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France to Allow Cell Phone Jamming
ZuperDee writes "According to this article, the French industry minister has approved a decision to allow cinemas, concert halls and theaters to install cell phone jammers, on the condition that emergency calls can still get through."
How do they allow emergency calls through? Aren't most cell jammers simply frequency based white noise generators?
Cemil.
Eat it connectivity junkies! The rebellion has begun!
Seriously though... who REALLY needs to be contacted IMMEDIATELY 24-7? I would suggest that if you are really that important, you might want to skip the movie and stay in the Oval Office doing your job.
And if a friend or relative is dead or dying, well, if it takes until the end of the movie for you to find out, they'll be just as dead after as they were during. Plus you will have had an extra 2 hours of Matt Damon (or Gerard Depardieu?) induced happiness before the terrible news reaches you.
Basically anything that reduces our addiction to instant satisfaction of our every wish is ok with me. We don't NEED to be hooked up to a communication network all the time. They should also install these things in:
- university lecture theatres
- conferences
- crowded public transport
- you could have one in your house to turn on during mealtimes and other gatherings to encourage actual social interaction with people who are physically present
Read Pynchon.
Contrary to other replies, you can actually do this. I imagine it's some sort of flag built into the GSM system that forces handsets not to function.
The reason I know you can do it is that there is an area in the building I used to work where signals are intentionally blocked somehow, and my phone comes up with "Emergency Calls Only" when I am in that area.
Read Pynchon.
how everybody was able to survive 10 years ago, when NOBODY had a cell phone in the cinema or on a concert...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
I would personally be quite pissed that just to watch a movie, I would be out of touch for three hours. Not a good idea.
And I would be quite pissed if you took a phone call while I was trying to watch the movie. Your attitude is so frigging self-important. If you cannot be out of touch for 3 hours while you watch a movie, stay at home!
I swear, you see all of these posts that claim, "I must be reachable at all times", I call bullshit. You know what I hear when someone takes a call in a movie theater? I'll give you a hint, 100% of the time it is banal blather. Grow up.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I can tolerate a mobile phone going off in a movie theater, but I shall bring down fiery justice on those who leave their bloody phones on during a live performance. There has to be intervention when people don't have the decency to turn off their damned phones during a classical performance, an opera, or a play. It's not only rude to the audience, but it's also insulting to the performers.
-- n
It wasn't that long ago, you know. Did parents never take a night off with a trusted babysitter at home? If you want to, you can call home yourself once or twice to check on things - just not in the middle of the movie!
People who *really* need to be contacted (doctors on call, for example) had pagers; and a blocking system based on a mini-cell station could be configured to allow such urgent calls/text messages through.
And you are quite wrong about the annoyance value of mobile phone conversations - a study has found them to be dramatically more annoying than face-to-face conversations, probably due to the one-way nature.
A good point - but, you've completely forgotten a few things:
- Hardware manufacturers design products 1-2 years in advance. Therefore for the implementation of an RFID chip, you're looking at at least a year.
- A protocol would need to be devised that all the manufacturers agree on (both handsets and the systems that will trigger them)
- People would need to purchase these phones. Typically they'd be on high tier phones first. A phones lifetime is approximately 18 months before they are on low tier (ie. your pay-as-you-go mass market) where adopotion is the greatest.
- You'd need all the phones to adopt this before it would work. The first WAP phone I saw was in 1996 (and i'm pretty sure that they were around before then) and only now is it commonplace enough for companies to sell content through it. That is a lead time of 8 years.
So in short, it's a great idea, but you're looking at 8 years+ before its going to be installed on enough handsets to actually work in the cinema. What is the point of blocking 20% of the handsets, when its one of the other 80% that ring?Alternativily you could implement signal blocking today which will work on every phone the moment it is turned on.
Sometimes the best ideas aren't the most practical to implement.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
It's not the people blaming you for being anti-social that are idiots.
Switch your phone off in the theatre. If you think you are too necessary to someone elses life to be uncontactable for the length of a movie, get a DVD player and stay at home.
If it's just a fucking movie, then don't fucking go. It's not place to decide how important an event is to the other people there. I've just visited your blog.
A) You look very young, which probably explains your selfish anti-social attitute.
B) You go on about some concert as if it was the second coming of Christ. Don't you realise it's just a fucking concert?
In (most) Danish cinemas, just after the trailers and before the movie starts, there's a little funny reminder for people who forgot to turn off or silence their mobiles. It's actually a commercial - a joint effort by various mobile phone service providers.
The lights are dimmed and the screen is completely black. Suddenly a phone rings in some corner of the cinema, only it's not a phone, it's actually coming from the surround sound speakers. One of the commercials has one of those annoyoing teenage girls answering the phone - you know, the kind who is blabbering on and on about everything with one of her friends. :-)
It's very humerous and convincing at the same time. Of course in the end the reminder on the screen tells you to turn of the phone.
IMO, this is great way to handle the issue.
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
Here's something you won't read too often on
#1 pet-peve on a date, just short of picking your nose, is picking up a cell phone.
I take my phone with me, and it goes OFF the second I am within talking distance of my date. If it goes back on again, that means I'm more concerned about a random friend asking me (for the 50th time) what sites are best for downloading mp3s, than I am in the flow of our conversation.
Is there anything more uncomfortable than to be mid-stride in conversation, and having that blasted ring interupt. So now she's giving driving directions to a friend and your picking at your food. (or your nose, as at this point it's a lost cause)
So help me, if that phone rings it better be your family priest/rabbi/immam telling you that your mother/brother/father/sister/dog is dieing.
