and each of them, when asked if they would fear more a cop with authority to shoot an armed person who was not displaying a properly licenced, and displayed firearm in conjunction with a properly displayed badge or ID, the answer is yes.
If people can't carry firearms, then anyone carying one who isn't wearing a badge can be reasoned to have criminal intent to use it (no different then criminal intent to distribute drugs) and we can arrest them onsite, and shoot them onsite if they reach for said weapon, and the crime for possession of a firearm with criminal intent is 18-life. Criminals are smarter than most of the rednecks out there.
In fact, in every country that HAS passed gun control, gun crime dropped. (most of it was replaced by knife crime though).
The real issue is NOT CRIME however, if any of you bothered to read this thread completely. The issue is accidental death, spontaneous murder, and suicide, crimes involving guns between people that KNOW each other. This drops DRAMATICALLY with gun control. Sure, maybe you have a 5% higher chance at worst of being mugged or robbed at gunpoint (one of the 200 or so out of our 300 million citizens this happens to each year), but with gun control, you have a 70% less chance of being killed otherwise by a gun (of the 20,000 or so cases in this country each year).
Again, I ask you, if it's a break even on violent crime, but we can save 20,000 people, and our military is no weaker, and our cops are not being shot back at (though knife crime in australia increased, arrast rates did as well, and cops getting shot nearly dissapeared), why again is this bad?
If you understand english, then you'll realize you can NOT seperate the second part of the sentance containing "the people" from the first part establishing a militia. With grammar applied, "the people" are thus limited in scope for that statement as those members of the people that are part of the REGULATED militia....aka, REGUALRS, aka, ARMED FORCES and police.
The constitution was specifically written to be short and sweet. Using the language of the time, and proper grammar, one could easily device that. There are many parts of the constiutution where "the People" did not mean all americans, especially if you were a minor, a criminal, an immigrant, a woman, or not white. Also, the constitution did not directly establish armed forces. The previous articles did, but the constitution made a plainer and simpler solution, since there were not enough armed forces at the time, trained or otherwise, to stand against England without expanding the scope. However, WELL REGULATED was enough of a limitation to establish the minute men, and bands like them, as well as to establish methods for non-military people to move beyond the border of america into unexplored or otherwise occupied and hostile lands and maintan security, without being shot at coming home.
What about a redneck firing shots into the air while drinking beer is WELL REGULATED? Hunting without a license? Drive by shooting? Killing your adulterous spouse? These are NOT what our forefathers were to allow. It was for the defense of the union from attack, and for defense of the people from their government. Neither are a concern today for individual citizens.
Also, "The People" are a group, not individuals. By giving "The People" the right to bear arms, you are NOT giving "each person" the right to bear arms. It;s a logical distinction of language that most rednecks fail to be educated enough to grasp.
First of all, I linked to it, so I didn't make anything up.
Next, there was an accidental death spike in 2000, but it's level in 2004 was actually below the 1996 value.
3rd, who's accidentally shooting themselves if only the criminals have guns? I'm fine with the answer I came up with...
4, gun death is down over 47% overall
5, your numbers only go to 2004, mine went to 2006 and had links to 2007 statitics as well, which showed even further reductions. Next time don't quote outdated numbers...
Exactly. In our society, it's impossible for the citizens to revolt using force. We can assasinate someone, but any real coup against the government would have us AGAINST the military, not using it to overthrow government... What's your puny handgun stand a chance against Abrams tanks and Apaches?
Our original government was a weak body that could have been easily corrupted, and small changes in laws could have undone the efforts to build this country. Today, government IS corrupt, and we all know it. If we were going to revolt, we missed our chance!
well, if you factor in that nearly all gun crime, more than 85%, happens between people who know each other, and in the 15% or so left over, less than 20% of those crimes involve the victim being shot, then who really cares... So the criminals who have illegal guns, the ones who we don;t gun down on the street on sight, might get away with committing a gun crime against an innocent civilian a few times a year. On the other hand, we'll prevent more than 500 gun fatalities per year. No, that's not worth it...
Let the criminals kill each other, keep my family safe!
Crime can not be dramatically reduced without first eliminating poverty and adictive distractions. People will screw up their lives, or simply are never given the chance to succeed. With that will eventually come desperation, and those deperate enough will comit crimes. Others just are under educated, and falsely believe they can get away with it. A rare few commit crimes for the thrill, or for peer motivation or cultural reasons (gangs, etc). This can not be removed or reduced with any reasonable success. What we can do is remove the victim mostly from the equasion.
If you're insured, being robbed is nothing more than an inconvenience. Lets get everyone insured...
If they don't have guns, crimes in general will be reduced slightly, but not enough. However, stricter laws permitting police to be more direct, and less forgiving of those who oppose them (run from a cop? If I had my way you'd be running from bullets, since as soon as the cop screamed "stop police" in 2 seconds if you didn't there'd be gunfire, maybe the first 2-3 being rubber bullets just to be nice).
However, gun control, if you read my posts is NOT ABOUT REDUCING CRIME, it's about reducing SUICIDE, ACCIDENTAL DEATH, and spontaneous murder. If I don;t have a gun, I can't shoot my wife's lover, can't have my kids get killed accidentally if they find it, or blow my own head off after a beed week in the markets.... Gun control reduces these types of death dramatically, but does not stop violent crime.
I hate to admit it, and I'll prbably get flamed for this, but I actually support a fairly radical idea for police, that other countries have already put in place with near 100% success rates. If you take a hostage, we do NOT negotiate, we simply assume the hostage is a casualty, and go in shooting with the sole intent to kill the hostage taker at the scene (not arrest, kill). If you survive, its a bonus. In countries where this law exists, not a single bank has been broken into while open for buiness, not a single hostage taken, not in decades. Committing a crime with a gun, knife, or other deadly weapon is no different from signing your own death warrent. The law, in most of these countries, has NEVER BEEN USED, since noone committed siad crime since it's adoption.
well, sorry for confusing you, I meant the WALLS of the tube would only be a few molocules thick, in order to have a tube at 50 microns.
Yes watercooling DOES work, and work well. The probelem is gettign enough heat to penetrate the water and be absorbed, but at the same time not boil. Doing so would require large volues of water to penetrate the chip. Most water cooling blocks run a dozen or more gallons per hour. Getting that much water into 50 micron tubes is going to be a problem in sufficient volmes while maintaining perfectly stable pressures as to ensure the very fragile tubes do not break.
At their size, they should be fairly strong, and it may be possible to do what they say, but since there's no working prototype that can yet be constructed, my doubts are high. This is still in the ideas phase.
