[Cryptography] jammers, nor not

[Ray Dillinger]

On 02/28/2017 10:41 AM, Jerry Leichter wrote:
>> Perhaps it's time to start a new housing development: "Faraday Flats".

>> When I lived in Los Angeles in the early 1980's, I met someone whose business was building Faraday Cage rooms for several million dollars a pop.  They had the usual suspect customers: Lockheed, Northrup, etc., as well as the tin-foil hat conspiracy types.  I didn't realize that the tin-foil types had that much money, but I was reminded that I was in Hollywood.

In the early 90s when cell phones started to invade public spaces, and
people started being unmindful of the rudeness of being loud in places
whose patrons and purposes needed quiet,  several theaters and libraries
that were remodeling anyway quietly and cheaply put up conductive
layers.  I know of at least two, anyway.  In most cases not true Faraday
cages, but certainly enough to disrupt cell service. A layer of foil
backing the carpet pads, wall paneling, and ceiling sound tiles isn't
perfect, but with a bit of attention to contact at the edges it goes a
long way, especially when the doors and ducts are also metal.

However, there were lawsuits about people with pagers related to public
safety or job performance being impossible to contact, and libraries in
particular got sold on wireless Internet connectivity, and people
started texting more and talking loudly less in quiet places.  The
impulse or willingness to expend effort faded after a while.

About Hollywood, need I remind you of the ongoing difficulties between
paparazzi and the celebrities on whom they prey?  A lot of the celebs
have a good housing budget and a genuine practical threat model. That's
not just tinfoil hats there.  They also have good reasons to put safe
rooms in the basements of their houses.

			Bear

---
"Ideas won't keep; something must be done about them." - Alfred North
Whitehead.

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