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France Legalizes Mobile Phone Jamming
Metrollica writes: "Wired has reported that France has become the first country to legalize mobile phone jamming in public much to the support of the citizens. A quote from the article indicates that jamming will 'make it impossible to make or receive calls, voice mails and text messages on a mobile telephone.'"
that I actually agree with France on something. We need this in America, where any inconsiderate jerk with a cellphone can make or receive a call in the middle of a theatre, a church, a funeral, etc.
Flame on.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
The main reason for people wanting things like this is to keep people's phones from ringing in the middle of, say, a movie. They say that bluetooth technologies will help prevent things like that from happening, by having the theater automatically put all phones into "silent" ring mode when you walk in. Or so one hopes.
Might things like this eventually push broader acceptance of thse kinds of features? Or will it just piss off everyone? (I know it'd piss me off, if I were in a profession where I relied on a remote page for, say, something life-threatening. I know I already take efforts to mute my pilot and turn off my phone when I go into a theater...)
Another classic example of punishing the innocent because of the abuses of a few jerks.
Having been a cell-phone user for the past 6 years, I still don't understand why anyone must talk to someone everywhere they go. I mostly keep my (employer-issued) phone off. If I must call anyone, I wait until I park the car and discreetly talk in the car. For the most part, if I'm not at my home or my office, I can't be reached and I like it that way. If I didn't use a modem, I wouldn't have a home phone at all.
I just wish someone would invent an "oxygen jamming" device, so I don't have to pass through clouds of noxious cigarette fumes on the sidewalk. That, and a "screaming child jammer". :)
Method of processing duck feet
I expect there will be lots of replies saying how vital cellphones are (doctors in cinemas, road accidents. etc.) to society
Humans have survived for millions of years without cellphones. Society isn't going to disintegrate just because you can't talk to your friend 24 hours a day from every point on the globe.
0xB
What I really want to see is a ban on driving while dialing and driving while talking without a hands free. Even though hands free is not completely safer, when you have a phone next to your ear, you usually have an arm and hand there as well and you create an even bigger blind spot than an auto driver already has. That combined with the fact that you cannot (or just don't) use your turn signals makes it impossible to figure out what you are doing on the road. This is what I see alot of and worst part is these are usually the people driving the SUV's and expensive cars.
The GAS guzzelers. I keep seeing all these commercials about where terrorist get their money and they say it is from drugs. Osama Bin Laden got his money from OIL, which supplies the gas that goes in these big gas guzzelers, which supports terrorism. Would seem to me that these people who drive these big gas guzzelers are supporting terrorism.
Any way it seems I have drifter a little off topic. You'd think people who don't mind spending $50 on gas a t a fillup would be able to spend the extra $30 for the hands free. Hell I got mine free. Oh I guess they have to save it for the gas to support Dick & Bush & Terrorism.
Only 'flamers' flame!
We have this here in Luxemburg, too at quite a few places. It is quite impossible to send/recieve short messages or calls at our local supermarket (about 4000m^2). I think they use some kind of device to interference the mobile-phone's signal. The same thing you've got when you're in an underground car-park etc... outside the building you've got full quality net.
Life sucks.
I have mixed feelings about this one.
On one hand, everyone in a local area ought to have as much equal rights to the EM band for cell phone use as they have equal rights to acoustic energy bands for talking, boom boxes, etc. So that individuals have some right to low noise in movie theaters, for example.
On the other hand, suppose that individual in the theater is getting an urgent call having to do with life-threatening events affecting a loved one?
It's too easy to a draw a simple line that will be wrong.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
However, if my favorite restaurant starts jamming cellphones/pagers, I'll think thrice about going there. If the price of a good meal includes being inaccessible to my child... I don't know that it's worth it.
I have to agree with the poster who said that there should be a device which automatically sets devices to silent mode -- a comprise between accessibility and annoyance of others.
"Commuters don't want to be stuck in a small metal capsule with people jabbering away on their mobile phones," he said.
Poor babies! What do they do when two people are holding a loud conversation? How is a cell phone converstation different? This is a manners issue, and shouldn't be corrected with technology, but with a polite request to keep his voice down.
zandesign said:
We need this in America, where any inconsiderate jerk with a cellphone can make or receive a call in the middle of a theatre, a church, a funeral, etc.
