Cell jammers

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Devices Enforce Silence of Cellphones, Illegally - New York Times

By MATT RICHTEL

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 2 — One afternoon in early September, an architect boarded his commuter train and became a cellphone vigilante. He sat down next to a 20-something woman who he said was “blabbing away” into her phone.

“She was using the word ‘like’ all the time. She sounded like a Valley Girl,” said the architect, Andrew, who declined to give his last name because what he did next was illegal.

Andrew reached into his shirt pocket and pushed a button on a black device the size of a cigarette pack. It sent out a powerful radio signal that cut off the chatterer’s cellphone transmission — and any others in a 30-foot radius.

“She kept talking into her phone for about 30 seconds before she realized there was no one listening on the other end,” he said. His reaction when he first discovered he could wield such power? “Oh, holy moly! Deliverance.”

As cellphone use has skyrocketed, making it hard to avoid hearing half a conversation in many public places, a small but growing band of rebels is turning to a blunt countermeasure: the cellphone jammer, a gadget that renders nearby mobile devices impotent.

The technology is not new, but overseas exporters of jammers say demand is rising and they are sending hundreds of them a month into the United States — prompting scrutiny from federal regulators and new concern last week from the cellphone industry. The buyers include owners of cafes and hair salons, hoteliers, public speakers, theater operators, bus drivers and, increasingly, commuters on public transportation.

The development is creating a battle for control of the airspace within earshot. And the damage is collateral. Insensitive talkers impose their racket on the defenseless, while jammers punish not just the offender, but also more discreet chatterers.

“If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people,” said James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. “The cellphone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights.”

The jamming technology works by sending out a radio signal so powerful that phones are overwhelmed and cannot communicate with cell towers. The range varies from several feet to several yards, and the devices cost from $50 to several hundred dollars. Larger models can be left on to create a no-call zone.

Using the jammers is illegal in the United States. The radio frequencies used by cellphone carriers are protected, just like those used by television and radio broadcasters.

The Federal Communication Commission says people who use cellphone jammers could be fined up to $11,000 for a first offense. Its enforcement bureau has prosecuted a handful of American companies for distributing the gadgets — and it also pursues their users.

Investigators from the F.C.C. and Verizon Wireless visited an upscale restaurant in Maryland over the last year, the restaurant owner said. The owner, who declined to be named, said he bought a powerful jammer for $1,000 because he was tired of his employees focusing on their phones rather than customers.

“I told them: put away your phones, put away your phones, put away your phones,” he said. They ignored him.

The owner said the F.C.C. investigator hung around for a week, using special equipment designed to detect jammers. But the owner had turned his off.

The Verizon investigator was similarly unsuccessful. “He went to everyone in town and gave them his number and said if they were having trouble, they should call him right away,” the owner said. He said he has since stopped using the jammer.

Of course, it would be harder to detect the use of smaller battery-operated jammers like those used by disgruntled commuters.

An F.C.C. spokesman, Clyde Ensslin, declined to comment on the issue or the case in Maryland.

Cellphone carriers pay tens of billions of dollars to lease frequencies from the government with an understanding that others will not interfere with their signals. And there are other costs on top of that. Verizon Wireless, for example, spends $6.5 billion a year to build and maintain its network.

“It’s counterintuitive that when the demand is clear and strong from wireless consumers for improved cell coverage, that these kinds of devices are finding a market,” said Jeffrey Nelson, a Verizon spokesman. The carriers also raise a public safety issue: jammers could be used by criminals to stop people from communicating in an emergency.

In evidence of the intensifying debate over the devices, CTIA, the main cellular phone industry association, asked the F.C.C. on Friday to maintain the illegality of jamming and to continue to pursue violators. It said the move was a response to requests by two companies for permission to use jammers in specific situations, like in jails.

Individuals using jammers express some guilt about their sabotage, but some clearly have a prankster side, along with some mean-spirited cellphone schadenfreude. “Just watching those dumb teens at the mall get their calls dropped is worth it. Can you hear me now? NO! Good,” the purchaser of a jammer wrote last month in a review on a Web site called DealExtreme.

