You Could Be Jammin'

Netline's lawyers feel that C-Guard does not, in fact, violate FCC regulations because it does not transmit radio signals to a receiver. Goldshtein says that creating a firewall -- a barrier to transmissions -- is not the same as trespassing on licensed airwaves. This putative defense might not work in the U.S., though, because the FCC code broadly prohibits "interfering" with radio communications.

Still, the subject of cell phone jamming is a legal gray area that has not been adjudicated anywhere. Goldshtein feels that the governments of the world are reluctant to crack down on cell phone jamming because public opinion is overwhelmingly in favor of it. He says the Netline Web site gets hundreds of e-mails everyday from people in the U.S. who either want to buy a C-Guard or open a distributorship.

Goldshtein pooh-poohs the products of Netline's two or three competitors, which include a Korean laboratory that sells a portable jammer for $150. "It only jams for two feet!" he exclaims. Goldshtein asserts that the technology of jamming is super-sophisticated and that ordinary people will not be able to build jammers in a home workshop.

That is nonsense, says an electronics expert consulted by SF Weekly who, for obvious reasons, wishes to remain anonymous. The expert says that the hardware for building a cell phone jammer can be cannibalized from the base unit of a cheap household cordless phone. All that is needed are a few inexpensive components from Radio Shack, such as a 10-milliwatt amplifier, wire, a battery, and an antenna. It's like building a small radio that transmits on a select frequency band allotted to cell phones, such as 800 megahertz. Ramping the device up to 2 watts of power will wipe out cell phone communications in a 200-foot radius, says the expert. The essential technology and schematics are available in basic electronics textbooks. And on the Web.

No law-abiding citizen would try to build his own jammer, naturally, but a word of caution is in order in case someone feels inclined to tinker with the technology. Builders of cell phone jammers need to be aware of the possible danger of zapping pacemakers and other medical equipment. It's best to limit the power source to milliwatts -- shrinking the area of coverage to include only the cell phone noise polluting your immediate vicinity.

Goldshtein is opposed to using jammers in personal vendettas against the ill-mannered. He says it would be like snipping the burning end of a smoker's cigarette with a scissors just because you do not like secondhand smoke. The possibility of cheap jammers proliferating seems to worry Goldshtein, whose product is expensive and well-positioned to dominate a legal market. Netline is obviously aiming at institutional and corporate markets, and has little patience for anarchists wielding soldering irons.

Should cell phone jamming ever become legal, however, jammer manufacturers will, no doubt, try to license the firewall technology so that only their patented devices will be legal. And cell phone manufacturers will develop countermeasures. Electronic jamming wars could ensue around the planet, perhaps escalating into armed struggle as cell phone combatants assassinate each other by remotely triggering plastic explosives planted in the cell phones of enemies -- as was done in 1996 when Israeli intelligence forces summarily blew off the head of Yahya Ayyash, aka "The Engineer," whom Shin Bet suspected of masterminding several bus bombings.

Perhaps it would be far less costly to humanity if cell phone users simply learned some basic manners.