Ban Sale of Mini Mobiles, Says Justice Minister (cnet.com) 192
Online retail companies should ban the sale of mini mobile phones designed to be smuggled into prisons, said justice secretary David Lidington on Monday. From a report: Often marketed as "Beat the Boss phones", the tiny feature phones can be bought for around $25 to $40 online on sites including Amazon, Ebay and Gumtree. On the inside, they can change hands for up to $670. The phones, which can be as small as lipsticks, are popular with prison inmates due to their discreet size and lack of metal, which allows them to beat metal detectors. Mobile phones are banned in prisons, in part because they allow inmates to continue criminal activities while they're locked up. But around 20,000 phones and SIM cards were seized by prison guards in 2016, with mini mobiles making up around a third of these.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm having trouble understanding a) why these phones aren't seen as an intelligence asset rather than a threat b) what is so hard about detecting the transmissions?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
No no no...don't you read the propaganda? It's because criminals can still "conduct criminal enterprise" while in jail if they have a cell phone.
Calling your babymama, kids, parents, or whoever else doesn't matter because someone might do something bad.
The astronomical costs of collect calls from jails is justified by...uhm...erm...well i'm sure there's something.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:How about... (Score:4, Interesting)
As a placement counselor, she also dealt with lots of inbound cases of perps convicted of doing bad things for inmates. It's real, and, given conjugal visits where Mama brings in mini phones hidden in, shall we say "personal" locations, it's impossible to stop.
The government has also tried to implement cell phone blockers on prison grounds, but this was shot down for constitutional reasons.
Re: (Score:2)
Just look at all these stories:
https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/n... [portsmouth.co.uk]
https://news.vice.com/en_ca/ar... [vice.com]
https://dondivamag.com/ndicted... [dondivamag.com]
If these people could run a legal courier or import/export business, they would be wealthy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You are asking people that found that "prison guard" or "justice secretary" were their calling in life to actually understand technology, even if only a little bit. It is far easier for them to call for restrictive laws, they were probably just waiting for a pretext anyways.
Re:How about... (Score:5, Interesting)
Run a cell. Mobile phones don't do end-to-end encryption for calls, they are encrypted to the cell site, but are then not encrypted past that. This is how Stingray works: you run a small cell, phones connect to it, and you record the calls that they make. Do the same in prisons. You'll then be able to get complete records of all calls made by inmates.
For added fun, you can MITM all TLS connections over the data network and block anything that you can't MITM.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
"You know, the 4th Amendment is a thing."
I think you give that one up as soon as you go to U.S. prison. You can be searched at any time for any reason, your cell can be inspected, your communications with the outside world are subject to inspection/eavesdropping. If there was ever a place where use of stingrays was on reasonably solid ground, it would be in a prison setting. If you're worried about employee/visitor privacy, how hard would it be to have the stingray reject connections by their ph
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This is for the UK - some UK prisons are right in the middle of towns or residential areas. That makes singrays a considerable problem, since the likelihood is that you'll pick up passers by, local residents or whomever else.
I am wondering why they can't have more RF shielding though (although I'd imagine it's hard to put in, some of the prisons we've got were built by the Victorians). Unless that shielding is covered over by a decent brick/concrete wall, the chances are the bored inmates will find a way th
Re: (Score:2)
Well, he could be referring to the Great Charter of 1297, the fourth and latest amendment to the Magna Carta...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
For added fun, you can MITM all TLS connections over the data network and block anything that you can't MITM.
For extra added fun you can call them during the day and make their asses vibrate, assuming that's where the phones are hidden.
Re: (Score:2)
Except it will not catch just inmate calls. It will catch calls from guards, staff, contractors, visitors, possibly even people driving by and that would be illegal wire tapping.
Unless, of course, they get a secret warrant (in the USA) allowing it, then the police can run a Stingray to intercept calls.
