Who knows; there's a lot we take for granted.

Cell phones are pretty well blended in.

"From 1990 to 2011, worldwide mobile phone subscriptions grew from 12.4 million to over 5.6 billion, penetrating the developing economies and reaching the bottom of the economic pyramid."

...

"Mobile phones use electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone


what if somebody hacked the network, and fucked with the frequencies?

something like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(novel)


it wouldn't have to necessarily turn you into anything. they could just find a way to spike the impulse. like, ring ring and then everybody holds a concentrated cellular microwave burst up to their brains.

when shit hits the fan, my cell phone gets left behind. I should probably ditch it now, for that matter.

You've never even played rated chess before in Missouri, have you?

I just spent over half an hour analyzing the standings for all tournaments hosted by the Missouri Chess Association, and only a handful of their players had "M.B." as their initials. They all either had a FIDE profile with a non-1981-birthdate or just didn't win any of the championships.

In fact, it doesn't seem like you've even updated your USCF information to register that you live in MO now. Man you've planned this shit out XD.
It would seem however that you were born either November 14, 15, or possibly 16, unless you mis-entered your information to get Cancer as your moon sign.

Bah, fuck this USCF db method, doesn't do a damn bit of good if I don't even know what state you live in XD but I'll find it eventually....

Your recent post,

That's a great idea! Thanks for the suggestion! :D
I'll hack into the network, fuck with the frequencies, and send off the upgraded signals. :D

Honestly I don't know the first thing about cell phones; hell I've never even touched one before I think except my mom's I guess. I didn't know they give off radiation. Probably no signal-level modification to the device could ever achieve something like that though.

My birthdate is one of those.


I wouldn't be so sure about "no signal-level modification", etc. look at what Stuxnet did to Iranian hardware. hacking in this sense entails both the software (the relatively easy part) and the hardware (the relatively hard part - how to spike an impulse or whatever; ie. convert the remaining cell phone battery energy into a single directed pulse of microwave radiation). there may not be enough energy to have a significant effect, considering how much is needed for an actual microwave to do a fairly benign job.

Alternatively somebody could use the wireless network more generally; some sort of interplay of brainwaves and electrical signals/impulses, for the purpose of brain cooking or brain washing. I really have no idea either. Maybe after all it's just a tracking/recording device.

Yeah by that I meant more on a network basis, but when you hack the hardware as well obviously it's not purely on a network basis. Changing the hardware is changing the specifications of what networking signals (signal-level) are processed, potentially. (Obviously it depends what you change.)

Given that the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is definitely on the low-frequency end of the scale, if my memory of Sixth Grade science class is correct XD.

...But, well yeah, by changing the mediums through which the waves are processed (i.e. the hardware at least) those sorts of things do sound realistic. It actually doesn't sound all that hard now that I think about it...to the point where I wonder why nobody's tried to do it XD.

well, right, but software networks are always involved in processing hardware; like when somebody calls you, your phone physically rings. sometimes it vibrates. and those are just the macro-effects. the software network itself relies on physical electromagnetism to exist in the first place.

it would simply be a question of hacking these types of physical properties of the phone (ie. altering its electromagnetic output based on its battery power and its physical profile "ie. what does this hardware component do? what can it do?")

microwaves and infrared (heat) radiation are on the lower end of the spectrum in terms of frequency, but these are the frequencies to which our human biology is particularly susceptible. microwaves have the right balance of movement (not too fast, not too slow) to excite water molecules, which heats them up; we have a lot of water in our bodies and in our brains, for example.

also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared#Heat

True...I'm bad with the electrical physics of it unlike my ancestors but basically the voltage strength of a signal determines which CPU instruction gets executed in software on the hardware level.

But, those instructions typically use registers (built-in, little chips to store numbers like a workbench of physically-accessible variables), which I am not sure is the sort of thing phones use, but sure enough the idea of what you're saying holds.

Well guess I never looked at it like that, but it's even more susceptible to higher-frequency sectors like UV, x-ray and gamma. Forgot about all that though.

that's true, we are susceptible to those higher frequency waves too; i dunno if cell phones can propagate them tho. maybe so.

there's probably not enough battery power in phones, even smart phones, to do much damage. they're probably just recording devices, if anything (ala carrier iq - location, text and call history, sound recordings, etc.)

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/427451/a-new-microchip-knows-just-where-you-are-indoors/

I guess that's why "radio waves" became the name adopted to the lowest-frequency portion of the spectrum that could be the least interfering medium for basic communication.

With some heat and radiation insensitivity to the current hardware plus whatever technology upgrades it could probably be done with other types of waves. :D But I guess the only people who want to do that sort of destruction are too hateful and ignorant to know enough about science to arrange it.

well, visible light isn't really interfering either, tho it is a higher frequency than infrared or microwave. it is also the medium for basic communication, along with radio. the communication and projection of this image, for example, is in terms of visible light.

in terms of who would want to do damage to humans with cell phones, they would be relatively weaker (more ignorant) than those who would preserve the good and remain harmless to innocence. thus an important lesson; evil's source is weakness.

even so, there are highly capable nation actors with advanced technologies who can do a lot of damage, even if they don't have access to the top technology and will lose eventually (see german technology in ww2)

"But the inferior man's wickedness is visited upon himself. His house is split apart. A law of nature is at work here. Evil is not destructive to the good alone but inevitably destroys itself as well. For evil, which lives solely by negation, cannot continue to exist on its own strength alone. The inferior man himself fares best when held under control by a superior man."

http://www.akirarabelais.com/i/i.html#23