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Cell Phone Jamming on the Rise
netbuzz writes "It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone either, as the number of inconsiderate dolts who yammer away oblivious to the disruptions their yapping is causing those around them continues to rise. Pocket-sized cell jammers are becoming a hot item, while proprietors of restaurants and the like look to defend themselves as well. Yes it's illegal, but given that the rudeness is pretty close to criminal as well, it's unlikely to stop any time soon."
Probably just a matter of time before an emergency requires a quick call to 911 that gets blocked by this illegal tactic. And then nasty court battles... the "blockers" will deserve it. You don't silence rude cell phone people by cutting off the cell phone universe. You don't stop obnoxious car drivers by blockading the interstate.
There are better ways to deal with the issue. It requires a little courage on the part of those who are violated, but it's better than the alternative. Personally, I do think cell phones are way overused and a general nuisance, certainly the way they're used today. But I'm coming out with guns blazing the day I can't get emergency help for me or someone who needs it because some gutless wonder is using one of these devices and my cell phone is rendered more useless than it already is.
From the article, one of the makers of a jamming device offers up this weak rationalization:
Back to my example of bad and dangerous drivers... yes, there's a "collective right" to "control" bad behavior, but you wouldn't blockade the interstates in the interest of "control". Similarly, to unilaterally disable all cell phones is ludicrous.
In pre-response to:
I do propose at some point the ubiquitous rude behavior on cell phones dictates some solution. I hope sooner rather than later. Jamming.... is not the solution.
What I find a little strange is how some people consider someone talking on a cell phone in a restaurant automatically rude, even if they're speaking at a normal volume. If someone's in a conversation at another table, is it really that bad if the other participant in the conversation isn't actually in the restaurant?
No, the rudeness is not criminal. A cell phone jammer takes away a person's right to be a loud, annoying, inconsiderate idiot. Rudeness is a person exercising their right to be a loud, annoying, inconsiderate idiot.
In addition to the public safety issues, there are purely engineering ones. We are on a path to where the background noise level caused by multitudes of transmitters is going to render much of the radio spectrum useless. Plus with devices that have not gone through Type Acceptance, who knows what garbage is coming out of their antenna?
These could inadvertently trigger a terrorist attack too. It's not too hard to imagine a bomb controlled by a signal, and if that signal is cut off the bomb explodes. This would be a fail-safe switch for the bomber and the bomb, in case the terrorist is killed, the bomb goes off. There are IED's in Iraq that work like that right now. These jammers could kill innocent people, and are properly illegal.
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
I really don't know much about cell / PCS
Is there some way these things could be made to not block a special frequency or pagers. Doctors and emergency workers on call need to be able to be reached at dinner and in movie theaters. Everyone else can shut up.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
So when will we have a "spoiled rampaging kids" jammer?
The ambulance isn't coming, skippy.
You'll just lay on the floor breathless, your life slipping away as a crowd stands around you in increased frustration as they're calls to 911 won't get through.
The coroner will find the jammer in your pocket later, when he inventories your possessions before tagging your toe and zipping up the bag.
And all because you didn't have the stones to just ask people to please turn off their phones so you could hear better.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
A jammer does not need to be on all the time to work. Just turn it on when someone is being annoying. They loose signal. try again, loose signal. They go outside thinking they are not getting enough bars. Problem solved.
Not to mention society seemed to get along just fine before the invention of the cell phone. Landlines work for 911 as well, you know. And if it's a pay phone you don't even need money...
Criminal? That's an hyperbole. Here's a use of the word that's not: preventing access to emergency services because it affords you a little convenience is, literally, criminal.
Besides, while I can see the harm of a cellphone ring during a live theatrical performance, such as a play or an opera, it's merely an annoyance during a movie. And as far as restaurants are concerned, well, it's not like asking the offending patron to STFU is going to stop the globe from spinning. And sysadmins, doctors and other "on-call" professions have a right to eat, don't they?
