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Chinese Vendor Could Pay $34.9M FCC Fine In Signal-Jammer Sting
alphadogg writes A Chinese electronics vendor accused of selling signal jammers to U.S. consumers could end up leading the market in one dubious measure: the largest fine ever imposed by the Federal Communications Commission. The agency wants to fine CTS Technology $34,912,500 for allegedly marketing 285 models of jammers over more than two years. CTS boldly—and falsely—claimed that some of its jammers were approved by the FCC, according to the agency's enforcement action released Thursday. Conveniently, CTS' product detail pages also include a button to "report suspicious activity." The proposed fine, which would be bigger than any the FCC has levied for anti-competitive behavior, or a wardrobe malfunction, comes from adding up the maximum fines for each model of jammer the company allegedly sold in the U.S. The agency also ordered CTS, based in Shenzhen, China, to stop marketing illegal jammers to U.S. consumers and identify the buyer of each jammer it sold in the U.S.
I am not sure if you are joking but a doubt going sleeveless has anything to do with jammers. Also, jammers are not weapons as defined by law.
Sorry, but no you can't. Devices that transmit are regulated by the FCC. You don't have authorization to operate radio equipment in those bands, thus, no you should not be able to get one.
If I wanted to block all telephone signals, I should have the right to. If I block emergency radio signals, I should have the right to. If I block all wireless communication signals on the planet, I should have the right to. Wahh wahh wahh. Oh my god, do you troglodytes live in a fucking bubble or what.
Bye!
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
They might not have jurisdiction, but they can block the company from exporting their goods to the US until they pay the fine.
"If i want a jammer i should be able to get one."
By the same logic that I should be able to come to your house with spotlights and a sound truck.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
It's even easier than that - a spark gap radio transmitter will jam most things.
But you should expect to get your ass handed to you for using them regardless of how you got one. They're an unlicensed radio transmitter transmitting on licensed spectrum. If you piss off the FCC enough to come find you, they won't fuck around - I'd post a citation, but funnily enough there's one at the top of the article.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Unless the company has assets and/or a legal presence in America, they will laugh and give the FCC the middle finger.
In that case they will no longer be able to sell anything in America. The US can also prohibit any bank doing business in the USA from doing business with them. That means pretty much every multinational bank in the world, which will prevent CTS Technology from engaging in any business outside of China. I doubt if there is a big domestic Chinese market for jammers.
Yea because customs is going to inspect every package coming in from china looking for these.
No sir I dont like it.
What law gives you the right to flood the EM spectrum with noise?
FC Closer
I'll bet it simple and cheap to form a new company, though.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
This means I have to go back to carrying around a microwave oven and a car battery doesn't it?
You seriously equate jammers with the "right not to be killed by some idiot on the road who decides that his right to text supersedes the fact that he's supposed to operate his vehicle in a safe manner"? What, are you jamming from your mobile vehicle? Great, so when you're passing a wreck, your jammer floods out the call they're currently making to 911, requiring a redial, costing precious seconds which could quite literally cost that person their life. All in your quest to stamp out texting and driving. News flash - all it takes is a single packet to make it through for a text to send.
FC Closer
The same right that you have to spew nonsensical compressed waves into the air when you open your mouth and vibrate your vocal cords.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Also, jammers are not weapons as defined by law.
It depends on where you jam them.
That company could have made a fortune selling Google Glass jammers. But methinks some other dubious company will step up to the plate . . . for a while, anyway, until the FCC catches them, as well.
It will be like the illegal drug market . . . as long as someone wants to buy one, someone will be selling them . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Did i say the entire planet? No.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They were advertising and selling openly. I fail to see how any kind of "sting" operation was required to trick them into selling the illegal hardware, or to catch them doing it.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
That is not the same logic at all. By his logic, you should be able to *purchase* spotlights and a sound truck, which yes, yes you should. There are a lot of objects that make little sense to regulate merely owning, but a great deal of sense to regulate the *use* of. I'd put spotlights and sound trucks clearly in that category.
Objects that make sense to regulate merely owning, are those whose legitimate uses are much rarer than their illegitimate, and those where by the time someone has gotten in trouble for using it, it's far too late to do the person for whom it's been used *on* any good. GPS jammers are sort of in a grey area on that one - they probably do belong on the "regulate owning" side, but you can argue either way.
To see others the FCC has gone after, check out their website. Some of them are really interest; such as:
$49K for this guy: http://www.fcc.gov/document/48k-penalty-proposed-against-individual-cell-jammer-investigation-0
http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2014/FCC-14-26A1.html Thiscompany got dinged 29K for operating a cell phone jammer in their warehouse.