Much more importantly, 50 micron tubes will be extremely fragile. To move water in sufficient quantity to avoid such small samples reacking critical temps while inside the CPU is going to be REALLY difficut. with tubes only a few mollocules in diameter, extremely consistent pressure will need to be maintained. A bubble forming due to boiling would shatter the substructure of the CPU and destroy it. Too high pressure and pipes burst. Too low pressure, and water won't move fast enough to avoid either boiling and ruptuing the core, or in causing the CPU to overheat internally.
A good idea? possibly. Practical in a production environment? not likely.
As you said, any contaminant of any kind would destroy the systenm as well. at the micro-pressures involved in a safe system, it's unlikely they'll be appropriate pressures to involve a water filter...
I live here. "rednecks" in the stereotypical sense (as seen by northerners) are typically poor. Rednecks, as southers willingly call themselves in most cases, are as you describe.
Let me tell you, having lived in the mountains in NY and CT, and also 15 years in the PeeDee (cental SC), southern rednecks don't hold a candle to the level of redneck that a NY hick stives to obtain.
As for high crime statistics vs control measures, you fail to factor out local racial, poverty, and societal concentrations from your numbers, as well as normalizing for overall crime and drug use levels. DC has the highest crime rate in the country across almost all disciplines of crime, normalizing for that, gun violence in DC is actually low. We need to look at gun control regulation statistics using a larger, and less polluted sample size. Also, gun control laws in DC HAVE lowered gun crime, even though they're still very high. You should have seen it BEFORE the controlls, it's why they were enacted, and they've been hailed as generally successful.
This was a minor concern a few hundred years ago, but today, even in the disatant future? The military is such a complicated beast, and so dependent on the government for money, electricity, gas, and other resources, that it would be virtually impossible for a military coup. Could a small roge unit conduct an attack, absolutely, but the REST of the military would quickly squash it.
The only way for an army to rebel against a government is for it to be a mass, coordinated surprise. How do you expect that to happen in the information age in a country supporting free speach and mandating by law public access to military records?
Well, if you look at the statistics from Australia, Canada, and other countries who have enacted strict gun control laws, you'll see crime stays the same or even slightly declines, and in some rare cases, slightly increases. However, digging into the details of "armed robbery" you'll see that once the gun control came into play, although armed robbery stayed consistent, the percentage involving guns actually dropped dramatically, with the difference being replaced by knives and bats, etc.
Deperaate people commit crimes, some of them with guns. Removing guns does NOT precipitate more deperate people, therefore, there is no logical support for increases in gun crime. Wether yopu have a gun or not in your house or business, you're still likely 1) to have other weapons at hand, 2) alarms or a hpne for 911 to call cops, who have guns, 3) won't be home when being robbed, and 4) won;t be killed by your robber (less than 1 % of roberies involve a victim being killed by the crook).
What you WILL get, that is STRONGLY supported by statistics, is a sharp drop in sposes shooting each other, kids shooting people accidentally, suicides, and more. In fact, even where gun crime has increased by as much as 20%, the number of deaths from guns dropped as much as 300% at the same time, simply by limiting who can own a gun.
Look into the numbers. There are links in my other posts, or simply use Google.
This is not an argument, FACT: gun control saves an order of magnitude more lives than it places at risk.
This is also not an arguement: It is NOT against the constitution for them to limit guns. The constitution clearly reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." It is clearly laid out not as a right to bear arms for all citizens, but as a MEANS to a WELL REGULATED MILITIA. In other words, if you are not PART OF a WELL REGULATED MILITIA, then you DO NOT have a right to bear arms.
Yea, I have a friend who hunts regularly. 3 out of the last 5 deer he took down had trash in their stomachs. They may be "free range" but what they're eating, typically here in SC, is: crops sprayed with dangerous chemicals, trash from roadsides or garbage cans, flowers in gardens treated with chemicals. Sure, it's cheap, but so is institutional grade C meat, and I KNOW what it's been eating...
Besides, it's not just your licence and gas, but how much did the gun cost, the bullets you blow through at the range, the gun cleaning kits, tools, REM-oil sprays, gun case and safetly locks (required by law in almost every state), your 4 wheeler you drive through the woods, extra large freezer, electricity for freezer, etc.
All that doesn't even include the dozens of hours you waste in the woods that you could be using for increased income. Sure, you save several hundred dolars vs buying meat in bulk at Sam's club, but if you could just work 20 hours per year extra at your job, or at a hobby that produces income, you'd break even, and not need that gun. As a bonus, you'd get to eat safe meat without worry of disease or infection.
Actually, the statistics do clearly show that "rednecks" aka poor and undereducated areas of society, have dramaitically higher per capita gun use rates than other areas. The per capita murder rate in williamburg county, SC in the mid 90s was the highest in the country, and the whole county had a population under 10,000. At the same time, NYC was not even in the top 100 per capita.
Poor people, racially concentrated communities, areas where unemployment is high or where average income is low will have not only dramatically higher crime rates, but also dramtically higher suicide rates, higher rates of adultery (leading to crimes of passion, wife killing cheating husband, etc), and more.
Rednecks also tend to have a) high concentrations of gun ownership, b) general trust in their neighbors (failure to lock doors) c) lack of security systems, and thus, there are extremely high rates of gun theft. meaning guns are easy to come by (for criminals and small children alike). Southern states also have weaker (in general) gun contol laws, complicating the problem.
Actually, Armed robery in Australia, though up slightly in 2006 and 2007, is down more than 50% since 2000. Further more, numbering about 600 instances per month currently (http://www.aic.gov.au/topics/violence/robbery/stats/) The FAR majority of these are knife roberies, very few involve guns. Homicides involving guns in australia can be measured in the 10s per year, about 1/15th the frequency, per capita, of the USA (http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=1502)
What I think would work here, and remain constitutional, would be to limit strictly the TYPE of firearms legaly owned, limit those further to licenced persons, and their carying in public to authorized citizens only. (the constitution provides owning handguns for the efficint creation of a militia, and says nothing about hunting, home security, or any other rights) If you're not active, or in some way military trained, or work for a local molitia (AKA police) or a private and legally licenced militia (private security) then you have no constitutionally protected rights toa firearm.
Beyond limitation of ownership, unless in uniform, and wearing a badge consistent with posession of a loaded gun, police should have loosened rules for being able to shoot at armed suspects. Having a concealed weapon, in any way, unless visibly identified as someone authorised to do so, should allow police leniancy for opening fire on you sooner. A gun in your hand is all they should need to empty their clip at you. If criminals are aware of this increased risk of death, they'll stop carying guns.