Gary, a therapist in Ohio who also declined to give his last name, citing the illegality of the devices, says jamming is necessary to do his job effectively. He runs group therapy sessions for sufferers of eating disorders. In one session, a woman’s confession was rudely interrupted.

“She was talking about sexual abuse,” Gary said. “Someone’s cellphone went off and they carried on a conversation.”

“There’s no etiquette,” he said. “It’s a pandemic.”

Gary said phone calls interrupted therapy all the time, despite a no-phones policy. Four months ago, he paid $200 for a jammer, which he placed surreptitiously on one side of the room. He tells patients that if they are expecting an emergency call, they should give out the front desk’s number. He has not told them about the jammer.

Gary bought his jammer from a Web site based in London called PhoneJammer.com. Victor McCormack, the site’s operator, says he ships roughly 400 jammers a month into the United States, up from 300 a year ago. Orders for holiday gifts, he said, have exceeded 2,000.

Kumaar Thakkar, who lives in Mumbai, India, and sells jammers online, said he exported 20 a month to the United States, twice as many as a year ago. Clients, he said, include owners of cafes and hair salons, and a New York school bus driver named Dan.

“The kids think they are sneaky by hiding low in the seats and using their phones,” Dan wrote in an e-mail message to Mr. Thakkar thanking him for selling the jammer. “Now the kids can’t figure out why their phones don’t work, but can’t ask because they will get in trouble! It’s fun to watch them try to get a signal.”

Andrew, the San Francisco-area architect, said using his jammer was initially fun, and then became a practical way to get some quiet on the train. Now he uses it more judiciously.

“At this point, just knowing I have the power to cut somebody off is satisfaction enough,” he said.
No link sorry.

What happened to decorum? I think these things are great. Cell phones are like a plague.
 
As with most tools like that, they're great except when in the hands of irresponsible people.

I definitely need to acquire one, in order to escalate from my current "Hang up and drive!" bumpersticker.
 
This is bad...

Cool as hell, but very bad. Not only are you interfering with others right to the airwaves which they are paying for, but you are releasing quantities of potentially unhealthy radiation without their consent. I'm not sure if it would be very dangerous, but considering there re concerns over cell phones causing cancer, and these things pump out WAY more power than cell phones... I mean it's probably not much opf a risk, but it's still unethical to expose people too without their knowledge.
 
I'm with the cell jammer but it's not illegal here, since you need a really good device. The network coverage and stregt are very high.
 
Cell phone jammers should be legal in private places. If it's your restaurant, or your home, you should have the right to jam cell phones, and you should advertise it so that people can make an informed choice.

In public, however...
 
You can't use your sell jammer in home and be sure that your neighbour will have network coverage.
 
You can't use your sell jammer in home and be sure that your neighbour will have network coverage.

You can if you know how much power you're putting out.
 
These need to be kept illegal in the United States. They should be for military use only.

For one, having kids, my wife and I use cellphones as emergency contacts for our kids. If our kids need us, they need to get in touch with us, where-ever we are...movie theaters included. We are discreet about it and have the phone on vibrate so it doesnt create a big scene...but it is important to be able to react to emergencies.

If someone is in a theater talking on a phone during a movie, I have no qualms about telling them to shut the hell up or going to get an employee to escort them out.
 
These need to be kept illegal in the United States. They should be for military use only.

For one, having kids, my wife and I use cellphones as emergency contacts for our kids. If our kids need us, they need to get in touch with us, where-ever we are...movie theaters included. We are discreet about it and have the phone on vibrate so it doesnt create a big scene...but it is important to be able to react to emergencies.

If someone is in a theater talking on a phone during a movie, I have no qualms about telling them to shut the hell up or going to get an employee to escort them out.

Or, the theater can simply advertise itself as a cellphone-free zone and you can either watch the movie and be out of instant contact with your children for two hours, or you can find a different theater.

But as an aside - what kind of emergency are you going to be able to make a material difference in when you're a phonecall away at the theater?
 
