7 ms·

I still don't feel great about this. It should be up to the end user to not break the law.

by R0b0t1 5y ago

homero 5y ago
Then people would buy phone jammers if they could easily be sold
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  Kits are already easy to buy. People don't bother buying the kits because if you use the jammer generally you are found. Occasionally pops up in the news.
  - djmips 5y ago
    " if you use the jammer generally you are found. Occasionally pops up in the news." - only people who are found pop up in the news. Your logic looks faulty.
    - Johnythree 5y ago
      The thing with phone jammers is that they actively flag "I am here" and are easy to locate. Because phone jammers cause serious problems to the phone companies, they have teams in the field actively tracking them down. And the phone base stations run software which automatically flag that they are present and log the co-ordinates. The FCC doesn't even need to get involved.
  - homero 5y ago
    Easily like preassembled on amazon prime and many more would try it
briandear 5y ago
I’m not going to trust aircraft safety to one jackass who might not care about the law — or might not even be aware of the consequences of what they are messing with.
Robotbeat 5y ago
I agree. Is SDR gonna be made illegal? Same idea.
- paranoidrobot 5y ago
  I believe most of the SDR community is about receiving, which is by and large, legal. The bits I've seen involving SDR transmission has been very clear that it's only to be done if you're a licensed operator.
  - desine 5y ago
    Technically, you’re not allowed to “operate” on bands you’re not licensed for, including rx, but enforcement is difficult, of course. Edit: If your device has any transmit ability, it falls under above. If your device ONLY has rx capability, it does not. Many of the USB SDR dongles DO have the capability to tx, albeit at only ~0.5 watts. This is generally not advertised in the device, but their chip does technically hav an amplifier capable of sending out signals, though usually you would also need an antenna with a shunt. I'm quite certain on this. Again, in real life, it does not matter.
    - jimktrains2 5y ago
      In the us you're allowed to receive everything but the cellular phone spectrum without a license. You or the device needs to be licensed to transmit, however. Note that this isn't the case everywhere. I believe in the uk it's illegal to listen to air traffic, but I would need to look up the specifics to give anymore detail.
      - R0b0t1 5y ago
        Receiving of certain bands is prohibited, from memory the ones used on cordless phones and something else. All devices sold, say frequency analyzers, have to have a bandgap for them to pass FCC validation. It is common to remove these bandgaps and ignore the law because everyone seems to accept they are really dumb and they wreck the sensitivity of the instrument.
jlarocco 5y ago
It is up to the end user to not break the law. But... > In its earlier Forfeiture Order, the FCC said it had made clear that “[d]evices used in the Amateur Radio Service do not require authorization prior to being imported into the United States, but “if such equipment can operate in amateur and non-amateur frequencies, it must be certified prior to marketing and operation.” The FCC investigation found that 65 models of devices marketed by HobbyKing did not have the required FCC certification. It's also up to the equipment manufacturer or importer to make sure the equipment they sell in the United States is certified by the FCC.
- tdeck 5y ago
  Just to add more context to this - it's easy to create a radio device that outputs RF on frequencies outside the intended range. This is one of the main reasons we have the certification requirements to begin with. It would be bad enough to do it by mistake, but these things do it by design.
azernik 5y ago
EM spectrum is something sovereign states take Very Seriously, and if that requires hardware makers to lock their hardware in to approved frequencies so be it (from a state perspective).
rthomas6 5y ago
GPS signals from the satellites are extremely weak, and actually are below the noise floor. GPS uses processing gain tricks in order to see the signals at all. This means that a terrestrial based transmitter doesn't have to put out a ton of power to break GPS in a large area. Like, many square miles. It makes sense to me to outlaw the sale of RF electronics that are made to transmit on that frequency. Usually I would agree with you, but it's sort of like selling a laser pointer with a user-accessible switch that would make it a powerful directed energy weapon.
- salawat 5y ago
  >but it's sort of like selling a laser pointer with a user-accessible switch that would make it a powerful directed energy weapon. ...I see no problem with this. In fact, I'll take 5.
  - underwater 5y ago
