Using an Unlawful Control Method: Potential Legal Consequences for Misusing Signal Jammers.
Signal Jammer Intended for Parental Control Causes Town-Wide Internet Outage
A father who had installed a signal jammer to limit his children’s access to the internet accidentally caused a complete disruption of connectivity for an entire town. The incident was reported to the French Agence Nationale des Fréquences by a mobile phone operator, resulting in an investigation of the cause of the outage.
The father had used an unauthorized signal jammer to prevent his children’s use of the internet, but the device had a much wider range than he anticipated, interfering with mobile phone signals and leading to a town-wide internet outage. The use of such signal jammers is illegal in France and can result in significant fines and even imprisonment for those found guilty.
This incident highlights the consequences of using unauthorized control methods to manage electronic devices and the potential impact of such actions on a wider scale. It is crucial for individuals to consult legal authorities and follow proper procedures for managing electronic devices to prevent unintentional harm to others.
Signal Drops in French Town of Messanges Prompt Investigation by ANFR
Residents of Messanges, a town in France, reported issues with their telephone and internet services. The carrier in charge detected signal drops that were causing the disruptions. Additionally, these service cuts happened consistently every day from midnight to around 3am. This pattern caught the attention of the ANFR, the organization that manages radio frequencies in France.
To investigate the issue, a member of the Toulouse Regional Service of the ANFR conducted a late-night inspection of the town. The investigation eventually led to the discovery of a signal jammer that was being used by a local resident to limit his children’s internet use. The jammer had a wider range than anticipated and was unintentionally interfering with mobile phone signals, causing the town-wide disruption.
The incident serves as a reminder of the importance of following proper procedures for managing electronic devices and being aware of the potential consequences of using unauthorized control methods. It is also a reminder to report any unusual or consistent disruptions to the appropriate authorities for proper investigation.
While the examiner watched the clock tick over to midnight, their spectrum analyzer equipment took on a familiar shape — revealing a jammer was in use.
The waves emitted by the device were followed to a house in a neighboring town. The next day, one of the residents admitted responsibility and revealed that he had purchased a multi-band jammer to prevent his teenage children from going online at night without permission.
The father claimed that his teenagers had become “addicted” to social media and browsing the web since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a situation potentially made worse due to social restrictions and lockdowns.
The jammer was intended to stop them from covertly using their smartphones to go online when they were meant to be asleep. However, the jammer also managed to wreck connectivity havoc for other residents and the neighboring town.
“By wanting to ban the internet in his home, he applied the same sentence to his entire neighborhood,” the agency said.
The problem is that using a jammer is not legal in France, and as a result, the man faces a maximum fine of €30,000 and even a jail term of up to six months.
In another example of a town resident’s use of technology having inadvertent consequences, in 2020, telecoms engineers spent 18 months frustrated and perplexed over the sudden but consistent disappearance of a Welsh village’s internet at 7am every morning.
It turned out that all of the broadband and BT service issues endured by hundreds of residents were caused by one individual who was turning on an old, secondhand television set at that time every day. The TV was sending out electrical bursts capable of disrupting signals.
