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Portable Wi-Fi hotspots, powered by 3G, are banned at all the Olympic venues. But while that might sound like a hollow threat, this man makes sure it isn’t, by sniffing out rogue Wi-Fi networks and shutting them down.
There is, of course, good reason to want to keep portable Wi-Fi hotspots out of the games. At events that increasingly rely on wireless communication —for everything from referee mics through timing devices to wireless cameras—interference could easily get in the way of the smooth running of things. As the saying goes, better to be safe than sorry.
There is, however, something rather amusing about seeing a man wander around with an antenna to stop people sharing their internet. [Reddit]
Image by Aschebescher
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seriously…the wifi police? seriously.
World. Gone. Mad.
*jaw drops to the floor*
Given the arrow-shaped antenna, I’m surprised he doesn’t wander around with “I’m with this idiot” on his t-shirt.
They should get a bunch of these guys together to form a display team. You’d have to come up with a catchy name for it though, anyone got any ideas?
The Twats?
We would give them tentative membership to our Federation as judges, if those devices detect distance and speed.
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/08/surprisingly-dancing-to-zelda-music-wont-win-you-a-gold-medal/
The crimson pointers?
There’s WIFI hotspots in the neighborhood,
Who you gonna call ? WIFI-busters..
Surely Red Arrows would be the obvious choice?
Red Arrows??? Can’t see that catching on.
I can often pick up over 20 wifi networks on a street in Central London – how on earth do they work with all that interference!
I assume it’s like metal detecting, as he moves closer to a specific hotspot he gets a louder ping. Mind you, he’s not exactly inconspicuous is he? If you saw him coming you’d have plenty of time to turn off you hotspot before he got to you.
Have some other friends in the audience and you could have fun making him wander all over the hall!
You could play “wifi detector chicken” see how close you can get the detector guy to you without getting caught.
And now I have an image of Greased Up Naked Guy from family guy running past him with his phone saying “You can’t catch me!”
a group of you could all name your hotspots the same SSID, then keep turning them on and off and have him walking all over the show and getting no where! LOL
That’s stupid. Clearly they should’v gone with these T-shirts with LOGOC branding
http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/991e/
with the WIFI detecting cap of course
http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/bd12/
“There is, of course, good reason to want to keep portable Wi-Fi hotspots out of the games.”
Nothing to do with BT sponsorship then?
The cycle race was done over because of the lack of connectivity.
No the cycle race was done over due to poor planning and not contacting the networks
That turned out to be LOCOG pissing about
LOCOG/OFCOM ‘WiFi Police’ seek out all unauthorized, undocumented wireless frequencies. Not just internet “WiFi” frequencies. Think of them as Wireless Interference Police. All present staff and personnel are assigned and given a frequency range they may use. In effect, minimizing cross-frequency interference. They probably wouldn’t even detect small-scale tethering hotspots. They are scanning for anything with enough range to disturb authorized wireless transmitting frequencies.
And obviously with the reliance on two-way radios for public safety, its actually quite an important job.
So it was this little bastard that messed up the router in my home last night and caused me to have to reset my router to factory settings to work.
Thank you SOOO much, Gizmodo; you have given my enemy a face.
An extremely punchable face
At least the pointy gizmo clearly marks him out as a bell-end.
Hrm, does it work by checking signal strength or are there multiple spotters to triangulate from?
Either way, anyone fancy creating an android app that randomly changes your wifi-signal strength to mess with them.
“The direction is found by orienting the antenna towards the maximum signal level.”