You don't stop obnoxious car drivers by blockading the interstate.
There are always smug fuckers in the passing lane, doing slightly under the limit all the time, with absolutely no consideration to the lines of cars behind them, or the mayhem it causes as they all try to pass in the center or right lanes.
Some are clueless, others actually think they're saving the day by enforcing the limit, and a few honestly believe that 60mph is fast-as-hell because it feels like it in their Prius.
I can't stand the baby-vigilanteism in its many forms.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Fortunately, there is 100% cell coverage by all carriers everywhere.
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
It's not just illegal, it's totally unethical. My wife and I both carry cellphones - I'm a sysadmin and she's a surgeon and we're both on call basically 24/7. And yet, you'd never know that we have them, because we mute them when appropriate and never start conversations when we shouldn't. Instead, we'll either step outside quickly to answer them or let it roll to voicemail so we don't kill ourselves and others as we dive over rows of seats and then respond ASAP. Cell phone jammers punish the jackasses in theaters that we all love to hate, but they also punish the majority of users who are quiet and responsible.
Imagine that you or your mom or your kid has a problem with their recent surgery and is desperately trying to reach their doctor who went to a movie, but some smug asshole with a jammer is blocking the call. Kinda puts it in a different light, huh?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
jamming cellphones is ridiculous. it's about as useful as throwing a spammer in prison for 50 years. it doesn't do anything to impact the practice.
i STILL have yet to be intruded upon so heinously (in fact not at all i can remember) by someone on a phone either at a restaurant, movie, play, etc that makes me think this is at all a rational response (i live in a metro area of 2.2 million. so it's not like i'm in the sticks where no one has a phone).
i rotate on call shift with the other IT guys. granted i won't goto a movie or something that would be boned by the intrusion, but i won't stop myself from going to a nice restaurant because of it and expect that i'll be reachable.
if this were a story about DRM everyone would be crying that the MAFIAA is "screwing over the responsible ones because of the bad acts of the few". if i'm on my phone at the store, i get off before standing in line, don't do it at the bank, don't do it at movies, if i'm at a restaurant i'll quickly goto a better place and call back.
there was another poster who got it right, establishments need to make it known to patrons if they allow phone use and enforce it. not pull some underhanded sneaky bullshit. that will piss customers off more.
No sig for you!!
For all you know some 10 year old kid has a bad heart and has to keep his cell phone on 24/7 for that all important "Get to hospital NOW" call.
Quick! Outlaw tunnels and buildings too thick to allow cell phone signals!
But seriously... It is kind of silly to think that someone can rely on a cell phone 24/7 for emergency issues. As an anecdotally statement, there are parts of the building I work in that are complete dead zones depend on which direction I face. Maybe they used too much concrete or my service provider just blows, but I have a hunch that if there is an emergency I should use a land line.
If I go driving in the backwoods of New Jersey my cell phone doesn't even get a good roaming signal. (Though the nice thing about the Turnpikes is that New Jersey does have emergency phones ever so often)
Anyways... If cell phone use is critical for life and death situations then you should probaly invest in a satellite phone or a ham radio which of course still won't work in a tunnel.
Simply wasting police time with hunting these down is not going to solve any real problem other than to waste tax money. It would be better spent making cell phones more reliable.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Throw out a loud obnoxious bozo yelling into his cell like you'd throw out that loud obnoxious drunk guy. There's not much of a difference.
If you're in a restaurant and have a heart attack, surely someone will call 911 thru the landline. i.e. don't pay the tab until you are confident enough to walk into cell phone coverage if you're so concerned :)
People can learn to live without cell phones. Filtering against those who don't know it yet won't be as profitable and simple blocking is much less offensive than telling the customer to STFU.
echo 'cat sig | sh' > sig
What, the fire alarms have all been replaced with "in case of emergency, use your cell" signs or something??
You can't take the sky from me...
