Teacher Suspended For Homemade Cellphone Jammer

[PH3NOmenon]

Jammers should be standard equipment in classrooms.

 

[visiblenoise]

This sounds like a pretty cool teacher. I had no idea it was illegal to operate a jammer: why didn't those train stations in San Francisco get busted for it a few years back?

I have to be honest, I don't think the guy should have been using a cell jammer. There are better ways to handle this sort of thing, like detention and then suspension for multiple infractions.

I really like the idea of having little cubbies for kids to put their phones in when they come into class: still hard to prevent theft, though.

That's a good idea. Perhaps a locker system then?

Though, I've got to say, why are we OK with their cell phones being taken away and not a jammer?

Disclosure is a good reason to me. Using a jammer just seems needlessly sneaky, and if the kids don't know, they might not know to tell their parents. I don't know whether the guy here volunteered to tell though.

On the other hand, if it was standardized, I think I'd be okay with it.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

To be fair, the school board did the right thing. I like the guy, and applaud his ingenuity, but they are right about it being a poor choice made for the right reasons. Especially if jammers are illegal to begin with. 5 days without pay seems harsh, but this could have gone a lot worse for everyone involved, and glad he wasn't fired.

 

[Recusant]

You all seem to be ignoring something important, which is that (unless the technology has become more refined since I was in high school, which is a very real possibility), these jammers don't just block cell signals, but many different signal types. It's almost certainly never going to be a problem if you can't text the girl sitting next to you; it's a different matter altogether if the teacher two rooms over got sick of in-class phone use, flipped on a cell phone jammer, and now your Pacemaker has stopped working.

 

[Sewa_Yunga]

Professional wrestler turned high school science teacher Dean Liptak has been suspended for using an illegal cell phone jammer in his class.

[...]

Liptak was previously reprimanded in 2013 after he used violent questions on a test referencing the velocity of a student thrown against a wall by a teacher and the mass of a car running over a baby.

God damnit, now I have a picture of Mr. Torgue teaching highschool classes in my head, just without the explosions.

 

[happyninja42]

Professional wrestler turned high school science teacher Dean Liptak has been suspended for using an illegal cell phone jammer in his class.

[...]

Liptak was previously reprimanded in 2013 after he used violent questions on a test referencing the velocity of a student thrown against a wall by a teacher and the mass of a car running over a baby.

God damnit, now I have a picture of Mr. Torgue teaching highschool classes in my head, just without the EXPLOOOSIOOONS!!! WEWEWEWREREWERWEOOOOW!! *plays air guitar*

There you go, I corrected your spelling for you. xD

This actually reminds me of my physics teacher in highschool. He used our students in his examples. Like one of my classmates was a hardcore skater, so he would use examples like "Ben, the Super Skater, is traveling down a 45 degree, frictionless slope. How fast would be he be going upon reaching flat surface, and how long would it take for him to slow down once friction is in place again." xD He was a very amusing teacher.

 

[Lightknight]

This sounds like a pretty cool teacher. I had no idea it was illegal to operate a jammer: why didn't those train stations in San Francisco get busted for it a few years back?

I have to be honest, I don't think the guy should have been using a cell jammer. There are better ways to handle this sort of thing, like detention and then suspension for multiple infractions.

I really like the idea of having little cubbies for kids to put their phones in when they come into class: still hard to prevent theft, though.

That's a good idea. Perhaps a locker system then?

Though, I've got to say, why are we OK with their cell phones being taken away and not a jammer?

Disclosure is a good reason to me. Using a jammer just seems needlessly sneaky, and if the kids don't know, they might not know to tell their parents. I don't know whether the guy here volunteered to tell though.

On the other hand, if it was standardized, I think I'd be okay with it.

Oh, if they go with Jammers then they HAVE to disclose it. In my mind, a failure to disclose it is the real liability.

 

[Dogstile]

2. The parents/guardians of the child can still send important information (family member dies, your sister is missing, etc), even if the device is not with the child. If it's jammed, I'm pretty sure the device wouldn't be able to receive any information, and thus potentially important messages would be lost.

The other points have been countered in this thread, but if a phone cannot get signal, it does not simply lose the message, it will receive the message when it gets back on the network.

 

[Lightknight]

You all seem to be ignoring something important, which is that (unless the technology has become more refined since I was in high school, which is a very real possibility), these jammers don't just block cell signals, but many different signal types. It's almost certainly never going to be a problem if you can't text the girl sitting next to you; it's a different matter altogether if the teacher two rooms over got sick of in-class phone use, flipped on a cell phone jammer, and now your Pacemaker has stopped working.

Different frequencies. A cell phone jammer is not going to interfere with a pacemaker. It will only interfere with cell phones or things operating within its jamming range. Jammer and Pacemaker companies actually work together for this reason in that they're aware of one another and police their products accordingly. Modern Pacemakers operate at 402-405MHz frequency. Jammers block frequencies of 140-180MHz and 450-480MHz.

Not only that, but Pacemaker companies actually store the pacemaker in a faraday cage that would prevent a jammers or anything else using radio frequencies (RF) from being able to impact it in any way.

So please understand that you are perpetuating a myth or urban legend here.

The major consideration is really just restricted to the ability to make emergency calls.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/06/business/la-fi-tn-fcc-on-cell-phone-jammer-20120306

Every example that the FCC lists is just regarding emergency calls being impacted.

This is something that can be managed with how the device is set up. Done properly and you can get the device to only target the classroom with minimal bleedout through the walls.

 

[happyninja42]

2. The parents/guardians of the child can still send important information (family member dies, your sister is missing, etc), even if the device is not with the child. If it's jammed, I'm pretty sure the device wouldn't be able to receive any information, and thus potentially important messages would be lost.

