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It's pretty inexpensive to buy a laser you can shoot at a helicopter or airplane, temporarily blinding the pilot. With no equipment whatsoever, you can go to y

It's pretty inexpensive to buy a laser you can shoot at a helicopter or airplane, temporarily blinding the pilot. With no equipment whatsoever, you can go to your local grocery store and start opening bottles of cooking oil and dumping them on the floor. Besides costing the store money in lost inventory and cleanup, you can easily cause hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage in medical costs from people slipping on the oil. You can also buy a cheap car for around $700 and use it to start running down pedestrians. What all of these have in common is that they are inexpensive and easy to do, they are virtually impossible to defend against, and they leave the perpetrator holding the bag. And the bag I'm talking about is huge and glowing. It has big flashing neon letters on it that alternate "I'M THE HUGE ASSHOLE YOU'RE LOOKING FOR!" and "COME ARREST ME!" Look at it that way, and this hardly even seems like news. It's just another addition to the staggeringly long list of easy ways to disrupt society that have near 100% odds of landing you in jail.

anigbrowl 14y ago
For contrast: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare There nobody was trying to be an asshole (or failed to appreciate how their little art project would be interpreted), but by putting it near a prominent transit artery it wound up being significantly disruptive due to the resulting anxiety. A key difference from your examples is that they're all localized, and the effects don't ripple very far. Another is that they're easily explicable - some violent person vandalizing a store or mowing people down in a car is frightening but also easily comprehensible. The litebrite bomb scare described above didn't involve any actual attack, but the confusion led many people to imagine the worst.
- mistercow 14y ago
  I think that example more than anything demonstrates a completely different danger to society comprising two related phenomena: 1. Media sensationalism encouraged by an opportunistic government, engineered to whip the public into a terrified frenzy, and 2. Poorly trained and paranoid law enforcement with no sense of perspective. I don't think it has much relevance to jamming public WiFi, except peripherally in that news stories like this may do more harm than good.
  - anigbrowl 14y ago
    'Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.'
    - mistercow 14y ago
      I'm confused. Are you saying that the media sensationalism surrounding fear of terrorism is simply accidental, and that the government has just naively bought into it and reacted accordingly? Because if so, no, I don't think that's an adequate explanation. Obviously not malice, but just greed. The media is greedy and likes to air stories that sell, even if they are irresponsible. Politicians and government agencies are greedy for power and know that taking advantage of people's fear of terrorism is an easy way to grab that power. It's not evil for the sake of evil; it's evil for the sake of money and political gain. But it's definitely not mere stupidity.

anigbrowl 14y ago

For contrast: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare There nobody was trying to be an asshole (or failed to appreciate how their little art project would be interpreted), but by putting it near a prominent transit artery it wound up being significantly disruptive due to the resulting anxiety. A key difference from your examples is that they're all localized, and the effects don't ripple very far. Another is that they're easily explicable - some violent person vandalizing a store or mowing people down in a car is frightening but also easily comprehensible. The litebrite bomb scare described above didn't involve any actual attack, but the confusion led many people to imagine the worst.

mistercow 14y ago
I think that example more than anything demonstrates a completely different danger to society comprising two related phenomena: 1. Media sensationalism encouraged by an opportunistic government, engineered to whip the public into a terrified frenzy, and 2. Poorly trained and paranoid law enforcement with no sense of perspective. I don't think it has much relevance to jamming public WiFi, except peripherally in that news stories like this may do more harm than good.
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  'Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.'
  - mistercow 14y ago
    I'm confused. Are you saying that the media sensationalism surrounding fear of terrorism is simply accidental, and that the government has just naively bought into it and reacted accordingly? Because if so, no, I don't think that's an adequate explanation. Obviously not malice, but just greed. The media is greedy and likes to air stories that sell, even if they are irresponsible. Politicians and government agencies are greedy for power and know that taking advantage of people's fear of terrorism is an easy way to grab that power. It's not evil for the sake of evil; it's evil for the sake of money and political gain. But it's definitely not mere stupidity.