There are no 'norms' for behavior while on the phone. I see guys at urinals, talking to various people. I always mention, loudly, do you know this guy's calling you while peeing?
1) they have both hands busy, and therefore can't fight
2) if they do, they'll soil themselves
3) they have to immediately explain their actions to the called party.
People are terribly self-centered, and you'll never get around them. It's like the kilowatt jam speakers in people's car trunks, and how they'll rattle the dishes in an neighborhood. They can't hear the sound of my paintball gun over the tops of it-- and I'm sure of this. I hate to waste rounds, but the cars sure do look psychedelic when they pass thru my 'hood.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Cellphones are WAY overused in today's society. There should be a "No Phone" sign on the door of every establishment right by the ones concerning smoking and guns. Or better yet, replace the "no guns" sign with "no phones"! The only people complaining about not being able to wander around aimlessly while carrying on some insipid "conversation" are yuppies. I can only hope that the stock market goes further down the hill and they all get crushed under the ridiculous mortgages that they had to have for their "holier than thou" SUVs and ranch houses!
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
That's probably the stupidest think I'll hear today. Congratulations.
If you're in a nice restaurant then turn your mobile off and SHUT-THE-FUCK-UP!Cell phones have replaced pagers for most people. Am I allowed to get IMs, or do I have to turn those off too?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I would have to say that a very valid statement can be applied to both sides of this argument: "Your rights end where mine begin".
From the cell phone users perspective: I have the right to use my cellphone for critical situations and needs.
From the cell phone jammers perspective: I have the right to not be forced to listen to your conversation.
Somewhere in the middle there is a gray area where both parties must be respectful of one another.
Here in Chicago, downtown, there's a great sandwich shop called Perry's Deli. They have signs: no pagers, no cell phones (if you need to use them while eating, maybe you should be eating at a more upscale restaurant, the sign says). If they see someone using it, they turn on a LOUD, *VERY* ANNOYING alarm, annoying everyone in the place, until the offender either stops, or goes outside.
And I still want all cellphone usage by drivers treated exactly like DUI, since the accident stats are the same for drunks and cellphone users.
mark "could you drive any better if I shoved it where the sun
don't shine?"
If you don't want a cell phone active in your establishment, what you want is not a jammer, which is illegal, but a detector...
http://www.cellbusters.com/product_info.php?products_id=28
Of course, then you have to be willing to forgo the miscreant's business by ordering anybody with an active cell phone outside. When I first researched this issue about six years ago, I found precisely nobody -- not restaurants, not the pharmacy, not even a freakin' movie theater -- would be willing to install a detector and order people off the property. The only places I know of that use detectors is hospitals, because some cells put out signals that interfere with things like an EEG.
of the conversation.
...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3643477.stm
Yes.
I do to.
On Slashdot you say?
Wow that's
Yes I agree.
i wish i could stop
The only hot-button missing from your tirade is "think of the children". OK, I'll admit I'm in my mid 50's. Back in the early/mid 1980's, I remember 2 new trends in phones...
1) the rise of telemarketing (answering machines were non-existant for the average consumer)
2) instead of phones being hard-wired into the wall, you could actually get the now-familiar phone-jack
There was all sorts of yelling and screaming and apocalyptic predictions about the thousands of people who would die because they had disconnected their phones from the wall socket, and wouldn't get the warning phone call that their house was on fire, or some natural disaster (flood/fire/whatever) was coming their way. Guess what, it didn't happen.
One incident I do remember is when my employer was short-staffed in one office. In addition to someone being on vacation, and someone else on a long training course, another employee in a rotating shift position got pregnant, and was unable to continue, especially with the shiftwork. Because I had done the same job a few years earlier, I got pulled off my regular duties, got a 1-week refresher course by the shift supervisor, then went on rotating shifts by myself for a month.
