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Cell Phone Jammers: Coming To An Event Near You?
DarwinDan writes "The L.A. Daily News has an article about Cell phone jamming to prevent terrorists from detonating bombs remotely. Jamming technology is already being used "to protect President Bush." An interesting quote from the article: "Public safety is more important than public convenience.""
It's a small price to pay to guard one of our greatest treasures... G.W. Bush!
A wise man once said "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."...
;)
Of course, it's only arguable that cell phone usage is an "essential liberty", but then again you can argue just about anything on the Internet
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Isn't THAT safety as well?
Besides, if someone wants to detonate a bomb they will find a way, and if they have to press the button themselves.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
So sell phones are only a few frequencies out of the million that could be used to transmit "trigger" signals to bombs. What's to stop a terrorist from using some cheap VHF handheld to denonate their bomb? If they transmit the code over airport security frequencies or whatever, you can almost garuntee those won't be blocked.
"Oh my! That looks like a bomb! I'd better call 911...wait, why isn't my phone working?!"
...Followed by an explosion a few minutes later.
We're jammin', jammin',
And I hope you like jammin', too.
Other than that, this is just yet another textbook example of the Bush Administration stomping all over the constitutional rights of its citizenry (but he hasn't really been very supportive of free speech from the get-go anyhow, so you shouldn't be surprised.) When are people going to get pissed off enough at this outrageous behavior and finally vote him out of office? He still seems to be ahead in the polls. Get it together, Americans!
Software piracy is victimless theft.
"Public safety is more important than public convenience"
I'll bet many of the survivors of Sept. 11 2001 made it through because of cell phone communications.
Okay, so lets say you DO run some frequency jammers...and some terrorist decide to use another means of communication to carry out their plans. Now you have a large number of people with no communication outside the affected area. Police/Medics will have a longer time of arriving to the scene. It will take longer to locate injured persons.
$cat
... aren't there laws (or doesn't the FCC have mandates enforceable by law) against this kind of deliberate interference with communications systems?
"It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." -- Zork
This sort of thing does very little to protect the people at large, while inconveniencing them quite a lot.
The politician on the podium, however, has no use for a cellphone, so s/he won't be inconvenienced at all, while his/her safety is increased.
Once again it's public policy taking care of their own. Seems to be a hallmark of this administration.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Change code from:
IF kaboomSignal THEN
blowup
ENDIF
To:
IF NOT dontKaboomSignal THEN
blowup
ENDIF
Ok. Cell phones are jammed. What about the hogillion other frequencies that could be used to trigger the detonator? What about a timed detonator.
And don't forget the terrorists favourite method - suicide bombing.
I think cell phones are just the most convenient method. They'll find another way in a hurry, you can be sure about that.
-kidlinux.
I'm no radio expert, but isn't it still possible that you could simply use some other kind of transmission, rather than cell phones? Say, ham radio, police frequencies, citizen band, or whatever?
Blocking cell phones seems to me to be what's called "security theater." It's all show to make people think they're safe, and (more especially) that the government is "hard at work ensuring the nation's security." (Blah, blah, blah.)
This is good theater, too, because it is something that affects almost everybody at an event, so they're sure not to miss noticing the "hard work." Why, it'll be the talk of the town!
At most, this is 10% security, 90% public relations.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
walkie talker freqs (49 mhz)
block fm radios?
block am radios?
block ham radio?
block light?
unless it's a faraday field in a box, part of the EM spectrum will get through... boom
to paraphrase lelo, bada boom..
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
And exactly what number is that? I had an old math teacher in highschool... err... nevermind.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
So instead, they'll just detonate the bomb when there's an excessive amount interference.
I wonder if they jam pager frequencies as well? Pagers seem like they'd be a much more sensible choice. Much longer battery life, coverage is EVERYWHERE, and they don't broadcast a traceable signal.
I love how the goverment spends my money on useless crap instead of trying to make fewer enemies by not being so heavy-handed with the rest of the world.
Which of these is a far more likely risk factor?
1) Terrorists using cell phones to detonate bombs (which can be done with a simple mechanical timer far more easily)
2) Fire, heart attack, drowning, etc. wherein using a cell phone to dial 911 could save lives?
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
It's all very well trying to make it look a balance between public safety and public convenience, but I can't help feeling that if you or I did this sort of thing, we wouldn't be charged with being a nuisance to "public convenience", but quite probably under some terrorism law?
It's very debateable whether the possible loss of life due to disruption to emergency services and the general terror and panic caused to the public is less than the possible lives saved (which requires both that there is a terrorist attack going to happen, and that they are reliant on mobile phones).
Of course, everyone bending over backwards to ensure Bush's safety is nothing new. When he visits the UK, it costs the British taxpayer $8.5 million for security (meanwhile, UK visitors to the US can look forward to such fun as photographing and fingerprinting, but that's another story).
