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.
But the real reason is the prison telephone company monopoly. That's a gravy train they do not want stopped.
Why do they do it in countries without prison telephone monopolies?
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.
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"
Why do they do it in countries without prison telephone monopolies?
1. So they can make calls when they want.
2. So they can receive calls as well as make them.
3. So that nobody is listening in.
I had no idea these existed. They seem insertion-sized, if you get my drift.
Better known as 318230.
No, it is because the police want to monitor communications in and out of the prison by criminals. That can't be done simply with cell phones.
I'm sure you are good with drug dealers ordering hits from prison, but I'm not. Personally, I prefer the penitentiary system, where prisoners are not allowed any luxuries at all.
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.
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!
Why aren't they allowed to use jammers?
plotting jail breaks
That's it. Once Apple hears of this, there'll be a shitstorm.
Ezekiel 23:20
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...
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.
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.
Well, see, the problem is that the UK prison system isn't entirely like the US one. Prisoners are allowed to spend far more time outside, for one thing.
And solicitors are allowed to use their phones and laptops.
The reason is that the phones are used for criminal activity: directing criminal empires, ordering bribes and assassinations, plotting jail breaks, the whole megilla.
So are hands and vocal chords.
Communication is a human right, like breathing.
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?
You put up a sign that says "Sorry. This is a no phone zone."
Have gnu, will travel.
Communication is a human right
It's one you can lose when you get sentenced to prison.
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).
Vocal cords. Unless you can sing three notes at the same time.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Only two notes are needed for a chord, and some people can do that with their vocal cords.
That depends on the country. Some are less barbaric than others.
Umm...how do electronics work without metal? Are they using tubes of salt water as conductors instead?
They don't have ENOUGH metal - especially big enough pieces of thick, long, highly-conductive metal, to significantly affect the low, penetrating, radio signals used by the "metal detectors".
A large coin might possibly set one of these detectors off. A piece of electronics the same size or smaller, with plastic case, fiberglass printed circuit board, and fine wires shorter than the circumference of that coin (on the board or even tinier from point to point within the chips) is a much harder to "see" target. If the battery isn't enough to set such a gadget off, the whole phone would be only slightly more "visible".
The metal detector has to be INsensitive enough that it doesn't go off from dental fillings - or it would be going off all the time, and thus be ignored as useless. Make a phone that's a "smaller" target than a mouth full of metal and you can expect it to be missed, too.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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.
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.