• OMG (unregistered)

    www.verires.com for that terrible credit card form. The whole site is a WTF.

    And no, your credit card number will not be scrambled because there's no SSL on that page. The encryption relies on a technique known as "lying". It will be emailed from the server in broad daylight, written onto Post-It notes at the other end, then left in the bins outside.

  • paratus (unregistered) in reply to KNY
    KNY:
    I'm curious was to what the submitter of the last one was doing on CrimCheckInc.com.

    http://www.google.com/search?q=%22(Your+Credit+Card+number+will+be+scrambled+before+transmitting)%22

    Looking at their HTML form the CC# is "scrambled" by the following:

    When you pick the drop downs they are named as such: XXYY XYXY XYXY XYXY 1234 5678 9012 3456

    so if you entered "1234 5678 9012 3456" as the credit card the http post would contain the following values x[0]=1 x[1]=2 x[2]=5 x[3]=7 x[4]=9 x[5]=1 x[6]=3 x[7]=5

    y[0]=3 y[1]=4 y[2]=6 y[3]=8 y[4]=0 y[5]=2 y[6]=4 y[7]=6

    That's not that safe because a man in the middle attack would also log the original form and could do what I just did to unscramble it...

    I'd report this but then they would just add it to my record that they can search though.

    If somone else reports it I'm sure that they would just change the ordering of the XYXY's and the single XXYY and wonder how we hacked their system.

  • (cs) in reply to ADB
    ADB:
    I wonder if its a PO that also *sells* mobile phones, most of the UK ones do.

    It really irk's me that companies and such use the excuse that "mobile phones damage our equipment", etc. Even though countless studies show that there is no interference of any kind.

    Of course, with airplanes, most people would rather not take the risk!

    Yesterday, my GSM phone rang, and my computer's bluetooth stopped working. It wouldn't receive input from either my mouse or keyboard. When I switched off my mouse and switched it back on, bluetooth kicked back in.

    So there you go. It was either coincidence, or interference between a GSM phone and a piece of computer equipment.

  • (cs) in reply to TwelveBaud
    TwelveBaud:
    ggeens:
    Anon:
    But I do like the \newline. Looks like LaTeX.
    It doesn't look like a LaTeX font (or layout).

    More likely, it's PostScript.

    I dunno, looks like RTF to me...
    looks more like WTF to me...

  • Vollhorst (unregistered)

    In Russia cells stop working you!

  • Scott (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234
    halcyon1234:
    ADB:
    It really irk's me that companies and such use the excuse that "mobile phones damage our equipment", etc. Even though countless studies show that there is no interference of any kind.

    While I think it's a fine enough safety precaution for airplanes (dare I say it, "Mythbusters" covered this one), the one that ticks me off is the "no cell phones" at gas stations.

    And yet, I still see douchebags walking through a gas station with a lit cigarette.

    You need to watch more mythbusters. Lit cigs won't start a fire. LIGHTING a cig will, but once it's lit, no issue.

  • ckwon (unregistered)

    I think the last one isn't that bad...at least a keylogger couldn't get the credit card number...

  • (cs)

    Can we please auto-ban anyone who posts nothing but an ordinal number.

    Oh and 'Frist'.

  • RiF (unregistered) in reply to Scott
    Scott:
    halcyon1234:
    ADB:
    It really irk's me that companies and such use the excuse that "mobile phones damage our equipment", etc. Even though countless studies show that there is no interference of any kind.

    While I think it's a fine enough safety precaution for airplanes (dare I say it, "Mythbusters" covered this one), the one that ticks me off is the "no cell phones" at gas stations.

    And yet, I still see douchebags walking through a gas station with a lit cigarette.

    You need to watch more mythbusters. Lit cigs won't start a fire. LIGHTING a cig will, but once it's lit, no issue.
    Which car was it that had a fault where you could generate a friction-induced spark between the nozzle of the pump and the filler?

    (or did I dream it?)

  • Peter (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    I laughed at it.

  • Small, Paranoid Dictator (unregistered) in reply to jpers36

    Oh lord, this just keeps going round and round.

    Mobile phones emit short wavelength radio waves. For GSM phones the pulse power can be quite high. If a mobile phone is used near a piece of wire that matches a quarter wavelength it CAN produce a spark. Sparks and petrol vapour do not play nicely together.

    So yes, theoretically a mobile phone could cause an explosion. No, it is not very likely. Yes, static is far more likely to cause a problem.