Sorry, I've been working in hospitals for 25 years and never seen this happen. Just not possible. Defibrillators are NOT controlled by radio waves. I guess some very sensative telemetry montitors can be interfered with, but I have never seen this happen either. I think this is a little FUD by hospitals, because cell phones are annoying to people trying to recover.
Save a Life. Donate Blood. Please.
was designed to apply to political speach. You have the right to speak out against the government. You do not have the "right" to public obsentity, profanity, any of the myriad of things "artists" claime are "speach." Using a cellphone is not "speach," although it's "speaking." Where the hell do you have the right to a telephone, anyway? Maybe the 9th amendment. But that's a stretch. Cell phones piss me off. seriously. Personally, I think they should be so prohibitly expensive that only doctors and drug dealers can afford them. The drug dealers could easily be culled out. Then only people who actually have emergencies would be able to interupt the public serenity.
and just to cover godwin's law and make sure no one replies:Nazi Himler Hitler SS Bush Cheney Eva Bruan is hot.
Only terrorists use BASIC.
This is somewhat like banning cars from an area. Sure, cars are a convenient way to move people, but hey, it could also be used as a delivery mechanism for an explosive!
Hasn't anyone in America clued up to the idea that 99% of the impact of Terrorism is exploiting FUD? In allowing the freaky controlling elements of society to make life impossible for the rest of the sane people, don't you lose so much more?
And don't give me that "if we can save just one life" crap. If that's the case then ban cigarettes, alcohol and McDonalds. Hell, ban religion and guns while you're at it.
For goodness sake! Stop letting the terrorists run your lives for you! They're winning! Wake up!
While I think most people will agree that jammers are okay to stop terrorists from blowing things up, I don't like the idea of all police having access to this. It seems to be the slippery slope. There is a valid function for this, but then it gets extended and extended. I say leave it to the air force, if there is a need they can fly a plane over the area and block everything. Then afterwards they will have to explain. Don't give it to the police, where 1000's of departments and chiefs of police might decide for themselves when and how to use it. Plus, everyone has heard stories of bad apples in police departments. The last thing they need is a method to shut down communications.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Probably a bad idea: As soon as they got in range of your jammer, they'd look down at their cell phone to check their signal level, not see you (or any other goddamned thing on the road), and BLAMO!
It's bad enough with them dialing the thing at 80Mph.
eleven plus two / twelve plus one
A jamming device is much more likely to interfere with the hospital equipment than a cell phone. By definition, jamming requires more power than communication, and it has to be spread over wider frequency range.
A high school near my home, which a friend of mine used to attend, used some kind of cell phone jammer because of the issues they were having with students answering phones during class time. It was rather annoying when I needed to use my cell phone on their campus at an after school function (awards ceremony).
the hell with the president...I say we start putting these things in SUVs and Lexuses ( Lexi? ).
No more soccer moms meandering all over the road, screaming at their kids and yapping on their cellphones!
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
If they knew what they were doing, they'd just get a java-enabled cellphone, and if it wasn't called within some time gap, and the signal suddenly dropped to 0 because it was being jammed, the phone would detonate the bomb based on that. Jamming is just one more hoop they have to hop through to set off the bomb.
Not that there aren't hundreds of other ways around this useless technology, but your suggestion would just cause the bomb to blow up as soon as the terrorist carried it into the protected area, most likely having no effect on the intended target (who would be at the center of the area, not at its edges).
Bombs are usually planted in advance. This has several benefits for the bomb-planters, among those being not getting arrested and not getting blown up.
Still, a good old timer does the job as well.
Using some sort of over-the-air detonation can have benefits as well though; for example, say terrorists plant a bomb in some police cars. Upon seeing one of the compromised police cars (they are usually numbered right on the roof) close to the target, they detonate.
They could even just use the police frequencies, since those are unlikely to be blocked, especially when there is a large police presence. Remember, they're terrorists, if they feel like using off-limits frequencies, they can. (If you want to call 911, you're stuck with licensed frequencies).
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Wasn't the athens bomb (100 days before the olympics) made up of some sticks of dynamite connected to an alarm clock?
Police are looking for a brown coyote with suspected association to an organisation known only as ACME.
Of course, bomb makers could just put in a manual switch in series with the ringer detonation circuit to wait until the ring before activating that part of the mechanism. Unless there was some kind of random delay before the ring and/or a second ring at random. Add in unpreditability so safetly activating the detonation mechanism becomes unsafe.
Other things to do would be to make the ring circuit only work if the correct impedence was detected. You could get around that but then making bomb denotators would not be an off the shelf solution.
