Slashdot Mirror
Ban Sale of Mini Mobiles, Says Justice Minister (cnet.com)
Online retail companies should ban the sale of mini mobile phones designed to be smuggled into prisons, said justice secretary David Lidington on Monday. From a report: Often marketed as "Beat the Boss phones", the tiny feature phones can be bought for around $25 to $40 online on sites including Amazon, Ebay and Gumtree. On the inside, they can change hands for up to $670. The phones, which can be as small as lipsticks, are popular with prison inmates due to their discreet size and lack of metal, which allows them to beat metal detectors. Mobile phones are banned in prisons, in part because they allow inmates to continue criminal activities while they're locked up. But around 20,000 phones and SIM cards were seized by prison guards in 2016, with mini mobiles making up around a third of these.
... fuck off, and do your job?
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
They'll be half that size in a couple years. And then half as small again a few years after that. Why fight a battle you already know you're going to lose?
Oh who am I kidding clearly the rest of the population should suffer because it would be inconvenient for prisons to take any sort of active measure to prevent cellular communications between inmates and the outside world....
kthxbye
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
... in part ...
But the real reason is the prison telephone company monopoly. That's a gravy train they do not want stopped.
AC
Yes, because no one besides prisoners could possibly be interested in a small, simple phone. Here's an idea, stop allowing stuff to be smuggled into prisons. Or do random sweeps for them (its very hard to hide anything with a transistor if you have the right equipment) and punish those caught with them (added prison terms, revocation of privileges, etc). Society shouldn't be punished because the government can't keep people IN PRISON from getting contraband.
Maybe if prison calling didn't cost 15 dollars a fucking minute there would not be incentive to smuggle phones in.
They would not be so popular if the criminal enterprise hadn't shifted to the prison/phone service extorting the inmates when using provided phones. When it makes economic sense to pay $670 for a $30 phone someone is screwing somebody else. When it makes economic sense after 20,000 have been confiscated makes this even clearer.
For a criminal justice system to receive the acceptance of the ruled it's important to be able to distinguish the scum incarcerated from the scum incarcerating. The line gets very thin a times although saying so is frowned upon. But that scum for you.
.... how about put them to work for the greater good, instead of god-knows-what they're doing with them now?
This was about British prisons?
I mean, "Justice Minister" was a pretty solid clue they weren't talking American prisons, but we'd like enough info in TFS to know where the problem is appearing, at least....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I had no idea these existed. They seem insertion-sized, if you get my drift.
Better known as 318230.
I'd honestly love something that's light, unbreakable (no glass touch screen, just plastic display), and fits in any of my pockets easily. I don't need smartphone functionality most of the time.
As far as prison phone monopolies, I have no idea whether the British (what this article is about) have them or not.
Block all phone signals with active jammers. No fingers up visitor rectums needed.
If you mouse over the link in TFS, you'll see it refer to cnet/uk. Granted, I'd prefer a tag, but it was actually noticeable this time.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
It's bad for bored prison criminals to have unsupervised access to phones:
https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/virtual-kidnapping
http://www.wnd.com/2016/02/kidnapping-scam-explodes-across-america/
Why aren't they allowed to use jammers?
As a runner, I've been thinking about getting one of the tiny phones. Put it in a shoe wallet.
Sounds like this is a good reason to build all new prisons as a Faraday cage and retrofit old ones to be one as well. they already spend the money on a cage around the outside to keep people in/out, why not the same for RF as well? Just clad entire buildings with grounded mesh.
Prison guard radios would still work within the cage, If they needed their radios to keep contact outside the cage a repeater could be setup inside. Same could be done for guard/employee cell phones. Setup pico cells on the inside and whitelist IMEIs
The other option is cellular jammers, prisons typically have some buffer space around them, and also the building itself would attenuate a lot of the jammer. Multiple jammers setup with 100 ft radiuses would likely cause little interference to the outside world.
Another cheaper option might be frequency monitors within the prison areas. Guards would be unable to carry powered on personal cell phones. With enough of the monitors you would know roughly where the contraband is once it were used, and then do a good old fashioned prison cell search to find it
Faraday cages are probably the best option for the long term, frequency monitors or jammers will have to be constantly updated as new cellular bands come into use. Faraday cage will block everything as long as the holes in the mesh are small enough. Typical metal window screen should block most of it except super high frequencies which are going to have line of sight issues anyways. Take a look at the mesh on your typical microwave oven door. such a mesh would block all typical frequencies used today.
No, not "beat the boss". Beat the B.O.S.S., as in Bodily Orifice Security Scanner, a chair-type scanner used in U.K. prisons to find contraband smuggled up peoples' bums. https://boingboing.net/2017/02...
The worst and most evil abuse of process is SELECTIVE PROSECUTION- ie a society where almost everything is illegal, but only the targets of the government are actually arrested and prosecuted. A common third world dictator tactic.
So, in France, they tried to make VIEWING 'terrorist' videos 'illegal' so any muslim the french wanted to take out could be imprisoned for having viewed material that would never get a 'white' 'christian' or 'jew' arrested. The French Supreme Court just ruled this law a "fundamental abuse of process".
What the demonic blairite filth that run Britain want is the right to arrest and prosecute anyone in possesion of a small phone- but ONLY people connected to the target group would be so treated. Ie., families of imprisoned muslims.