The big deal however is not even limiting crime, but limiting accidental deaths and crimes of passion. The bulk of gun releated deaths in the USA fall into these 2 categories. Take a look at statistics in Canada, clearly showing that as household gun ownership increases, so do gun deaths, and in areas where guns in homes are rare, the drop in accidental and other gun related injuries is very low. Homicides do seem to remain consistent. Suicides however are more than 10 times the number of homicides, and keep in mind, 75% of homicides are people that know each other (wives killing husbands, or their lovers, etc)
- They get to PROFIT from loaning the cable box. They're typically paid for in less than a year (HDTV DVRs take about 3). After that it;s all profit, and don't forget the remotes too
- They don't have to mess with supporting hundreds of TV sets with built in adapters, and can quickly replace a troublesome cable box, typically by making YOU bring it to THEM, saving onsite services. TVs are not nearly as portable, so diagnosing cable card issues will be expensive and time consuming.
- Cable cards, like satelite cards, can almost certainly be hacked to allow additional chanel access, or potentially, completely free service.
- Expanding on the control of what type of DVR you use, they can make certain you can't offload content to DVD or PC easily or at all. This both ensures you actually BUY freely broadcasted TV programs either online or in box sets if you want to own copies, and also ensures you can't rip wreslemania or some HBO movie to DVD and bring it to a friend's house who didn't pay to see it. You can allways use a settop DVD recorder, but then you get stuck with commercials forever embeded in the media...
- further expanding on the DVR, most people leave a significant amount of unwatched content on their DVR, and canceling your service means loosing all those recorded programs, something that's kept some people I know from switching to competitors.
- The old line "with a 3rd party box, or with cable card, some services you use today won't be available or won't work the same" FUD scare tactics that keep the ignorant (90% of their clients) in line.
500 meters? unless you're using fiber and a pair of switches that support FDDI tranceivers, you can't do it. No ethernet standard can go that far. You'd have to bury a repeater (at least 1) half way between the 2 points... and get power to that repeater. Of course, this is all dependent on you owning all the property betwrrn yours and his, and getting the apporpriate permits to drop the cable across a property line.
Since cables, even fiber, don't come in 500 meter lengths (1000' is standard for a box. With fiber you can also buy a 5000 spool, but that's not only overkill, but then you're not just renting a ditch which, but a spool truck as well, and adding rediculous delivery fees for the cable.
The only really managalbe solution is to use P2P wireless. You can get parabolic antaneas that are FCC licensed for those distances for a few hundred bucks each, and a pair of outdoor rated Cisco Aeronet APs. Your total would run you less than $2000, which is less than the fiber would cost (including someone with a splice kit to make the distance run feasable). You can find other products out there other than Cisco cheaper, but ourdoor rated units are hard to find, and antannea extenders to place an link outside for an inside located router would mitigate the cost difference.
Your biggest issue will likely be latency across that distance, combined with a strict requirement for line of sight.
On the other hand, your BEST option is likely cellular based broadband. Add a access card to your PC with a PCMCIA adapter and get an unlimited access account from your provider (should be less than $60/month) Use ICS in windows (I'd recomend linux, but this guy needed a SIMPLE solution, not a reliable and secure one...) to have multiple computers share the connection. Place the card in an el-cheapo PC that you don't use for anything else that runs quiet and green. For less than $400 in parts and the same per month rate, you can have decent speed internet (3G if you're licky, but even edge is better than nothing), at least until the FCC forces your cable company or phone company to hook you up, since the USF will eventually require it.
Cities have higher temps not due to their physical structure, but mostly due to their color. Lots of black surface, further complicated by large numbers of heat generating vehicles, lights, and heat retaining smog.
The fact that the buildings are there is an extremely minor effect on temperature, the other factors far outweigh them.
Also, take into example Chicago, which is investigating building mounted turbines for wind power generation because the location of the city and layout of the skyscrapers produces unique yet predictable wind tunnels which can be exploited with great ease and efficiency (they're stumbing on legal issues of how and where to install turbines and logistical issues dealing with how to grid it out)
And then still, all they have is a cell ID, not a phone number, and tagging at the register of your credit card number (but not your name or other information). Also remember, every individual store in the building will have a register beloning to a different company, running a different CRM package, and using services from a different credit card processing firm. Explain how they're going to get that information? They can't tell the store owner to comply, and even if they did, how would they?
In few stores do the credit cards actually pass through the computer. They're placed in a simple reader connected to a phone line or the internet. The receipt goes in the cash drawer, but all it has is your name as it appears on the card and 4 digits, it also has no tie to your cell phone or other information, and the data collected by the clerk at the store is legally protected under various local, state, federal, and even international security laws because specifically it's credit card information.
Also, I have several cards I use, some in one store, some in another, debit, credit, checks, and private store cards alike. Besides, what good is a system to have my credit card and a non-identifying cell phone ID? Also, with the frequency people change cell phones, and families aving multiple phones and joint accounts, the data would be very difficult to mine.
Now, lets also talk about the data... Real time cell location, time tracking patterns, matching to a record in a database, meter monitoring for card swipes, and for what could be hundreds of thousands of people making millions of trips to the same mall in a year... We're talking tens of terabytes of data running on extreme performance server systems on detworks with over a thousand nodes (at least 2 for each credit card machine in the building, plus hallway and enterance monitors). Simply to install such a solution in a mall would be hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, to do what exactly? Make the mall an extra 20-50 grand a year by fine tuning rent allocation???
C'mon, be reasonable. Look at cost vs gain. If such a system does not have impressive long term RoI, it simply won't be used. A few dozen cell receptors and an XP box can track activity in a mall. Going further to match that to personal identities (something of NO use to the mall itself) would add 2 or more orders of magnitude in expense. All that, and groups like children, immigrants, and the elderly that skew the demographics anyway due to lower cell phone ownership, and a tendency to pay in cash or with checks instead of electronic methods.
Bluetooth is a sharing protocol. Devices both advertise and receive requests from other bluetooth devices continually unless those protocols are disabled. "listening" to a conversation, or data transmitted between 2 paired devices is not permitted, but listening for a device ID to locate a possible connection is part of the standard of the device. Other bluetooth devices not only are expected to listen and respond appropriately, but this is a broadcast to all devices, not a specific one. This will be apparent to anyone who has turned bluetooth on but has no pairing device. You can scan for devices, and any nearby, whether in pairing mode or not, can be identified.
The phone has an OS, a fairly extensive one. "Waking up" is not an instantaneous activity, it takes many seconds, and drains battery. Even if this only happened once per minute, and took 1 second, you would notice that your phone would loose as much as 10% of it's battery daily, even when off.
2nd, if this was a firmware level feature, not a phone application, then it might be quicker, and less drain, but would violate FCC and FAA regulations for making NO TRANSMISSIONS AT ALL during flight. Phones DO cause havoc with avionics. Not on newer aircraft, but they do with older and small planes. The airline request to allow phones in flight still restricts ALL electronic devices (phone or not) to be in a power off state during takeoff and landing because on the ground and near the runways there ARE planes that can be effected by this signal produced.