The other points have been countered in this thread, but if a phone cannot get signal, it does not simply lose the message, it will receive the message when it gets back on the network.

You know, you'd think I'd remember that, seeing as I worked for a cell phone company in the tech support/customer service unit. Goes to show how quickly we dump information we no longer use regularly.

As to the other points, yeah I stated they were fairly flimsy reasons, I was just throwing out potential reasons they would provide against it. Not that I really agree with them being valid reasons.

 

[Nielas]

Every example that the FCC lists is just regarding emergency calls being impacted.

This is something that can be managed with how the device is set up. Done properly and you can get the device to only target the classroom with minimal bleedout through the walls.

I read that in this case his jammer was strong enough to affect the nearby cell tower which is why Verizon started investigating. It does seem that this guy lacked the technical expertise to limit the range on the jammer properly. Since it was homemade it might have also hit frequencies outside the range a professional jammer would use.

 

[thethain]

High School Teacher Suspended For Homemade Cellphone Jammer




Liptak has been suspended without pay for five days following the incident, which the school board's superindentent described as an exercise in "poor judgement" which "posed a serious risk to critical safety communications as well as the possibility of preventing others from making 9-1-1 calls."



Permalink

Oh, for fuck's sake. Fine, it may well be illegal to jam communications. But, seriously? The world was fine before everyone had a phone in their pocket to call 9-1-1 at the drop of a dime.

This is a bullshit line of reasoning. Yes, something might happen. Something always might happen. That's not a good rationale for dictating behaviour.

Following the law is a good baseline for dictating behavior. Not 100% but its a start. Also just because something was done before doesn't mean we accept it now. We used to let kids work in steel mills, yeah they *might* fall into molten iron, but something always might happen. Also as times change the reactions change. 20 years ago if a kid was in danger immediately someone would have been sent to the office to personally notify the office staff to contact medical/emergency services. Now everyone in the room is going to pull out their phones. Yes they would eventually go get the office, but moments are lost. And before you say "Oh the teacher would turn it off", he might, or he might panic and forget it, or he might panic realizing that his personal unauthorized device could be partly responsible for this danger and decide to play ignorant.

 

[Baresark]

Haha, I would love to build my own jammer and mess with people. I have to say, this law against jammers is not totally unique, but it is a lot more lax in some other countries I am aware of. I get why it's a problem, but I also find it kind of annoying that it's very existence depends on a fairly uncommon "what if" situation. Most of the time, people are not in any kind of imminent danger from such devices. I would like to point out that the law literally outlines how it's illegal for civilians to use. Law enforcement can jam communication signals.

 

[JSoup]

I'd be surprised if a suspension is all that happens. There were a number of arrests just for having them in the early 2000s and every now and again you see a story about someone getting hard jail time for same.

They still have landlines at a school. This would not prevent anyone from dialing 911. In fact, most schools have a LANDLINE PHONE IN EVERY ROOM.

Most? I can believe "a lot", but "most"?
Every classroom I was taught in and the ones I'm currently teaching in don't have phones, not including the intercom box and the phone in my pocket. Colleges are a different story in that regard, but even then, not all collages have open line phones. My previous collage, the phones linked to an automated system.

 

[spartan231490]

I suspect the real reason was because it is illegal, and the school had to act or get in trouble. Every classroom has a hardwire phone and probably a hardware computer in the case of emergency, jamming cell phones just isn't really relevant to class safety.

 

[spartan231490]

I'd be surprised if a suspension is all that happens. There were a number of arrests just for having them in the early 2000s and every now and again you see a story about someone getting hard jail time for same.

They still have landlines at a school. This would not prevent anyone from dialing 911. In fact, most schools have a LANDLINE PHONE IN EVERY ROOM.

Most? I can believe "a lot", but "most"?
Every classroom I was taught in and the ones I'm currently teaching in don't have phones, not including the intercom box and the phone in my pocket. Colleges are a different story in that regard, but even then, not all collages have open line phones. My previous collage, the phones linked to an automated system.

Really? My school district is an aging community with less than 2000 residents in the whole school district. Pre-K through 12th grade has 324 students. Every room has a hardline phone. All the schools I've ever been in, every room has a hardline phone.

 

[Abomination]

What's that, there's a cellphone jammer and you need to make an emergency call?

I guess there is no way at all of resolving this situation. You'll just have to let the flames engulf you.

Or you could, you know, respond rationally and turn OFF the jammer.

 

[The Bucket]

Haha, I would love to build my own jammer and mess with people. I have to say, this law against jammers is not totally unique, but it is a lot more lax in some other countries I am aware of. I get why it's a problem, but I also find it kind of annoying that it's very existence depends on a fairly uncommon "what if" situation. Most of the time, people are not in any kind of imminent danger from such devices. I would like to point out that the law literally outlines how it's illegal for civilians to use. Law enforcement can jam communication signals.

I dont even think immediate danger is the real reason they're banned. They can cause so much inconvenience and trouble (I think this one was interfering with a cell phone tower) and people dont really legitimately need them.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Liptak was previously reprimanded in 2013 after he used violent questions on a test referencing the velocity of a student thrown against a wall by a teacher and the mass of a car running over a baby.

Now I'm wondering if the test questions were at all related to cell phone use in class.

Florida is completely retarded anyway. Here's a country that stands to lose the most because of climate change, and they don't even believe that it's real. Hard to have sympathy for such idiots. They also have that stupid "stand your ground" law. So this latest example of idiocy doesn't surprise me either.

Did you just call Florida a "country" in the same post that you used to generalize the entire state as a bunch of idiots?