this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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There are better tools these days than blanket prohibition.
The signals that voice and data go over are different from each other, so not all modern cellphone jammers jam the entire spectrum. Some can be set up to allow voice calls over the traditional channels while jamming data. This forces students to use the school’s wifi network for any Internet connectivity, whereupon their connectivity to apps and services can be whitelisted/blacklisted as deemed necessary by system admins.
Ergo, a system that keeps students off of their smartphones while allowing parental connectivity.
Yeah, because schools have thousands of dollars to spend on high-end cellphone jammers when they can't even pay their teachers a decent wage.
Imagine jamming cell signal then an emergency happens. Oh the liability payout would be massive. And they say schools are underfunded now.
I feel that might be an issue from 4G onwards, considering VoLTE and VoNR are intended to avoid the use of a separate voice network to their existing data network
I proposed a Faraday cage once 😂. But running a jammer would be a good way to get the FCC involved (hint: massively illegal). And if you think dealing with the FCC is fun, ask your local ham operator…
Also they all know how to find proxies or unblocked sites. I watched severely intellectually disabled children teach other out to install VPNs. The smarter ones could install shit like Dolphin and would be playing Pokémon in class.
How do you only allow parent connectivity without allowing most everything else? Would this require schools to build an app specifically for them to allow through and make parents and kids use that? It sounds awful for everyone involved. A mildly determined and clever kid would probably be able to figure out how to circumvent the censorship anyways, and now you’re back at square one but with a bunch of useless infrastructure to maintain.
Most smartphones allow os level VPN, that will get around this.
How many VPNs are running on ports that’d be allowed? Schools can easily restrict wifi to only allow 443 through a MITM proxy and 80 (which firewalls can easily inspect and drop TLS connections.)
You can get VPNs that run over websocket connections.
You can't solve behavioural issues purely with technology.
You'll be so popular, with your dictator-like censorship of an organisation! How come no one even treats children like people, you wouldn't find it acceptable to jam the mobile data of adults' phones. Talk to the kids and encourage them to want to work at school, don't be autocratic.