Cell phones don't work at cruising altitude (24K - 36K feet up, AKA more than 5 miles high) because this is too far away from the ground to make a connection to the tower at all (once you factor in the interference produced by the aluminum skin). Airline phone systems use a completely separate carrier frequency to direct calls to the ground or to satellites. The proposed system has phones connecting to cell towers located INSIDE the plane, and redirects the calls in a tower-to-tower bridge connection, allowing greater range and fewer tower hops while the plane travels.
I know all about cell phone location technology, but what you're referring to requires round trip packets, from the phone to the tower and back, since the distance processing has to be done inside the phone for it to locate itself. A similar system can be initiated by police to locate a phone and have it bounce a signal back, but this requires the phone to be on. Any signaling that might, in some people's speculation, be sent from phones when off might be capable of identifying the location of the phone to within a city block or so, but the system accuracy grows consistently worse as you get farther from populated areas (fewer towers) or if you're in a dense city environment (interference).
If a phone is on, especially during a call or modern phones which constantly poll the network for resources and information, the tracking is far more accurate because more data can be collected in real time, and the location accuracy improves as the device is tracked. A "beacon" system, like people FEAR exists, would at best provide only periodic information (once a minute or so) and not be a good tool to track a phone.
Any way for a phone to be remotely activated would require the phone to not only broadcast a beacon so a tower knows where the phone is in order to send a signal to it, but also te phone has to be actively listening on an antanea for a response, which is impractical since that requires not only battery power, but signal processing and CPU use. This can not be done in a power off state without dramatic drain on a battery.
Fact is, these phones have been placed in signal sensing boxes and monitored for interference generated by many groups. They DO NOT produce ANY SIGNAL of ANY KIND when powered off. This is a myth, and it has not been proven true.
The sign at the enterence to the property stating "Premesis under survailence" was all they needed to say. Since it;s anonymous survailence, and you personal ID, nor your personal shopping habits are being tracked directly, there is no requirement to specify further. Since the mall is also legally conssddered a public place, privacy rights are assumed waived.
No they can't tie your cell phone ID to your personal ID. All they have is an anonymous dot on a map, which incidently, the resolution on the location of said dot is barely accurate to 10 feet. They might be able to tell you stood in line to buy something, if they're lucky, and if it's a big store with lots of ragisters (like an ancor store) but in little ordinary rental spaces, they're lucky to tell what one specifically you went into and how long you stayed... That's all this is really for, traffic management.
What they do it figure out what stores are popular, then try to make them move, scattering them around the complex, making people have to pass more stores and spend more time in the mall to get shopping done. Simply asking stores for their sales records doesn't work in most cases (if ever), and that wouldn't give them any resolution on how manby stores the average shopper goes to, or if there is a pattern to what stores are frequented, or more importantly, is someone who goes in 1 particular shop likely to go into other specific stores, and would changin the location of those stores increaee or decrease the likelyhood of people entering them. Some stores are popular, by determing if simple proximity to those stores makes a difference, they can increase the rent on them. Rent is basically the only way the mall makes money. The have more stores in the mall, they each have to be profitable. It's in the mall's best interest to understand customer flow, and to try to make shoppers spend as much time in the building as possible on each trip.
The simple fact that it is a device designed to intercept radio signal means that is it required to be tested and regulated by the FCC (or EU equivolent) and as such comes equipped with a nice little sticker on it certifying it for use, therby making it legal.
Someone else mention "Don't they have to notify us if they're doing this?" Actually, in most states, no, but even in the ones were they do, there's no requirement to say how or where they're monitoring you. A simple sign at the entereance of the proerty "Premesis under survailence" is all they need.
Also, if they can't do it with cell phones, they'll do it with bluetooth. (part of bluetooth is an open shared protocol for data exchange to guest systems, and is considered a broadcast, not a party-to-party connection). Also, video survailence can also do this easily (almost every airport has such a system in use, or is in the process of installing one, as do nearly all casinos)
You're being watched. There's nothing wrong with it unless they tie the information colelcted to your identity somehow. An anonymous dot on a map walking from store to store means nothing. Were they to tie that dot to credit card transactions, or remember that dot and develop a shopping pattern for that specific dot, then we'd be having a different chat. Since all they're really doing is traffic analysis, and a bit of marketing intelegence to see what stores are getting the most attention, it;s in essence harmless, and will simply help them build a better mall, pick better stores to shop at, make sure there are pleanty of seats in the cafe and stalls in the restroom. It's actually a GOOD thing!
OK, first, if the iPhone is off, or in airline mode, it is OFF. The FCC and ther FAA mandates that the device neither send, receive, nor interfere with signals when in either mode. Besides, iff off meant it could still be tracked, then if you turned if off, the battery would still drain at a predictable rate, dumbass, it does not.
"This means that it is illegal to listen to anything other than general reception..."
Actually, since the system is not litening in to the transmission, only monitoring the carrier wave and noting the position of transmission, it;s not actually collecting "data" "IDs" or any other private information. It;s simply takes advantage of the fact that when you're connected to a cell tower, your pfone issued a frequency uniqe to your location from the tower. Since all this gear does is track all the phones on all the frequencies and monitor their movements, it does not violate this section of the law.
"...unless you are either a licensed user of the frequencies in question or have been specifically authorized to do so by a designated person"
By the FCC giving the hardware an OK to be sold in this country, they have in effect authorized any purchaser. Since the system does not "use" (aka transmit" on any frequency, nor does it cause interference, it requires no further licencing under FCC refulations which have been passed into law and court tested in times since this original law was enacted).
Since it't not listening to the contents of the conversation, nor in any way recording the information transmitted, other than to identify the source of the signal and map it's location, it is in fact not in violation of (ii). It is not intercepting the signal, only the carrier frequency.
If the system had access to any information about the cellular phone it was listening to, I could argue on your behalf. It has no access the cell records, call information, the names, nor IDs of any parties. It's a simple, passive, radio frequncy monitor. It does NOT decode the call, nor translate any inforation it colelcts, only the signal band detected in use and it;s location.
This system is really no different than the magnetic "people count" gates you pass through entering end exiting every store, except it collects more accurate data. Since the system does not store or remember your cell ID (nor does it need to know it) it simply knows what fewquency you are using AT THAT TIME. By nature of the communications system, every time you go there, you're likely assigned a completely different frequency, and thus anonimity can be maintened.
To mess with the system, turn your phone off for 5 minutes, walk to another part of the building and turn it on again. The system will think it;s discovered a new phone, wether or not you get the same frequency assigned again, and it will start tracking you as a new identity. Repeat this a donzen times, and you'll still have little effect, but if a few hundred people did this, the system would not be close to accurate. Of course, the cell tower will be having a heart attack, and while off your phone won't get calls, and you could miss some texts.
Malls with movie cinemas or other places where people would be likely to disable their phones must wreak havock on these systems.
and each of them, when asked if they would fear more a cop with authority to shoot an armed person who was not displaying a properly licenced, and displayed firearm in conjunction with a properly displayed badge or ID, the answer is yes.