    The risk isn't zero but that doesn't mean it is impossible, just very very unlikely.

  • DT (unregistered)

    Maybe the name field should be a drop-down aswell?

  • (cs) in reply to ggeens
    ggeens:
    Anon:
    But I do like the \newline. Looks like LaTeX.
    It doesn't look like a LaTeX font (or layout).

    More likely, it's PostScript.

    You can't tell from the font, since LaTeX is fairly easy to configure to PS fonts (or anything else really, so long as you can get the letter metrics right). I even once knew how to do it (and I still use a variation on LaTeX that produces PDF output directly when I have to produce papers for journals).

    The layout is a fair point though.

  • ashen (unregistered) in reply to DT
    DT:
    Maybe the name field should be a drop-down aswell?
    One single drop down with all customers details already filled in. You just choose those that are yours... err...
  • Kozz (unregistered)

    Speaking of credit card validation, I still scream "wtf" every time I enter my CC number in a free-form text box and a validation routine complains that I entered the number with/without hyphens or spaces. Sometimes when trying to avoid a lame validation complaint, I'll start typing the CC number with hyphens only to find that the MAXLENGTH of the field has been set by someone who did NOT want the hyphens, so I've got to go back and delete them to get all the digits in.

    Why the f#@k could these things possibly matter?

    Validation/checksums are performed on the digits of the card number, and any twelve year-old could write code to simply strip out non-numeric chars before passing the new string to the validation routine.

  • KD (unregistered)

    The biggest WTF amongst today's crowd has got to be the multiple drop downs for a credit card number. Trying to beat a keylogger then sending the number in what is basically no more secure than plain text is just ridiculous. And, to be perfectly frank, I hate it when website operators make my life harder by trying to implement protection for client-side virii/malware. As far as I'm concerned, if I have an active keylogger running on my box then I damn well deserve to get ripped off. Stop trying to protecting retard users at the expense of proficient ones.

  • Benny (unregistered)

    I can understand their logic.

    I can state as a fact, my mobile phone interferes with my computer. I have a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard. I charge my phone nearby. It's a GSM curve on ATT. Whenever it send/receives data from the network, my BT is subject to disconnect. How do I know this is the cause? Because it also throws interference into the speakers. I can move the phone closer, it gets louder. I only have to move it about 6 feet away to stop the problem. I used to have an old logitech mouse that did this as well. If they're using BT, or older wireless keyboards/mice, it will give the appearance of the computer freezing until the peripherals reconnect.

    http://feelingcingular.com/watch

  • (cs)

    I had a dear friend (has departed), who closed all of his accounts in a bank - on the spot - after, in the early days of cell phones, he was reprimanded for walking into the bank while on the phone. His response was appropriately, "If your system is so sensitive I do not want my money in this bank!"

  • Merus (unregistered)

    My first job was in the post office (that is, Australia Post) so I know why they have the sign.

    It's to do with the crummy EFTPOS machines they have. What happens is if a mobile phone's transmitting, the EFTPOS device picks up the phone call and tries to treat it as a swiped card for some strange reason - I guess the phones transmit a slight electromagnetic field. Because Australia Post got into banking back in the 90s, their system treats a swiped card as the start of a banking transaction, and so it tries to parse the card that doesn't exist. End result: the computer basically locks up until soon after the call ends.

    I understand they've been replacing them since I left with modern models that have an enclosed magnetic reader, but I guess a) they haven't done that office yet or b) it's been kept up for social engineering, or because the staff are discouraged from doing anything IT-related and they haven't been told it's no longer an issue.

  • (cs) in reply to Scott
    Scott:
    You need to watch more mythbusters. Lit cigs won't start a fire. LIGHTING a cig will, but once it's lit, no issue.
    Nope, my house almost burnt down when I was about 9 because of a lit cigarette. Someone had dropped a lit cigarette down a crack in the floor of the porch, and it had smouldered in something flammable for a while (maybe a day or so), until my sister and I noticed smoke billowing out from under the house... kinda scary, but exciting when the fire engines came :)
  • Ed (unregistered) in reply to ADB
    ADB:
    It really irk's me that companies and such use the excuse that "mobile phones damage our equipment", etc. Even though countless studies show that there is no interference of any kind.

    My old Motorola i90c used to produce a loud thumping on any speakers in a 6 foot radius, about 2 seconds before I received any incoming call, and last throughout the duration of the call. I would call that some kind of interference. It was convenient however, as I would never miss any calls in the car no matter how loud I had the radio.

