Hacker News Reader

Comment by lstamour | Hacker News Reader

Not sure. If someone has a cell phone and needs to call 911, would you be held liable for their inability to make that call?

View on HN

I've always worked on the assumption that it is within my right to build my private facility out of copper if I choose, and the fact that your cell phone doesn't work in my facility is your problem not mine. I am not "jamming" any signals. I would be interested to hear counter-arguments from those familiar with the FCC rules on this matter.

Maybe if intent to jam wireless could be demonstrated, but there are no codes I know of that require a certain level of permittivity in a building, and indeed many buildings all but squash signals- and that is the user's problem.

> If someone has a cell phone and needs to call 911, would you be held liable for their inability to make that call?

I've been in plenty of buildings with terrible-to-nonexistent cell reception. I somehow doubt that they'd be held liable if I wasn't able to get reception to make a 911 call. I can't see that the large Faraday cage example is appreciably different.

The FCC begs to differ: https://www.fcc.gov/document/warning-wi-fi-blocking-prohibit...

No it doesn't. That ruling is about the illegality of deploying a wi-fi protocol that's meant to interfere with other communication.

A purely passive barrier to electronic signals is a completely different thing. There are no rules against Faraday cages, and the FCC is perfectly aware of them and what they are for; it OKs the use of Faraday cages for use with experimental radio technology that would otherwise require a special permit.

So it is illegal. So basically I am not free to block hot spots in my own area if I use it for public access, which essentially amounts to "Even if you own an area, whenever it is publicly accessible, you do not own its 'air'". I find it a bit too restrictive.

A lot of people want land ownership to mean that they have absolute dictatorial power over everyone and everything on their land. We, as a society, have decided that this is silly, and that most crimes outside your land remain crimes inside your land. I can't really disagree.

I dont know, but it's my property and it seems logical that as long as they know they cant make that call, the decision is theirs and so is the liability.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com