People have no right to stop any conversation I'm in, unless my coversation is taking place in an unreasonable location.

The bus ain't one
 
Or, the theater can simply advertise itself as a cellphone-free zone and you can either watch the movie and be out of instant contact with your children for two hours, or you can find a different theater.

They can already do this if they would simply enforce it and toss out the jerks who abuse their cell phones.

But as an aside - what kind of emergency are you going to be able to make a material difference in when you're a phonecall away at the theater?

If my daughter has a flat tire in a bad part of town for instance. If my hot water heater bursts at the house my kids can call me to come home asap. If a bunch of cops show up in the neighborhood because someguy is lose there that they are chasing I can come home and make sure my kids are ok (that one has really happened a couple of times).

Dont you have kids? :p
 
They can already do this if they would simply enforce it and toss out the jerks who abuse their cell phones.



If my daughter has a flat tire in a bad part of town for instance. If my hot water heater bursts at the house my kids can call me to come home asap. If a bunch of cops show up in the neighborhood because someguy is lose there that they are chasing I can come home and make sure my kids are ok (that one has really happened a couple of times).

Dont you have kids? :p

For a brief time, I did.

And yeah, the theater can do what you suggest, but that doesn't mean that my option isn't equally viable - and for people like you that require absolute connectivity, they can hand out a phone # and you can check in/out with them and let them know where you're sitting.

But anyway - flat tire: call AAA.
Water heater bursts: call neighbor, deal with it yourself, call plumber, Google it, whatever.
Bunch of cops chasing someone through the neighborhood: hunker in the basement and wait for you to leave the theater. Ideally they're mature enough to deal with things in some way anyway or you're not leaving them alone when you go out to the theater.

That last one is what I was talking about, the "I need to make sure they're okay" - when you think about it, it's completely useless. Either they're actually okay, or they need to be calling 911 first for police or emergency medical treatment and you're there just to pick up the pieces. Yes, I'm aware of the value of mobile phones (I give my wife a hard time when she leaves the house without hers), but the pendulum has swung pretty far away from the "let people occasionally deal with emergencies themselves" end of the spectrum and being out of connectivity for two hours is surely not a huge problem given that it has only been in the last decade or so that we've been able to stay in connectivity 24/7/365.
 
I am all for them. Yeah, okay, they are illegal and anyone using them needs to accept that they could get whacked with a fine and jail for using them. That said, I honestly doubt I'd vote to convict if it came to a jury trial.

People are abandoning all sorts of social conventions and we need to strike back. That restaurant owner, for example, if he can afford it should install wire mesh in all his walls that will block the signals.
 
But anyway - flat tire: call AAA.

Not a member.

Water heater bursts: call neighbor, deal with it yourself, call plumber, Google it, whatever.

Neighbors are all senior citizens very old. My kids cant deal with that themselves.

Bunch of cops chasing someone through the neighborhood: hunker in the basement and wait for you to leave the theater.

Dude. Thats rather callous to tell your daughters to do this just so you can have a good time.

Please stop trying to tell me how to be a parent. I know how to be a good parent. Good parents want their kids (and themselves) to feel secure about people they love. Cell phones do this.

So please stop taking me to task because I care about my kids. Its the wrong thing for you to pursue.

Ideally they're mature enough to deal with things in some way anyway or you're not leaving them alone when you go out to the theater.

They are mature enough to handle a lot of things. The things I listed they arent or they would need help handling.

That last one is what I was talking about, the "I need to make sure they're okay" - when you think about it, it's completely useless.

Not to me or my wife. Again, what right do you have to dictate how I care for my kids?

Bottom line, dont punish people who use their cell phones discreetly and within the boudaries dictated...but take action against those that do. The problem exists because people dont/wont take action against . .. .. .. .. .. .. .s.
 
I've never owned a cell phone in my life. I hate cell phones. They are the scourge of modern society.Sorry but cell phones are unessecary completely. They haven't improved our quality of life or anything they've just made things worse and more complicated.

