7 ms·
An illegal action which causes harm to (many) others should come at a cost. Maybe the cost can just be an inconvenience and a bit of public embarrassment, such
by blunte 5y ago
An illegal action which causes harm to (many) others should come at a cost. Maybe the cost can just be an inconvenience and a bit of public embarrassment, such as is the case here.
I absolutely would apply this to people who disrupt a flight and cost the other passengers time and the airline $$$.
I would also apply this to idiots on the road who create enormous accidents. Maybe their actions were a mistake, but when it costs a lot of people time and money, it is a harm.
If you're capable of sourcing and setting up such a jammer, you must have enough comprehension to know that it could affect other people. It is doubtful that he expected to take out a large group of peoples' internet, but he could not have been completely ignorant to the risks of collateral harm.
- someguydave 5y agoAgree the jammer is a bad idea, but it is sad that most mobile providers do not provide parents with this kind of blocking downtime feature.
- manigandham 5y agoMobile providers are providing connectivity. The parents need to provide parenting - like controlling access to the phone in the first place.
- dymk 5y agoAre you familiar with the concept of parental controls?
- dntrkv 5y agohttps://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201304 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201304 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.kids.familylink&hl=en_US&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... I feel like the choice he made was the dumbest of all available.
- joenathanone 5y agoThere are parental controls built into every mobile os I know of. Why would it be up to the mobile providers?
- chipsa 5y agoAbsolutely. I should be able to easily turn off the data on my kid's phone, so they can't just circumvent me blocking the Wifi for them at certain times. Maybe I'm fine with the kid using their phone, but don't want them to be doom scrolling reddit.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jagger27 5y agoI can't think of a single worse signal jamming activity than interfering with civilian aircraft frequencies. No, it won't make a plane drop out of the sky immediately, but imagine an extremely busy airport like Heathrow without access to ATC. Then imagine one of those planes has an emergency. It means that ground crews won't be ready. It means that runways might not be cleared. Weather conditions might not be conveyed. So much can go wrong so quickly. Communications authorities are right to apply heavy penalties for signal jamming.
- trasz 5y agoNot disagreeing about jamming aeronautical frequencies, but wouldn't ATC assume an emergency when they realize they can't communicate with the aircraft?
- jagger27 5y agoYes they would, but if they can't also communicate with other nearby aircraft to get them out of the way then it becomes a problem.
- Aeolun 5y ago> collateral harm The harm involved in taking cell based internet offline from 12 to 3am is probably provably negative (e.g. actually positive).
- josephcsible 5y agoBecause nobody's ever had to call 911 in the middle of the night?
- petermcneeley 5y agoDoes the punishment fit the crime?
- gambiting 5y agoIn my opinion - absolutely. If you're caught driving at 150mph you will go to jail even if you didn't hit or kill anyone, because the potential for harm was huge. It's the same here - even if no one suffered as the result of his jammer, it could have easily led to a situation where someone else was unable to call emergency services when necessary. The law about jammers is what it is for a very clear reason.
- jessriedel 5y agoIt is not enough to be able to imagine a hypothetical very bad outcome. The expected negative impact (probability*badness) has to actually be large. I can imagine blocking an ambulance and a patient dying if I leave my car double-parked. I can imagine someone slipping and breaking their neck if I don't shovel my sidewalk as required by the city. I can imagine a car swerving to avoid me and hitting someone else if I jay walk. But we don't punish these crimes with jail time. The total negative impact of this jamming crime is probably dominated by the degradation of normal service for normal people (which I expect is large!), not rare events.
- gambiting 5y agoThe law against jammers(and the harsh punishment) is absolutely dictated by the fact that it blocks emergency services first and foremost though. It's messing with critical infrastructure of our society. The fact that it blocks someone's netflix access is only secondary.
- jessriedel 5y ago1. All justifications I have read for these sorts of laws list both emergency services and daily services in the very first sentence of justification. 2. The current discussion is about what the law should be, not how it is; there are lots of stuff (e.g., laws combating terrorism) that are poorly justified using appeals to rare events.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> An illegal action which causes harm to (many) others should come at a cost. > I would also apply this to idiots on the road who create enormous accidents. That automatically incurs a large cost. The automatic cost is so large that there's no conceivable benefit to imposing another, formalized cost.
- blunte 5y agoMost drivers do not take their driving job seriously. We all should. As soon as we are near other drivers, our small mistakes can have big consequences. If penalties were measured by cost, driving accidents would be much more expensive. The result would be an overall increase in insurance costs and (probably) seriousness applied to driving. But when you drive down the road, you will see people talking or texting, doing makeup, talking to passengers (with their heads turned toward the passenger, as if that's necessary!), and so on. Small stupid mistakes cost a lot of time and materials, and sometimes physical harm.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> If penalties were measured by cost, driving accidents would be much more expensive. This just isn't true. Almost all of the cost of an accident falls on the people in the accident. Where that's just one person, no system is necessary to put that cost on him, because it's already there. Where there are multiple parties involved, the existing system already puts all of the cost on the driver determined to be at fault. Costs to third parties are a negligible part of the cost of accidents, much too small to be worth considering at all.
- romaniv 5y ago> An illegal action which causes harm to (many) others should come at a cost. Peak irony here, considering why he was doing it. Protecting his children from social media harm. Were anyone at big tech companies ever jailed for the myriad ways they harmed the society and countless individuals? No? It's batshit crazy how the HN crowd always gives ideologically aligned tech corporations infinite benefit of doubt while applying this keyboard-warrior-tough stance to individuals - often for somewhat equivalent infractions.
- josephcsible 5y agoHe isn't in trouble for blocking his kids' access to social media. He's in trouble for blocking his neighbors' access to emergency services.
- blunte 5y agoSocial media execs certainly are creating harm, often knowingly. But that doesn't justify blowing up your nearest AT&T building.