If people can't carry firearms, then anyone carying one who isn't wearing a badge can be reasoned to have criminal intent to use it (no different then criminal intent to distribute drugs) and we can arrest them onsite, and shoot them onsite if they reach for said weapon, and the crime for possession of a firearm with criminal intent is 18-life. Criminals are smarter than most of the rednecks out there.
In fact, in every country that HAS passed gun control, gun crime dropped. (most of it was replaced by knife crime though).
The real issue is NOT CRIME however, if any of you bothered to read this thread completely. The issue is accidental death, spontaneous murder, and suicide, crimes involving guns between people that KNOW each other. This drops DRAMATICALLY with gun control. Sure, maybe you have a 5% higher chance at worst of being mugged or robbed at gunpoint (one of the 200 or so out of our 300 million citizens this happens to each year), but with gun control, you have a 70% less chance of being killed otherwise by a gun (of the 20,000 or so cases in this country each year).
Again, I ask you, if it's a break even on violent crime, but we can save 20,000 people, and our military is no weaker, and our cops are not being shot back at (though knife crime in australia increased, arrast rates did as well, and cops getting shot nearly dissapeared), why again is this bad?
If you understand english, then you'll realize you can NOT seperate the second part of the sentance containing "the people" from the first part establishing a militia. With grammar applied, "the people" are thus limited in scope for that statement as those members of the people that are part of the REGULATED militia. ...aka, REGUALRS, aka, ARMED FORCES and police.
The constitution was specifically written to be short and sweet. Using the language of the time, and proper grammar, one could easily device that. There are many parts of the constiutution where "the People" did not mean all americans, especially if you were a minor, a criminal, an immigrant, a woman, or not white.
Also, the constitution did not directly establish armed forces. The previous articles did, but the constitution made a plainer and simpler solution, since there were not enough armed forces at the time, trained or otherwise, to stand against England without expanding the scope. However, WELL REGULATED was enough of a limitation to establish the minute men, and bands like them, as well as to establish methods for non-military people to move beyond the border of america into unexplored or otherwise occupied and hostile lands and maintan security, without being shot at coming home.
What about a redneck firing shots into the air while drinking beer is WELL REGULATED? Hunting without a license? Drive by shooting? Killing your adulterous spouse? These are NOT what our forefathers were to allow. It was for the defense of the union from attack, and for defense of the people from their government. Neither are a concern today for individual citizens.
Also, "The People" are a group, not individuals. By giving "The People" the right to bear arms, you are NOT giving "each person" the right to bear arms. It;s a logical distinction of language that most rednecks fail to be educated enough to grasp.
First of all, I linked to it, so I didn't make anything up.
Next, there was an accidental death spike in 2000, but it's level in 2004 was actually below the 1996 value.
3rd, who's accidentally shooting themselves if only the criminals have guns? I'm fine with the answer I came up with...
4, gun death is down over 47% overall
5, your numbers only go to 2004, mine went to 2006 and had links to 2007 statitics as well, which showed even further reductions. Next time don't quote outdated numbers...
Exactly. In our society, it's impossible for the citizens to revolt using force. We can assasinate someone, but any real coup against the government would have us AGAINST the military, not using it to overthrow government... What's your puny handgun stand a chance against Abrams tanks and Apaches?
Our original government was a weak body that could have been easily corrupted, and small changes in laws could have undone the efforts to build this country. Today, government IS corrupt, and we all know it. If we were going to revolt, we missed our chance!
well, if you factor in that nearly all gun crime, more than 85%, happens between people who know each other, and in the 15% or so left over, less than 20% of those crimes involve the victim being shot, then who really cares... So the criminals who have illegal guns, the ones who we don;t gun down on the street on sight, might get away with committing a gun crime against an innocent civilian a few times a year. On the other hand, we'll prevent more than 500 gun fatalities per year. No, that's not worth it...
Let the criminals kill each other, keep my family safe!
Crime can not be dramatically reduced without first eliminating poverty and adictive distractions. People will screw up their lives, or simply are never given the chance to succeed. With that will eventually come desperation, and those deperate enough will comit crimes. Others just are under educated, and falsely believe they can get away with it. A rare few commit crimes for the thrill, or for peer motivation or cultural reasons (gangs, etc). This can not be removed or reduced with any reasonable success. What we can do is remove the victim mostly from the equasion.
If you're insured, being robbed is nothing more than an inconvenience. Lets get everyone insured...
If they don't have guns, crimes in general will be reduced slightly, but not enough. However, stricter laws permitting police to be more direct, and less forgiving of those who oppose them (run from a cop? If I had my way you'd be running from bullets, since as soon as the cop screamed "stop police" in 2 seconds if you didn't there'd be gunfire, maybe the first 2-3 being rubber bullets just to be nice).
However, gun control, if you read my posts is NOT ABOUT REDUCING CRIME, it's about reducing SUICIDE, ACCIDENTAL DEATH, and spontaneous murder. If I don;t have a gun, I can't shoot my wife's lover, can't have my kids get killed accidentally if they find it, or blow my own head off after a beed week in the markets.... Gun control reduces these types of death dramatically, but does not stop violent crime.
I hate to admit it, and I'll prbably get flamed for this, but I actually support a fairly radical idea for police, that other countries have already put in place with near 100% success rates. If you take a hostage, we do NOT negotiate, we simply assume the hostage is a casualty, and go in shooting with the sole intent to kill the hostage taker at the scene (not arrest, kill). If you survive, its a bonus. In countries where this law exists, not a single bank has been broken into while open for buiness, not a single hostage taken, not in decades. Committing a crime with a gun, knife, or other deadly weapon is no different from signing your own death warrent. The law, in most of these countries, has NEVER BEEN USED, since noone committed siad crime since it's adoption.
well, sorry for confusing you, I meant the WALLS of the tube would only be a few molocules thick, in order to have a tube at 50 microns.
Yes watercooling DOES work, and work well. The probelem is gettign enough heat to penetrate the water and be absorbed, but at the same time not boil. Doing so would require large volues of water to penetrate the chip. Most water cooling blocks run a dozen or more gallons per hour. Getting that much water into 50 micron tubes is going to be a problem in sufficient volmes while maintaining perfectly stable pressures as to ensure the very fragile tubes do not break.
At their size, they should be fairly strong, and it may be possible to do what they say, but since there's no working prototype that can yet be constructed, my doubts are high. This is still in the ideas phase.
Much more importantly, 50 micron tubes will be extremely fragile. To move water in sufficient quantity to avoid such small samples reacking critical temps while inside the CPU is going to be REALLY difficut. with tubes only a few mollocules in diameter, extremely consistent pressure will need to be maintained. A bubble forming due to boiling would shatter the substructure of the CPU and destroy it. Too high pressure and pipes burst. Too low pressure, and water won't move fast enough to avoid either boiling and ruptuing the core, or in causing the CPU to overheat internally.