The morning after my first graveyard shift, I got home around 8:00 AM, and was not exactly 100% lucid. I undressed and crashed into bed... only to be awakened 3 times in the next hour and a half by telemarketing assholes. Fortunately, I had a condo with the "new" phone jacks, and disconnected it from the wall. If the phone had been hard-wired, so help me, I would've "disconnected" it "the hard way".
Similarly, I don't think that society is going to callapse if cellphones become unreliable. Unlike you young whippersnappers, I remember the ers BC... Before Cellphones. Civilization survived thousands of years without cellphones, and can do so again.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
...with smoking. And yet for some reason people feel that they need to force the government to step in and enforce such rules en masse, instead of letting individual businesses decide for themselves...
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
All jamming cell phone signals does is annoy customers, and cause potentially dangerous situations in case of an emergency. That is exactly why it is illegal.
In the U.S, it's _always_ illegal to interfere with a licensed radio service. This has been true since _long_ before cell-phones. Neither the fact that it annoys those around you nor the fact that it might create a hazard have anything to do with it.
Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
Take them outside, with the smokers. You're just as annoying as they are. I have a cell, but I'm not rude enough to stand in a store yapping away on the damn thing. If I need to make a call, I'll go outside. If I get a call, it's on vibrate, and I'll answer it on my way outside.
Sure, it might be slightly inconvenient to me at times, but at least it's not rude to others.
This is a sig. Deal with it.
have you ever politely asked somebody to keep it down...you'll find that most people when treated with a little respect will gladly oblige, and apologize.
Not been my experience at all. I've politely asked someone to take their cell phone conversation outside (after the third call in a 5 minutes span) in a movie theater and this guy threw a drink on me and stormed out (I later got an apology from the managers and free movie for that one).
Once a bus in a city I was unfamiliar with stops and was trying to ask someone a question and this teen-aged girl was yammering away so loud I couldn't hear anything the guy I was asking for help was saying. As the teenager took her hand off the pole to flip me off after asked her if she could tone it down for a second, the bus slowed down and she fell on her ass (won't ever forget that one).
My favorite was when I was on a plane and the flight attendant was telling this lady to please shut down her cell phone as they were going to close the doors and back away from the gate, the lady kept one waving her hands and the three flight attendents walked over and stared at her until she put her phone away. After they flight attendants went to sit down, the lady pulls out her cell phone again and instead of getting up again, the flight attendant gets on the speaker and tells everyone to stare at the woman in seat 16D... Took her another minute to shut up, which was then followed by a round of applause in the cabin. Sadly, that's the world I live in...
I don't have a jammer myself, but if I had one of these things, I'm sure there would be times that I wouldn't regret using it at all
Most often seen reply: "But I need it for emergency... I'm a Sysadmin/Nurse/Surgeon/Firefighter".
Yes, you are right.
Yes, your use is justified.
And you make up 0.01% of what we're talking about here.
I commute to work just 30 minutes each way. At least once a week there's some idiot on the train with a cellphone conversation so loud and/or obnoxious that I'd like to hit him with something hard. At least once a day there's someone with a ringtone that was certainly carefully engineered after extensive studies as to what the most nerve-wrecking sound imagineable is and at what precise volume (maximum) you have to play it to cause inner-ear bleedings. At least twice as often there are less irritating but still obnoxious and anti-social cases that scream "I'd piss in your front yard and shit in your doorway, too".
And as far as I get the contents, it has not once not ever been something important that couldn't have waited until the asshole got home.
If cell phone jammers were legal, I'd buy one tomorrow.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The talking on the phone I can deal with, by talking to the rude talker. Sometimes I take the other half of their conversation, or just act like they're talking to me, other times I just tell them to stop talking, or just yell "WHAT? WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" They almost always shut up and/or leave.
What really needs automated jamming is ringing. Phones should be required to accept a signal that switches them from ringing to vibrating. Then movie theaters, public transit vehicles, and other places where the public is forced to share a space with some people too rude to keep to themselves. Buzzing won't interfere wih their functioning, it won't privately infringe on the public airwaves except to send the signal.