    You're proving his point? People will buy this with the intent of misusing it, therefore the government should stop people selling it.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    Sure. Can you afford to pay damages after you inadvertently blind yourself, and everyone else in a hundred meter radius around you, with diffuse reflections off whatever you point the laser at?
    - ziml77 5y ago
      That's a selfish framing, though for that poster it's probably a good choice. However the thing that they really should worry about is harming others in the first place. If I was blinded by them, money would be great to get but no amount is going to make up for the fact that I'm blind.
betaclass 5y ago
This goes beyond just breaking the law. This endangers others' lives.
fencepost 5y ago
My initial thought was also that it sounded excessive, until I got to the parts about interfering with assorted Air Traffic Control frequencies, only 1 of the 7 possible selectable bands being legal for use, broadcasting (in reserved bands!) at higher power than allowed for the device type, selling 65 other noncompliant products, claiming that the constitution protected them from having to respond and refusing to agree to more than "We'll try not to do it again but no promises." After that, throw the book at them. I'm amazed they didn't claim that the FCC had no jurisdiction because they only recognize county sheriffs as authorities. After all, what could possibly go wrong with remote controlled flying transmitters that interfere with GPS AND ATC navigation systems?
- netr0ute 5y ago
  > until I got to the parts about interfering with assorted Air Traffic Control frequencies I'm ok with this.
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  > After all, what could possibly go wrong with remote controlled flying transmitters that interfere with GPS AND ATC navigation systems? Do you think the people who operate or use these things are completely helpless and have no contingency plans? The people in here saying the sky is falling are insane. People who operate disruptive devices are caught, and then educated and/or fined all the time.
  - fencepost 5y ago
    Absolutely they have contingency plans and it's unlikely something with these would cause a jet crash, but in a scenario with instrument flight due to weather, taking out one of two additional positioning systems adds noticeable risk. Low visibility. No GPS. Impaired ATC. How many additional separate systems have to be affected to be a real problem?
    - R0b0t1 5y ago
      Looks like you're moving.
colechristensen 5y ago
With generic equipment like an SDR which requires one to specifically do many things to break the law. However having a piece of unlicensed radio equipment for use with unlicensed operators which has essentially a “flip this switch to break the law” the situation is quite different.
labster 5y ago
If it were a product for licensed radio operators, sure it’s up to the user. But for the general public, it’s really not appropriate for them to be able to flip a switch that breaks international law, and have an elite Dutch police team haul them off for trial in The Hague. Even if that does sound awesome.
nucleardog 5y ago
It's just not realistic to enforce at scale. As an example of this, look at the explosion of cheap handheld radios that can operate across all different parts of the spectrum flooding in from China, enforcement has been... more or less non-existent except in the most egregious of cases. Generally the range on these things is only a few miles, and trying to pinpoint a single intermittent transmission even if it's static within that few miles can be _extremely_ time consuming. And we're talking about a very limited shared resource that we rely on for many aspects of day-to-day life. Where it _is_ possible to enforce at scale is at importation/sale. Yes, any random yahoo can get the parts to put together an illegal transmitter. But the scale of that problem is a hell of a lot different than a product being mass marketed online for $50 with no indication that it's illegal to operate. The simple fact is if the market gets flooded with cheap devices that don't follow the spectrum allocations, large swathes of the spectrum will very quickly become useless. It's pretty a straightforward example of the tragedy of the commons.
himinlomax 5y ago
Even if you're a hardcore libertarian, you have to be somewhat pragmatic here. The freedom to do whatever the fuck you want is nice, but being able to board a flight without fearing that it could be endangered by any random fuckwit who doesn't know what they're doing is a bit nicer. While it's not that hard to cobble together some electronics that would have the same effect, this is about limiting it happening because some idiots flipped the wrong switch, or making it just hard enough to stop most evildoers who would do it on purpose from actually doing it.