A good idea? possibly. Practical in a production environment? not likely.
As you said, any contaminant of any kind would destroy the systenm as well. at the micro-pressures involved in a safe system, it's unlikely they'll be appropriate pressures to involve a water filter...
I live here. "rednecks" in the stereotypical sense (as seen by northerners) are typically poor. Rednecks, as southers willingly call themselves in most cases, are as you describe.
Let me tell you, having lived in the mountains in NY and CT, and also 15 years in the PeeDee (cental SC), southern rednecks don't hold a candle to the level of redneck that a NY hick stives to obtain.
As for high crime statistics vs control measures, you fail to factor out local racial, poverty, and societal concentrations from your numbers, as well as normalizing for overall crime and drug use levels. DC has the highest crime rate in the country across almost all disciplines of crime, normalizing for that, gun violence in DC is actually low. We need to look at gun control regulation statistics using a larger, and less polluted sample size. Also, gun control laws in DC HAVE lowered gun crime, even though they're still very high. You should have seen it BEFORE the controlls, it's why they were enacted, and they've been hailed as generally successful.
This was a minor concern a few hundred years ago, but today, even in the disatant future? The military is such a complicated beast, and so dependent on the government for money, electricity, gas, and other resources, that it would be virtually impossible for a military coup. Could a small roge unit conduct an attack, absolutely, but the REST of the military would quickly squash it.
The only way for an army to rebel against a government is for it to be a mass, coordinated surprise. How do you expect that to happen in the information age in a country supporting free speach and mandating by law public access to military records?
Well, if you look at the statistics from Australia, Canada, and other countries who have enacted strict gun control laws, you'll see crime stays the same or even slightly declines, and in some rare cases, slightly increases. However, digging into the details of "armed robbery" you'll see that once the gun control came into play, although armed robbery stayed consistent, the percentage involving guns actually dropped dramatically, with the difference being replaced by knives and bats, etc.
Deperaate people commit crimes, some of them with guns. Removing guns does NOT precipitate more deperate people, therefore, there is no logical support for increases in gun crime. Wether yopu have a gun or not in your house or business, you're still likely 1) to have other weapons at hand, 2) alarms or a hpne for 911 to call cops, who have guns, 3) won't be home when being robbed, and 4) won;t be killed by your robber (less than 1 % of roberies involve a victim being killed by the crook).
What you WILL get, that is STRONGLY supported by statistics, is a sharp drop in sposes shooting each other, kids shooting people accidentally, suicides, and more. In fact, even where gun crime has increased by as much as 20%, the number of deaths from guns dropped as much as 300% at the same time, simply by limiting who can own a gun.
Look into the numbers. There are links in my other posts, or simply use Google.
This is not an argument, FACT: gun control saves an order of magnitude more lives than it places at risk.
This is also not an arguement: It is NOT against the constitution for them to limit guns. The constitution clearly reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." It is clearly laid out not as a right to bear arms for all citizens, but as a MEANS to a WELL REGULATED MILITIA. In other words, if you are not PART OF a WELL REGULATED MILITIA, then you DO NOT have a right to bear arms.
Yea, I have a friend who hunts regularly. 3 out of the last 5 deer he took down had trash in their stomachs. They may be "free range" but what they're eating, typically here in SC, is: crops sprayed with dangerous chemicals, trash from roadsides or garbage cans, flowers in gardens treated with chemicals. Sure, it's cheap, but so is institutional grade C meat, and I KNOW what it's been eating...
Besides, it's not just your licence and gas, but how much did the gun cost, the bullets you blow through at the range, the gun cleaning kits, tools, REM-oil sprays, gun case and safetly locks (required by law in almost every state), your 4 wheeler you drive through the woods, extra large freezer, electricity for freezer, etc.
All that doesn't even include the dozens of hours you waste in the woods that you could be using for increased income. Sure, you save several hundred dolars vs buying meat in bulk at Sam's club, but if you could just work 20 hours per year extra at your job, or at a hobby that produces income, you'd break even, and not need that gun. As a bonus, you'd get to eat safe meat without worry of disease or infection.
Actually, the statistics do clearly show that "rednecks" aka poor and undereducated areas of society, have dramaitically higher per capita gun use rates than other areas. The per capita murder rate in williamburg county, SC in the mid 90s was the highest in the country, and the whole county had a population under 10,000. At the same time, NYC was not even in the top 100 per capita.
Poor people, racially concentrated communities, areas where unemployment is high or where average income is low will have not only dramatically higher crime rates, but also dramtically higher suicide rates, higher rates of adultery (leading to crimes of passion, wife killing cheating husband, etc), and more.
Rednecks also tend to have a) high concentrations of gun ownership, b) general trust in their neighbors (failure to lock doors) c) lack of security systems, and thus, there are extremely high rates of gun theft. meaning guns are easy to come by (for criminals and small children alike).
Southern states also have weaker (in general) gun contol laws, complicating the problem.
Actually, Armed robery in Australia, though up slightly in 2006 and 2007, is down more than 50% since 2000. Further more, numbering about 600 instances per month currently (http://www.aic.gov.au/topics/violence/robbery/stats/) The FAR majority of these are knife roberies, very few involve guns. Homicides involving guns in australia can be measured in the 10s per year, about 1/15th the frequency, per capita, of the USA (http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=1502)
What I think would work here, and remain constitutional, would be to limit strictly the TYPE of firearms legaly owned, limit those further to licenced persons, and their carying in public to authorized citizens only. (the constitution provides owning handguns for the efficint creation of a militia, and says nothing about hunting, home security, or any other rights) If you're not active, or in some way military trained, or work for a local molitia (AKA police) or a private and legally licenced militia (private security) then you have no constitutionally protected rights toa firearm.
Beyond limitation of ownership, unless in uniform, and wearing a badge consistent with posession of a loaded gun, police should have loosened rules for being able to shoot at armed suspects. Having a concealed weapon, in any way, unless visibly identified as someone authorised to do so, should allow police leniancy for opening fire on you sooner. A gun in your hand is all they should need to empty their clip at you. If criminals are aware of this increased risk of death, they'll stop carying guns.
The big deal however is not even limiting crime, but limiting accidental deaths and crimes of passion. The bulk of gun releated deaths in the USA fall into these 2 categories. Take a look at statistics in Canada, clearly showing that as household gun ownership increases, so do gun deaths, and in areas where guns in homes are rare, the drop in accidental and other gun related injuries is very low. Homicides do seem to remain consistent. Suicides however are more than 10 times the number of homicides, and keep in mind, 75% of homicides are people that know each other (wives killing husbands, or their lovers, etc)
additionally:
- They get to PROFIT from loaning the cable box. They're typically paid for in less than a year (HDTV DVRs take about 3). After that it;s all profit, and don't forget the remotes too
- They don't have to mess with supporting hundreds of TV sets with built in adapters, and can quickly replace a troublesome cable box, typically by making YOU bring it to THEM, saving onsite services. TVs are not nearly as portable, so diagnosing cable card issues will be expensive and time consuming.