I have never found myself in a situation when I needed a cell phone, and I have no intention of ever getting a cell phone either. People got around fine before cell phones existed, I don't see why they're oh so indespinable now. Use a bloody normal phone like people did before or something.

All this can be blamed on the bloody advertisers and companies, who are creating false demand for their product by making it seem nessecary when its actually not. Cell phones are yet another symbol of capitalist decadence. Corparations do this sort of thing all the time, selling people products they don't need. They've created an entire bloody pseudo-culture and lifestyle around cell phones. My class mates were horribly shocked and horrified when I told them I didn't have a cell phone, never owned one, and never would. They went on and on about the many vauge and unlikley situations that could befall me due to me not having a cell phone. Oh so very terrifying, I've managed to survive for the first bloody 17 years of my life without a bloody cell phone and I can bloody well contiue to do so.

Humans are just bloody sheep aren't they. Advertisers brainwash them into thinking cellphones are this amazing device sent by Allah himself but seriously WTH. Their bloody not. I don't need their fancy feautrues or cameraphone, built in map, GPS and loads of other crap they put in the phones tese days. Especially that Applie iPhone which is the largest piece of . .. .. .. . I've ever set eyes on. Damn apple. The iPhone, and the iPod and Mp3 players are all products of modern consumerist society. Damn that.

Damn cellphones.

I approve of cell phone jammers the Flying Spaghetti Monster has delivered it through divine intervention. May he be praised.
 
For one, having kids, my wife and I use cellphones as emergency contacts for our kids. If our kids need us, they need to get in touch with us, where-ever we are...movie theaters included. We are discreet about it and have the phone on vibrate so it doesnt create a big scene...but it is important to be able to react to emergencies.

Hmmm I wonder how people ever survived before cellphones were around :confused:
 
Not a member.

Wow - I'd recommend membership, very helpful in automotive "emergencies".

Dude. Thats rather callous to tell your daughters to do this just so you can have a good time.

Actually my wife and I don't go to movies. We do go to the range, though. Cellphone is pretty much a non-starter there. But my daughters, while not exactly Navy SEALS, have as much "handling emergency" education as I could give them (they're stepdaughters, one of them lived with us for a year, it's not like I raised them).

Please stop trying to tell me how to be a parent. I know how to be a good parent. Good parents want their kids (and themselves) to feel secure about people they love. Cell phones do this.

But in "not telling you how to be a parent" you're turning around and telling me how to run my theater.

So please stop taking me to task because I care about my kids. Its the wrong thing for you to pursue.

I'm not taking you to task because you care about your kids, I'm suggesting that commonly-held standards like "they need to be able to get ahold of me immediately 24/7" aren't as important as people make it out to be, and indeed haven't even been possible before 1995 or so.

Not to me or my wife. Again, what right do you have to dictate how I care for my kids?

Again, what right do you have to dictate how I run my theater? ;)

Bottom line, dont punish people who use their cell phones discreetly and within the boudaries dictated...but take action against those that do. The problem exists because people dont/wont take action against . .. .. .. .. .. .. .s.

Don't punish people who take drugs discreetly and within the boundaries dictated... you see how that argument goes now when it flips around. :goodjob:
 
As with most tools like that, they're great except when in the hands of irresponsible people.

I definitely need to acquire one, in order to escalate from my current "Hang up and drive!" bumpersticker.

Oh come now Iggy, not the "Will you drive better if I shove that cellphone up your a--" bumper sticker? Yes, I have seen them.

I need to buy one too. When I see people driving with a cellphone, just click that little baby on and either piss them off, or make them improve their driving.

In fact, I'm required to write an "Improvement Proposal" for one of my classes, and talking on cellphones while driving may be the topic. I'm also thinking of sending it in to my legislators, pull over and talk, or turn it the hell off.
 
Oh come now Iggy, not the "Will you drive better if I shove that cellphone up your a--" bumper sticker?

I need to buy one too. When I see people driving with a cellphone, just click that little baby on and either piss them off, or make them improve their driving.

Apparently they're too busy talking on their phone to pay attention to my bumpersticker. :(
 
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