The damn phones should be shipped to vibrate by default anyway, with a ringtone an explicit option, and a single puttonpress to switch between the modes.
--
make install -not war
I don't need to know. Whenever my cell phone drops out, I stab everyone within a 10 meter radius with a salad fork.
Does your significant other love shoes?
What I don't understand is your idea of cause and effect. Why do you place the blame on the people who might use a cellphone jammer when they are only a reaction to a nuisance that keeps getting worse? The "asshole" is not the guy who gets fed up with widespread blatant rudeness and finally finds a solution; the assholes are the ones with the cell phones who won't be considerate of others in the first place; if not for this, almost no one would have used a jammer. That there are so many such assholes is why being assertive is not practical -- what size mob of immature, self-important other-people-don't-exist assholes who won't take a correction do you want to confront? A jammer is a neat solution that, unlike a confrontation, guarantees that the actual cause of the problem is the one who will be disappointed. Blaming it on the jammers is effectively excusing the root cause of this problem because you dislike one of its symptoms.
That's an understandable use, but don't allow your emotions to impact your judgment. A little thought would lead to the conclusion that if your cellphone is on silent/vibrate mode and it vibrates and you leave the theater and call back where you won't be disturbing anyone, there's no incentive to jam your phone call. I doubt anyone near you would even know that you had a cellphone if you handled it this way. Unless you believe that people buy jammers because strangers have a personal vendetta against you and just want to make you miserable (they call this paranoia), then by your own reasoning the jammers won't be after you or anyone who handles this the way that you do. The more rare your politeness is (and this is increasingly the case), the more likely it is to be very much appreciated.
This really seems to be coming from an assumption that a jammer would be operating continuously. I don't own a jammer (and don't plan to since using one is illegal) but if I had one, I know I would not want a microwave frequency radiation source emitting continuously from my person. It's the kind of thing that can't be good for you long-term. Then there's the question of how heavy the batteries would be and how many you want to carry. Considering that continuous use is not at all necessary since you would only need a few seconds to disconnect a call, I think you're inventing a highly unlikely extreme-case scenario backed by an emotional time of your life to justify your universal condemnation.
I could just as easily say "You're living in 2007 now, so if you're rude and inconsiderate and your cell phone call gets dropped by someone with a jammer, then TOUGH FUCKING COOKIES." I find this easier to justify than "someone's being rude, you better lay down and take it."
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I noticed the paying customer viewpoint wasn't in any of the comments.
Stop being so damn oversensitive, any parent with a couple of brats are many times worse than anyone on a cell phone.
There are better ways to deal with the issue.
100% agreed here. The best way to deal with the issue is to actually address and *deal* with the issue. First of all it means a visible policy against the phones, or at least disturbing of others, much the same as hospitals or theatres do. The second means enforcing it. A few cases:
A few weeks ago I was in the hospital, and was please to see that most people when entering the emergency area would pop out their phones and then turn them off or at least silence them. Various people also foraged outside periodically to turn on their phones and call home, etc. One woman happily ignored the signage, and then proceeded to yack loudly on her phone, sharing her loud conversation with an emergency room full of patients (to add to this, her loud talking and cellphone giggling didn't seem to indicate any need to be in emerg, but that's a different story). I finally got tired of it and when she finished one conversation of many, asked her to kindly turn off her phone. Instantly she became defensive, with the "why should I" attitude, at which point I pointed out that the "no cell phone zone" sign she had likely noticed but happily ignored. While she glared at me for various intervals during the rest of my wait, her phone stayed off, and others seemed happier with this.
The second was in a movie theatre, with some girl a few rows up popping open her phone to send text-messages. At least the sound was off, but you'd be surprised at how bright the glare is (and yes, like any winking light in a dark room, very obvious and distracting). After text-message #3 I asked her to turn it off and she managed to do so with undue fuss (or at least if she gave me a look, it was then too dark to see). Personally I would have been happy enough if she'd done her texting with her phone under a jacket or whatever so that others couldn't see, but most people who both paying to see an overpriced movie actually take the time to watch it rather than texting.
