A father wiped out a town's internet when he used a jammer to limit his kids' screen time
When a father in France noticed his teenagers had an "addiction" to the Internet, he used a signal jammer to cut them off between midnight and 3:00 AM. This would ensure they didn't sneak online when they should be sleeping. Little did he know his parenting tactic, which went on for days, also shut down cellular and Internet services all over town — as well as a neighboring town.
From ZDNet:
The French Agence Nationale des Fréquences, the organization responsible for managing radio frequencies in the country, received a strange complaint (translated) from a mobile phone operator.
The carrier had detected odd signal drops that were impacting the telephone and internet services of residents in the French town of Messanges.
According to the ANFR (via Bleeping Computer), there was one strange detail that stood out in the report: services were cut consistently from midnight to roughly around 3am every day.
As residents slept, a member of the Toulouse Regional Service of the ANFR began walking the streets to investigate.
While the examiner watched the clock tick over to midnight, their spectrum analyzer equipment took on a familiar shape – revealing a jammer was in use.
The waves emitted by the device were followed to a house in a neighboring town.
As authorities were zeroing in, the father finally fessed up. Unfortunately, "using a jamming device is illegal in France," according to Bleeping Computer, and the well-meaning parent now faces up to 30,000 euros (approx. $30,000) and up to six months in jail.
DMT.NEWS
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Carla Sinclair, Khareem Sudlow
