately when asked by restaurant hosts or hostesses my seating preference, to ask to be seated in the "no cell phone" section as opposed to the smoking or non-smoking areas. I am usually met with a blank stare.
As a smoker, I will myself refrain from my habit at restaurants out of deference to others' sensibilities. Now if only we could get the cellphone addicts to do the same.
What if the babysitter is trying to tell me there's been an emergency at home, and my phone doesn't even vibrate?
Extremely good point. Many doctors, especially in rural areas, are on call 24 hours a day. Jamming their cell phones could mean the death of a patient waiting for emergency treatment. Another extremely important point to consider is whether it will be mandatory to advertise that cell phones are being jammed in a particular location. How am I to know whether my phone is being jammed? Would people on-call have to sit huddled in their own home 24 hours a day?
An optional "courtesy" feature that allows the phone to vibrate instead makes much more sense.
hell yeah! I absolutely hate cell phones. I don't want to be available for anybody anytime. If you want to talk to me you can wait till I'm at home or send me an email or whatever. I used to dislike people just because they have a cell phone, but I can't do that anymore, because almost everybody around me has one. It always saddens me when I see that someone I know now has one too. I started to like people because they don't have one though. If it was possible to install a global cell phone jamming system, I'd definitely support that.
Speaking as a parent *and* someone who finds public cellphone use rude, I'd have to side with the other guy. If you don't trust your babysitter, you hadn't ought to leave your kids with them in the first place, and if you aren't leaving an alternate number anyway (or at least the name of the movie theater, restaurant, etc.) then you're not being terribly responsible yourself... what if your battery suddenly went flat?
Should a blocking device be employed in a location without notifying me
Whatever makes you think they wouldn't notify you? Some theaters already have big signs telling you to turn the things off; I see no reason why they wouldn't tell you *they* were turning it off for you. ('Sides which, I well imagine they'd *have* to, for the same reasons they put up "Microwave In Use" signs... someone, somewhere, *might* have a pacemaker sensitive to it.)
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Until 1995 or so, parts of the Maritimes didn't have their own 911 trunks. :)
-Legion
1) If "dat dem dere guv'rment" chose to take your ass over, they'd do it with about 100 men in the middle of the night and your double barreled would do nothing. 2) If you require your gun for sustenance because you don't wish to buy your food from elsewhere, do you also have a large farming area to sustain yourself with fruits, grains, etc?
... in casinos or it maybe just a happy coincidence. Whenever I've been to Las Vegas, magically my cell phone doesn't work. It isn't the lack of signal. Not only does my phone read 4 signal bars, but I've also put it into field test mode and the signal is fine.
Much like anything else in Las Vegas anything that takes you away from feeding money into the slot machines is a bad thing. The lack of watches, direct sunlight, or communication via cell phone is good for the casino.
More on topic, I personally would love to see jammers in use in things like churches, restaurants, movies, and hospitals. I think we as a society have become very rude when it comes to cell phone usage. Call waiting, caller ID and caller ID waiting are bad enough when you have to choose who's more important, the person you're talking to or the person calling. Cell phones take that to the next rudeness level.
I stopped taking phone calls while I'm out to dinner because I think it is disrespectful towards the person I'm having dinner with.
It would be nice though if there were signs alerting you to jammer use so that you'd know if you've walked into a cellular free zone or not.
If the jammer would make the cell phone explode whenever it tries to ring. That would have all sorts of practical joke applications (plus it might save us from a couple of brain cancers)
--
Je t'aime Stéphanie
We would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids.
Monopolies become numerous, but the market is best served by maintaining control in the hands of the few where it can be best put to use. Take the Canadian health-care system, for example. The government has a monopoly on health care, but access is guaranteed to all.
It seems every other day I see a front-page story about how heart patients die on the waiting list for surgery, or how a woman in the hospital was ignored by nurses while she gave birth (she was screaming for help, and they just left her), or how yet another study has shown our health care system is broken. It's available to everyone, but it sucks. Effective, equitable. Choose one.
The American film industry is moving to Canada, as are giants in the IT industry. Fifty years ago, technology like this would've had to have been developed and deployed in the US if it were to be taken seriously.
I guess you haven't seen Nortel's stock recently or heard about the 11,000 people who are getting laid off there... By the way, the telephone was invented by a Canadian--Alexander Graham Bell (yes, the Bell in Bell Telephone)--so it's not like we're new at this.
The grass is always greener...
Some of my friends occasionally invited my girlfriend and me to gatherings at the San Francisco Yacht Club and one of the better golf clubs in the peninsula. My girlfriend discovered that mobile phones don't work inside the club houses at either location. They have a sign where they politely ask people to turn off their cell phones, and obviously have something blocking the signal going in or out of the building.