Again, a manners/behavioral issue. Ask them politely to leave. If they don't leave, kiss their ass in a precise, orderly, efficient manner. ;-)
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
We all hate people and their cellphones.. we especially hate them in movie theatres or other venues where silence is of utmost importance (school, anyone ?). Now does that mean that some kludgy electronic jamming system is going to work well enough without causing too many woes to the rest of us, who are decent enough to shut the damned ringer off like we're supposed to ? I think not.
The good old method works fine: if some jerk whips out his/her phone in the theatre, shush them. If they don't shush, then ask them politely.. and THEN if they don't comply, everyone in the theatre is welcome to pummel the worthless bastard. Two or three deaths like this, and the rest will behave. Fear works wonders.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Couldn't find any information regarding whether this is accomplished by just making a huge Faraday cage around the theatre, actively jamming the GSM frequency spectrum or some other method.
But anyway, it must already be legal here as it's being used, no?
Some one made the remark about posts talking about the vital need for cellphones. Here it is.
Many people in the Armed Forces (active force or reserve) have to carry cell phones or pagers while they are on call. _At no time_ are they allowed to be inaccessible to both their home phone and their pager/cell phone while on call. If jamming becomes legal in Canada and the United States, it must come with a clause that all persons must be informed that their cell phone/pager has been turned off.
In a case like in a theatre, where cell phones and pages have their signals jammed, the theatre should have to give notification that from point A to point B, there are jammers being used.
And yes, places that do use jammers will lose buisiness from people who want to be able to get phone calls (such as some one waiting for a friend in a restaurant, a doctor watching a movie while on call, etc).
Just my 2 cents ^-^
Have you thought about what you're looking at today?
Ok, so what happens when you live in an apartment in the inner city and one of the neighboring businesses decided that they wish to use this technology to make their restaurant peaceful for the customers?
If we were dealing with high power or [comparatively] low frequencies, you would have a point. Frankly, the metal used in commercial buildings tends to block RF at the frequencies used by cell phones -- unless the building owners specifically take steps to make the signal available within his store.
Jammers don't need to be powerful to be effective. When the building's walls attenuate the signal 30-40 dB already, it doesn't take much radiation inside the cage to completely mask the signal from the cell site, and result in a "No Signal" indication. Done right, it would take a handful of milliwatts to get the job done...and the same wall that attenuates incoming signals also attenuates the level of the jamming signal seen outside the building, so neighboring buildings wouldn't be affected at all.In the school situation you brought up in your question, the school would deploy a number of very-low-power tuned-band white-noise generators in the building so that the jamming effect would not be noticed from the parking lot or the playground, let alone at the neighbor's house or the road in front of the school.
this is a completely rediculous loss of rights. ... i have it on vibrate. if i go to a movie, i leave it on. if i get a call during the movie, i check the caller and usually just turn off the ringer for the rest of the call. this way i can respond to emergencies or good friends (i would obviously leave the theater before answering).
...sure, it would be nice, but only in third-person!
... so vibration isn't noticed. cellphone manufacturers could fix this by introducing a wristband, necklace, or wallet attachment that receives a wireless signal from the phone and vibrates (with the phone) on rings.
i have a cellphone and have never gone out in public with it on 'ring'
this is rather similar to the gagging of loud children, or even allowing the shooting of stupid people.
the biggest problem with vibrating phones for most people (students and women at least) is that the phone is kept in a bag/purse
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I expect there will be lots of replies saying how unnecessary cellphones are (blabbermouths in cinemas, road accidents, etc.) to society
Humans have survived for millions of years without cellphones. Humans have also survived for millions of years without public sanitation systems and medicine. Society isn't going to disintegrate just because you get a little annoyed with people who want to talk to their friends 24 hours a day from every point on the globe.
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And there's not just doctors, mind you. Elevator repair people. People with rare blood types who carry pagers in case they have to give a transfusion in a hurry. People who are responsible for disabled relatives, who've hired a temporary caregiver so they can take a night off. Anybody who others are depending on, and just need to be available.
I hate distractions in theaters. Start a conversation next to me, and you risk violent death! But I think the cell/pager issue is sufficiently addressed by asking people to put them on vibrate. (And to go out into the lobby. Cell calls don't all need to be answered that very second -- an insight that would prevent quite a few traffic accidents.) Making theaters off limits to whole groups of people is an excessive response.