  • (cs) in reply to KD
    KD:
    Trying to beat a keylogger then sending the number in what is basically no more secure than plain text is just ridiculous... As far as I'm concerned, if I have an active keylogger running on my box then I damn well deserve to get ripped off.
    Unfortunately, many users won't think like that.

    And if the website owners know they can make their site more resistant to keyloggers by such a simple method, and yet do not do so, I reckon most courts would find them liable for customer's losses, if indeed there is not strict liability anyway.

  • RBoy (unregistered) in reply to aptent
    aptent:
    Superdude:
    I was going to reply with something amusing, but my brain's irony detector has blown.

    I think (it is difficult to be sure) the rule is:

    Randomly insert an apostrophe before any "s" near the end of a word.

    To distinguish possessives from plurals, put two apostrophes in a possessive.

    So that should be:

    I wa's going to reply with something amusing, but my brain''s irony detector ha's blown.

    Rule's subject to change tomorrow, of course.

    I fixed it for you, you forgot to delenit the 's' on Rule's.

  • KD (unregistered) in reply to m0ffx
    m0ffx:
    KD:
    Trying to beat a keylogger then sending the number in what is basically no more secure than plain text is just ridiculous... As far as I'm concerned, if I have an active keylogger running on my box then I damn well deserve to get ripped off.
    Unfortunately, many users won't think like that.

    And if the website owners know they can make their site more resistant to keyloggers by such a simple method, and yet do not do so, I reckon most courts would find them liable for customer's losses, if indeed there is not strict liability anyway.

    There are two reasons why this will never happen. One, the website owners cannot be held liable for every single computer terminal in the world based on the fact that any one of those terminals could be used to connect to their website. The very notion that a website owner could be held liable for the results of a virus on a user's local machine is absolutely preposterous and more importantly it has no legal precedent in US or UK courts (that means that it has never happened, period).

    Two, there is no reason to hold the website owner liable because the funds are insured by your bank. If you have bank details stolen from you and those details are used to take money from your account, you can recoup the value in full from your bank (who are insured to cover such losses, therefore it costs them nothing). This does not have any bearing on the owner of the website that you happened to be using when your account details were stolen. They wouldn't even be notified about it as it is nothing to do with them.

    So, whilst I fully understand why website operators do this, it is impossible to argue that it is necessary to protect themselves from some phantom lawsuit. If that were the case then every credit-card enabled site in existence would have to do it and the simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority don't. QED?

  • lolwut (unregistered)

    Regarding the sign about computers freezing up. This is a good one but I have an explanation. There are two possibilities.

    1. They want their sales people to be able to approach you and not get cockblocked by your cellphone.

    2. Loss prevention professionals know that cell phone use is typically involved in shoplifting. A caller will stay on the phone with someone else who is a lookout. These teams work stores and rip them off pretty good, so it makes sense to give the loss prevention people the right to ask you to switch off your phone. Now you can't talk to other people in the store and rip them off easier.

    I'd say it was more #2 than #1, imho.

    Yeah.

  • Jesse Weaver (unregistered)

    See, I'd laugh at the "mobile phones freeze our computers", but I've heard far weirder cause-and-effect chains at my workplace, and it just makes me sad.

  • ashen (unregistered) in reply to Jesse Weaver
    Jesse Weaver:
    <snio>, and it just makes me sad.
    physically and emotionally upset?
  • (cs) in reply to KD
    KD:
    If you have bank details stolen from you and those details are used to take money from your account, you can recoup the value in full from your bank (who are insured to cover such losses, therefore it costs them nothing).

    Jerry: So we're going to make the Post Office pay for my new stereo?

    Kramer: It's just a write off for them.

    Jerry: How is it a write off?

    Kramer: They just write it off.

    Jerry: Write it off what?

    Kramer: Jerry, all these big companies they write off everything.

    Jerry: You don't even know what a write off is.

    Kramer: Do you?

    Jerry: No. I don't.

    Kramer: But they do and they are the ones writing it off.

    Jerry: I wish I just had the last twenty seconds of my life back.

  • Peter's Mom (unregistered) in reply to Jesse Weaver

    Step on a butterfly today, three million people die tomorrow. Apparently.

  • GrahamS (unregistered) in reply to KD
    KD:
    ..if I have an active keylogger running on my box then I damn well deserve to get ripped off. Stop trying to protecting retard users at the expense of proficient ones.

