
"Let's ban tiny phones" - UK Government - edent
http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/08/lets-ban-tiny-phones-uk-government/
======
onetimeonly
I've been to jail in the UK. I served 4.5 months in B and C category prisons.
Phones are so easy to get hold of, I don't think most people would believe it.
During my time I emailed photos from inside the prison to friends outside
using a smartphone. Approx. every other prisoner had a phone, and everyone had
access. They were so popular that I was able to keep myself safe (i.e. useful)
by offering a phone unlocking service. Top-up voucher codes were a currency,
even more than tobacco.

The thing is, they weren't small phones. People didn't smuggle them in their
colons - they used code systems to arrange for their friends to throw things
over the fences in particular places. Mini-riots were organised to coincide
with throwovers. Drugs get in the same way.

There were a whole lot of more inventive methods used too. Suffice it to say
that the problem is not the size of phones. It's that if you deprive people of
their freedom, they spend all their time thinking about how to get it back.
They will eventually work out how to get a little piece. Tiny phones won't
make the blindest bit of difference.

~~~
edent
I'm curious about two things.

Firstly, how do you charge a phone? I wouldn't have thought cells had plug
points.

Secondly, is there any realistic way of stopping phones getting in? Building
higher fences, and putting sensors on them, sounds like one way of stopping
throwovers for example.

T

~~~
onetimeonly
Cells in UK jails are not barren concrete-and-metal things like in the movies.
They have a sink, a desk, a kettle, a TV, a (usually padded) chair and a bed.
You charge your phone by plugging it in :).

Another fact many people don't know is that you can buy things, legally, in
prison. By things, I mean pretty much anything in the Argos catalogue. You get
an allowance of £10/week which you can save up (you have to earn it or have it
sent in - it's not free). Some people had playstation 2s. Lots of people had
stereo systems.

Many of the phones came without chargers, but people were very good at
reworking electronics. I saw one system where someone had rewired the inside
of his casette player to have two contacts so he could slot in his phone
battery and it would charge when he pressed play, in a nicely hidden
compartment.

I think there's not really any way of preventing smuggling. Like all systems
of oppression, prisons stimulate peoples desire for freedom. When you have 24
hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to think about a way to smuggle
something in, and then you have 10k people in a prison, and people get
transferred between prisons... eventually someone will come up with a way, and
it will spread fast.

~~~
zwieback
Too bad someone crafty enough to modify a cassette player to recharge a phone
ends up in jail.

~~~
samatman
fundamentally, I agree. But keep in mind, skimming ATMs is a fine way to end
up in jail. There is plenty of genuine crime one may commit with a knack for
electronics.

------
DanBC
Banning tiny phones is stupid. These people have already shown that they don't
care about the law - that's why they're in jail[1] and having a cell phone in
prison is already not legal. What's it going to be now? Double plus unlegal?

Surely faraday cages and cell-phone jamming would be easier and less
restrictive for regular people. (The BBC article says they're changing
legislation to allow them to block signals in prison) From the BBC article:-

> More than 7,000 phones and Sim cards were confiscated in prisons in England
> and Wales last year.

([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_prison_populati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_prison_population))

> _Using the figures below from 2009 and 2011, the UK prison population stands
> at around 97,000. As of October 4, 2011 the population of women in prison in
> the UK is 4,635._

I don't know how many phones they're not finding. Or how long prisoners have
had phones before being caught.

[1] Although England and Wales sends too many people to prison and there was a
problem with women not paying tv licence fines, and then going to jail for not
paying the fine.

~~~
smtddr
_> These people have already shown that they don't care about the law - that's
why they're in jail_

While I agree banning small cellphones is useless, I don't care for this
generalization. Not everyone in jail has a blatant disregard for law. For some
it was just a moment of desperation, for some it was for some silly reason
like weed, some may just be young people making mistakes and had the
misfortune of being one of the few actually caught, some may not have even
known they were breaking a law and some don't deserve to be there at all.

~~~
zxcdw
But still a good proportition of them ends up spending their lives in there by
returning again and again if not being sentenced for life straight away.

It's as if being a criminal was a lifestyle some people choose to adopt from
the beginning. They don't even want out of it, and some want back "in" because
that's where the culture strives.

~~~
mhd
Any numbers on how large that "good proportion" is in the UK? This sounds a
bit too Guy Ritchie to me.

------
Shish2k
> UK officials are considering banning the sale of small mobile phones
> designed to resemble car key fobs.

Prisoner with a phone-shaped object: suspicious. Prisoner with car keys: not
suspicious?