Or, they can have the cellular company's install a microcell on-site, then ask for call records from that cell (which they can generally get without a warrant), subtract out all of the known employee numbers, tell visitors that cell phones are banned, then any remaining number is suspicious and they can get a wire tap order for it.
Re: (Score:3)
Make sure your stingray is kept inside the prison, which is itself inside a huge faraday cage. You'll catch all the inmate calls, tell guards and visitors to only make calls from outside and you won't catch drivers passing by either.
Re: (Score:2)
Make sure your stingray is kept inside the prison, which is itself inside a huge faraday cage.
If that were the case, inmates wouldn't be going through the trouble of acquiring these phones in the first place.
LK
Re: (Score:2)
Well, obviously you don't tell them, duh.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They connect to the stingray which is inside the faraday cage. And the stingray connects to the outside via a cable and an external antenna.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You can direct the signal so that only users inside the jail will connect to it...
Staff in jail shouldn't be using their phones while on duty, they shouldn't even be in possession of phones while on duty because they could easily get stolen by inmates.
And it's not illegal wiretapping if someone agrees to it, inform staff and visitors of the system and require that they agree to monitoring if they wish to use their phones inside the jail, or perhaps also require that visitors not bring phones into the jail (
Re: (Score:2)
You have a big sign at the door saying "do not use your mobile phones in this prison because we are monitoring all calls". In fact, you could make visitors surrender their phones at the entrance to be retrieved when they leave. In fact, they probably already do.
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody can here conversations. You can, however, hear conversations.
Re: (Score:2)
You can't here it if you're there.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm trying to work out which EU country uses dollars.
Re: (Score:2)
And which country is going on straight up witch hunts?
Which has already flamed out into absurdity. It's all over now except for the Saturday Night Live sketches.
Re: (Score:2)
can we stop trying to make that phrasing a thing? it doesnt mean what you and all these other morons on the net think it does.
Re: (Score:3)
No, we can't. Here's why. Merriam-Webster's 1st (1st, mind you) definition for "normalize":
transitive verb
1 : to make conform to or reduce to a norm or standard
So that's why we use the words we do.
Nice try to deflect from the main point, though. Oh, also I'm not a "moron" and I do quite understand the mathematical definition of normalize but we are not talking about math, genius.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Blair's Britain is a literal hell (Score:2)
Na it's all Bitcoin now.
Banning them won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll be half that size in a couple years. And then half as small again a few years after that. Why fight a battle you already know you're going to lose?
Re: (Score:2)
They'll be half that size in a couple years. And then half as small again a few years after that. Why fight a battle you already know you're going to lose?
At that rate after 30 years they will be subatomic (assuming current size 5cm and atom size .1 nm)
Re: (Score:3)
Why keep phones out of prisons? I'd like inmates to have robust access to the outside world—the capacity to talk to others, to keep up on the news, to stay in touch with the world outside their concrete walls.
When inmates exit prison, they have to go to a halfway house. They're so out-of-touch with reality that they need to be re-introduced to society--reintegration. That's ridiculous. Okay, maybe we don't buy you a Sega Saturn for your birthday; but you should be able to stay in contact with fa
Re:Banning them won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Why keep phones out of prisons?
Because there is a very expensive monopolistic racket charging sky high prices for people to be able to call inmates using the official channels. The one I know of from experience charges $3 just to load money onto the account, $5 flat fee for a call, and around $15 dollars for 10-15 minute call. That's a local call to a number registered with the system on which funds are loaded (cheapest way to go in that particular jail).
I'm sure the jail gets a kickback one way or another. If not in actual money (sharing part of the profits), then at least in the form of all of the hardware being provided by the phone service company.
Re: (Score:2)
Because there is a very expensive monopolistic racket charging sky high prices for people to be able to call inmates using the official channels.