    In my experience 99.99% of retard users (i.e. normal everyday folks) have some form of adware/spyware/virus on their system. Many even installed it themselves because the like the helpful search bar it added to IE.

    Also are you absolutely postive that you don't have a keylogger on your PC. If you are in an office then how do you know a malicious employee hasn't installed one?

    And have you checked your ports and inside your box for any hardware keyloggers?

    I don't think it is unreasonable to design a site to help prevent keylogging. Though it is a bit pointless if you then send the form contents in a plain text POST.

  • DMala (unregistered) in reply to KD
    KD:
    The biggest WTF amongst today's crowd has got to be the multiple drop downs for a credit card number.

    Right, the correct way to do it is with a single dropdown starting at 0000-0000-0000-0000 and ending with 9999-9999-9999-9999. Then the user can just scroll down the list and select their number.

    /Not TopCod3r, I swear

  • Umm? (unregistered) in reply to jpers36
    jpers36:
    KD:
    If you have bank details stolen from you and those details are used to take money from your account, you can recoup the value in full from your bank (who are insured to cover such losses, therefore it costs them nothing).

    Jerry: So we're going to make the Post Office pay for my new stereo?

    Kramer: It's just a write off for them.

    Jerry: How is it a write off?

    Kramer: They just write it off.

    Jerry: Write it off what?

    Kramer: Jerry, all these big companies they write off everything.

    Jerry: You don't even know what a write off is.

    Kramer: Do you?

    Jerry: No. I don't.

    Kramer: But they do and they are the ones writing it off.

    Jerry: I wish I just had the last twenty seconds of my life back.

    I'm assuming there's a link here but I'm really not seeing it...
  • KD (unregistered) in reply to GrahamS
    GrahamS:
    In my experience 99.99% of retard users (i.e. normal everyday folks) have some form of adware/spyware/virus on their system. Many even installed it themselves because the like the helpful search bar it added to IE.

    Also are you absolutely postive that you don't have a keylogger on your PC.

    Yes. Absolutely 100%.

    GrahamS:
    If you are in an office then how do you know a malicious employee hasn't installed one?
    Trend OfficeScan.
    GrahamS:
    And have you checked your ports and inside your box for any hardware keyloggers?
    My personal box? It's open about once every month and a malicious user would have had to break into my house to install it so yes, I'm sure. Last open yesterday in fact, definitely no hardware keyloggers.
    GrahamS:
    I don't think it is unreasonable to design a site to help prevent keylogging.
    I entirely agree. It just annoys me when this is at the expense of user experience. It also annoys me when this is presented as being of benefit to me, as in "you may think you don't have any virii, but are you sure?. Well yes, yes I am.
  • Brett (unregistered)

    I found that last one using google:

    http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:DCimIe1Zi70J:www.crimcheckinc.com/crimprices.htm+%22if+using+a+credit+card,+please+submit+the+following+information%22+%22will+be+scrambled+before+transmitting%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

    What's even more wtf-ey about it, is if you scroll down to the bottom where the payment form is, the zeroes in all the dropdowns are the letter O.

    And what's even stranger, the html looks like this, with all the select's name properties being the same pretty much:

    <SELECT NAME="Y"><OPTION><OPTION>1<OPTION>2<OPTION>3<OPTION>4<OPTION>5<OPTION>6<OPTION>7<OPTION>8<OPTION>9<OPTION>O</SELECT>
    - <SELECT NAME="X"><OPTION><OPTION>1<OPTION>2<OPTION>3<OPTION>4<OPTION>5<OPTION>6<OPTION>7<OPTION>8<OPTION>9<OPTION>O</SELECT>
    <SELECT NAME="Y"><OPTION><OPTION>1<OPTION>2<OPTION>3<OPTION>4<OPTION>5<OPTION>6<OPTION>7<OPTION>8<OPTION>9<OPTION>O</SELECT>
    <SELECT NAME="X"><OPTION><OPTION>1<OPTION>2<OPTION>3<OPTION>4<OPTION>5<OPTION>6<OPTION>7<OPTION>8<OPTION>9<OPTION>O</SELECT>
    <SELECT NAME="Y"><OPTION><OPTION>1<OPTION>2<OPTION>3<OPTION>4<OPTION>5<OPTION>6<OPTION>7<OPTION>8<OPTION>9<OPTION>O</SELECT>

    I would really love to see the code from the backend on this one.