Pretty much an example that as soon as you beat the bad guys tech, they change it. Frankly the whole issue regards jammers is best illustrated by why are they protecting our President with it and NOT protecting our soldiers in Iraq with it. If you have someone in your family who is serving in Iraq, buy them a cell phone jammer. They are cheap and available over seas.
In the mean time roast the back side of your congress critter for not supplying this tech for our soldiers to be safe.
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
That's what I was thinking, that jamming cell phones in theatres and restaurants would be a good idea. But, remember what happened recently in Russia, when Chechen terrorists took hostages in Moscow theatre.
In that situation, you might call (or SMS) for help, tell how many of them are, where they are, what weapons do they have... Unless your mobile was jammed.
You would most likely turn to security, and paramedics that are on scene. They would be able to respond much more quickly to your family members distress than some random 911 center you get in touch with.
You -> 911 -> E911 lookup -> Local responding rescue squad -> On site rescue squad -> You through the crowd.
or
You -> Local security -> On site rescue squad -> You through the crowd.
The main problem with cell phones nowadays are the issues of pseudo safety and convenience.
I read a while ago about this technique also being used to switch off mobile phones in places like theatres, cinema's and churches. So, it has yet another 'feature' for the public.
I don't want to be interrupted by a ringtone while watching Van Helsing, but I think switching my Nokia to 'silence' enables this far enough, I don't need help from others silencing my cellphone.
In need of reliable and affordable server monitoring?
"Public safety is more important than public convenience."
FWEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!
False dichotomy.
On the offense.
10 sentences back from the original argument.
Still first down.
FWEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!
Obviously inspired by Hollywood. So what if they decide to use the frequency that the Secret Service uses to communicate? I guess we better block that too. What if they broadcast a codeword on a talk radio show, and a bomb-laden terrorist is listening on a portable AM radio. Better block that band too. So, to cover all the possible frequencies, it'd have to be one heck of a powerful broadband jammer. I guess that's going to interfere with adjacent police and rescue frequencies because of intermod.
Look folks, Al Qaeda didn't use cellphone-triggered remote bombs, tunnels under schools, IRC, or even orbiting brain-lasers, or whatever stupid possibility has been dreamed of by the Department of Paranoia. They used box-cutters. I'm fairly certain that whatever choice they make next is going to be a surprise. It's not going to be something that the US Gov't expects, so let's stop trying to list the millions of possible ways and monitor the thousands of possible targets.
I really wish the hype and paranoia would stop. I used to listen to ("conservative") radio host Monica Crowley, until one night she bleated like a sheep stuck in a fence for an hour about how "we should do everything possible" in regard to airport security. I mean, come on Monica, that's something a 7th grader would say. There's a balance between cost and safety, and nobody in her right mind would suggest spending an unlimited amount of public funds just to make sure we can catch someone who has a box-cutter, because there's a one in a billion chance he might want to also fly an airliner into a building.
Likewise we have El Rushbo, trumpeting that the fact we haven't had an Al Qaeda attack on US soil for one and a half years is proof positive that Bush's strategy is working. As much as I'd like to believe that, the fact is that it costs Al Qaeda money and takes lots of time to plan an act on US soil. The second WTC attack happened almost 8 years after the first. The attacks aren't likely going to stop as long as we're involved in the Mid-East (as long as we back Israel and pull the strings for the Saudi monarchy).
So once again, it's not a choice with absolutes. Either we continue our current policy and some of us get killed every ten years or so, or we trade some other lives for our own, and watch the slaughter of the Jews, the Kurds, or some other religious minority that is sufficiently westernized to perhaps believe in freedom, interest on money, rights for women, or perhaps not stoning people to death for breaking society's rules. Or, we pick something inbetween, and successive presidents jump to either side of the fence (like the case now). One thing I can be sure of is that some US citizens are going to have a shot at stopping the next attack, just like the last one. So maybe this time we won't behave like subservient little hoplophobic sheep, and someone will fight back with deadly force to spare the lives of others.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
The cell phones used in the Madrid bobmings were used for their timers. That's why they found one undetonated bomb, the clock read PM instead of AM. None of the bombs were detonated via recieving a call.
Are you...Are you some kind of genius?
No, ma'am, I'm just a regular Slashdot reader.
Eg in a theatre, the cell could act as a normal relay outside performance times, but suddenly become a black hole when the performance starts. (obviously it has to pretend still to be working, or the phones will just use another cell)
Such a system could allow emergency calls while blocking anything else.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
When catastrophes occur, there will be an info blackout around the affected area until the facts can be cleaned. Victims with (camera) phones must scare the hell out of our keepers.
As I've posted on a similar topic a while back, there are commercial devices available for usage in theatres / cinemas that although don't jam cellphones, do detect them. They basically play a loud noise (typically a really annoying voice saying "Please switch off your cellphone"), until they detect no more signals.