Yes but I don't care about that. It's like when we tried to reform our criminal justice system here in Baltimore because bail was always set way high d00d!!! and small-time, non-violent criminals considered no flight risk were forced to sit in jail when they could be working and maintaining their households and stuff. The delegates said, "Oh wait a minute, the bail bondsmen are going to lose a lot of profitability for this!" They then worked with them to make sure that bails were set low enough that peo
Re: (Score:2)
The solution is probably prison-provided internet access with strong monitoring (i.e. a proxy that logs sites, blocks access to restricted sites, a
Re: (Score:2)
You can dispose of phones quickly, yes. The problem is that you're usually not being tailed actively, and go unnoticed. You and the guy on the other end can have burners, and be hard to find. Not really true with a guy in prison.
Part of the argument was also that this may be infeasible to tightly control. Part of it was that it increases risk of being caught using the phones for criminal purposes. Part of it was that maybe we should be thinking about rehabilitation, and exactly what that means change
Re: (Score:2)
You know though, give those inmates access to an internal only WoW server or something similar, and the real problems in prisons would probably be relieved a bit. Basically giving them something to do with the hours and hours and hours of intense boredom. Other than you know; plan escapes, how to murder each other or a guard.. that sort of stuff.
(In before prison should be a literal hell on earth and that prisoners should be made to suffer and be sodomized 24/7 regardless of their original crime.)
Re: (Score:2)
Yet the evidence says that this course of action leads to more violent crime and more harm to innocents. You're okay with more innocents dying and a more-crime-riddled society so you can get a rush from your sense of mob justice?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We need to help them find an alternative way to use those organizational skills legally.
Re: (Score:2)
Autoplay video warning next time? (Score:3, Insightful)
kthxbye
Re: (Score:2)
lynx https://www.cnet.com/uk/news/b... [cnet.com]
So, why didn't TFS mention that... (Score:5, Insightful)
This was about British prisons?
I mean, "Justice Minister" was a pretty solid clue they weren't talking American prisons, but we'd like enough info in TFS to know where the problem is appearing, at least....
The link in TFS (Score:2)
If you mouse over the link in TFS, you'll see it refer to cnet/uk. Granted, I'd prefer a tag, but it was actually noticeable this time.
Insertion sized (Score:3)
I had no idea these existed. They seem insertion-sized, if you get my drift.
Re: (Score:2)
Legit uses... (Score:4)
I'd honestly love something that's light, unbreakable (no glass touch screen, just plastic display), and fits in any of my pockets easily. I don't need smartphone functionality most of the time.
As far as prison phone monopolies, I have no idea whether the British (what this article is about) have them or not.
Corollary: (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Because they're illegal and indiscriminate. If you could jam perfectly to within the prison walls (specifically the prisoner areas), while still allowing radios to work without issue, (oh, and also do this cheaply), then the problem might be solved.
Re: (Score:2)
Beat the B.O.S.S. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
So that wonderful video descrbing the operation of the BOSS scanner ... also gives the default passcode for the settings menu. Want to take odds that virtually 100% of those chairs out there still have the same passcode as my luggage?
Change that sensitivity to 0 and go to town smuggling in whatever you want.
Just when you think UK justice can't get weirder.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You could prevent prisoners from using cellphones in the slammer by installing in-house jammers. Or you could ban small phones in the entire country and hope that it would be easier to keep this specific technology out of an island with thousands of miles of coastline, numerous airports and a domestic capability to make devices like this in a hundred different places.
So guess which option the periwigged idiots take?
Re: (Score:2)
You put up a sign that says "Sorry. This is a no phone zone."
Is it so hard to detect ? (Score:2)
That would not be useful. (Score:3)
Mobile phones by design broadcast their position all the time, with quite powerful signal and on a very specific band.
That would not be useful.
Who wants to monitor 100's of cell phones, all broadcasting "Help! I'm up someone's ass! Help! Help me!"?
Huh? (Score:2)
How the hell hard could it be to either a) jam the shit out of them, or (better) b) use all that nifty Stingray hardware to put up a "cell tower" in the center of each prison unit, dominating the signal, and routing all the calls comfortably through police servers?
This doesn't seem like a rocket-science problem.