  • CynicalTyler (unregistered)

    To respond to the three or more people said "at least that last one avoids keyloggers":

    That's the most ridiculous justification I've ever heard. I know, let's just make our form so hard to use, no one can enter any personal details! That'll make it way secure! And in any case, mouse click trackers also exist.

  • GrahamS (unregistered) in reply to KD
    KD:
    GrahamS:
    If you are in an office then how do you know a malicious employee hasn't installed one?
    Trend OfficeScan.
    That only really covers you for known viruses/spyware or novel programs that trigger the heuristics.

    A cunning developer could write their own keylogger from scratch, test to make sure it isn't picked up by Trend and then install it on your machine.

    Or the IT bloke that administers Trend could add an exception to Trend then deploy a key logger.

    KD:
    My personal box?
    Not just your "personal box" but any PC that you use to access secure sites (do you never buy anything while in the office?)
    KD:
    It's open about once every month and a malicious user would have had to break into my house to install it so yes, I'm sure. Last open yesterday in fact, definitely no hardware keyloggers.
    And you would notice one if there was? A tiny bit of circuit board, possibly tucked out-of-sight underneath your motherboard, concealed in a nest of cables or even hidden inside a cable disguised as a ferrite bead?

    Not all of these situations are likely, granted. But my point is that it is basically impossible for even an experienced user to be 100% certain there isn't a keylogger on his/her machine. So a "retard user" has no hope.

  • (cs) in reply to Umm?
    Umm?:
    jpers36:
    KD:
    If you have bank details stolen from you and those details are used to take money from your account, you can recoup the value in full from your bank (who are insured to cover such losses, therefore it costs them nothing).

    Jerry: So we're going to make the Post Office pay for my new stereo?

    Kramer: It's just a write off for them.

    Jerry: How is it a write off?

    Kramer: They just write it off.

    Jerry: Write it off what?

    Kramer: Jerry, all these big companies they write off everything.

    Jerry: You don't even know what a write off is.

    Kramer: Do you?

    Jerry: No. I don't.

    Kramer: But they do and they are the ones writing it off.

    Jerry: I wish I just had the last twenty seconds of my life back.

    I'm assuming there's a link here but I'm really not seeing it...

    Maybe you can just write it off as irrelevant.

  • NASA Guy (unregistered)

    Ok, the cell phone thing is an annoyance for me - but more for the responses from the other posters than the sign.

    Cell phones do interfere with some equipment. They're radio transmitters. I work in an environment where we are frequently bringing in a variety of scientific instruments, and what do you know - some of them see interference from cell phones (It's often carrier specific). So we put up signs that say "No Cell Phones" and "Turn off your Phone". Which get ignored, because of course your cell phone couldn't possibly interfere with anything else, right?

  • (cs) in reply to DMala
    DMala:
    KD:
    The biggest WTF amongst today's crowd has got to be the multiple drop downs for a credit card number.

    Right, the correct way to do it is with a single dropdown starting at 0000-0000-0000-0000 and ending with 9999-9999-9999-9999. Then the user can just scroll down the list and select their number.

    /Not TopCod3r, I swear

    Are you allowed even mentioning TpCd*r any more? My post got deleted yesterday while I was asking why his got deleted...

  • GrahamS (unregistered) in reply to CynicalTyler
    CynicalTyler:
    To respond to the three or more people said "at least that last one avoids keyloggers":

    That's the most ridiculous justification I've ever heard. I know, let's just make our form so hard to use, no one can enter any personal details! That'll make it way secure! And in any case, mouse click trackers also exist.

    I don;t think you've thought that through.

    See with a keylogger I could capture every key press then easily grep through the logs and look for sequences of around 16 digits that contain known issuer identification numbers.

    How exactly are you going to scan a mouse click tracker's logs??

    Even if you had extra hooks into their browser so that you knew exactly when they were visiting the target web page you would still need a screenshot to determine what they were actually clicking on.

    Not impossible, but a hell of a lot harder and requires more hooks which means it is more likely to be detected.

  • CynicalTyler (unregistered) in reply to GrahamS
    GrahamS:
    I don;t think you've thought that through.
    I'm not saying I've written one, I'm saying they exist.
  • Kyoti (unregistered) in reply to KNY
    KNY:
    I'm curious was to what the submitter of the last one was doing on CrimCheckInc.com.

    http://www.google.com/search?q=%22(Your+Credit+Card+number+will+be+scrambled+before+transmitting)%22

    Also, in the cached version of the page, the drop-down boxes show the numbers 1 through 9 and then the letter "O" instead of a zero.

