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Saturday, October 4, 2014

Who Has Jammed Your Phone Deliberately?

Now we know from news reports about a case involving a hotel in the USA that large organisations can jam wifi so that you have to pay to use their network. The excuse given may be that they are protecting their network from viruses or people stealing data from you or others or them. If they told you about it, bad enough. But often you sit there trying to log on thinking it's a bad connection.

I had trouble with my connections on holiday and when out for the day. It had a minor annoyance for me. I lost a bid on ebay and risked losing my credit rating because I was registered as a non-payer by the seller.

I have also been in hotels where the conference organiser has given me their password for connection but it doesn't work.

I can imagine people losing all sorts of important messages:
1 You lose the item you are bidding on.
2 You lose your credit rating.
3 Your sick or dying relative in hospital can't call. (Or the family visitor can't call to tell you. My terminally ill father was in hospital and we could not contact each other.)

Now you know what the problem is. You either pay up or take out a lawsuit or drive off to another location.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2779875/Marriott-fined-600-000-jamming-guests-Wi-Fi.html

PS
Lovely hotel - huge. I was there on a press trip, writing as a freelance photo-journalist for a music magazine. I recall it took me twenty minutes to get from my bedroom to the front entrance to meet the group - not easy to get out of such a huge complex to find a phone connection.

You might not even think of joining the hotel's connection if you are not technically minded. You might assume that the radio masts were down or that the building walls got in the way.

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