The last, not cellular related, but similar in concept, was the local "Superstore" gas bar. The three stalls nearest the pay-booth are labeled as "cars only", but continually suffered from a plague of trucks, SUV's, and other vehicles with large or dual gas tanks. I have fond memories of one gentleman who happily to me to f*** myself after I pointed our his large dual-tanked truck was in the car lane, and he compounded his politeness by giving me the finger as he drove away. the gas bar itself did nothing for about the last two years, but in the last month has added a larger "no trucks" sign that people do seem to pay attention to. My take has always been that refusing service to those in the appropriate stalls would have worked nicely (if they're not supposed to be there, why turn on the pump for them), or even better to have wordage on the signs that say those who are using the wrong pump would be charged 7c/L extra. Profit for the gas company, and a good method for dissuading rude pump-hogs.
So the point of all this? Policies are great, but they do jack-shit if they are not acted upon or at least pointed out to those who violate them (and then, if further ignored, they definitely do need to be acted upon). Theatres and hospitals have been known to have security which deals with those violating the 'no phone' rule, whereas the gas station had been known to do nothing about it. As such, an unenforced policy is really about as effective as none at all.
While I have in some instances (grocery store line-up, etc) half turned because it seemed somebody was addressing me (pointed at me, talking, and with a headset), it takes about .5 seconds to acknowledge that the aren't, and - if the conversation is of regular volume - ignore it.
With a restaurant, it's not a problem. Why? Well probably because there's no need for me to be tuning in to the conversations of those around me, cellular or otherwise. If they're at normal volume, and the person isn't directly positioned to address me, it's pretty obvious that they're not talking to me, and I've never found a reason to assume otherwise.
This of course doesn't apply to those that speak at a conversational level that would put a stadium PA system to shame, but that's a different story, and one that should be address by either the restaurant, or perhaps a brave individual who is willing to point out the rudeness of such things on the hopeful assumption that the disruptive party will cease the conversation - or reduce their volume level - without becoming confrontational.
Retard.
I think, therefore I am an Atheist.
If people would just be marginally polite and turn off the audible ring then theaters wouldn't be so tempted to jam cellphones. It's not like it's that hard to put a phone on vibrate to see a movie. If a call (silently) comes in that's THAT important, the lobby is only a few seconds away.
If it's not important enough to go to thee lobby for, it's not important enough to answer at all.
When checking out at a store, the cashier and people behind you do not want to just wait around while you quack on about your new shoes, little Johhny's report card, what's going on, etc. The cashier is NOT the one being rude by trying to get you to at least have the courtesy to complete the transaction and get out of the way before you complete your conversation.
How is the inconsiderate person talking loudly on a cell phone worse than the inconsiderate person talking loudly to their friends? Maybe we don't need cell-phone jammers, just gags.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
I do wonder what the fuss is all about.
It's because people in the US are descended from a bunch of puritanical zealots who just can't stand the thought that others might have entertainment, joy, or pleasure (particularly if it excludes themselves).
They hate someone talking on a cellphone on a public train (even if they're quieter than talking face to face on the train) because being on the train sucks and the person on the phone is "escaping" by talking to someone else. "How dare they not suffer like the rest of us."
They hate someone talking on a phone in a restaurant (no matter how quietly) because maybe that person is talking to someone more interesting than their own boring dinner mates.
It also comes from an anti-rich resentment from when cellphones were only for wealthy people who could avoid them. Of course, nearly everyone can easily afford a cellphone now, just like any religious dogma, the hatred for cellphones as a symbol of the rich has stuck with us.
It really puzzles me. The zealots here are railing against cell phones. They're not railing against boorish behavior. Does it matter if someone is loud in a restaurant on a phone or with the person across from them? If someone is driving erratically, does it matter if it's because they're on the phone, fiddling with the radio, or just a plain bad driver? But somehow, these people have fixated on the cellphone itself.