I don't believe, though, that either place is using active jammers. I think they use some kind of passive technology, such as RF reflective material covering the walls and roof of the building. The RF silence, however, is total. Cell phones don't light up until you are well outside the club house, where you won't disturb others.
Personally I think this is a good idea. It's always annoying having to deal with someone with a cell phone at the next table in a restaurant or during a movie or (worse!) during a play or ballet. As my brother says: "If you're so important that you can't miss a call, you usually have a chauffer waiting for you outside answering the phone in your limo." I haven't personally carried a mobile phone since 1997 (I was addicted to them before), and realized that there is no call so important that it can't wait. The best strategy for closing important business is good planning, not your ability to answer a phone 24 hours a day.
Cheers!
Ehttp://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
Oh no, simple stuff is totally OK. Mechanical drip systems are - Mechanical. Cell phones don't cause many problems with winches, gears, and pulleys unless jammed into the mechanism.
And as a Insulin Pump and CellPhone user - i know my pump works just fine with a cellphone inches away. Those things have so many check and double checks, and triple-watchdog mechanisms that they rarely malfunction (and if they do malfunction - it's usually the software is double checking something while generating a tone and forgets to stop beeping.... Annoying, but not life threatening)
Now, it's the portable real-time monitors that get screwy with cell-phones and the like.
slashdot username - at - email.domain.name
...when he attributes "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" to "anonymous?"
Try JFK.
I want one of these in my car. Think of the fun you can have paralleling that big Ford SUV and watching the bewildered look on the driver's face as he careens out of control into a lamp post trying to figure out what's wrong with his phone.
--- http://foo.ca
In other words, the Treaty of Versailles is an example of how not to run a peace treaty. You accept certain actions in war as done deals, and move on with life. The only reason Germany is paying for the Holocaust still is because that was so extreme it fell outside the normal losses expected in war.
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
Cell phones are already on some very crowded wireless bands. Anyone who has been in an ICU recently has probably seen the "No Cell Phones, Please" sign. The phones interfere with one of the wireless monitoring schemes out there. Presumably any jammer would do the same...
What would be done so that outgoing cell calls can be sent in an emergency? I have worked as a theater (as opposed to cinema) usher where a 911 call during a heart attack saved a precious 35 seconds.
Any jammer would need to be regulated for radius of jamming; this becomes especially important for those of us who have just given up on landlines, and have paid for a "no fees" monthly long-distance/surfing/local/no-roaming package of minutes.
Last I heard, coverage and usage in U.S. was not nearly as bad as Israel, where members of Knesset take calls while in session.
And yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theatre being outlawed is crushing your right to free speech, as is the ability to libel people. Perhaps we all need to think a bit more before we post.
--- http://foo.ca
God, how do you think people have survived the last 3 million years before cell phones? Your level of self-absorbtion reaches signal 11 proportions.
And you don't think society's changed in the last 3 million years, or even just the last 10? The way people work has changed because of the freedom afforded by telephones, pages, and cellphones. To ignore that in justifying blocking them is to necessitate returning to work habits and limitations in effect in the days before telecommuting, email, wired transfer of information, and even the written word.
Get your head out of your ass, Coward. You're missing your wake-up call.
Kevin Fox
--
Kevin Fox
ok here goes.
First off, Canada is only talking about this right now, not actually doing anything. Any canadians that are reading this might want to tell Industry Canada as well as posting here. Now on to the arguments for and against.
Good things:
Keep cell phones off in certain places. Well, ok, but how? A field effect? Last time I checked, most buildings are not hemispherical so the field would probably extend into other buildings as well. These buildings might actually want their cell phones to work, so this might be a problem. A device installed on the phones themselves? This might work very well, including the problem of allowing select users (emergency services). The only problem with this is that people will probably just find a way to turn off the device or just buy a cell phone from another country. I don't know that much about cell phones, anybody know of another idea?
The bad:
Freedom of speech impared. I don't know what the freedom of speech laws in Canada are, but here in the US you are (normally) allowed to say what you want. where you want, to whoever you want. I don't know if this would be considered limiting this or not.
Emergency Services. This is one of the biggest arguments against the ban based on the site listed. Because emergency services use some of the same frequency band that cell phones use, devices that block one would hinder the other. One way to change this would be to change the emergency services frequency, but this would be expensive, time consuming and difficult. A better sollution could be to make it so that whatever device they make sends a simple radio signal to all the phones in range, which have another device in them, which turns off the phones. The emergency equipment would not have this device, so it would not be effected.
And before you say that this would only create a black market for cell phones, think about this: All cell phones still have to have some form of service provider. Just order the service providers to change their systems so that the phones will only work if the device is installed in them and working. As a bonus for PR, have existing cell phone users come in to some servicing station to have it installed at the government's expence (a small extra chip shouldn't be that expensive).