- Cable cards, like satelite cards, can almost certainly be hacked to allow additional chanel access, or potentially, completely free service.
- Expanding on the control of what type of DVR you use, they can make certain you can't offload content to DVD or PC easily or at all. This both ensures you actually BUY freely broadcasted TV programs either online or in box sets if you want to own copies, and also ensures you can't rip wreslemania or some HBO movie to DVD and bring it to a friend's house who didn't pay to see it. You can allways use a settop DVD recorder, but then you get stuck with commercials forever embeded in the media...
- further expanding on the DVR, most people leave a significant amount of unwatched content on their DVR, and canceling your service means loosing all those recorded programs, something that's kept some people I know from switching to competitors.
- The old line "with a 3rd party box, or with cable card, some services you use today won't be available or won't work the same" FUD scare tactics that keep the ignorant (90% of their clients) in line.
500 meters? unless you're using fiber and a pair of switches that support FDDI tranceivers, you can't do it. No ethernet standard can go that far. You'd have to bury a repeater (at least 1) half way between the 2 points... and get power to that repeater. Of course, this is all dependent on you owning all the property betwrrn yours and his, and getting the apporpriate permits to drop the cable across a property line.
Since cables, even fiber, don't come in 500 meter lengths (1000' is standard for a box. With fiber you can also buy a 5000 spool, but that's not only overkill, but then you're not just renting a ditch which, but a spool truck as well, and adding rediculous delivery fees for the cable.
The only really managalbe solution is to use P2P wireless. You can get parabolic antaneas that are FCC licensed for those distances for a few hundred bucks each, and a pair of outdoor rated Cisco Aeronet APs. Your total would run you less than $2000, which is less than the fiber would cost (including someone with a splice kit to make the distance run feasable). You can find other products out there other than Cisco cheaper, but ourdoor rated units are hard to find, and antannea extenders to place an link outside for an inside located router would mitigate the cost difference.
Your biggest issue will likely be latency across that distance, combined with a strict requirement for line of sight.
On the other hand, your BEST option is likely cellular based broadband. Add a access card to your PC with a PCMCIA adapter and get an unlimited access account from your provider (should be less than $60/month) Use ICS in windows (I'd recomend linux, but this guy needed a SIMPLE solution, not a reliable and secure one...) to have multiple computers share the connection. Place the card in an el-cheapo PC that you don't use for anything else that runs quiet and green. For less than $400 in parts and the same per month rate, you can have decent speed internet (3G if you're licky, but even edge is better than nothing), at least until the FCC forces your cable company or phone company to hook you up, since the USF will eventually require it.
No, they didn't stop running the adds. I saw one a couple of nights ago, during House I think, if not one of the law and orders...
Cities have higher temps not due to their physical structure, but mostly due to their color. Lots of black surface, further complicated by large numbers of heat generating vehicles, lights, and heat retaining smog.
The fact that the buildings are there is an extremely minor effect on temperature, the other factors far outweigh them.
Also, take into example Chicago, which is investigating building mounted turbines for wind power generation because the location of the city and layout of the skyscrapers produces unique yet predictable wind tunnels which can be exploited with great ease and efficiency (they're stumbing on legal issues of how and where to install turbines and logistical issues dealing with how to grid it out)
And then still, all they have is a cell ID, not a phone number, and tagging at the register of your credit card number (but not your name or other information). Also remember, every individual store in the building will have a register beloning to a different company, running a different CRM package, and using services from a different credit card processing firm. Explain how they're going to get that information? They can't tell the store owner to comply, and even if they did, how would they?
In few stores do the credit cards actually pass through the computer. They're placed in a simple reader connected to a phone line or the internet. The receipt goes in the cash drawer, but all it has is your name as it appears on the card and 4 digits, it also has no tie to your cell phone or other information, and the data collected by the clerk at the store is legally protected under various local, state, federal, and even international security laws because specifically it's credit card information.
Also, I have several cards I use, some in one store, some in another, debit, credit, checks, and private store cards alike. Besides, what good is a system to have my credit card and a non-identifying cell phone ID? Also, with the frequency people change cell phones, and families aving multiple phones and joint accounts, the data would be very difficult to mine.
Now, lets also talk about the data... Real time cell location, time tracking patterns, matching to a record in a database, meter monitoring for card swipes, and for what could be hundreds of thousands of people making millions of trips to the same mall in a year... We're talking tens of terabytes of data running on extreme performance server systems on detworks with over a thousand nodes (at least 2 for each credit card machine in the building, plus hallway and enterance monitors). Simply to install such a solution in a mall would be hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, to do what exactly? Make the mall an extra 20-50 grand a year by fine tuning rent allocation???
C'mon, be reasonable. Look at cost vs gain. If such a system does not have impressive long term RoI, it simply won't be used. A few dozen cell receptors and an XP box can track activity in a mall. Going further to match that to personal identities (something of NO use to the mall itself) would add 2 or more orders of magnitude in expense. All that, and groups like children, immigrants, and the elderly that skew the demographics anyway due to lower cell phone ownership, and a tendency to pay in cash or with checks instead of electronic methods.
Bluetooth is a sharing protocol. Devices both advertise and receive requests from other bluetooth devices continually unless those protocols are disabled. "listening" to a conversation, or data transmitted between 2 paired devices is not permitted, but listening for a device ID to locate a possible connection is part of the standard of the device. Other bluetooth devices not only are expected to listen and respond appropriately, but this is a broadcast to all devices, not a specific one. This will be apparent to anyone who has turned bluetooth on but has no pairing device. You can scan for devices, and any nearby, whether in pairing mode or not, can be identified.
The phone has an OS, a fairly extensive one. "Waking up" is not an instantaneous activity, it takes many seconds, and drains battery. Even if this only happened once per minute, and took 1 second, you would notice that your phone would loose as much as 10% of it's battery daily, even when off.
2nd, if this was a firmware level feature, not a phone application, then it might be quicker, and less drain, but would violate FCC and FAA regulations for making NO TRANSMISSIONS AT ALL during flight. Phones DO cause havoc with avionics. Not on newer aircraft, but they do with older and small planes. The airline request to allow phones in flight still restricts ALL electronic devices (phone or not) to be in a power off state during takeoff and landing because on the ground and near the runways there ARE planes that can be effected by this signal produced.