Finally, Americans are a bunch of people who are generally powerless in their lives and even though they live in one of the richest countries in the world, they feel they've been dealt a bad deal in life. And if they can't be pacified by a Big Mac and the latest episode of Survivor or Let's Make A Deal then they tend to take it out on each other - particularly if the other seems to be having fun or having an escape from reality.
Movie theaters need to update the "no talking" message to "Turn OFF your phones. No Talking. No Texting. No Exceptions."
Most people have managed to figure out that ringing phones and talking is inconsiderate and attracts undue attention, but haven't yet managed to make the giant mental leap needed to figure out that an audience waving dozens of little flashlights around is equally distracting.
If you're in a theater and need to have a conversation--ANY CONVERSATION--then go outside. Or stay home.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Numerous points have been made about emergencies. As a doctor, I would add the following:
Radio waves do not know their discrete boundaries -- I don't have too much of a problem with jamming on private property in theory, provided the business informs the consumer very well that the premises is jammed. Therefore, doctors, etc. can avoid this area when on call or need to be reached, and people can 'vote with their wallets'; in truth I would not be a patron of such a place. However, in practice jamming signals can creep elsewhere, to the neighboring restaurant / apartment / out on the street. This clearly can be very dangerous.
Numerous people have commented that you should not expect to receive cell phone signals everywhere. This is true, and also why physicians still carry low-tech pagers, which have much more of a signal range. In clinical practice, all reliable systems for emergencies have redundancy. For instance, an interventional cardiologist in the middle of the night may be paged for a patient with a heart attack. If the operator doesn't hear back from the doctor in 5 minutes, he pages again and tries another form of communication (cell phone, land line..) If still no response, a backup doctor may be paged (extremely rare). Ideally, this redundancy works across different modalities (e.g. not all cellphone / 900 MHz etc.)
For some reason, probably historical, most doctors consider cellphones unreliable, and pagers completely reliable. For good systems, there must be redundancy as above in all situations. A half year ago, I got a nasty email from another doctor saying that I didn't return a page; I thought the person was crazy and they hadn't paged me, or paged the wrong person (still not sure what happened), but again, had they a second / backup method of reaching me, it would not have been a big deal. My role was not critical in that situation, so nothing happened (also why we didn't have critical redundancy), but if this had been due to *intentional* uninformed jamming, appropriate action would be taken...
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
I've promised myself for years that now if I pay 10 of my hard-earned dollars to go to a movie and some bozo starts yammering away on his phone during the feature itself, I will grab the phone away from him and throw it to the other side of the theater. Yeah, that's a crime of some sort, I'm sure... but would a jury in the world convict you? And if they did, what would the punishment be? A new phone for the dirtbag? Taking me to court to actually get the money would cost more than the phone is worth.
I know it's not as fun as making a neat gizmo to do the job, and obviously it increases your chances of getting knifed by a teenage gangbanger exponentially, but as another comment said, jamming runs the risk of jamming a 911 call.
By listening to the douche say "nuthin, I'm just kickin it at the movies...", you ensure that the call is of a non-vital nature, and therefore rude as hell.
This aggression shall not stand, Dude!
You seem obsessed with the US of A. Explain your troll in the light that inconsidered cell phone use is HATED in all other parts of the world as well. I know it may come as a shock, but america is NOT the world. Furthermore this exact same anti-cellphone hatred appears everywhere else. The companies mentioned in the Times article sell SOME of their products to US customers, they main dealings are however in their country of origin. England and India respectivly.
Your entire troll shotdown by a simple RTFA.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If anything characterizes the 21st century, its our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people, said James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. The cellphone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights.
Or put more simply three people are involved here who think "ME ME ME". The caller, who couldn't wait to call, the answerer who couldn't wait to answer the call and the person being annoyed who thinks he has to the right to be undisturbed by other people.