There's also the problem of blocking pages and calls to people who just happen to be near a theater!
I'd rather mobile phones never became "mission critical" for the .001% of the population that needs this stuff, since (by my guess) 1/2 the population wants the right to be able to jam them, or to frequent places which jam them.
That tells me that the surgeons-on-call, off duty Hazmat workers, and Delta force team members should use more reliable devices, even if it means carrying an extra gadget on your belt. That, or avoid certain parts of town when they are on call.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
We're not talking about making cell phones illegal. Just a choice that a private business can make.
You see a little sign that says "no cell phones" and make a decision as to whether to frequent that place or not. This provision just means that the sign has meaning, as opposed to being routinely ignored.
Some people would be glad to pay extra to be in a cell phone free theater/cafe. If the number of such people is substantially higher than the number of people who rely on cell phone use, the business will be willing to spend the extra cash and install jamming technology. This gives them the choice to do it.
This is no different than businesses which don't serve minors at all, or require certain dress codes.
In the extremely unlikely event that all the restaurants adopt this policy, then a vast majority of your neighbors are effectively telling you that they don't want to eat with you if you have a cell phone. In that case, it's up to you to move to a place where the neighbors share your values, or adjust to the preferences of your community.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
This is talking about additional technology: selective, voluntary, blocking.
It's not trying to roll anything back -- it's adding an option for business owners to more closely control what kind of atmosphere is on their property -- like air conditioning, or no smoking signs, or sunblocks. It's a step forward -- not a step backwards.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
with several different answers.
1) Suppose you are having a dinner with relatives/friends, and someone gets a call and starts a conversation at the dinner table. Does it bother you? If so, why? Does it make a difference if everyone else is also talking to another party?
2) Suppose you are in a restaurant and someone starts combing their hair, or putting on some deoderant (discreetly, yet clumsily under their shirt). Does this bother you, and if so, why?
My answers follow, but it all boils down to showing lack of respect.
1) The ringing noise interupts movies, conversations, etc.
2) talking on the phone is a private thing. If you don't believe me, then ask yourself if you would mind if a stranger asked to tap some of your calls, randomly. Private things are a taboo, and work both ways. So I, for one, feel uncomfortable listening in on someone else's call just as much as I feel uncomfortable knowing that my own phone call is being listened in on. Whether it's panhandling, farting in public, brushing your teeth, crying -- the embarassment is experienced by both the instigator and the object/witnesses. Add to this that with visual thigns you can look away, but sound is hard to hide from. And when people _voluntarily_ do a private act in public (as opposed to an involuntary fart), they become the source of anger.
3) Partly because of 2), when someone takes a call, they are signalling to the rest of the group that their call is more important to them than what the rest of the group is doing. In addition to 2), they remove themselves from some common activity, and engage in something else -- without leaving. This offends people because it seems ostentatious.
4) Many cell phone users are quite loud, gruff, and often talk "shop" in settings such as restaurants and recreational areas. They are often arrogant, give orders, and remind people of what they hate about VC's,managers, and other "plugged-in", self-important people. Unfortunately, in many quarters, "soccer moms" checking up on their kids are not viewed much higher than VC's. There are class/cultural issues.
5) Those who are recreating want to get away from work and not be reminded of it. They often pay a lot of money just to experience a certain atmosphere. Using a cell phone in a crowded city street may just make someone sneer at you, but using one in an expensive restaurant makes people angry. With dimishing free time, this issue becomes more important, even if the venue is not a very expensive one.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
Instead of outright jamming the signal, create emitters that force (future) phones into 'vibrate' mode-- calls/pages/whatever will still be able to be received, but without disturbing those around the recipient.
Now, if someone whose phone was forced into vibrate mode takes a call while sitting in the theater during the movie, then their fellow moviegoers should be allowed to freely dispense with some angry mob justice.
And rude assholes with cellphones ARE a problem that should be dealt with severely. Last week I caught a very early matinee of "40 Days and 40 Nights"-- I was the ONLY person in the theater, until two theater employees came in and sat down for a bit, fairly far along in the film. Wouldn't you know one of the idiots had a cellphone that rang at full volume, five minutes later?
~Philly