Cell phones don't work at cruising altitude (24K - 36K feet up, AKA more than 5 miles high) because this is too far away from the ground to make a connection to the tower at all (once you factor in the interference produced by the aluminum skin). Airline phone systems use a completely separate carrier frequency to direct calls to the ground or to satellites. The proposed system has phones connecting to cell towers located INSIDE the plane, and redirects the calls in a tower-to-tower bridge connection, allowing greater range and fewer tower hops while the plane travels.
I know all about cell phone location technology, but what you're referring to requires round trip packets, from the phone to the tower and back, since the distance processing has to be done inside the phone for it to locate itself. A similar system can be initiated by police to locate a phone and have it bounce a signal back, but this requires the phone to be on. Any signaling that might, in some people's speculation, be sent from phones when off might be capable of identifying the location of the phone to within a city block or so, but the system accuracy grows consistently worse as you get farther from populated areas (fewer towers) or if you're in a dense city environment (interference).
If a phone is on, especially during a call or modern phones which constantly poll the network for resources and information, the tracking is far more accurate because more data can be collected in real time, and the location accuracy improves as the device is tracked. A "beacon" system, like people FEAR exists, would at best provide only periodic information (once a minute or so) and not be a good tool to track a phone.
Any way for a phone to be remotely activated would require the phone to not only broadcast a beacon so a tower knows where the phone is in order to send a signal to it, but also te phone has to be actively listening on an antanea for a response, which is impractical since that requires not only battery power, but signal processing and CPU use. This can not be done in a power off state without dramatic drain on a battery.
Fact is, these phones have been placed in signal sensing boxes and monitored for interference generated by many groups. They DO NOT produce ANY SIGNAL of ANY KIND when powered off. This is a myth, and it has not been proven true.
The sign at the enterence to the property stating "Premesis under survailence" was all they needed to say. Since it;s anonymous survailence, and you personal ID, nor your personal shopping habits are being tracked directly, there is no requirement to specify further. Since the mall is also legally conssddered a public place, privacy rights are assumed waived.
No they can't tie your cell phone ID to your personal ID. All they have is an anonymous dot on a map, which incidently, the resolution on the location of said dot is barely accurate to 10 feet. They might be able to tell you stood in line to buy something, if they're lucky, and if it's a big store with lots of ragisters (like an ancor store) but in little ordinary rental spaces, they're lucky to tell what one specifically you went into and how long you stayed... That's all this is really for, traffic management.
What they do it figure out what stores are popular, then try to make them move, scattering them around the complex, making people have to pass more stores and spend more time in the mall to get shopping done. Simply asking stores for their sales records doesn't work in most cases (if ever), and that wouldn't give them any resolution on how manby stores the average shopper goes to, or if there is a pattern to what stores are frequented, or more importantly, is someone who goes in 1 particular shop likely to go into other specific stores, and would changin the location of those stores increaee or decrease the likelyhood of people entering them. Some stores are popular, by determing if simple proximity to those stores makes a difference, they can increase the rent on them. Rent is basically the only way the mall makes money. The have more stores in the mall, they each have to be profitable. It's in the mall's best interest to understand customer flow, and to try to make shoppers spend as much time in the building as possible on each trip.
The simple fact that it is a device designed to intercept radio signal means that is it required to be tested and regulated by the FCC (or EU equivolent) and as such comes equipped with a nice little sticker on it certifying it for use, therby making it legal.
Someone else mention "Don't they have to notify us if they're doing this?" Actually, in most states, no, but even in the ones were they do, there's no requirement to say how or where they're monitoring you. A simple sign at the entereance of the proerty "Premesis under survailence" is all they need.
Also, if they can't do it with cell phones, they'll do it with bluetooth. (part of bluetooth is an open shared protocol for data exchange to guest systems, and is considered a broadcast, not a party-to-party connection). Also, video survailence can also do this easily (almost every airport has such a system in use, or is in the process of installing one, as do nearly all casinos)
You're being watched. There's nothing wrong with it unless they tie the information colelcted to your identity somehow. An anonymous dot on a map walking from store to store means nothing. Were they to tie that dot to credit card transactions, or remember that dot and develop a shopping pattern for that specific dot, then we'd be having a different chat. Since all they're really doing is traffic analysis, and a bit of marketing intelegence to see what stores are getting the most attention, it;s in essence harmless, and will simply help them build a better mall, pick better stores to shop at, make sure there are pleanty of seats in the cafe and stalls in the restroom. It's actually a GOOD thing!
OK, first, if the iPhone is off, or in airline mode, it is OFF. The FCC and ther FAA mandates that the device neither send, receive, nor interfere with signals when in either mode. Besides, iff off meant it could still be tracked, then if you turned if off, the battery would still drain at a predictable rate, dumbass, it does not.
"This means that it is illegal to listen to anything other than general reception..."
Actually, since the system is not litening in to the transmission, only monitoring the carrier wave and noting the position of transmission, it;s not actually collecting "data" "IDs" or any other private information. It;s simply takes advantage of the fact that when you're connected to a cell tower, your pfone issued a frequency uniqe to your location from the tower. Since all this gear does is track all the phones on all the frequencies and monitor their movements, it does not violate this section of the law.
"...unless you are either a licensed user of the frequencies in question or have been specifically authorized to do so by a designated person"
By the FCC giving the hardware an OK to be sold in this country, they have in effect authorized any purchaser. Since the system does not "use" (aka transmit" on any frequency, nor does it cause interference, it requires no further licencing under FCC refulations which have been passed into law and court tested in times since this original law was enacted).
Since it't not listening to the contents of the conversation, nor in any way recording the information transmitted, other than to identify the source of the signal and map it's location, it is in fact not in violation of (ii). It is not intercepting the signal, only the carrier frequency.
If the system had access to any information about the cellular phone it was listening to, I could argue on your behalf. It has no access the cell records, call information, the names, nor IDs of any parties. It's a simple, passive, radio frequncy monitor. It does NOT decode the call, nor translate any inforation it colelcts, only the signal band detected in use and it;s location.
This system is really no different than the magnetic "people count" gates you pass through entering end exiting every store, except it collects more accurate data. Since the system does not store or remember your cell ID (nor does it need to know it) it simply knows what fewquency you are using AT THAT TIME. By nature of the communications system, every time you go there, you're likely assigned a completely different frequency, and thus anonimity can be maintened.
To mess with the system, turn your phone off for 5 minutes, walk to another part of the building and turn it on again. The system will think it;s discovered a new phone, wether or not you get the same frequency assigned again, and it will start tracking you as a new identity. Repeat this a donzen times, and you'll still have little effect, but if a few hundred people did this, the system would not be close to accurate. Of course, the cell tower will be having a heart attack, and while off your phone won't get calls, and you could miss some texts.
Malls with movie cinemas or other places where people would be likely to disable their phones must wreak havock on these systems.