First the caller, 99% of calls are unneeded and could easily have waited until a later time. People keep bringing up emergency calls, I am willing to bet my entire income for the rest of my life that if you measured all the calls that are of a real emergency nature (911 or even telling someone their wife is about to give birth) that would not even come to a whole percentage of mobile phone calls. You do NOT have to call that other person at night when you see them next day. You may want too, and technology has made it possible but their is NO NEED. Learn to understand the difference between NEED and DESIRE.
Then there is the person answering. YOU ARE NOT IMPORTANT. The entire rest of the world does NOT have to be put on hold for your convenience. Sometimes you got to make choices what to do, and this means you can't be doing something else. Lets say you think you should answer the phone in a theather, should the actors do the same? Do you want your doctor to answers his wifes call while he is working on your hearth? So why do you NEED to answer that phone NOW. I think this is part of a larger social disfunction. Take MMO's you see people complain that they take large chunks of time, and that people get upset if you leave in the middle of a raid. Well yeah, but how many of you would walk out of the middle of a say a football game? If you are in any kind of a race, do you really expect all the others to stop because your phone is ringing? I think the mobile phone is just a symptom of the larger development that some people think, the world revolves around me (they are wrong, it revolves around me) and that everyone else should fit themselves to their need.
But finally there is also the person who is offended. There is NO law, NO right, to be undisturbed. Yes there are some laws that forbid certain disturbances, anti-honking laws for instance that dictate you can only use your car horn for alerting of impending danger, but talking in public is not among them. People are free to talk in public transport. You get people who get upset by headphones being too loud who complain that they can't hear themselves talking. Eh, your talking and the headphone are BOTH interfering with my peace and quiet. Unless we introduce a law to SHUT THE FUCK UP and produce NO noise whatsoever, public transport is NOT a place of peace and quiet. Your desire for peace and quiet is NOT a right. You are just as much an asshole for wanting everyone else to be silent as the person making a noise.
It is often said that human beings are social animals, so lets see some social animals shall we? Ooh, what a lot of fighting and squabiling in even small groups. We are NOT ants who really work together, we are a pack of monkeys who are constantly fighting over everything but without a leader who can just beat the crap out of anyone who really gets out of line.
Modern techonology just brings it out more. We also allowed the controlling elements of our society to become weak and feeble. We think we are mature adults who don't need a big brother watching us, while we behave as little spoiled brats.
A simple solution exists to this whole mobile phone dilemma. Since REAL emergency calls are so rare, it would have been very easy to put in as part of the system a protocol for dealing with them. In restricted areas you would broadcast a signal "emergency only". The caller would have to send the signal that it is an emer
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
>> As for rude phone users - funny, that's not too much of a problem over here in the UK
You must live in a much more considerate part of the UK than I do.
I regularly travel on business via train. Some of the local train operators have in place "quiet zones" where the use of mobile phones and noisy electronics is discouraged. Guess what, the coaches are still full of ignorant f*ckpigs who blather on into their devices indiscriminately.
As there isn't going to be any change in the behaviour of these fools I would be happy to carry a jammer and nuke any conversation carried out in such an environment. And for any UK businesses out there curious about this, I would definitely selectively patronise any establishments with publicised no-mobile policies.
I disagree heartily with "matter of time", the first poster. By his logic, cell carriers would be liable if coverage does not extend into a restaurant. There is no right to use a cell phone, and many instances where their use or even possession is prohibited. Schools, medical offices, airplanes, court rooms, etc. If there's an emergency, then you just have to find the nearest landline, conveniently located at the maitre d's podium.
Getting into a confrontation with an inconsiderate, self-important slob is a great way to foment violence, and these days there is no telling where the violence will stop. Instead of arguing, just put an end to cell phone use and be done. Secrecy is necessary only because the practice is illegal, otherwise many venues would be proud to advertise they are cell phone free.