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Chicagoan Arrested For Using Cell-phone Jammer To Make Subway Commute Tolerable (chicagotribune.com)
McGruber writes with this story from the Chicago Tribune: Last Fall, certified public accountant Dennis Nicholl boarded a Chicago subway train while carrying a plastic bag of Old Style beer. Nicholl popped open a beer and looked around the car, scowling as he saw another rider talking on a cellphone. He pulled out a black device from his pocket and switched it on. Commuters who had been talking on their phones went silent, checking their screens for the source of their dropped calls. On Tuesday, undercover officers arrested Nicholl. Cook County prosecutors and Chicago police allege he created his own personal 'quiet car' on the subway by using an illegal device he imported from China. He was charged with unlawful interference with a public utility, a felony. This is not the first time Nicholl has been charged with jamming cell calls. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in June 2009, according to court records. He was placed under court supervision for a year, and his equipment was confiscated and destroyed.
It's a Techdirt headline.
He's lucky there wasn't an emergency and that his device did not interfere with a 911 call. This is reckless behavior, and he already knew the seriousness of this crime because of the prior conviction.
By the way, are you allowed to have a beer on the Chicago public transit? If so, that's fantastic!
There are no good guys in this story. He's a dick for blocking other people's services. The government are being ridiculous in charging him with felonies and holding hundreds of thousands in fines over his head, and people having loud animated conversations on their cell phones in crowded public spaces are rude.
If he did what he is accused of then he is guilty of disturbing the peace. He should be punished accordingly. He's not guilty of intercepting people's cell calls and recording their conversations with a sting-ray device. He didn't bring down the local power sub-station. He did the equivalent of loudly disrupting a public meeting. Proportionality is an important concept, and we've lost track of it.
Didn't realize drinking beer in US subways is according to the rules. Wouldn't want a self-styled vigilante grab your beer and pour it all over you or something, now would we?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
He's a hero. Please jam cell phones everywhere.
Buy some ear plugs, asshole. And get over yourself.
Well he is probably blocking calls not just in the subway but allround, at least in the NYC there are not that many basestations in the subways. There is data about this on RF spotting site: http://subspotting.nyc/
People just don't talk on their phones in the trains excepting the actual emergency call. It's considered rude and people respect that. Too bad people in the USA can't think of others before their own selfish needs. This would be a non-issue if people were actually polite. Hell, people who kill themselves in Japan actually have the courtesy to take their shoes off before jumping in front of a train so others will know it's intentional and not an accident. Thinking of others until the end.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Where is this Chicago 'subway'? Must have good sandwiches, cause it certainly isn't for traveling.
....for taking it out to flip a stupid switch.
Smart would have been to be on a call himself, and meanwhile in his pocket flip the switch, then act all annoyed and pissed like everyone else.
BTW where could I buy one?
-Styopa
Since he had already been arrested before, he was well aware of the consequences of getting caught. So why take out the device. Keep it hidden somewhere while using it. (Although now that he has a record, he would be a suspect) The probably of their just happening to be undercover police on that train and them knowing what is going on is pretty low. He must have done this enough to arouse a level of suspicion where undercover police were put on the train. This is more like, habitual offender continues to commit crime in the most public way possible until police feel compelled to arrest him. File this in news of the stupid. Why are people using their phones on the commute? To make it more tolerable. I'd certainly find talking to somebody I already know and like preferable to hanging out with this guy!
to bombard this fellow with their radiations?
How did all these people do their jobs before mobile phones were invented?
Are doctors and firefighters expected to react to mobile phone calls and respond immediately, abandoning whatever they're doing at the moment like Superman? Do they have to change in phone booths too?
A pair of Quiet Comfort noise cancelling headphones would have been a better idea, especially since he had been caught with a jammer before.
Must not have been paying attention in kindergarten when they discussed making good choices.
I think one of the reasons Harris Stingrays and other IMSI catchers have been sold under very restrictive non-disclosure agreements is that they have always been in clear violation of the FCC's rules, and every user is guilty of frequency jamming, regardless of the warrants. If even one case goes before the FCC, the whole IMSI catching business could be shut down if the judge is sufficiently pissed off.
