English DJ Claims Wi-Fi Allergy

path0$ writes "British Ex-DJ Steve Miller claims that his Wi-Fi allergy is making his life one big misery , forcing him to live in an iron-clad home far from any neighbors. According to the article, more and more people are suffering from an allergy like his. The only positive side to this is that at least Miller didn't think of suing anybody yet, like these people did, who claim to suffer from the same condition and were mentioned in a Slashdot article in 2008."

Comments

Re:Easy to test

[Reziac]

This comment following TFA says it all:
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The problem with this claim is that WiFi uses the 2.4 gigahertz frequency spectrum along with Bluetooth phones, cordless home phones, and just about any other consumer wireless device. If he really had an 'allergy' like that, he wouldn't have been able to leave his house for the past 15 years. He should try to promote himself a different way than this.

- Dr. Black, Los Angeles, CA, 24/7/2009 14:30
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Not to mention that cosmic radiation doesn't conveniently omit some portion of the EM spectrum. Has he ever been outdoors??

There have always been people who claim that some particular class of witchcraft is making their lives hell. In days of yore it was the evil eye; during the hippie era it was Bad Vibes; today it's some portion of the EM spectrum, because that's the Newly Widespread Thing That We Know Is There But Can't See, So It Must Be Causing Our Ills.

Crank these people's tinfoil hats one notch tighter, and they'll claim it's thoughtwaves from aliens instead. Oh wait, we've already had that one!!

Re:Crazy people

[canajin56]

Yes, they've tested it many times. No correlation found. The way they tested it was easy. They wheeled a scary looking device covered in antennas, and the people reacted in pain whenever the green light came on. The only trouble is, it was a big inert piece of metal. The only electronics in it were, well, the LED to show it was "on". Meanwhile, under the dropped ceiling there was an actual massive wifi antenna that would randomly blanket the room in "evil radiation", and they were completely unaware. In other words, they only react to wifi at all if they "know" it's there, even when it isn't.

Re:Crazy people

[luder]

Agreed. There was a case on my university that I found very interesting.

We have access points (AP) distributed all around the campus, meaning we get wireless connectivity pretty much everywhere. One particular AP was located inside a small room used by janitors, adjacent to an interior garden. Being inside a room, it was safe from the weather and would still provide coverage for the area.

However, one day, one of the janitors complained she was getting headaches, and claimed that the AP was the culprit. The network managers, skeptical of it, decided to test her theory and switched off it's radio interface, not telling her anything about it. Although the AP stopped emitting radio waves, the status LED and Ethernet LED still blinked constantly. For the common person, not familiar with network devices, that is enough to assume the access point is working as usual.

Unsurprisingly, the headaches didn't go away and the whining continued. Despite the technical expertise and scientific knowledge of the network staff, the school directors decided to ignore all of the advisory they provided and sided with the janitor, ordering for the AP to be moved out of the janitor's room.

Now, the funny thing is that they moved the access point around two meters from the original position, so that it was on the other side of the wall, enclosed on an opaque, weather resistant box. Radio interface was brought up and then, mysteriously, the headaches went away...