5 ms·

The cost on this is incredible. The amount of destruction you could do with a handful of those. Rig them up on timers in various parts of a city. Crazy.

throwawaygimp 5y ago
For sure. Although i think most people with enough radio knowledge to even go down this path also know how trivial it is to track down the source of interference, even for an amateur with cost-next-to-nothing gear.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  Keeping them moving would be cheap and trivial - mount them on a bus or truck or something.
  - teh_infallible 5y ago
    This made me think of the movie, “Pump up the Volume,” where Christian Slater has a pirate radio station and at one point he moves all his gear into a moving van to avoid detection.
    - the-dude 5y ago
      The Netherlands had pirate radio stations located at sea : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Veronica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Veronica
      - lostlogin 5y ago
        New Zealand had a Radio Hauraki, also pirates at sea. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/radio-hauraki-rules-waves%3A-birth-commercial-radio-nz https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/radio-hauraki-rules-waves%3A-...
      - BoxOfRain 5y ago
        The UK had loads of these at one point, but the really enduring one is Radio Caroline. They were broadcasting from international waters right up until the early '90s when the British government gave itself extraterritorial powers over foreign-flagged ships in international waters (!) in order to forcibly close down offshore broadcasters. Radio Caroline are still around though, they've actually done pretty well recently with fundraisers. Their old pirate ship is still used for broadcasting but these days instead of using the old valve transmitters aboard they use 4G to relay their signal to (ironically enough) an old BBC World Service site which is then broadcast on 648 kHz with a much more modern unit. They've just been licensed to turn up the power considerably too so they'll be receivable in much more of the UK and northern Europe than they are currently soon. It's kind of interesting to see new AM stations popping up in what's otherwise a dying band. I've always thought it's a bit short-sighted to get rid of AM because in a real national "shit hits the fan" scenario where power and networking are heavily affected it's an efficient way to reach lots of people. You can even build an AM demodulator out of a razor blade and a pencil if you're in proper trouble! I expect by the end of the decade the only things left on AM will be enthusiasts like Radio Caroline and hobbyist pirates (there's quite a few of these in the Netherlands and Greece).
    - squarefoot 5y ago
      I enjoyed this one on the same subject: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/pirate-radio https://www.metacritic.com/movie/pirate-radio Great soundtrack BTW.
  - asddubs 5y ago
    there was a story a while back about someone being caught with a signal jammer in his van, because he was sick of people being on the phone while driving
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      I hope the van driver received a prize. He certainly has my admiration.
    - hattar 5y ago
      Surely this would cause things to be worse as everyone in proximity to this van would start looking down at their phones to figure out why they stopped working
      - asddubs 5y ago
        yeah this was pointed out when this was first posted as well. I thought it was on here, but maybe it was reddit. I think this is the story: https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/man-put-cell-phone-jammer-in-car-to-stop-driver-calls-fcc-says/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/man-put-cell-phone-jamme...
    - zaarn 5y ago
      And when that van is in an accident, people can't call 911 or other emergency numbers anymore.
- fy20 5y ago
  In this case the device was operating for months (blocking emergency frequencies?!?!) before they bothered to look for the source. Something on a timer would be much harder to discover due to the intermittent nature.
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    Trip a bunch of these in a city during Superbowl. Whoo boy.
  - Crosseye_Jack 5y ago
    > In the last week, it had gotten worse with residents reporting disruptions to Wi-Fi, satellite and cell phone service. I read that to be “They only started looking for it once it started pissing people off”.
- maccard 5y ago
  There was a story a couple of days/weeks ago on here (sorry I can't find the link) where someone had been phishing their way into iCloud accounts and downloading all the photos from them. Despite making absolutely 0 effort to cover their tracks (not even a VPN),this went on for a very long time before they were caught. Just because the knowledge is there and there's a paper trail doesn't mean anyone will _actually_ put the pieces together
gambiting 5y ago
I mean, I remember even years ago you could buy a GSM/3G jammer from dealexpress and the like for about $50. I assumed it's the staple of any car thief to kill the tracking signals(although "proper" trackers use rather difficult to jam VHF not GSM)
- dzhiurgis 5y ago
  I can’t imagine you wouldn’t instantly appear in some list just by ordering these.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    Why would a random Chinese retailer keep such a list or even coordinate with western authorities?
    - XorNot 5y ago
      Why wouldn't they? They have no stake in this. They'll do whatever let's them keep operating. "Sure I sold 40 units to <name> at <address> last week. Would you like his credit card number too?"
      - gambiting 5y ago
        >>They'll do whatever let's them keep operating. But that's the point - western authorities can't do anything to shut them down and Chinese ones don't care either. Sending a list of buyers is effort and takes time....so why bother? I mean obviously we're just speculating, I just mean that a random Chinese website would have no reason to respond to such a request from say an American authority(and it's probably unlikely that anyone would ask, seeing as in a lot of places just owning such a device is not illegal, using it is)
        akadruid1 5y ago
        They may not respond to polite requests or threats but I expect they respond to US dollars.
praptak 5y ago
The military have ones which can be dropped from air and are much more powerful.
- mikro2nd 5y ago
  How long do their batteries hold out? (I'm assuming batteries because "dropped from the air".) If they're "much" more powerful (than the quoted 3-4W) then I'd have some serious doubts that they're useful for much more than a short period of time. That said, I can think of operational scenarios where denying your enemy/target radio/GSM access for even an hour might be useful. Still interested to know the operating time, though...
  - praptak 5y ago
    I don't know the details and they are probably classified anyway. I know about the jammers from a person I worked with as a CS student. This was a project on improving frequency assignment algorithms in battlefield radio networks. We (the university) did the algorithms and they (military) did the reality checks on why a theoretically good assignment doesn't work in reality.
- op00to 5y ago
  The military has phased array radar on airplanes that can wipe out communications over a gigantic swath of spectrum.