I still don't feel great about this. It should be up to the end user to not break the law.

by R0b0t1 5y ago

I still don't feel great about this. It should be up to the end user to not break the law.

homero 5y ago

Then people would buy phone jammers if they could easily be sold

R0b0t1 5y ago
Kits are already easy to buy. People don't bother buying the kits because if you use the jammer generally you are found. Occasionally pops up in the news.
- djmips 5y ago
  " if you use the jammer generally you are found. Occasionally pops up in the news." - only people who are found pop up in the news. Your logic looks faulty.
  - Johnythree 5y ago
    The thing with phone jammers is that they actively flag "I am here" and are easy to locate. Because phone jammers cause serious problems to the phone companies, they have teams in the field actively tracking them down. And the phone base stations run software which automatically flag that they are present and log the co-ordinates. The FCC doesn't even need to get involved.
- homero 5y ago
  Easily like preassembled on amazon prime and many more would try it

briandear 5y ago

I’m not going to trust aircraft safety to one jackass who might not care about the law — or might not even be aware of the consequences of what they are messing with.

Robotbeat 5y ago

I agree. Is SDR gonna be made illegal? Same idea.

paranoidrobot 5y ago
I believe most of the SDR community is about receiving, which is by and large, legal. The bits I've seen involving SDR transmission has been very clear that it's only to be done if you're a licensed operator.
- desine 5y ago
  Technically, you’re not allowed to “operate” on bands you’re not licensed for, including rx, but enforcement is difficult, of course. Edit: If your device has any transmit ability, it falls under above. If your device ONLY has rx capability, it does not. Many of the USB SDR dongles DO have the capability to tx, albeit at only ~0.5 watts. This is generally not advertised in the device, but their chip does technically hav an amplifier capable of sending out signals, though usually you would also need an antenna with a shunt. I'm quite certain on this. Again, in real life, it does not matter.
  - jimktrains2 5y ago
    In the us you're allowed to receive everything but the cellular phone spectrum without a license. You or the device needs to be licensed to transmit, however. Note that this isn't the case everywhere. I believe in the uk it's illegal to listen to air traffic, but I would need to look up the specifics to give anymore detail.
    - R0b0t1 5y ago
      Receiving of certain bands is prohibited, from memory the ones used on cordless phones and something else. All devices sold, say frequency analyzers, have to have a bandgap for them to pass FCC validation. It is common to remove these bandgaps and ignore the law because everyone seems to accept they are really dumb and they wreck the sensitivity of the instrument.

jlarocco 5y ago

It is up to the end user to not break the law. But... > In its earlier Forfeiture Order, the FCC said it had made clear that “[d]evices used in the Amateur Radio Service do not require authorization prior to being imported into the United States, but “if such equipment can operate in amateur and non-amateur frequencies, it must be certified prior to marketing and operation.” The FCC investigation found that 65 models of devices marketed by HobbyKing did not have the required FCC certification. It's also up to the equipment manufacturer or importer to make sure the equipment they sell in the United States is certified by the FCC.

tdeck 5y ago
Just to add more context to this - it's easy to create a radio device that outputs RF on frequencies outside the intended range. This is one of the main reasons we have the certification requirements to begin with. It would be bad enough to do it by mistake, but these things do it by design.

azernik 5y ago

EM spectrum is something sovereign states take Very Seriously, and if that requires hardware makers to lock their hardware in to approved frequencies so be it (from a state perspective).

rthomas6 5y ago

GPS signals from the satellites are extremely weak, and actually are below the noise floor. GPS uses processing gain tricks in order to see the signals at all. This means that a terrestrial based transmitter doesn't have to put out a ton of power to break GPS in a large area. Like, many square miles. It makes sense to me to outlaw the sale of RF electronics that are made to transmit on that frequency. Usually I would agree with you, but it's sort of like selling a laser pointer with a user-accessible switch that would make it a powerful directed energy weapon.