  • vadi (unregistered)

    ever heard of an easter egg?

  • Dan (unregistered) in reply to Scott
    Scott:
    halcyon1234:
    ADB:
    It really irk's me that companies and such use the excuse that "mobile phones damage our equipment", etc. Even though countless studies show that there is no interference of any kind.

    While I think it's a fine enough safety precaution for airplanes (dare I say it, "Mythbusters" covered this one), the one that ticks me off is the "no cell phones" at gas stations.

    And yet, I still see douchebags walking through a gas station with a lit cigarette.

    You need to watch more mythbusters. Lit cigs won't start a fire. LIGHTING a cig will, but once it's lit, no issue.

    They couldn't light liquid gasoline with a cigarette, but how about concentrated vapor? Not that this would make the gas station thing more likely, of course, but just wondering.

    They also showed that phones don't seem to have any impact on properly shielded electronics in a Learjet, but I've heard of someone who said his cell phone made communication impossible in a plane. That actually makes some sense--many phones today have processors that run 100MHz+, and that's right where the comm frequencies are. And just like a mechanical relay rigged to oscilate can be heard on an AM radio, it is possible for signals to radiate out of your phone and into the plane's radio. Of course the phone has to be near the radio to have this effect.

    But I still think it's reactionary for an airliner to tell the passengers to turn off all electronics.

    As for bluetooth, never had that problem BUT, many cell phones have bluetooth of their own. It is possible that the phone's attempt to find its headset or other connected devices, at least for cheaper bluetooth phones, could interfere with the computer's BT.

  • Andy L. (unregistered)

    The labels Netflix puts on their DVDs are terrible. They're often full of formatting markup and they truncate mid-word.

    Worst are when there are multiple disks on a series and the description of what's on this disk is cut off because the description is truncated.

  • Nicholas Sherlock (unregistered) in reply to GrahamS
    GrahamS:
    I don;t think you've thought that through.

    See with a keylogger I could capture every key press then easily grep through the logs and look for sequences of around 16 digits that contain known issuer identification numbers.

    How exactly are you going to scan a mouse click tracker's logs??

    Easy, take a screenshot with every click.

  • Andy L. (unregistered)

    I've always assumed that the warning on airplanes wasn't because they were worried about fully-functional cel-phones and radios, but because they were worried about damaged cel-phones and radios that were transmitting on the wrong frequencies.

    Though I don't imagine that's a big issue now that the large majority of them are digital.

  • (cs) in reply to Benny

    If that's the case, get a new computer or phone, as one or the other is broken.

    I use my T-Mobile GSM phone as a modem in airports without free wifi, connected via bluetooth, to my computer. It works fine.

    The speaker fuzzes because it's designed specifically to react to any kind of funky noise on the wire. It's basically the principle of how they work. You want them to stop doing it, shorten or lengthen the wire they're connected to and keep the phone physically further from the speakers (read up on the inverse square law here: http://www.smartbridges.com/education/print-ready.asp?id=229 if you aren't aware of it). It's not just a "cingular" problem, as if I set ANY mobile phone near a speaker, it does the exact same thing when receiving a call. That site you linked to is not grounded in any kind of knowledge of how stuff works, it's just griping about things they could fix, but don't.

    Communication chips should filter out the noise if they're any good. Older wireless keyboards and mice often used 2.4GHz transmission (like cell phones, and microwaves) which is why they will fart around with bluetooth and wireless signals. That said, I have multiple phones, multiple wireless access points (yes, more than one), a Wii with 4 remotes, my computer with a bluetooth mouse all in my house, and it all works fine. Even at the same time. If you are having problems, it's with your equipment, not the technology in general.

  • (cs) in reply to Andy L.

    They aren't even worried about damaging the phones. They are worried about the havoc they wreak on the network because they connect to so many cells in such a short time, and can't decide on which signal is strongest. It's an FCC rule that you have to turn them off, not FAA ;)

  • (cs)

    Mobile phones on an airplane... am I the only one who turns them off when asked purely because of the simple fact that I'd get no signal anyway? And no amount of mp3's in the cabin could possibly interfere with whatever you propose could go wrong in the plane, in fact if that is possible in any large aircraft the plane shouldn't be allowed off the ground, shielding sensitive equipment isn't very hard!

    If I'm asked to turn my phone off, I make certain it's on. If I feel courteous I'll put it in airplane mode, but I'll still have it on and keep looking at it just to spite whoever is telling me to do what they could do with a jammer if it was really necessary

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