Another murderer pops up on Facebook A second convicted murderer has been caught using Facebook to keep the world up to date with his life inside. Colin Gunn, 42, is serving 35 years for conspiracy to murder Joan and John Stirland. But despite this, he has had a Facebook profile for the last two months. The page was regularly updated leading to suspicion that he …
They have been able to buy femtocells for ages and small BTSes from the likes of ip.access, Huawei or Ericssson before that. Couple that with a "prison service" softswitch and voila - no need for PBX, less need for walkie talkies, etc.
This would allow any unauthenticated phones within the area to be told to die and to stay dead. Much better than jamming.
It is also a service that _ANY_ of the UK operators can provide (or can be coerced into providing) via a regulatory mandate. Actually, correct that - they _SHOULD_ be coerced into providing it via a regulatory mandate. The technology now to do that is part of the networks and using it is in the public interest.
"Last week a man serving time for the murder of Ben Kinsella had his profile on the site removed, after complaints from the Kinsella family."
why was his profile removed? I understand that he have committed a crime and is *serving* the punishment for that crime. But he was *not* banned from using the social network site. So on what bases did the Kinsella family complain have any merits?
just because I find something offending or morally wrong doesn't give me the right to remove it from the internet.
Now I'll get my coat
It depends what he was saying really doesn't it. If he was saying something that could be considered hurtful then it makes perfect sense that he was banned, just like anyone else. If he wasn't saying anything to hurt anyone (e.g. "today I can see some sunlight") there's no reason to ban him.
... there were implied threats in his posts. Something along the lines of "One day I will be free and will look forward to looking into peoples' eyes and see their fear" or something like that.
I suspect that if you were a witness and a convicted criminal said something like that to you, you might be just a little anxious. Therefore I'm guessing that it was contrary to Facebook's Ts & Cs
Escape? Let's hope not!
<rant>
Since this blundering bunch of freeloading mutant retarded incompetents (aka The Gubmint) introduced The Human Rights Act at the behest of Cruella DeVille (the Chief Mutant's Mate) - so she could enrich herself & her cronies, convicts have loads of rights, and the little dears must be cosseted & pampered beyond belief. Naturally victims and their nearest & dearest have none.
Furthermore, certain doddery old fossils in the judiciary (any similarity to Mr Justice Eady or any other bewigged pensioner is purely coincidental and unintentional)) appear to be using this pernicious act to write laws themselves - without reference to Parliament.
One day they will realise that The Law belongs to the people - not to freeloaders in Parliament, not to a bunch of wrinkly geriatric old fools, but to us - the population at large.
We just might have to help them realise these things - with a pointy stick, or today's equivalent thereof. </rant>
I know someone working on this in NZ. They have to go around the prison analyzing the RF and placing small blockers in various locations, rather than one big one to cover the whole prison - otherwise it affects the areas outside the cellblocks or the neighbours.
So although there's more to it than you might think, it's very feasible. Not sure why our lot aren't pushing this forward as a matter of urgency, given what you can do with a mobile these days.
Part of my job involves finding unauthorised WiFi networks in the organisation's buildings (security risk, etc etc, yadda yadda - most of them turn out to be embedded things like Apple Time Machines)
There are a bunch of devices available that fix onto walls at discrete locations and log activity - allowing pinpointing location AND time of use - we have ours set to send an alarm as soon as a network (or p-t-p activity) is detected.
There are similar devices available for cellular networks (ie: organisations where mobiles are confiscated at reception), some have a jamming option which of course is currently illegal without a home office license (and that begs the question of why the HO don't just issue licenses to HMPS).
Femtocells aren't viable for this kind of work. It's possible if you know what you're doing to force a mobile to select the cell outside the prison over the femtocell within - and that information will be circulating within a few days of any attempt to use them.
Too soft on these criminals. Full body cavity search, followed by sanitised cell search. No TVs, no games.
A prisoners day should be highly regimented.
0500 wake up, ablutions and breakfast (Porridge)
0530 assigned to work party, move to work area.
0600 Start breaking rocks, sorting recyclable rubbish, work on prison farm, chain gangs, etc
1200-1230 Lunch
1230-1800 More work
1800-1830 Ablutions and meal
1830-2200 Education, Literacy and maths,
2200- Lights out.
No access to TV, media, cellphones, visiting relatives to be seen only behind glass. Simples.
Labour, soft on criminals, soft on crime (cause we're gangsters too)
It is a genuinely nasty place to be, there are many suicides, those who can cope with it can cope with anything and those who can't will suffer, don't just listen to the Sun with their "they all have colour TV" propaganda, some prisoners are living in cell blocks that have been condemed, it makes hard criminals harder and the few that can get away from the system will not re-offend if they can change their environment when they get out (which rarely happens) but that's social reform and banging people up doesn't really change anything.
"This would allow any unauthenticated phones within the area to be told to die and to stay dead. Much better than jamming"
Interesting idea. Most UK prisons are fairly seperated from built up areas so shutting unauthorised phones down seems fairly easy. However I gues staff mobiles might be ann issue. Either ban *all* personal staff mobiles, choose regular "shut off" days when the shut off singal is broadcast or offer staff some kind of reactivation service.
BTW how does this work with the Chinese mobiles sole in India which appear (and I don't understand this can work) to not have an IMEI.
>>BTW how does this work with the Chinese mobiles sole in India which appear (and I don't understand this can work) to not have an IMEI.
Depends on the service provider, they can block IMEI 000000000000000 (which is usual in the UK) or they can choose not to, there's a load of Samsung phones about with no IMEI as you can do a factory reset with a simple #*nnnn# people have been doing this because they think it's an "unlocker" and they they usually end up with a useless phone, well useless if you want to make calls with it that is. (nnnn is a four digit number beginning with 7 that I won't put in this post as some numpty will try it).
I was on facebook a little while ago,
and an old friend be-freinded me, the usual rubish conversation continued:
hi, long time no see, etc, what you been up to, where are you now,
and his reply was, im in prison, on a 2 yr streatch for some drug related smuggling rubbish,
but my point is, its fairly common place to have computer time these days inside, with or without mobiles, granted i have no idea about rules for idiot cons vs murderers etc.
but the way i see it is, whatever the crime, punishment is punishment.
you should not be able to facebook etc.... i cant from work, thats my prison!
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