salawat 5y ago
>but it's sort of like selling a laser pointer with a user-accessible switch that would make it a powerful directed energy weapon. ...I see no problem with this. In fact, I'll take 5.
- underwater 5y ago
  You're proving his point? People will buy this with the intent of misusing it, therefore the government should stop people selling it.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Sure. Can you afford to pay damages after you inadvertently blind yourself, and everyone else in a hundred meter radius around you, with diffuse reflections off whatever you point the laser at?
  - ziml77 5y ago
    That's a selfish framing, though for that poster it's probably a good choice. However the thing that they really should worry about is harming others in the first place. If I was blinded by them, money would be great to get but no amount is going to make up for the fact that I'm blind.

betaclass 5y ago

This goes beyond just breaking the law. This endangers others' lives.

fencepost 5y ago

My initial thought was also that it sounded excessive, until I got to the parts about interfering with assorted Air Traffic Control frequencies, only 1 of the 7 possible selectable bands being legal for use, broadcasting (in reserved bands!) at higher power than allowed for the device type, selling 65 other noncompliant products, claiming that the constitution protected them from having to respond and refusing to agree to more than "We'll try not to do it again but no promises." After that, throw the book at them. I'm amazed they didn't claim that the FCC had no jurisdiction because they only recognize county sheriffs as authorities. After all, what could possibly go wrong with remote controlled flying transmitters that interfere with GPS AND ATC navigation systems?

netr0ute 5y ago
> until I got to the parts about interfering with assorted Air Traffic Control frequencies I'm ok with this.
R0b0t1 5y ago
> After all, what could possibly go wrong with remote controlled flying transmitters that interfere with GPS AND ATC navigation systems? Do you think the people who operate or use these things are completely helpless and have no contingency plans? The people in here saying the sky is falling are insane. People who operate disruptive devices are caught, and then educated and/or fined all the time.
- fencepost 5y ago
  Absolutely they have contingency plans and it's unlikely something with these would cause a jet crash, but in a scenario with instrument flight due to weather, taking out one of two additional positioning systems adds noticeable risk. Low visibility. No GPS. Impaired ATC. How many additional separate systems have to be affected to be a real problem?
  - R0b0t1 5y ago
    Looks like you're moving.

colechristensen 5y ago

With generic equipment like an SDR which requires one to specifically do many things to break the law. However having a piece of unlicensed radio equipment for use with unlicensed operators which has essentially a “flip this switch to break the law” the situation is quite different.

labster 5y ago

If it were a product for licensed radio operators, sure it’s up to the user. But for the general public, it’s really not appropriate for them to be able to flip a switch that breaks international law, and have an elite Dutch police team haul them off for trial in The Hague. Even if that does sound awesome.

nucleardog 5y ago

It's just not realistic to enforce at scale. As an example of this, look at the explosion of cheap handheld radios that can operate across all different parts of the spectrum flooding in from China, enforcement has been... more or less non-existent except in the most egregious of cases. Generally the range on these things is only a few miles, and trying to pinpoint a single intermittent transmission even if it's static within that few miles can be _extremely_ time consuming. And we're talking about a very limited shared resource that we rely on for many aspects of day-to-day life. Where it _is_ possible to enforce at scale is at importation/sale. Yes, any random yahoo can get the parts to put together an illegal transmitter. But the scale of that problem is a hell of a lot different than a product being mass marketed online for $50 with no indication that it's illegal to operate. The simple fact is if the market gets flooded with cheap devices that don't follow the spectrum allocations, large swathes of the spectrum will very quickly become useless. It's pretty a straightforward example of the tragedy of the commons.

himinlomax 5y ago

Even if you're a hardcore libertarian, you have to be somewhat pragmatic here. The freedom to do whatever the fuck you want is nice, but being able to board a flight without fearing that it could be endangered by any random fuckwit who doesn't know what they're doing is a bit nicer. While it's not that hard to cobble together some electronics that would have the same effect, this is about limiting it happening because some idiots flipped the wrong switch, or making it just hard enough to stop most evildoers who would do it on purpose from actually doing it.