What size of an area should you have the right to block all signals? Why should you not have the right to block all signals in a larger area?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Go for it. Don't complain when you get fined by the FCC.
They have jurisdiction at the US border and can block all shipments from the company, regardless of the content until they pay their fine.
It will be like the illegal drug market
The difference being that the drug market is very profitable. The jammer market? Not so much.
Until your mouth can spew out radio waves, freedom of speech doesn't cover the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
It also doesn't cover shouting so loud nobody around you can exercise their own right to free speech.
The RF spectrum is a finite resource, you're free to use specific public bands as long as you don't go over the power limits defined.
Just like you're not free to speak so loud nobody in your entire town can hear anything else.
Like this guy
They should be able to make jammers and I should be able to purchase and own jammers. It is only against the law to use it in certain ways and in certain places. This is international anyway. Maybe these devices are OK in other countries, just not in USA. They should not be able to fine this company or get the names of purchasers. They should only prosecute the act of jamming in a non approved manner. Just like laser pointers.
If there is $35M to collect, somebody is going to care about enforcing it.
CTS Technology might be upset if Paypay. ebay, Amazon, Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, etc. can no longer work with them.
A 'Google Glass' jammer?
You mean a cellphone jammer that can't discriminate between a Google Glass device and a phone trying to make an emergency call?
Maybe Dealextreme http://www.dx.com?
That's right, because CTS Technology is the Chinese Government and $35M is a significant amount of money to their $8T GDP
Oh my god, do you troglodytes live in a fucking bubble or what.
No, the troglodytes live in the basement. However, comparing the earth to a bubble is somewhat apt, based on how radio waves bounce off the atmosphere.
Both you and the "I should have the right to do this" crowd are missing a few details.
1) Everyone has the right to block radiation. They have the right to do so inside any space they control.
2) Jamming is not blocking. Blocking is sticking a cone of silence around someone (yourself or the emitter) to keep from hearing their senseless yammering. Jamming is shouting louder then they are and attempting to confuse them so they can't talk anymore (more like this SoundJammer.
So you're both right, and you're both oh so wrong.
What size of an area should you have the right to block all signals? Why should you not have the right to block all signals in a larger area?
One example:
A movie theatre or restaurant should have the right to block all cell phone signals on their premise with proper testing
to make sure it stays within it's property lines and with proper signs stating that they do so.
Currently this is illegal so they sometimes go out of their way to passively block it at a much greater expense or
in some cases even require you to "check" your phone.
Why shouldn't I be allowed to block cell phone signals inside my home?
What if I want to test my home security system that relies on cell towers?
I could think of plenty of other "fair use" reasons that buying and using a cell jammer should be legal.
Or forbid any banks who do business in US to do business with them. Good bye credit card payments.
If I want to destroy the Sun with my Higgs-Suppression Warhead, that's my 2nd Amendment right, libtard! Next thing you know, they'll want to take away our Vacuum-Metastability Tunnel-Inducer Arrays. I need that for hunting: to eliminate the concept of a duck from existence.
All it takes is a single jammed packet for the texter to look down at their phone again and re-send the message that failed to send.
They now took their eyes off the road a second time, because someone jammed their text message.
Did you even attempt to apply for a license from the FCC?
So now I guess I can expect a knock on my door from a couple guys with no sense of humor that drive a nondescript sedan with black wall tires.
Nondescript sedan with blackwall tires? Weren't those the days...
Howabouts a no-knock raid on your next door neighbor's house (since the jackboots can't be assed to get the house number right in most cases) where they shoot his dog and break his grandma's nose with the butt of the rifle for telling them to fuck off?
My property. From corner to corner.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Any large company with knowledge of how to do business in America would have known to invest a little in lobbying and campaign contributions.
You always run the risk of customs grabbing it. I wonder if anyone has been tracked down because a box came to the border with their name on it, with something that wasn't allowed here. You didn't take receipt of said illegal item.. no proof you even asked for it really.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Ok, I just bought a Signal Jammer and I have it in my trembling fingers. Um, what's the point of buying it? What if I need to make a phone call? What if a Tornado is approaching my trailer park? What if 60 Minutes is outside my fortified compound? Before I even turn it on, its not working! Maybe I can exchange it for some really good looking rolex watches?
It will be like the illegal drug market
The difference being that the drug market is very profitable. The jammer market? Not so much.
And so amazingly trivial to find the jammer. Ham radio operators make a sport of direction finding. And in this case trivial to do. This would be the strongest signal in the area, on for long enough to disrupt phone service. Silently guiding law enforcement to your front door.