I don't know if this would work, but it was the best I could come up with right now.
Drummer beat & piper blow,Harper strike & soldier go,Free the flame & sear the grasses,Till the dawning Red
http://www.wave-shield.com/ or http://bizbb.com/DPLSurveillanceEquipmentcom/offer /22/
I've seen other models but I think it would be cool to walk around with one of these...
>ignore the fact that they are derogatory.
The word "fag" is only a derogatory slur in the United States. In the UK, "fag" is a slang term for a cigarrete.
(as to weather or not you find public smoking obnoxious, that's a totally different discussion)
A fair chunk of other political correctness is bunk outside the US as well. For instance, you wouldn't call a subject of Her Majesty, who just happens to be black, an "african american". Because, as he will be quick to tell you, he is neither african, nor american.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
--
spam spam spam spam spam spam
No one expects the Spammish Repetition!
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
No Faraday cage needed! It's pretty easy to limit the range on a low power transmitter like this. One method is the "leaky co-ax" trick: you run co-ax around the place you want the signal, but at intervals along the co-ax you have a slit in the shield. This slit acts like an antenna and radiats the signal. Since the antenna is small, and the power low, the signal won't go very far, but since the co-ax runs all over, it doesn't have to.
You also don't need to shield the system from the local (big) cell site: you can am just the control channel (a great deal easier than jamming the whole band).
Microcell systems are currently available: they are used in places where you need cellular coverage in a limited space such as underground installations, or large metal buildings. T'ain't cheap, but that's largely because there is a lack of volume. The guts of one don't have to be that complex - I'd estimate a bill of materials of about $700 at today's prices.
www.eFax.com are spammers
You're right, though. Some people do need them. Not:
You get the idea. Personally, I find personal-level jammers much more effective. Just jam for the duration of the irritation, then turn it off when they put the phone away. Conserves battery power, leaves most airwaves open for the 80+% of the time when it's really quite acceptable to use a phone.
Of course, I've often thought of getting a vehicle-mounted jammer, then parking right outside the Palo Alto Il Fornaio or Spagos at lunch, just to piss off the mob inside.
Oh yeah. product plug!
hey. could you hit me with some links. i would love this.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
Look up the definition of a troll, before you go accusing people of trolling. A troll is a post that is intended to be overly contraversial or inflamatory in order to garner a large number of replies. My post was not a troll.
A troll would be something along the lines of:
It disgusts me that people would actually want to ban or restrict cell phone usage. Cellular phones were the single greatest inventions of the 20th century, and have done countless good for the advancement of our society as a whole. Cellular phones allow people to remain in constant contact with their loved ones and business associates while continuing to enjoy everyday leisure activities such as watching a movie, driving, or eating dinner in a restaurant. I think we should allow, nay, encourage all forms of public cell phone usage.
The "all your base" crap is most definitely not trolling.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
You can bet I'll be getting on right quick. It'll be nice to NOT hear cell phones during lecture, and NOT during exams...oh, and all those business students around campus...oh the joy I could have MUHAHAHAHAHAA
"Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto"
(I am a man: nothing human is alien to me)
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
it would be better if there was some kind of cell phone maker organization that setup somethign were you could buy a device that would make tell cell phones that they are in a 'quiet zone'
You mean something like this?
In my opinion, it's much better if cell-phone jamming is optional, rather than accomplished by brute force. What if the babysitter is trying to tell me there's been an emergency at home, and my phone doesn't even vibrate?
What if phones came with bluetooth? Then the doors of the theatre could tell the phones to turn on silent mode as it went bye.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
All that's really needed is good manners and consideration of others. Unfortunately, many people with cell phones suddenly become very important in their own eyes, or at least more important that other people deserving of consideration. If everyone followed the four simple rules of cell phone courtesy, we wouldn't need regulation or legislation or jammers. Many might consider the following four rules as infringing on their right to be jerks whenever they wish:
- Take not calls in class, theater, movie, concert, library, nor any other place where speaking in an ordinary voice would be considered disruptive.
- If thee must take calls, set the phone to vibrate, and excuse thyself before taking the call. If the caller has hung up, use thou thy messaging, and return the call.
- Take not calls while driving, operating a chainsaw, brushing thy child's teeth, playing an accordian, nor any other activity where concentration and motor coordination are needed.
- If a call is paramount, move thou to a quiet place, rather than asking all around thee to quiet. If the reception is bad, assume not that it is the other end, but look thou at the weather, or at thy own degrading battery before shouting. Shouts will not travel better to the cell tower than whispers.