Now that I think about it, I don't want a portable jammer with me on a date. I want to know as soon as possible that the womman is a classless waste of my time.
Here's a better idea though. Let's install electroshock devices on cell phones, that are like that video game James Bond (Sean Connery) played in "Never Say Never Again". When you start talking it's all good, but as time passes the voltage/pain goes up. If the conversation isn't worth having you hang up before you have to feel the pain of everyone else sitting near you.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
If you jam cell phones, won't that just lead to people shouting louder? Knowing most of the cell phone users I do, I can just picture...
... Oh, hi, John, they have a cell phone jammer in here. JOHN, I SAID THEY HAVE A CELL PHONE JAMMER IN HERE. CAN YOU HEAR ME BETTER NOW? ... DAMMIT JOHN, EVERYONE IN THE THEATER IS STARING AT ME. ... YEAH, I'D LOVE TO MEET YOU FOR A BEER, BUT I'M IN THIS MOVIE FOR THE NEXT HALF HOUR. Oh, never mind, they just dragged me out by my shirt collar. ... Yeah, there's much better reception out here, where do you want to go?"
(Phone goes off) "Hello?
This is exactly comparable to the current fuss about P2P software. Mobile phones have perfectly legitimate and non-infringing uses. (SMS messages, for example. Genuine life-or-death emergencies. Incoming calls where the user doesn't speak, or leaves the cinema before speaking.) Jamming prevents all those, whilst still allowing all the antisocial behaviour people have the rudeness to pull off!
A jammer is just a tool for management too cowardly to enforce a proper nuisance policy.
And of course, this is the thin end of the wedge. If jammers become accepted in cinemas, theatres and churches, they may well spread to restaurants, galleries, museums, shops, cafés, pubs, stations, workplaces...
What's worse is that in this case there is a possible technological measure that would do pretty much what people want. Instead of jamming the phones, how about a short-range transmitter which told the phones to go into 'silent mode', turning off the ringtone, and maybe the microphone, whilst still allowing vibrating alerts, text messages, and maybe incoming calls. It's a bit more technology than phones currently have, but it can't be too hard to implement.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
I think that this is great. I'm a classically trained musician and a sound engineer so I spend a lot of time either performing or recording concerts. When I'm onstage, I'm already a bundle of nerves and have to concentrate like hell for fear of messing up. Whenever I hear a phone go off, it is very distracting. I can ignore it and carry on, but it does throw you for a moment. 99% of the time it won't result in any audible wobble, but if it happens at the wrong time it can throw you completely and you screw up bigtime. When I'm recording, it is even worse. Even if somebody has their phone on silent but are sitting close enough to some of the gear, you can get the lovely du-du-du-du, du-du-du-du, du-du-du-du-duuuuuuuuuu sound captured in your recording. Again, this happens very rarely, but when it does I have to be physically restrained... I also lecture at a university - whenever students use their phone in class, it shows a distinct lack of respect for me and for the other students, some of whom are finding it difficult enough to follow the course content as it is.
The funniest thing I have read today -- and probably for the week -- was you putting "technicians at your small hosting company" in the same sentence as "doctors, fire fighters, [and] people waiting for an organ transplant." It is, as they say in The Biz, "comedy gold."
/., but you inspired me, dude, and for that I thank you.
(I have this image of weary, grim-faced grimey first-responders -- the firefighter in helmet, with his axe; the policeman, in cap, with his gun drawn; the doctor, stethescope around his neck, medical kit in hand; all emerging slo-mo through a thick curtain of smoke that blankets a rain-slick urban landscape. Background sound effects include sirens wailing, women sobbing, a toddler crying out for her mommy, the crackle of a police radio, maybe even the chum-chum of helicopter rotors overhead. Soundtrack is something suitably somber, like Enya's "Only Time," or perhaps a solo bagpipe rendition of "Amazing Grace." Suddenly, a high-pitched cry cuts through the scene and the mood: "Hey Guys!! Wait Up!!" The battle-weary first-responders turn slowly to see a technician from a small hosting company, "Buckaroo Banzai" baseball cap on head, router under his arm, racing out of an otherwise abandoned movie theatre (Marquee: "Star Wars Marathon!") to join them. The emergency-response professionals then look on in helpless horror (and a smidge of amusement that will haunt their consciences for months to come) as an Armored Personnel Carrier loaded with a troop of National Guardsmen barrels around the corner and flattens the hapless tech into the damp asphalt.)
Yeah, sure, I got better things to do then give it away on
Do you live in New Jersey? Oh well, you know what they say "A friend will help you move. A true friend will help you move a body."
I propose a low-tech solution. Warn people that they will be trown out if their mobile rings. Enforce.
I've gone to a number of live performances that do something very much like this...
I've heard a number of variations, and seen them carried out about half the time (just the threat helps remind people to act civilized and turn the damned things off)... My favorite (at a play), the entire cast just stopped in mid-sentence, all turned toward the idiot with the ringing phone, and the main actor on stage asked him to answer it, insisting over rude-boy's mumbled apologies, that he please go ahead, take his call, all the rest of us would wait politely.
I have never seen another human turn that shade of red.
Most importantly, about six seconds later (you could almost hear the cogs turning in peoples' heads), a wave of soft little clicks and low bleeps moved across the theatre as all the other potential rude-idiots-that-ignored-the-initial-warning turned off their phones. Truly beautiful.
Who needs technology when plain ol' public humiliation will work? Unfortunately, most for-pay venues don't have the balls to carry through on threats like that.