Really, when Internet guvmint hating tough guys bray about their right to own and use such things, and they "Don't care 'bout no regulations". This might be the dumbest thing to hang their hopes of stickin' it to the man on. Piss off all those regular citizens using their smartphones, maybe even blocking GPS signals. Yeah, that will bring people to your cause - probably with pitchforks. An unlawful activity that provides it's own "Here I Am!" finder service.
No you don't. The airwaves aren't yours just because you own some land.
L1 GPS spectrum is FCC licensed to the DOD.
Cell Phone microwave spectrum is FCC licensed (after paying billions in fees) to the respective cell phone operators, so no, you can't operate a cell phone jammer pretty much nowhere in the world.
You can only do that if you own an island somewhere in the world where you are you own country.
You're just another idiot that pretends the federal govt doesn't exist, go doing that until you get arrested and jailed for years for doing what you claim is your right.
I heard that a someone bought a signal jammer. I tried calling this guy at his Meth Factory, but I couldn't get through.
One example:
A movie theatre or restaurant should have the right to block all cell phone signals on their premise
Or... they could politely ask anyone using a cell phone to leave, pointing to the signs they have prominently posted.
Sure, some patrons will be upset, but not as upset as the parent who misses a call from the baby sitter telling them to get to the hospital right away.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That firm will never pay a dime. They don't have to and will never be required to by the Chinese government. They will close shop and come back as another black market company. What an amazing load of Bovine Excrement.
"Depends. Can you guarantee that the emissions are limited only to your home and will in no way inconvenience others around you?"
Perhaps someone should have asked the broadcasters that question before allowing them to transmit through my person and property?
To the non-US citizen anti gun troll: In the US we own arms to protect our families from thugs, and to remind our government that they work for us, not the other way around.
That will change with the use of drones by law enforcement thugs and homeland security and possibly the drug cartels. Too bad you won't have signal jammers to use against the drones.
Remote controlled threats are going to be huge in the next few years. You need signal jammers against those threats in your own home. Though I presume you'll say you will shoot the drones.
And the law should be used to enforce against people who operate a device. Not because the device exists.
A movie theatre or restaurant should have the right to block all cell phone signals on their premise with proper testing to make sure it stays within it's property lines and with proper signs stating that they do so.
Why? What makes you think that a free-for-all radio frequency spectrum is in anyone's best interest?
I'm guessing from your selfish attitude that you've never been an emergency services volunteer who donates a large amount of his free time to training how to save the lives of other people and might want to be able to go to a movie or a restaurant every so often and not be unable to get the notification that someone needs help. That's just one kind of person who needs to have cell service while in a movie theater or restaurant.
I could think of plenty of other "fair use" reasons that buying and using a cell jammer should be legal.
I doubt it. You can think of reasons why you think you are important enough that nobody should ever interfere with your personal pleasure, but that attitude ignores the fact that other people have the same rights. You cannot produce one argument that shows that my cell phone in my pocket at a restaurant interferes with you in any way, shape or form, yet you'd happily jam it so I can't get messages or calls just because you want to.
I think the best use of a jammer would have been to block the call to your Mom's ob/gyn when she went into a difficult labor with you. Why don't you go upstairs and ask her?
Correct. So the law enforcement should focus on people who use equipment in unapproved way. Not in prohibiting equipment in the first place. I own an RF sweep generator, and it would be trivial to attach it to an RF amplifier and antenna and wreck havoc on the airwaves. It would be my doing so that would be illegal, not the fact that I own the RF sweep generator and the necessary skills to amplify and radiate the signal.
"What size of an area should you have the right to block all signals?"
I think it's a good question, and one where law has gone a bit off it's logical wheels for commercial consideration.
Have you ever thought about the fact that at any given moment most of us have radio signals from hundreds of different sources beaming through across our property and even through our body, without anyone ever having to ask permission?
Now to a degree that makes sense. The benefit of having radio bandwidth available and the quite low levels of risk involved (at least as best we know) from exposure make it seem quite petty to attempt to block them completely, all the time. But it always seemed to me that at the very least, if someone is beaming a signal through my property without my permission, surely I then have a right to at least take a look at the signal. I mean, if they want it to be private, and they are sending it across my property without permission, surely at the very least it's their responsibility to encrypt and not my fault if they fail at that. I really am not the 'pirate tv' type - those people like tv - but among the few occasions when I have enjoyed it was when I used to pick up raw feeds, particularly the parts that never made it onto the regular broadcasts. The conversations people had while waiting for the signal that they were going on-air. Obviously I wasnt *intended* to see that, but it was broadcast through me and my property without my permission in a form I could read, so just how do they generate not only a right to penetrate me with radio waves as will, but even a right to force me to (figuratively, at least) close my eyes and not peek while they do it?
IIRC there was an early precedent or two supporting that outlook, but then someone started making money selling satellite TV and saw a threat to their system and eventually got precedents to the contrary, so you have no recognized right to read their signal, even though it's being broadcast through your property against your will, and even if it's so poorly encypted as to be transparent, am I correct?
And now this subject comes up. I know the ban on jammers is not new, of course, but this discussion of it is. And I really dont see why anyone else should have a say if I want to temporarily jam one of these signals, on my own property, for any number of reasons; as long as my jammer does not disrupt usage for those who are not on my property, how can this possibly be anyone elses concern?
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Someone has been out in the sun too long.
think harder.
it MAY be easy for them to find the jammer. if the person who plants one has any brains, it will be hard to impossible to find who owns it.
with some truly creative use of coax and multiple antennae, it is also possible to make it impossible to even find the source of the signal with triangulation
Why do they need the names of everyone who bought one of these? Is it illegal to own one? What if I bought one because it was just the right size and weight for a doorstop?
And the law should be used to enforce against people who operate a device. Not because the device exists.
It is much more efficient to enforce laws against illegal devices on the limited number of manufacturers and not on the billions of potential users.
I.e., if a device cannot legally be used, then stop before it is sold when you can get thousands of them at one time, instead of doing it one by one after tracking down the users.
Suppose the manufacturer in this case was a Chinese company making a cheap radio that emitted signals that interfered with the radio stations you wanted to listen to? Would you rather the FCC stop the manufacturer from making and selling such a piece of interfering garbage, or would it be better for you to have to call the FCC to have someone come out to track down the source and deal with it then? And then you have to call them again in a week because another neighbor bought the same piece of crap radio. And then again a week later...
Yes, I think you're right. Let the market be flooded with crap that creates interference for you all day, every day, and you can deal with tracking it down one by one by one ...
If i want it, i will get it. Do you think i care about authorization?
You do realize that this...er...'argument' can also be used by nation states, with a few modest differences in how much force they can put to the task of getting it?
Not really. Under Franklin Roosevelt, eminent domain was expanded to the point where you don't really own your land, you own a license to use it from the government, which can be revoked at any time.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Depends on how you paid for it. Any US financial institution, credit card issuer, paypal, or equivalent would roll over, wag their tail, and corroborate your order in short order. If it were unsolicited, or paid for by some suitably byzantine money trail, they might try to treat it as probable cause for some sort of further investigation, if the goods were sufficiently juicy. If not, it'd probably sit around waiting for you to pick it up, then eventually get shredded.
The FCC doesn't have jurisdiction in China. Unless the company has assets and/or a legal presence in America, they will laugh and give the FCC the middle finger.
The FCC can stop them from selling any products at all in the US in that case. The US is still the largest market for many, if not most, Chinese companies.
Jammers usually go for 'cheap and loud' because that's a lot easier than anything more sophisticated; but unless your glasshole has been doing some serious tinkering, the TAC portion of his IMEI (which goes out in the clear) should make him readily identifiable. At that point you could go loud and dumb; but on a narrowly directional antenna, or try a more sophisticated stingray-style tower impersonation.
I don't think that anybody actually bothers, since they usually just want to jam (except law enforcement customers, they apparently just can't get enough of stingrays); but identifying phones by model type is not the hard part.
I am not sure if you are joking but a doubt going sleeveless has anything to do with jammers. Also, jammers are not weapons as defined by law.
To the best of my knowledge, they're not even illegal as defined by law. To possess, that is. It might be quite illegal to use them.
It's like the old cable TV descramblers. It was perfectly legal to build, sell, buy or own one. It was just illegal to use them to get free cable.
It's not the tool, it's the action. Just like how it's not illegal to own a gun. It's just (usually) illegal to shoot someone with it. Hell, it's illegal to kill someone with a garden rake, too.
In a perfect world yes. but to make things easier to enforce, they've banned the sale and import of products that do not meet FCC regulations.
Still won't stop you being caught on their camera, which records to local storage, except now you've broken the law on camera.
Owning one should not be illegal. If the FCC wants to regulate usage, that's fine, unless you actually USE it, it's not transmitting anything, and thus shouldn't be banned.
The same principle goes for amateur Radio equipment (HAM). I own several handheld transceivers, capable of transmitting in VHF/UHF even though I don't have a my HAM license yet (plan on it here one day when I have some free time). The equipment is not illegal for me to purchase or own just because I don't have a valid license. Only transmitting becomes illegal without a license. For instance, I can fire up my VHF/UHF and tune in an receive signals and listen to other 'Elmers' rag-chew all day long without a license. It isn't until the moment I "Press that PTT button" and 'key up' that it becomes illegal without a license.
The FCC has powers to regulate EMF and radio transmissions and by extension, regulate people and electronics that ARE transmitting radio freqs...however, they don't have authority over the actual electronics (or people) that have not transmitted anything over radio freqs.
Yea, this situation is what contributed to the end of pirate radio boats off the coast of Britain.
The boats would broadcast and interfere with the emergency signals from commercial boating traffic; so when an accident happened and people needed rescue, no one could hear them over the pirate radio broadcasts.
You want a powerful HERF blast, that fries the electronics in the Glass, not something that just interferes. Destroy the evidence.
But this is just conjecture.
Any device can be 'legally used' in some fashion. It can be used as a decoration. The existence of a device does not imply it will be used to break the law.
It's called Prior Restraint, and it's a well established legal principle.
Law enforcement needs to focus on instances where a crime has occurred, not chasing after hypothetical cases.
Except where there is the risk for loss of life associated with jammer equipment. An airplane could crash due to GPS jammers !
Sometimes government does overstep and creates unnecessary burden, but in this case the idea of preventing people from getting GPS jammers is a very proper and necessary step. Jammers / Spoofers should only be available for military usage, no exceptions.
You need to go out and study how much we depend all the time from the electromagnetic spectrum. Then come back and discuss wisely.
Not that I would expect a libertarian nut to show such wisdom. Your right is more important than mine after all in your silly little mind.
To the best of my knowledge, they're not even illegal as defined by law
According to this "[f]ederal law prohibits the marketing, sale, or use of a transmitter (e.g., a jammer) designed to block, jam, or interfere with wireless communications". Section 203(b) prohibits making onefor use in the US too.
Section 302(b) of the Communications Act: “No person shall manufacture, import, sell, offer for sale, or ship devices or home electronic equipment and systems, or use devices, which fail to comply with regulations promulgated pursuant to this section.”
Oh, I don't disagree that it's a terrible idea (were I so motivated, I'd take advantage of the fact that cheap silicon sensors almost always have terrible IR filters and ample IR sensitivity, and there's absolutely nothing illegal about pretty much any IR level that doesn't cause permanent sensor damage or retinal harm), merely wished to point out that identifying cellular devices, down to a fairly precise level of detail(unlike, say, MACs which give the vendor and not much else barring specific knowledge of a given vendor's assignment practices) is not the hard part.
Basically any RF-based tampering is going to be illegal, and may be challenging depending on how elegant you want it to be.
I would imagine the world's biggest Track'n'Trace regime outside the US would not want their citizens to have the ability to create a tracking fog.. well, I guess they could just switch off that damn thing. Their mobile, that is.
Let's ask the FCC!
http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/j...
"Signal jammers do not respect property lines, and federal law provides no exception that allows for the private or commercial use of a jammer."
Maybe you could "passively block it", exactly as you said a few lines up.
How in the world do you know that nobody nearby is making an emergency call, when you want to test your home security system? You're opening a can of worms, for no actual benefit.
Again, from the FCC:
"Jammers are more than just a nuisance; they pose an unacceptable risk to public safety by potentially preventing the transmission of emergency communications. Cell phone jammers do not distinguish between social or other cell phone conversations and an emergency call to a family member or a 9-1-1 emergency responder. Similarly, GPS and Wi-Fi jammers maliciously disrupt both routine and critical communications services. Jammers could also block more than just cell phone calls; these devices could disrupt important communications services that operate on adjacent frequencies, or worse, they could disrupt all communications within a broad frequency range."
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Ham radio equipment has valid and legal uses. You can get a license for ham radio. You can't get a license for a jammer. There is no scenario in which it can be used, legally.
It makes no sense to claim companies should be able to market and sell a device, which has NO POSSIBLE legal use. If nothing else, devices that can emit RF have to be approved by the FCC before they can be sold, and there is their authority to ban jammers, just by another name.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The FCC can stop them from selling any products at all in the US in that case.
Wow it's so simple.
Why didn't the FCC just stop them from selling the jammers in the first place then if it had that magical power???
I throw people out of the theatre all day long for using their cell phones...
There are places it should be legal and my business or home is one of them.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
It will be a minor annoyance for this company to not be able to directly deal with the USA, but there are plenty of companies, banks and countries outside of the USA that will be happy to provide a way around the FCC.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I saw the "they can find the jammer but not me" angle pretty easily, but not the next thing you said. Just curious, how might you make it truly impossible to find the source of the signal, with multiple antennae? Do you think it would still be impossible if the searchers considered the possibility of multiple antennae? If that's an impossible problem to solve, the reason isn't obvious to me, I wonder if you could explain why?
I think he meant "ask that question and also verify that the answer is yes", but in the case of broadcasters, it's clearly no. I don't think any modern citizen has any say over what is transmitted through their property. Seems like probably a good thing to me, though...
According to this "[f]ederal law prohibits the marketing, sale, or use of a transmitter (e.g., a jammer) designed to block, jam, or interfere with wireless communications". Section 203(b) prohibits making onefor use in the US too.
It's a completely toothless law.
See, the whole flaw in the law is that there is no practical way of outlawing test equipment. Test equipment, that is, that does exactly the same thing. It just isn't intended to jam or block wireless communications! It's intended to test your new phone models' susceptibility to interference, for example.
So I repeat: it isn't against the law to own the equipment. It's only illegal if it was built, bought or sold with intent to use it illegally.
They aren't busting people for selling illegal equipment. They're busting them for selling equipment that was intended to be used illegally. Again, same analogy: it's illegal to sell your gun to somebody if you know or have reason to believe they intend to go commit murder with it.
I addressed these questions in another thread:
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I'm sorry, you seem to be forgetting why the guy in Florida was fined. It wasn't solely the cell phone communications, it was more because he was jamming the 800MHz Public Safety band on either side of the 850MHz GSM allocations, because it's not really possible to make a "neat magical jammer" that only gets the cell bands. it's going to spill onto adjacent public safety and land mobile allocations.
You don't have authorization to operate radio equipment in those bands, thus, no you should not be able to get one.
Technically, "operate" and "own" are two different concepts, no?
If I ever bought a personal jammer I wouldn't leave it on. I would just press it when needed so that the
targetted call got dropped. 5 seconds should be plenty of time.
And an active jammer is actually safer than the passive jammers some theatres are putting in.
A passive jammer can't be turned on and off. It's permanently on so calling 911, etc.. is impossible.
Honestly, as a movie theatre I think the correct solution is to just install a small tower right on top
of your building (or a micro tower inside each theatre) then charge $5 per minute for all calls not to 911.
I agree with Garble Snarky. Further, if there is coax involved, finding one antenna will enable you to follow the cable back to the device.
In all seriousness, though, FCC fines or not, and regardless what you think of the FCC, don't fuck with this stuff. If you prevent an emergency call from going through, someone could die. Just don't mess with comms.
www.wavefront-av.com
Why? What makes you think that a free-for-all radio frequency spectrum is in anyone's best interest?
I'm guessing from your selfish attitude that you've never been an emergency services volunteer who donates a large amount of his free time to training how to save the lives of other people and might want to be able to go to a movie or a restaurant every so often and not be unable to get the notification that someone needs help.
So you think passively blocking them like many theatres are doing now is better?
Passively blocking signals is worse as there is no ability to turn it off at all.
I am sure that rationale will be a great consolation when one of your neighbours dies of a heart attack because his family couldn't call for an ambulance.
www.wavefront-av.com
I could be wrong but based on the summery it looks to me like one of the big problems with this device is that they said it had FCC approval when it didn't. It may have been fine for them to sell the jammer (i.e. the FCC wouldn't have gotten involved) if they hadn't labeled it as FCC approved.
What prevents Shenzhen Anonymous Corporation to change their name to something else like Shenzhen Nameless Corporation and go back to Alibaba and continue trading like nothing happened after FCC fine is imposed?
Yay! Hope you never invite a doctor over to your house. Or a policeman. They need to be available 24/7.
. Define sqrt(x) as something really evil like (x / rand()), and bury it deep. Watch your coworkers go nuts.
"Depends. Can you guarantee that the emissions are limited only to your home and will in no way inconvenience others around you?" Perhaps someone should have asked the broadcasters that question before allowing them to transmit through my person and property?
Common good right to broadcast >> faux right to insulate your organs from faux transgressions. Damn, I should have a right to block someone's anus before he/she releases a silent fart that might contaminate the atmosphere near my own personal space :/
You **can't** physically do this. RF doesn't magically just stop at a boundary. Even miles away there's still some signal, it's just in the noise.
You can block signals easily - just build a faraday cage (or elementary school - all of the ones around here seem to sap signal to the point that my battery lasts only an hour) into your building design for your [ house | business | theatre | whatever ]. That's passive, and completely legal (I'm not your lawyer, nor is this legal advise, it's purely my personal opinion). But transmitting, that's when it becomes the FCC's business because **airwaves are public - they don't stop at your front door, they continue for quite some distance, so they're all on public "property"**.
. Define sqrt(x) as something really evil like (x / rand()), and bury it deep. Watch your coworkers go nuts.
It just isn't intended to jam or block wireless communications!
Do you see the word "intended" anywhere in the law? The law stated "designed" not "intended".
there is no practical way of outlawing test equipment.
There is a practical way and it is called licensing/certification. All RF transmitters must be certified to comply with FCC regulations. A jammer would not be certified if it put out enough noise to be effective as a jammer. So the FCC certifies the testing jammer and only allows sale to a person with a license to use that testing jammer.
Again, same analogy: it's illegal to sell your gun to somebody if you know or have reason to believe they intend to go commit murder with it.
The gun laws you are referring to pertain to the manufacture and sale by a private individual. Manufacture and sale by a company is very different. It is Federal law that requires a company that wants to manufacture and/or sell firearms to hold a Federal Firearms License. It is also illegal for private individuals to knowingly sell guns to certain categories or people (EG felons, mentally disable, etc).
I knew Sting concert tickets had gotten expensive, but this?
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The problem with this theory is that a signal jammer is trivial to make. I accidently built one when I was 12.
I put it in a small box with a button and thought it was a great parlor trick at the time. A simple google search
turns up dozens of links with instructions if someone is not smart enough to come up with one by themself.
Heck, even a microwave or tesla coil works pretty decent as a jammer.
Individuals who are on call need to make sure they go places they are open to cell phones, much the same way they need to remain within a certain distance of their work. Why should the rest of the world suffer for these few special needs individuals ??
My house is an AT&T black-hole anyways. I had to switch carriers after many complaints because I couldn't receive call in the back of my house. Verizon has NO SUCH problem in this area apparently.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Do you see the word "intended" anywhere in the law? The law stated "designed" not "intended".
Do you have a logical cell or two in your brain? If it was designed and built to be test equipment, then it wasn't intended to be used "to jam communications". You are making a distinction with no real difference.
The gun laws you are referring to pertain to the manufacture and sale by a private individual. Manufacture and sale by a company is very different.
No, it isn't. It's just as illegal for a manufacturer to sell a gun to someone with the knowledge that they intend to use it for murder, as it is for anyone else. You need to take a law 101 course.
It is Federal law that requires a company that wants to manufacture and/or sell firearms to hold a Federal Firearms License.
So? That is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to the discussion at hand. Guess what? Makers of telecommunications equipment need to get licenses too.
It is also illegal for private individuals to knowingly sell guns to certain categories or people (EG felons, mentally disable, etc).
Those are State laws, not Federal, and they vary from State to State. For example: in some States, felons who have served their sentences can apply to get their firearms rights restored. In some States that is not allowed. Etc. Again, I suggest you look up some basic information on these things.
So you think passively blocking them like many theatres are doing now is better?
Do you see anyplace where I've said anything like that? You see a comment about people who volunteer their time still being allowed to have a night out while being on call and you think I would support any system that keeps them from being able to have one?
Passively blocking signals is worse as there is no ability to turn it off at all.
Yes, it is bad for that reason, a fact that is not in dispute. It is, however, LEGAL, despite being selfish and stupid, and and pandering to selfish, stupid people. I think it would be just as appropriate for the ob/gyn to be unreachable for the person who supports both active and passive disabling of communications systems other people, who are required for the good of the public, rely on.
And there is no intention for any active jammer to turn off his jammer because there is a doctor in the room who is about to receive an emergency phone call, so the difference you point out between active and passive is effectively moot. The only difference is legality.
If I ever bought a personal jammer I wouldn't leave it on. I would just press it when needed
When do you ever really NEED to jam someone else's personal communications? Because you are selfish enough that you think your right to silence when you are out in public supersedes everyone else's right to be out in public and enjoy themselves, too?
Honestly, as a movie theatre I think the correct solution is to just install a small tower right on top of your building (or a micro tower inside each theatre) then charge $5 per minute for all calls not to 911.
So you truly do believe that the parents who are seeking a night out away from the kids so they can keep their relationship fresh and active, who need to be reachable by the baby sitter if there is an emergency, should just fuck off because they might inconvenience you for a few seconds? Because the phone in his pocket might vibrate from a text message that says "Billy broke his arm, meet us at the hospital" and that cannot be allowed to happen because it might detract from your pleasure?
Do you really not realize how selfish that is? Do you really not realize that that kind of obnoxiously selfish attitude on your part could be a reason that people who want YOU to fuck off might deliberately do things to annoy you? I don't even know who you are and you make me want to go to a movie right now and change ringtone settings so I can annoy all the people like you.
Jammers / Spoofers should only be available for military usage, no exceptions.
Careful, any Libertarian nut worth his tin foil hat is now going to claim that ownership and operation should now be protected by the 2nd Amendment, so they can pretend that they have the ability to rise up in rebellion.
What if I want to test my home security system that relies on cell towers?
Maybe you could "passively block it", exactly as you said a few lines up.
I needed to test a 4G data device and change settings on it without it connecting to a 4G service and incurring data charges. I could have bought a jammer and broadcast an illegal signal, but it was much cheaper and easier to just put it in an anti-static bag (portable Faraday cage). That didn't interfere with anyone.
But then, I'm not selfish enough to think that my use of the spectrum shared by so many other people is paramount to theirs.
But you see how you owning the indivdual parts that each have many legitimate uses is a seperate thing from owning a single use product that only has the ability to function in an illegal manner?
One would imagine that drugs have a much higher margin then jammers. They certainly have a much more valuable market. The Juice is worth the Squeeze there. With Jammers, idk, but probably not so much.
Due process?
Any device can be 'legally used' in some fashion. It can be used as a decoration.
What a ridiculous argument. A jammer is sold to be used for illegal purposes. There is no legal use of a jammer, because no serious argument tries to claim that "planting flowers in a jamming device" is actually using the jammer. The simple question to ask is, who would buy the device if it did not perform as a jammer? People buy antiques that are non-functional because they are antiques or look cool, but nobody buys a jammer that won't jam. It's called "suitability of purpose" or something like that in the implied warranty laws.
It's called Prior Restraint, and it's a well established legal principle.
Stopping a manufacturer from importing a device that cannot legally be imported into the US is not "prior restraint", it is enforcing the law.
Law enforcement needs to focus on instances where a crime has occurred,
They did, and they are. It is a crime to import and sell such devices, and that's what they enforced. As for "hypothetical cases", it is not a hypothesis that someone who buys a jamming device cannot legally use it, it is a fact.
Or seize assets within reach of the Government.
When sued -
0. stall plaintiff
1. transfer assets to a new shell company
2. closed down old shell company
3. rinse and repeat
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
> I throw people out of the theatre all day long for using
> their cell phones... There are places it should be legal
> and my business or home is one of them.
Try covering the walls of the theatre room with aluminum foil or tin foil. It's not exactly a new idea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
> In 1836, Michael Faraday observed that the excess charge on a charged conductor
> resided only on its exterior and had no influence on anything enclosed within it.
> To demonstrate this fact, he built a room coated with metal foil and allowed
> high-voltage discharges from an electrostatic generator to strike the outside of
> the room. He used an electroscope to show that there was no electric charge
> present on the inside of the room's walls.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
So you truly do believe that the parents who are seeking a night out away from the kids so they can keep their relationship fresh and active, who need to be reachable by the baby sitter if there is an emergency, should just fuck off because they might inconvenience you for a few seconds?
Too bad that's not what it usually is. I've been in a theatre where there were multiple people on their phones for the entire duration of the movie.
I truly believe that the movie theatre should immediately escort anyone talking on a phone out of the building if they aren't curtious enough to
leave on their own accord when they receive a phone call. I understand that someone might have an emergency but is your emergency important
enough to disturb the other 200 parents in the theatre that want a night away from the kids and paid to watch the movie?
How does the parent who wants a night away from the kids rights trump the other 200 patrons that might want the same thing?
And the real problem is that most if not all of the phone calls that happen in a theatre are NOT emergencies.
I think having an inside tower which intercepts calls and charges $5/minute would be a good solution that address both the emergency situations
and the "other 200 patrons" problem. If you can't pay $5 to answer your call it's not an emergency. Heck, the fee should probably be AT LEAST
as much as 2-3 tickets if not 50 tickets.
not an impossible problem in the absolute sense, but impossible problem with the usual tools of directional antenna and filtered signal strength meter if lobes of far field patterns crafted by cunning E&M student
There's no reason to be an asshole, he had at least one example where it's not infringing on anybody.
But that doesn't suit your agenda does it ?
Making owning something illegal based solely on your own fears about how it might be used, and on your own ignorance isn't something to be proud of.
Particularly in this case, where people who really want one will simply build one anyway. What you should be advocating for, but are not, because you're a totalitarian asshole, is proper regulation of the device, not making it outright illegal to even own.
People like you are why we don't have really cool chemistry sets anymore. I have to admit, I really hate people like you, you turn the world into shit.
If you were trying for sarcasm, big fail there.
If you were serious, you're an idiot.