mikey

Interesting points....here's what happened to me.

My company has been contracted to do a "Homeland Security" site survey of all the water tower tanks in the county. We are using wireless to tie all of the sensors together to form a "security web", and I had to add a stumbling setup in my company truck to do the wireless survey (Okay, so they had to "twist" my arm! ; ) ). The setup consists of a roof-mounted 7 dBi omni, a Sony "picturebook" (please, no laughing...it works and is small) mounted on a vehicle laptop mount, Orinco card, GPS, etc. Add all of that to the other antennas I have mounted and...well you get the idea. Looks like something out of the next Austin Powers movie!

I was stopped at a license checkpoint, and the State Trooper asked me to pull off the road. He looked at the setup, walked back to his car and talked with his dispatcher (which I overheard, as we also maintain several of the law enforcement communications systems). Seems he thought he had collared a "would-be terroist". He came back to me, hand on his weapon and asked me to please step out of the vehicle. Of course I did, VERY slowly. After the usual inspections (license, registration, insurance), he began to ask what was I doing. I simply said that I had been contracted to do some work under the "Homeland Security Act" (true), that the work I was doing was classified (again, true), gave him the number of the county manager's office, and any further questions would have to be answered in the presence of his Captain. He went back to his patrol car, talked for a while on his radio (which I didn't overhear, as I was outside my truck), handed me back my license, et all, and said, "Sorry for the misunderstanding, sir. No further questions will be necessary." For a moment, I thought he was going to salute!

My point here is that even though what we do is for "fun", 9-11 has changed many facets of that definition. Fortunately, I was in a position that helped me avoid a trip to the "pokey" for further questioning. Being truthful, respectful, and professional in dealing with LEO's goes a long way, both for us AND them. My thinking is that if "we" can find it, sniff it, crack it, then so can "they". Didn't mean to climb up on a soap-box, but these are strange times we live in. Keep stumbling, but let's be careful out there! What we crack today, may save us tomorrow!

Dr3D1zzl3

great story, your co hiring in nor cali?

blackwave

I loathe the day I will get pulled over with my stumbling rig. I know it is only a matter of time.

I wonder if their ever be a point where some type of special anti-stumbler special division will rig a LEO vehicle with an AP and wait for a passerby with an antenna to pass through and hit the AP... some type of techo-sting. Yikes! This would only work if NS was broadcasing in search of ANY.

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acidrayne

BW ... Now I am gonna have bad dreams about mean little po-po's with their NS-Detectors trying to pull me over. I get pulled over enough you mean man!!

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thewthrman

You know, I travel a great deal for work and am starting to fear the erosion of rights with regard to personal property. I haven't been unlucky enough to be pulled out of line at the airport for the random search yet, but I know that day will suck. I sometimes have a couple laptops in my bag and a spare HDD and cables and non-threatening tools, etc. The guy at the table is gonna drag all my crap out and then, while the overhead bins on the plane fill up with all the other frequent flyers' oversized pull-behinds, I'm gonna have to repack it. I have to check at least one bag now for my various now-illegal-to-carry-on-board tools (which include such things as screw drivers) and my new mag mount antenna.

I guess I am just thinking that at some point in time this 9/11 stuff will fade from memory, but law enforcement will continue to exercise their new powers to hassle people for whatever they choose. Not cool.

BTW, I was doing a little tooling around showing my geek-brother the whole stumbling deal and aroused the suspicion of a local city policeman in his cruiser. Luckily, he was in an apartment complex parking lot and I was in an adjacent shopping center lot that was seperated by some landscaping, so I was able to get some distance in between us before I had to answer his "Would you mind stepping out of the vehicle?" with my prepared response, "Yes, I would."

acidrayne

I would be careful how you respond to such a request because as we have seen in some of the previous threads, others with a response not to the liking of a LEO ended up in a fine and arrest for "Idling". I agree with you 100% that our rights are going down the tubes, but there doesn't seem to be enough motivation out there to stop it. Everyone still being in the wake of the 9/11 attack is so afraid that their next door neighbor might be the next Osama Bin Laden that they are willing to give up some rights to feel that security blanket labelled by Uncle Sam as Protection wrap around them so they can feel safe.

The government does not provide us with the safety that we all want.

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blackwave

thewthrman, if you are an American you will never forget 9/11.

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blackwave

Sure "they" do, "they" are just doing it "their" way.
<COUGHING> National ID </COUGHING>

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acidrayne

Very true! I know I won't. It will be one of those things where kids ask you where you were when it happened.

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acidrayne

"Please Mr. President. Insert a computer chip in my hand between my thumb and fore-finger so I can be identified anywhere I go!!"

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blackwave

I remember I was walking down the hallway with a co-worker and someone with a radio in their office came running down the hallway saying that we are being bombed (panicked data)... we ran to one of our conference rooms and hacked the vcr/tv combo and created a few lengths of wire to use as an antenna... and we sat there for a few hours watching... people would come in and sit down. it was so silent.

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acidrayne

I got a call from a friend of mine who is originally from upstate NY. She called me and said that I needed to wake up and turn on the TV because there was something really funny. Some plane had crashed somewhere in NY. She then called me a few moments later after realizing that this was a terrorist attack and that many people had been injured and killed. It wasn't so funny at that point.

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carbolic

Turn your head:
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002...l-04-29-02.asp

and cough:
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002...t-05-06-02.asp

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blackwave

For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...or_smart_cards

Though I am aware that these babies are coming down the pipeline... either it will make it really safe (utopian safe), or make it really easy for the bad people to hide. bad as in bad not meaning good.

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carbolic

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/13/te...gy/13SMAR.html

Very neato. Using a strobe light through a microscope to set the bits on an IC. That's ingenious.

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