John
Chicago subway passengers engross selves in phones to avoid making eye contact with weirdo drinking a beer on the subway.
And the doctors used to use rocks that they sharpened to perform surgery thousands of years ago. Since that's how they did it before, that's how you want them to do it now, on you, right? Sorry to drag your ass into the present, but the world has up and changed in the past 30 years. Here's the memo.
The El in Chicago is LOUD. The Red Line and Blue Line especially, at least the parts underground. Maybe the Red gets quieter up North—I know the stop where he got on.
Outside the train, an over-passing El will stop conversation for a good 20 seconds or more. The Loop is quite loud, but the loudest stop is the Brown Line at Diversey. It's overhead, most of the support is painted steel, and there are brick buildings directly adjacent to the track on all four sides. It's a deafening echo-chamber.
The cell phone situation in London is much better, at least on the tube. Compared to Chicago's, that thing is VERY LOUD. The Regional trains, well, it's a mixed bag. But they do have a "Quiet Car" on many of the lines (no cell phones allowed).
How did all these people do their jobs before mobile phones were invented?
Are doctors and firefighters expected to react to mobile phone calls and respond immediately, abandoning whatever they're doing at the moment like Superman? Do they have to change in phone booths too?
Try job hunting while still in college without a cell phone so you can do interview calls in whatever random free time you have. You can't. You sound like the type of person who hasn't actually had to really hunt for a job in decades and don't know jack and shit all about the current market.
On the topic of doctors and phone, a bunch of doctors...yes. Did you forget pagers have exists for a long time? What do you think "on call" means? IT people have cell phones so they can be reached immediately in case of an emergency too. Welcome to how the world works. You fell behind a long time ago apparently so stop pretending this is recent just because you are ignorant .
Highly unlikely.
More likely, confiscated and given away during the monthly employee empound raffle.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
Yeah, I mean, if it was me I would leave it concealed and only use it if people were being really bad. But only long enough to disrupt the call. Then repeat if they dial back.
People are used to dropped calls on their mobile phones so just repeat like 3 times and they will give up and try their call when they are off the subway.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Don't you know that police don't have to obey the law? I thought everyone knew this. Why else does one become a cop?
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
...who thinks that this guy was doing a service to all riders who also consider inconsiderate cell phone talkers to be boorish? When I'm forced into close proximity (train, restaurant, etc.), I should not be forced to listen to your over-loud end of a phone conversation just because your mother never taught you anything about proper decorum in such situations.
Actually, you do have every right to talk on your cellphone. Being rude and being against the law are two different things. The reaction to the former shouldn't be to do the latter. If you don't like hearing people talking on their cellphones, invest in some noise cancelling headphones. What's next? You don't like the smell of people when shoved together into the tiny metal box of a subway car so you bring a super-soaker filled with perfume and spray them all down?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Call me Mabey?
How did all these people do their jobs before mobile phones were invented?
Differently. These days, access to cellular networks is assumed (though this is not always a valid assumption). This drives many other decisions and can make a loss of network access far more significant than it was 20 years ago. Human beings got along fine without electricity too, but today a power outage is considered a major problem. Times change.
Unless you've ever lived in a big city and commuted regularly by train, you wouldn't be aware of how silent riders are in rush hour, especially morning rush hour when the trains and stations are most crowded. A single person making small talk on their phone annoys everyone.
The mistake this guy made was running his jammer continuously. If you have jammer and want to target one person on a cell phone, you only have to momentarily switch on the jammer when the other end of the call is talking. When the rider is chatting, you leave the jammer off, when the other end is talking, you turn it on. Within 30 seconds, the caller will give up. Using this approach, your jammer is only on for a few seconds at a time.
I work alongside someone who has permission to keep his mobile phone on his desk in an office which is otherwise meant to be a no-mobile zone. He's waiting for a transplant and if an organ match comes available he needs to know right away so he can get to the hospital and start getting prepped for the operation immediately. Someone using a jammer for their convenience could result in him dying before he can get treated.