If people followed these rules, then jammers would not be necessary. I teach college classes; my students sometimes need cell phones on to keep track of family or situations at work. They need to take these calls, and can jolly well excuse themselves when the calls come in. If jammers were turned on, I expect enrollment in these classes would drop...--Clay
For sky scrapers to be built that high, they have to apply for the ability. It's part of zoning, but it relates tot he fact tha tyou can't just decide to put up a sky scraper beside an airport just because you own the land. Here in florida, there are a lot of laws concerning how high you can build, although a lot of that relates to safety and hurricanes. You are still retricted.
-no broken link
Microwaves are just really short radio waves. LF below 300khz MF .3-3 Mhz
HF 3-30Mhz
VHF 30-300Mhz
UHF 300Mhz-3000Mhz (3Ghz)
SHF 3-30Ghz
As you can see, even 3Ghz phones are just at the top of UHF. Microwave is a more generic term that refers loosly to anything above 1Ghz or so.
-
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
"Cell Phone Free." Can anyone here imagine putting out a sign that begs "Please Rob The Shit Out Of Us?" That's that you'd be doing by declaring that your place of business jams cell phones. You're simply mandating that people in your place of business be easy victims by making sure nobody can make a clandestine 911 call. I know the violent crime rate in Canada is nowhere near the US, but still, still, the criminal element is certainly present. I expect that if such measures are legalized, that we *WILL* see an increase of crime directed against such establishements.
I expect, naturally, that any place of business that chooses to use such jamming systems, will have to have prominent sign stating so. I can just imagine the lawsuits the first time a surgeon doesn't get a call on his cell phone and he finds out.
Did the article also state that all other forms of communication (IE land line phones) were going to be jammed to???
Also, how do you make sure this is contained to *YOUR* property. If I'm walking down the street, and happen to walk by a store that is employing cell phone jamming, I *BETTER* not lose my call.
Right, since the only reason a call get's dropped is because of those pesky jamming machines. If you have a call that *BETTER* not get lost, then you *BETTER* make that call from a land line.
I expect, naturally, that any place of business that chooses to use such jamming systems, will have to have prominent sign stating so. I can just imagine the lawsuits the first time a surgeon doesn't get a call on his cell phone and he finds out.
Also, how do you make sure this is contained to *YOUR* property. If I'm walking down the street, and happen to walk by a store that is employing cell phone jamming, I *BETTER* not lose my call. What will do this effectively short of lead sheilding? Besides, what's are you going to do for windows, install leaded glass?
The first time somebody dies, and may not have if it hadn't been for cell phone jamming, head are going to roll politically and legally (in the form of lawsuits).
*DAMN* this is pretty ill-conceived.
--
--
Intelligence is definitely a recessive trait.
And you expect me to wait until you're right up to my face before I choose to defend myself?
Get a fucking account.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
that does something like this. except this node will be smart and if you accept the signal, just mute your phone, or turn it to quiet ring.
Actually...
The name "troll" comes from a poster who is (follow me here) "trolling" for a response. You have just successfully trolled with your post byu garnering these responses. Nice work.
Goatse.cx and AYBABTU posts aren't really trolls, unless they're damn clever ones. They're just annoying.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
A far nicer (or nastier, depending upon your point of view) would be to set up a "microcell" site: a very low power, short range and limited cell site. Cell phones will lock onto the microcell as it has the best signal, and will go into roaming mode. You can then allow incoming calls, but limit the duration to 30 seconds. You can also block outgoing calls, save those to 911.
Now for the nasty bit: You can also charge the begeezus out of anybody dumb enough to use the system. Hit a few people with a $50 bill for yakking during a movie and they will shut up....
Man on screen: "I love sunsets...."
Woman on screen: "Are you going to talk through the movie?"
Audience: "OF FUCKING COURSE! THIS IS ROCKY HORROR!"
www.eFax.com are spammers
This is insane. How is a restaraunt owner going to stop the jamming signal at the door and walls of his premises. The guy next door with a cell phone store may not be pleased. If I'm on my cell phone calling my stock broker and my cell phone cuts out before he hears my frantic order to SELL VA Linux can I sue the restaraunteur for my losses? If I'm running from a georgous blond woman that want's to rape me and my 911 call doesn't go through ...hmmm I might be able to live with that one. However, most women will be much more worried.
The only use for a jammer that I could justify is on stretches of the 400 series highways that are monitored by the COMPASS system. The RESCU cameras reduce the need for 911 calls and the reduction of idiots on the phone will save lives.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Like, the lady at the counter at the pizza place carrying on a conversation on her cell phone the whole time the poor waitperson is trying to take her order and whatnot. The problem isn't her cellphone, its her defective brain.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
As to irritating cell-phoners...we need to expand the smoking-section rules to include all mouth-oriented vices that encroach on the rights of innocent bystanders.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello