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Kids in a US town where WiFi is banned hacked teachers’ computers
- randombits0 5y agoI completely understand the need for radio silence here, but that means living here means one cannot benefit from public radio. How is that legal? And when I ask that, I mean how is such law constitutionally permitable?
- evgen 5y agoThe federal government (via the FCC) controls the airwaves as a public trust. It is completely permissible for them to declare a quiet zone for the same reason it is permissible for them to assign frequencies to radio stations or declare certain frequency ranges as being assigned to specific purposes or even manufacturers.
- randombits0 5y agoYou made me look. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Radio_Quiet_Zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Radio_Q... The FCC has no enforcement power. The only law mentioned was West Virginia and they have no authority over the airwaves. Apparently the heaviest restrictions are on government-owned land and that seems appropriate. But I question the legality/enforceability of an administrative edict rather than law, especially one that deprives the public the benefit of a public resource. To your point, no, I disagree. The FCC does not have the authority (in my opinion) to arbitrarily decide who can and who can’t use wireless devices licensed for public use, certainly not without supporting Federal legislation. I have to be wrong here, there has to be something I’m missing.
- evgen 5y agoThe FCC has an enforcement bureau that determines if you are violating any licensing rules or federal rulings. They can issue warnings and impose fines as a first step. The justice department and the US district attorneys are the ones who will actively seize your equipment and haul you off to jail in handcuffs if the fines do not deter certain behavior. Whether you agree or not, we have collectively decided that the FCC has this jurisdiction and yes we can arbitrarily decide who can or cannot use the airwaves in certain situations. Your opinion has no standing here, but 47 CFR 1.924 (and how it may be interpreted by courts) does have standing.
- randombits0 5y ago>Your opinion has no standing here. Nor yours.
- xyzzy21 5y agoNational Security. It is accidentally for radio astronomy. But it's also the downlink site for SIGINT for military/intelligence agencies - the ban on radio is as much to prevent anyone from tapping into the downlinks as it is to avoid interfering with science.
- randombits0 5y agoCan’t put all your golf ball farms in Colorado! Or Alice Springs either.
- WarOnPrivacy 5y agoWe read that a local kid "hacked" a teacher's computer to create a WiFi hotspot. I assume he did that by activating an internal WiFi card and bridging it. I would have thought that these cards would be pulled, prior to installation in a (local) government facility.
- xyzzy21 5y agoI guess this is where everyone with an "EM allergy" should be moving to or they are just spouting BS.
- Arbalest 5y agoThey'd probably respond "But what about that big f off dish transmitting brain control waves" completely oblivious to the fact it is receive only.
- watersb 5y agoGreen Bank. Good times. Microwave ovens are out, too, IIRC. Cell phones? Nope. That single-dish scope is simply unreal. Big. It is big.