911 calls from cell phones on public transit are relatively rare. But many of us use the data links on our smart phones to check our schedules for connections for other buses or for trains. Many of us in high demand work also respond to text based alerts during lengthy commutes. We're not loud, we're not speaking on the cell phones, and it's much safer to do this on public transit than it is to drive home and have to pull off the road to handle an alert. So it sounds like he's interfering with people who are being responsible and safe, as well as those who are rude.
In Ontario, Canada, the commuter rail system (GO) has designated "quiet cars" where speaking and electronic noises is not allowed:
* http://www.gotransit.com/public/en/travelling/quietzone.aspx
Perhaps something similar is needed in Chicago.
He was charged with unlawful interference with a public utility, a felony, which is insane.
We already have a law for unlawful interference with radio communication, from back when the Titanic went down and unlicensed radio stations made it harder for them to get distress signals out. Let's use that.
When a person talks loudly on his phone not too far from me, I just pretend to have a phone in my hand, and I repeat everything he says.
I've used mass transit for years. He was either arrogant or ignorant. Simple solution is noise blocking earphones or headphones. I use them when people are annoying or simply I want quiet or to listen to music. It works amazingly well. I've even had people complain to me about various stuff over the years and have even been known to say. "Hey what do you expect for $x." In the end, he wanted to be seen and caught. Now the consequence.
I am extremely sympathetic to this guy. I'd like to myself have the technology to shut down annoying people doing annoying things. Unfortunately, I am also sympathetic to the fact that this is illegal, and it's illegal for good reason, and he should go to jail. If he'd only done it once, he should just get a warning: but this isn't the first time, and he should go to jail
Bootleg cellphones are common in prisons - most inmates do not have cell phone privileges. Inmates run businesses of them, talked to friend etc. I've read of great lengths to get batteries charged. Yet FCC band blockers in prisons for safety reasons.
The guy is a jerkwad and deserves to get reamed for this. If he would have kept it hid, he would have had his quiet-time and nobody (there) would have known who to blame.
,,,,,
I am making a mental note of this incident tho: if I am somewhere similar and my phone (and everyone else's) appears to be dead, then Imma going to pull out my phone, pretend to call somebody and just keep on talking like normal.
Also, isn't most of the Chicago "subway" elevated, not underground? I suspect most subway systems don't have this problem because cell reception is nonexistent underground in the first place. If this system had been designed properly in the first place, this wouldn't have been a problem. I just got a new cell phone, and it doesn't get data service inside most stores... should i suspect people are jamming it, or that cellular data signals just don't work very well through metal walls... you know, like the kind all trains have?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Perhaps this demonstrates consumer interest in offering signal free cars? Add a physical 'in case of emergency' phone for 911 calls if need be.
Did you miss the point that he was charged and plead guilty to the exact same offence in 2009? The first time he got a slap on the wrist. It seems he didn't learn from it.
This is not the first time Nicholl has been charged with jamming cell calls. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in June 2009, according to court records. He was placed under court supervision for a year, and his equipment was confiscated and destroyed.
Not that we have a subway, but I've noticed at certain bus rides the entire cell coverage on multiple channels drops entirely, when certain people get on the bus and comes back after they leave it.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Chicagoan Arrested For Using Cell-phone Jammer To Make Subway Commute Tolerable For Himself at the Expense of Everyone Around Him
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
What I wonder is why the imbecile didn't just hide his fun box with its many antennas? You know, just keep it in a backpack. He'd been caught jamming once already, so if he was going to be an ass and keep doing it, he could at least be a smart ass. They could still figure out it was him using surveillance cameras and statistical analysis, but it might take more work than the local police would be willing to put in.
Sociologists should study and solve the problem of endless loud talk over telephone on the bus, train, tram, etc. When someone starts it near me, I just have to move to another part of the wagon. It is so annoying.
Almost assuredly could be, especially if the other person has an allergic reaction to it.
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/10/02/woman-charged-in-perfume-assault
No, I didn't equate them, and you'd have to an idiot with the reading comprehension of a wad of used bubble gum to believe so.
maybe a dumb question but how did he get caught doing this ?