Cheap Cell-Phone Detector

An anonymous reader contributes a link to a BBC News article on a cheap cell-phone detector created by six New Zealand high-school students for a business competition, excerpting "The detector, which they have called CellTrac-r, works by picking up the bursts of radio frequency activity that emit from a mobile each time it sends or receives a call or a text message. The device can detect these bursts of electro-magnetic energy up to a radius of 30 metres. It can also measure the amount of the energy to determine the distance of the mobile.", and noting "Seems like a perfect /.er hack project, and as initiator I get 5% of gross profits."

Comments

Detect this

[flopsy mopsalon]

I wonder to what extent use of this detector constitutes unreasonable search and seizure.

I pay good money for wireless phone service and I do not need snoopers with "cell phone detectors" singling me out as a potential troublemaker just because I prefer to stay in touch with others by carrying my phone around.

Last I checked this was still the "land of the free". I hope the proliferation of cheap cell phone detectors does not trigger a rash of racial profiling type incidents.

What's needed

[BCW2]

Is a pen sized jammer so that nobody in a 50 foot radius can annoy you with their mindless babble which accounts for 80% of all cell phone use. Mainly for use in resturants, movie or stage theaters,and elevators.