Britain is now the land of selective prosecution. White middle-class males are target for 'rape' trials, for example, when they have affairs at university. One such trial collapsed (after two years) when it was revealed the the CROWN had hidden evidnece that PROVED the women's claim of rape was totally false. Next year they'll pass new laws making the hiding of such evidence LEGAL (the woman's texts where she happily admited sex was consensual, and that she had a desire for 'violent' sex were purposely described as 'PRIVATE' and thus inappropriate to give to the defense).
The BBC runs output day and night stating that every white male is a rapist, and that every british child an obsese horror. If Orwell were alive today, he'd immediately put a gun to his head. In a land where inflation is out of control and wages collapsing, the BBC states that 'cheap' supermarket food is a SIN (British food prices are actually some of the highest in the world). No-one that doesn't live in the UK could comprehend just how insane things have become there since Blair's time.
Why not just throw a metal net over the prison.
You could prevent prisoners from using cellphones in the slammer by installing in-house jammers. Or you could ban small phones in the entire country and hope that it would be easier to keep this specific technology out of an island with thousands of miles of coastline, numerous airports and a domestic capability to make devices like this in a hundred different places.
So guess which option the periwigged idiots take?
Mobile phones by design broadcast their position all the time, with quite powerful signal and on a very specific band. A good directional antenna and a portable spectrum analyzer should be enough to pinpoint their location as long as they're on.
How the hell hard could it be to either a) jam the shit out of them, or (better) b) use all that nifty Stingray hardware to put up a "cell tower" in the center of each prison unit, dominating the signal, and routing all the calls comfortably through police servers?
This doesn't seem like a rocket-science problem.
-Styopa
Mobile phones by design broadcast their position all the time, with quite powerful signal and on a very specific band.
That would not be useful.
Who wants to monitor 100's of cell phones, all broadcasting "Help! I'm up someone's ass! Help! Help me!"?
You ... left out the part about bump stocks.
The new butt phone?
Or you could ban small phones in the entire country
Make them as big as an old Motorola brick phone and people will still find a way to fit one in their anus.
I'm sorry but I went to that page to see the phones in question and I have to say, it would have to be big-ass lipsticks.
#DeleteFacebook
Why not just setup a mini cell tower to prisons that will pickup all calls and either record all calls for further evidence or just drop them. Wouldn't matter how many phones they can smuggle in.
- Raynet --> .
Not allowed in prisons?
Then why call them cell phones?
And how would you avoid the jamming signal jamming the phones of people walking down the street near the prison?
Banning mini mobiles is going to work great, they banned the drugs and the prisons are full of drugs.
Whats wrong with a mobile jammer?
Something tied to a precise detector so that if it came from within the perimeter fence, its jammed immediately.
May be even have a cell tower nearby to collect all calls, and disconnect any unregistered ones whilst recording the numbers dialing in and out.
You put up a sign that says "Sorry. This is a no phone zone."
Have gnu, will travel.
Let's ban the sale of all knives!
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Would have been nice of summary to tell us that, since if you don't know who the hell "David Lidington" is off the top of your head, it could have been Canada, Australia, or almost any place (but not the USA, since we have an Attorney General instead of a Justice Minister).
Ban the phones cos they're real dangerous, but sell as many guns as you like, because the more people who are armed with guns the safer everyone is.
I at first assumed this was California... then saw "UK". XD
Umm...how do electronics work without metal? Are they using tubes of salt water as conductors instead?
Since when has the fact that something is banned stopped criminals from acquiring them?
Mobile phones are already banned in jail, and yet they still smuggle them in...
Clearly the guys in jail never cared that much about the law or they wouldn't be in jail...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Given the level of incompetence exhibited by this government, i'd expect the bill to end up banning sales of all microphones.
Finally. I've been looking for a phone that fits in my pocket, currently I have a ten year old Sony Ericsson flip phone that I've already had to repair once, and all they sell in regular stores are those TV-sized iPhones and Galaxy phones that only fits in your pocket if you wear cargo pants.
My current phone is a SE F100i and fits in my pocket perfectly, so I'm looking for something to bigger than that.
Let them have their cell phones....but without service not much happens. Yes, I know that will impact visitors, lawyers, and personnel as well, but they can opt for hardwired alternatives.
What would be far more effective is banning guns. Makes committing crimes significantly harder and drastically reduces prison population.
Na it's all Bitcoin now.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
objects that can ONLY be used for self defense... sprays...extensible batons
You don't think I could use a CS spray and a police asp baton to attack you with?
Whatever the rights and wrongs of banning guns, knives etc, it is pretty meaningless to call something a 'purely defensive' weapon.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
One of these which measures about 2 or 3 inches long and one inch wide is perfect. Attach a lanyard, and you can actually persuade someone to carry it all the time. Its somehow more acceptable than an alarm push button because it feels more in control and more personal.
There are two people, a bit frail after medical treatment, that we are thinking of getting one of them for. Banning the sale is not the right or fair answer - do something about mobile in prisons by all means, but it will be a great pity if the only people who can get them is the ones who want them for illegitimate purposes.
There has to be a technical fix. How about installing those devices that block cellphones from working? Or better still, couldn't they just tap the phone calls? You could get a ton of useful information on what criminals are planning outside?
Lawmakers are sometimes slow to understand exactly how new technology is impacting the world. But this argument boils down to "You can't have a mini phone, because then some prisoners might someday get them too."
Why not employ cell signal killing measures at prisons? Anti-RF cells and common areas? Jammers in the yards?
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.