London Has a Catch-a-Signal Offender

London Has a Catch-a-Signal Offender

As the Olympics are in session right now, Wi-Fi hotspots are banned in London to ensure all the devices and sensors used for the games are functioning properly. This is due to the fact that the everyone is relying more on wireless communication for everything: the mics, the timing devices, the sensors, the cameras, the communicator, etc.

But what if people do not obey the rules during the games?

This is when this guy comes in. 

Recently, “Aschebescher” on Reddit posted an image of a “Wi-Fi police,” employed by the UK’s Office of Communications, to track down and shut down any unauthorized signals in the area. Although this is rather strange in the United States, over in Europe, this is normal.

As of right now, there is no standardization for signals. A 3G frequency (for example) in the US may be completely different in Europe (and even as bad as neighboring countries). This causes a nightmare if you are traveling abroad with a wireless signal.

chortiz11 on Reddit has a detailed explanation about it if you are wondering…

All personnel is authorized a frequency they are allowed to use by OFCOM(UK Office of Communications, similar to FCC) who is facilitating and managing wireless communication for London Olympics 2012. Those men actually have a list of authorized assigned frequencies and if you aren’t on it, they’ll straight come up and unplug you. Think of them as frequency police… If the frequencies aren’t monitored and controlled, you’ll start getting feedback and cross-channel interference on just about every wireless device.

Although, the device looks pretty silly. That red looking antenna will be easy to identify before they can catch a signal. It would be easier and more invisible if they just had multiple people/cars with a simple omni-directional antenna and a GPS to log all of the signals and triangulate the location of the signal rather than playing sniff the location.