Re: (Score:2)
I think that step is done by the inmates smuggling the phones inside the prison.
Lipstick? (Score:2)
I'm sorry but I went to that page to see the phones in question and I have to say, it would have to be big-ass lipsticks.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sorry but I went to that page to see the phones in question and I have to say, it would have to be big-ass lipsticks.
If you're going to keister it into a prison, it might as well be a big ass-lipstick.
https://xkcd.com/37/ [xkcd.com]
Better solutions out there (Score:2)
Why not just setup a mini cell tower to prisons that will pickup all calls and either record all calls for further evidence or just drop them. Wouldn't matter how many phones they can smuggle in.
Re: (Score:2)
Better than that, you can get a micro cell set up that would cover the property but would block all calls from unregistered cells (thus allowing staff on the 'right' side of the bars to have cell phones) while recording their position so you can confiscate the contraband.
It won't happen, though. Lots of stuff gets into prison, and until you eliminate the guards and any contact with visitors that isn't through a polycarbonate wall, you're not really going to stop it.
But, they are Cell Phones (Score:5, Funny)
Not allowed in prisons?
Then why call them cell phones?
Re: (Score:2)
Not allowed in prisons?
Then why call them cell phones?
At work, end of the day; a quick look at /. to feed my jones. I find this; I return home knowing all is well in the world.
Knives kill people (Score:2)
Apparently this is the UK (Score:2)
Would have been nice of summary to tell us that, since if you don't know who the hell "David Lidington" is off the top of your head, it could have been Canada, Australia, or almost any place (but not the USA, since we have an Attorney General instead of a Justice Minister).
Banning? (Score:2)
Since when has the fact that something is banned stopped criminals from acquiring them?
Mobile phones are already banned in jail, and yet they still smuggle them in...
Clearly the guys in jail never cared that much about the law or they wouldn't be in jail...
Banning Microphones (Score:2)
Given the level of incompetence exhibited by this government, i'd expect the bill to end up banning sales of all microphones.
How about eliminating cell phone reception? (Score:2)
How about banning guns? (Score:2)
Re:The Real Reason cellphones are banned in prison (Score:5, Interesting)
But the real reason is the prison telephone company monopoly. That's a gravy train they do not want stopped.
Why do they do it in countries without prison telephone monopolies?
Re: (Score:2)
Why do they do it in countries without prison telephone monopolies?
1. So they can make calls when they want.
2. So they can receive calls as well as make them.
3. So that nobody is listening in.
Re:The Real Reason cellphones are banned in prison (Score:5, Funny)
plotting jail breaks
That's it. Once Apple hears of this, there'll be a shitstorm.
Re: (Score:2)
The reason is that the phones are used for criminal activity: directing criminal empires, ordering bribes and assassinations, plotting jail breaks, the whole megilla.
So are hands and vocal chords.
Communication is a human right, like breathing.
Re: (Score:2)
Communication is a human right
It's one you can lose when you get sentenced to prison.
Re: (Score:2)
That depends on the country. Some are less barbaric [theatlantic.com] than others.
Re: (Score:2)
Vocal cords. Unless you can sing three notes at the same time.
Re: (Score:2)
Only two notes are needed for a chord, and some people can do that [youtube.com] with their vocal cords.
Re:Maybe prisons should think about jammers? (Score:5, Interesting)
This. It's relatively trivial to prevent unauthorized cell phone communications out of prisons. They don't even need jammers, just a ring of femtocells that forward the traffic of whitelisted cell phones, and isolate and triangulate phones with IMEIs not on the whitelist.
Re: (Score:2)
With prison budgets already stretched thin, and a general lack of IT support, we now expect they'll maintain a self-contained cell network?
Nevermind that many phones today (not sure about the ones in TFA) allow the user to select the carrier they connect to, as well. It'd be trivial to bypass the femtocells and connect to the network service the community outside the prison walls.