throwawaygimp 5y ago

For sure. Although i think most people with enough radio knowledge to even go down this path also know how trivial it is to track down the source of interference, even for an amateur with cost-next-to-nothing gear.

lostlogin 5y ago
Keeping them moving would be cheap and trivial - mount them on a bus or truck or something.
- teh_infallible 5y ago
  This made me think of the movie, “Pump up the Volume,” where Christian Slater has a pirate radio station and at one point he moves all his gear into a moving van to avoid detection.
  - the-dude 5y ago
    The Netherlands had pirate radio stations located at sea : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Veronica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Veronica
    - lostlogin 5y ago
      New Zealand had a Radio Hauraki, also pirates at sea. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/radio-hauraki-rules-waves%3A-birth-commercial-radio-nz https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/radio-hauraki-rules-waves%3A-...
    - BoxOfRain 5y ago
      The UK had loads of these at one point, but the really enduring one is Radio Caroline. They were broadcasting from international waters right up until the early '90s when the British government gave itself extraterritorial powers over foreign-flagged ships in international waters (!) in order to forcibly close down offshore broadcasters. Radio Caroline are still around though, they've actually done pretty well recently with fundraisers. Their old pirate ship is still used for broadcasting but these days instead of using the old valve transmitters aboard they use 4G to relay their signal to (ironically enough) an old BBC World Service site which is then broadcast on 648 kHz with a much more modern unit. They've just been licensed to turn up the power considerably too so they'll be receivable in much more of the UK and northern Europe than they are currently soon. It's kind of interesting to see new AM stations popping up in what's otherwise a dying band. I've always thought it's a bit short-sighted to get rid of AM because in a real national "shit hits the fan" scenario where power and networking are heavily affected it's an efficient way to reach lots of people. You can even build an AM demodulator out of a razor blade and a pencil if you're in proper trouble! I expect by the end of the decade the only things left on AM will be enthusiasts like Radio Caroline and hobbyist pirates (there's quite a few of these in the Netherlands and Greece).
  - squarefoot 5y ago
    I enjoyed this one on the same subject: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/pirate-radio https://www.metacritic.com/movie/pirate-radio Great soundtrack BTW.
- asddubs 5y ago
  there was a story a while back about someone being caught with a signal jammer in his van, because he was sick of people being on the phone while driving
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    I hope the van driver received a prize. He certainly has my admiration.
  - hattar 5y ago
    Surely this would cause things to be worse as everyone in proximity to this van would start looking down at their phones to figure out why they stopped working
    - asddubs 5y ago
      yeah this was pointed out when this was first posted as well. I thought it was on here, but maybe it was reddit. I think this is the story: https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/man-put-cell-phone-jammer-in-car-to-stop-driver-calls-fcc-says/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/man-put-cell-phone-jamme...
  - zaarn 5y ago
    And when that van is in an accident, people can't call 911 or other emergency numbers anymore.
fy20 5y ago
In this case the device was operating for months (blocking emergency frequencies?!?!) before they bothered to look for the source. Something on a timer would be much harder to discover due to the intermittent nature.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  Trip a bunch of these in a city during Superbowl. Whoo boy.
- Crosseye_Jack 5y ago
  > In the last week, it had gotten worse with residents reporting disruptions to Wi-Fi, satellite and cell phone service. I read that to be “They only started looking for it once it started pissing people off”.
maccard 5y ago
There was a story a couple of days/weeks ago on here (sorry I can't find the link) where someone had been phishing their way into iCloud accounts and downloading all the photos from them. Despite making absolutely 0 effort to cover their tracks (not even a VPN),this went on for a very long time before they were caught. Just because the knowledge is there and there's a paper trail doesn't mean anyone will _actually_ put the pieces together

gambiting 5y ago

I mean, I remember even years ago you could buy a GSM/3G jammer from dealexpress and the like for about $50. I assumed it's the staple of any car thief to kill the tracking signals(although "proper" trackers use rather difficult to jam VHF not GSM)

dzhiurgis 5y ago
I can’t imagine you wouldn’t instantly appear in some list just by ordering these.
- gambiting 5y ago
  Why would a random Chinese retailer keep such a list or even coordinate with western authorities?
  - XorNot 5y ago
    Why wouldn't they? They have no stake in this. They'll do whatever let's them keep operating. "Sure I sold 40 units to <name> at <address> last week. Would you like his credit card number too?"
    - gambiting 5y ago
      >>They'll do whatever let's them keep operating. But that's the point - western authorities can't do anything to shut them down and Chinese ones don't care either. Sending a list of buyers is effort and takes time....so why bother? I mean obviously we're just speculating, I just mean that a random Chinese website would have no reason to respond to such a request from say an American authority(and it's probably unlikely that anyone would ask, seeing as in a lot of places just owning such a device is not illegal, using it is)
      - akadruid1 5y ago
        They may not respond to polite requests or threats but I expect they respond to US dollars.

praptak 5y ago

The military have ones which can be dropped from air and are much more powerful.

mikro2nd 5y ago
How long do their batteries hold out? (I'm assuming batteries because "dropped from the air".) If they're "much" more powerful (than the quoted 3-4W) then I'd have some serious doubts that they're useful for much more than a short period of time. That said, I can think of operational scenarios where denying your enemy/target radio/GSM access for even an hour might be useful. Still interested to know the operating time, though...
- praptak 5y ago
  I don't know the details and they are probably classified anyway. I know about the jammers from a person I worked with as a CS student. This was a project on improving frequency assignment algorithms in battlefield radio networks. We (the university) did the algorithms and they (military) did the reality checks on why a theoretically good assignment doesn't work in reality.
op00to 5y ago
The military has phased array radar on airplanes that can wipe out communications over a gigantic swath of spectrum.