Just mandate that any/all electronic devices capable of mining or transferring Bitcoins be licensed & registered, with regular inspections and tamper-evident seals on the case/housing of the devices, and California-approved software installed to monitor and report any Bitcoin mining or transfers.

As a bonus, California can also use the inspections and monitoring software to detect and prevent all manner of criminal acts.

See? Easy! /s

Strat

Oh goody!

Then we can have the government try to regulate "'weapons-grade' batteries and similar energy storage devices".

I can almost hear the sound-bites; You can't sell that #DEVICE (phone, tablet, whatever) with a battery that lasts more than X-hours, as it could be turned into a weapon! Every one of those #DEVICEs on the streets is a potential dead cop!

And so in 10 years, even though battery tech is certain to make large leaps, we would still need to charge our mobile devices daily.

I don't think many in government and the powerful will be satisfied until electricity and ferrous metals/alloys are heavily restricted and regulated and/or considered as contraband, and the masses are reduced to Bronze Age tech & weapons for the most part while the powerful elites enjoy modern tech in "gated communities" taken to extreme.

Strat

'Criminal activities that make it so' like civil rights protests and political demonstrations and gatherings?

You must share the government's views on what it would like to consider 'criminal' (basically anything it doesn't like, makes it look bad, limits government power, or interferes with the ability to confiscate and redistribute wealth as it sees fit).

Strat

You keep insisting, not only in this article but also in other Stingray-related /. articles, that the NTIA allows the Feds to do whatever they want radio-spectrum-wise

I have said no such thing. In fact, whenever people like you try to twist what I've actually said into this lie, I've corrected you in public.

Once again, I find myself wasting time responding to people who either cannot understand the difference between "not subject to FCC rules" and "not subject to any rules", or who deliberately ignore the difference so they can lie about what I've said.

There you go again, trying to sidetrack and obfuscate the central issue. Neither the NTIA nor any other federal law or regulation allows Stingrays to be legally used in the manner that law enforcement has used them. That's why Stingray use by LE has been so secretive in the first place.

The fact is that the US government has been taken over by fascist oligarchs who wipe their asses with the Constitution, Civil Rights, Due Process, and Rule of Law, thus it is no longer the legitimate government of the US and has exactly the same type of authority that the Crips and Bloods have in L.A.. The power of fear, guns, and violence.

The US Government has slowly over the decades morphed to an ongoing organized criminal enterprise.

Strat

There is nothing there or in the NTIA that allows law enforcement agencies to violate FCC rules, especially without a warrant. Please point out the specific law that, in your opinion, authorizes such activities by law enforcement.

And even if such interference was allowed, that still does not invalidate 4th Amendment protections both for the intended targeted individual(s) nor the innocent people in the area whose civil rights are violated in the course of Stingray use.

Strat

While I know it would never happen, I would love to see the FCC get involved in this. Spectrum is kinda their domain

But the FBI use of spectrum is not.

You keep insisting, not only in this article but also in other Stingray-related /. articles, that the NTIA allows the Feds to do whatever they want radio-spectrum-wise which simply and plainly is not the case.

I have to wonder if either you're that stubborn & obtuse, or do you get paid to shill?

Strat

It's the result of a US DoJ operation called "Operation Chokepoint" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O... which does an end-run around Constitutional limits on government power and the protections afforded by it to the people by putting pressure (Gee, we'd hate to have to come in and audit you to hell and back every 30 days for the next 10 years) on banks and other financial institutions and companies to stop doing business with those people & businesses the US government dislikes and/or finds inconvenient.

The US has become a 'Banana Republic', "democratic" and "representative" in name only, where corruption, greed, and lust for power pervades the entire system. The law no longer matters, it's who you know that matters.

All it will take is the right trigger for the US to go full fascist oligarchy.

Hey, I know! Let's put the government in charge of more stuff and give it more money and power! Problem solved!

Strat

My main interest in this SDR project would be as part of a home-brew RF/digital test/research bench for a variety of mobile cell-based equipment and development of new types of devices for new uses.

How does a company like Harris Corp. get away with manufacturing/selling Stingrays for use in the US, and can this project possibly use the same technical exceptions used by Harris Corp. to negate the requirement to artificially cripple it?

Strat

Is this block implemented in software or hardware? Could it theoretically be bypassed/removed by someone technically oriented?

Strat

Does being FCC Type approved mean there are certain frequency bands that are verboten? In other words, is the coverage continuous from 50mHz - 1gHz or are there required gaps?

I know that communications receivers capable of covering the cellphone bands were made illegal to sell in the US a while back. Just wondering how SDR will deal with such legislation going forward.

This may be a real concern where a SDR may cover bands where things like cellphones and police/military/air communications live and are heavily regulated and some portions restricted from even reception by unauthorized persons. Aren't many trunked police/fire/EMS radio systems in the 800mHz band, or is that dated? It's been a long time since I held an amateur radio license.

Strat

Of course, we don't fully what the rules will do since they have been acting in secrecy!

They will be published when they are finalized.

We have to give the government the power to regulate the internet before we can know what they'll do to the internet.

Wait, this sounds sickeningly-familiar....

Oh well. I'm sure it'll be fine.

After all, it's only the same FCC that has pursued a "wardrobe malfunction" for nearly 8 years, pushed for the Fairness Doctrine, and whose "Diversity Czar" Mark Lloyd was quoted as admiring the way Chavez seized control of radio/TV/media and placed them under State control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I'm sure porn and less mainstream media outlets, political blogs, forums, etc that the government may dislike will have nothing at all to fear. /s (for the clueless)

Strat

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Wrong.

Government's job is to secure and protect the rights of the people. The government can decide/declare anything it wants, but if the overwhelming majority of people refuse to comply there is actually very little it can do, and it risks being abolished and replaced/restored.

Sorry, but that boat sailed with all the lawlessness and abuses that have been revealed regarding domestic data/comm interception/storage, the widespread use of parallel construction, and the mass compromise of encryption schemes.

History proves over and over that the biggest danger to life and liberty is and has always been one's own government. The kind of "trust" you advocate for in this context would be foolish.

Strat

Well, you could find out by assembling your own "stingray" piecemeal using some of the test equipment in the links below, and use it to monitor/record police/DHS/NSA and wait to see what charges they decide to prosecute you for if you're arrested, and then take the government to court for the same charges.

http://www.testequipmentdepot....

http://www.testequipmentdepot....

Although your chances of getting the same 'justice' system that is complicit in these criminal acts by those in government to turn around and prosecute these same criminals are slim at best.

Strat