~~~
reubensutton
Person taking car keys into the visiting room: not suspicious.

~~~
onetimeonly
You get stripped of all metal when you enter visiting rooms in UK prisons.

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Spooky23
For all of the dumb policies and harsh criticism that the US government gets,
it seems to me that the UK has a government that takes the level of insanity
offered by the US government, and adds several layers of nanny-state craziness
and general noxiousness.

------
fetbaffe
Yes, yes! Ban it!

We should also travel back in time and ban the fist mobile phones. Who needs
it when you have the remarkable British telephone wiring system?

[http://www.google.se/imgres?q=telephone+wiring+pole+mess&biw...](http://www.google.se/imgres?q=telephone+wiring+pole+mess&biw=1234&bih=933&tbm=isch&tbnid=zhkXQ9VCbOdh_M:&imgrefurl=http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-
photo-20846497-telephone-electricity-pole-and-
wires.php&docid=H1eS89yVqML48M&imgurl=http://i.istockimg.com/file_thumbview_approve/20846497/2/stock-
photo-20846497-telephone-electricity-pole-and-
wires.jpg&w=380&h=253&ei=s_oVUsLWKMSI4AT_44GYDQ&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:36,s:0,i:195&iact=rc&page=2&tbnh=171&tbnw=247&start=26&ndsp=32&tx=101&ty=86)

But wait... how about British plumbing? Can't the prisoners climb down the
wall on the pipes that are conveniently located outside of the wall? Ban it!

~~~
harrytuttle
That's all "legacy" telecoms and plumbing. It's not like that any more.

It's much worse now.

Any basic problem involves digging up your entire garden and the street to
find the pipe / cable which is pissing out water / gas / shit and piss.

Oh and OpenReach can now charge you £150 to fix your line because it's a pain
in the arse to dig everything up (for the 8th time in the year) because the
ground is flooded and the SNR ratio goes off the scale.

Keeps the contractors in business I suppose by my lawn looks like a fucking
chess board...

------
gazrogers
Wouldn't it make more sense to make prisons mobile signal dead-zones?

~~~
alexmunroe
I believe there was an issue with guards needing to be able to use their
mobile phones in an emergency. The majority of the Prison service use TETRA
radios now which can be linked in to the rest of the UK mainland emergency
services so it shouldn't be an issue but there seemed to be a lot of
reluctance so that there was a backup in the event everything else failed.

~~~
cbr
The people I know who work in prisons in the US aren't allowed to take their
phones in. At least here the guards wouldn't have phones to use in an
emergency.

------
DanWaterworth
I can see this working, provided the prisoners don't have criminal connections
who would be able to import tiny phones illegally.

------
einhverfr
My first thought was "how much of this is about jails and how much is about
small 3g-capable cameras?

~~~
ImprovedSilence
it's about inmates being capable of continuing to run organized crime/drug
rings from inside a jail cell.

~~~
einhverfr
That is the stated rationale. But after the Guardian incident, the first
thought in my mind is about journalists.

------
epo
This has as much credence as any of Baldrick's "cunning plans". This could be
one of a number of things.

It could just be a media fantasy

It might be a proposal which has made it high enough up the food chain that it
is being aired in the media to see what the reaction would be.

It could be "chaff" intended to show that the Government is doing things and
to draw attention away from the Guardian/Miranda fuss of recent days.

It is unlikely to be under serious consideration. As I have said here in
recent days, despite your collective geekish arrogance, _they_ are cleverer
than that and they are clever than _you_.

------
Dakos
What I don't understand is that these phones don't seem to be aimed at
inmates. As other people have pointed out small phones have been around for a
while, their size hasn't proved useful to smugglers. Furthermore the
particular phones under attack here a designed to look like a car key. Which
if I imagine is just as contraband as a phone is.

Seems like the government is attacking these phones under false pretences,
which is what really worries me here.

------
AndresNavarro
I see the discussion revolving around the ideas of jamming the signal and
alternative ways for prisoners to have access to cellphones.

I would prefer to have a discussion about whether it's a good idea to forbid
cellphones in jail in the first place...

~~~
ImprovedSilence
A worthwhile discussion perhaps, I posted an alternate viewpoint above, here
is the link:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6257400](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6257400)

------
walid
Also websites that intentionally block content if JavaScript is disabled
should be banned.

------
bestest
they should also consider drugs. and crime.

------
frank_boyd
Totally ridiculous and not justifiable. Just install jammers at the jails.

The real reason for a ban must be elsewhere.

~~~
bloat
How about putting a cell tower right on the jail's roof?

Woulds you use your smuggled phone if you knew the signal was going straight
through the warden's cell tower?

~~~
simias
How do you guarantee that the calls/texts from people around the prison won't
go through that tower?

------
rorrr2
Why not ban all the criminal activity? It will surely stop the criminals.

~~~
schnaars
Like banning guns.

------
Mordor
Sounds reasonable, but what are the MP's going to do, since that's the only
part of them able to talk?