Re: (Score:3)
This. It's relatively trivial to prevent unauthorized cell phone communications out of prisons. They don't even need jammers, just a ring of femtocells that forward the traffic of whitelisted cell phones, and isolate and triangulate phones with IMEIs not on the whitelist.
This!
I mean, this sounds like a fabricated issue when a purely technological issue can be had - they control the airspace around the prison. If someone is out of that airspace/territory and is unauthorized - *you have a bigger problem*.
Is there some legislative or regulatory restriction that prevents prisons from setting up femtocells to capture all IMEI traffic?
Re: (Score:2)
A) The correction systems at the state and federal level would love to jam them. Unfortunately, that is against FCC regulations and thus against federal law. B) The femtocell plan may or may not be feasible and/or legal and could be challenged on a variety of grounds by the guards, contractors, etc. C) Triangulation only works well for stationary objects or moving objects that are easily identifiable at distance. Trying to match a call to a specific inmate through triangulation would be effectively impossible.
Why wouldn't you just monitor calls originating from in or around the prison? Surely the triangulation should be accurate enough to winnow out the "outliers" beyond the fence. Then you just get an agreement from *everybody* who carries a cell onto the premises to allow monitoring and a standing warrant for any calls involving a phone within the gates.
By the way... For your point A, this is not exactly true. The FCC has exceptions to this no jammer rule for law enforcement and security use. I'm sure th
Re: (Score:2)
True...here's an idea to work around it: Have some femtocells that use random IDs and perhaps even spoof the IDs of nearby public BTSes along with lower transmit power. If an unauthorized phone connects to one of those, BOOM, caught. This will defeat blacklisting and even whitelisting if used with the spoofing.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:"Designed to..." (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's an idea, stop allowing stuff to be smuggled into prisons.
Most contraband is brought in by the guards. So who is going to watch the watchers?
Or do random sweeps for them
So who is going to run the sweep? The guards?
Your simplistic solutions are all based on the presumption that there are "good people" working in the prisons. Some employees may start off good, but they rarely stay that way.
Here's a better solution: Stop locking up so many people. Find more appropriate forms of punishment, such as wearing an ankle tracker while cleaning bedpans in nursing homes. Prison is expensive and often just hardens people to a life of crime.
Re:"Designed to..." (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: "Designed to..." (Score:2)
It says a lot about your mental health that you truly believe only trump followers are familiar with crime statistics.
Re: (Score:2)
Devil is in the details -- US only counts violent felonies as violent crimes, whereas UK counts even simple assault as violent crimes. UK has it right -- tightly control availability of firearms to civilians, so most police don't have to go armed. This limits the ability of UK police to push around and outright murder members of the public.
(As recently happened in Mesa, AZ, if you've followed that case.)
Re: (Score:2)
Most contraband is brought in by the guards.
.....
So who is going to run the sweep? The guards?
Of course. These phones sell for almost $700 inside the prison. Guard sells you one. The next shift confiscates it.
Rinse, repeat.
Re: (Score:2)
Faraday cages are probably the best option for the long term, frequency monitors or jammers will have to be constantly updated as new cellular bands come into use. Faraday cage will block everything as long as the holes in the mesh are small enough. Typical metal window screen should block most of it except super high frequencies which are going to have line of sight issues anyways. Take a look at the mesh on your typical microwave oven door. such a mesh would block all typical frequencies used today.
Well, see, the problem is that the UK prison system isn't entirely like the US one. Prisoners are allowed to spend far more time outside, for one thing.
And solicitors are allowed to use their phones and laptops.
Re: (Score:2)
Umm...how do electronics work without metal? Are they using tubes of salt water as conductors instead?
They don't have ENOUGH metal - especially big enough pieces of thick, long, highly-conductive metal, to significantly affect the low, penetrating, radio signals used by the "metal detectors".
A large coin might possibly set one of these detectors off. A piece of electronics the same size or smaller, with plastic case, fiberglass printed circuit board, and fine wires shorter than the circumference of that co