Is this what household hackers think is a good idea ?!
Peter KG6LSE
Posts: 1,383
calling all engineers and techs with a mind ( yes thats all of you Here )
I have seen on Youtube a bunch of tips ad hacks that are not well thought out .
Some are borderline illegal and Need to be removed .
I want to know what you think.
are We as builders responsible enough to not publish stuff with out a warning or disclamer
they require Mithbusters to have that " dont do this at home" stuff but do we ever think that what we do is not safe for a lay person .
No offense but unless you are formally trained OR under stand the Legal and moral risks you should not be posting stuff that is not safe .
this is not a problem here but there are want to be hackers who are really not doing there home work Befor posting .
Every thing I make I post I do a check to see if it is safe in the sense that it can not cause mass dammage to life ot limb ..
99.9% of us are "smart " but the dude down the street is not .
Hams , EEs ETs MEs CEs and the like US are smart .
Do we have a obligation to not endanger others property and person .
I know programmers and MD s take a oath . should we ?
Ill list a few .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoaLGvJkoP8
this is BAD . its against the law and it could jam a phone system to the point where a person could not dial out for 911 help . now you have a felony on your hands..-
I am damed that his vid has not bean pulled for Legal and liability reasons .
does He know that he breaking more laws then I can count on one hand .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Olbn02X3s
BAD BAD BAD
some domm a33 wil plug in a computer to a 48V+ Ring Phone line and POOOOOFFFF there goes the PC and the jump drive 5V is not 48V .
Oh and Yea USB is not the same impedance as a phone line and Phone line is not shielded ..
they make baulns for USB Over CAT5 . and they are MADE to be safe ..
just cause it fits does not mean it is meant to be used .
I have seen on Youtube a bunch of tips ad hacks that are not well thought out .
Some are borderline illegal and Need to be removed .
I want to know what you think.
are We as builders responsible enough to not publish stuff with out a warning or disclamer
they require Mithbusters to have that " dont do this at home" stuff but do we ever think that what we do is not safe for a lay person .
No offense but unless you are formally trained OR under stand the Legal and moral risks you should not be posting stuff that is not safe .
this is not a problem here but there are want to be hackers who are really not doing there home work Befor posting .
Every thing I make I post I do a check to see if it is safe in the sense that it can not cause mass dammage to life ot limb ..
99.9% of us are "smart " but the dude down the street is not .
Hams , EEs ETs MEs CEs and the like US are smart .
Do we have a obligation to not endanger others property and person .
I know programmers and MD s take a oath . should we ?
Ill list a few .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoaLGvJkoP8
this is BAD . its against the law and it could jam a phone system to the point where a person could not dial out for 911 help . now you have a felony on your hands..-
I am damed that his vid has not bean pulled for Legal and liability reasons .
does He know that he breaking more laws then I can count on one hand .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Olbn02X3s
BAD BAD BAD
some domm a33 wil plug in a computer to a 48V+ Ring Phone line and POOOOOFFFF there goes the PC and the jump drive 5V is not 48V .
Oh and Yea USB is not the same impedance as a phone line and Phone line is not shielded ..
they make baulns for USB Over CAT5 . and they are MADE to be safe ..
just cause it fits does not mean it is meant to be used .
Comments
Yeah, I know some moron could connect things badly and release the magic smoke, but let's face it, when creating a "hack" for others to replicate, it is generally easier to use "common" connectors and things which can be easily obtained by all at almost any store. Phone jacks and wire are plentiful everywhere from the dollar store to the walmart, making this an easy project for anyone to do in an afternoon.
OBC
NIC cards are XFMR coupled so no dnager to have a active line jam a computer . only PoE 48 V could be a issue .
This "secret" is ridiculous, like most hacker $#*%.
*sniff sniff* Where's that burning plastic smell coming from? Oh, and can you loan me one of those paperclips? I'm about to stick it in the outlet and make a video "How to get a free Perm!"
Peter,
I agree with you about 90% but there is a risk to a lot of stuff.
My neighbor worked in plumbing in the construction of new homes and he kept getting electricuted from the people around him. He sleeps 5 hours a day, walks the neighborhood and is in pain most of the time from getting hurt many times on the job. He eventually got a more safe job.
I wanted to be Ben Franklin but there was some risks involved to his kite flying
When we're kids, we want to ride off on a horse into the sunset but when we're older it is about real life. When we're older, life is about responsibilities. When I graduated High School, I realized I didn't have health insurance so I stopped playing sports with the bigger kids because at that age, they pull people down by the neck, they clothesline people and they hurt people because there are no rules.
I think High Schools should teach ethics or something but they don't. I think that there are few places you can go these days that you aren't watched so if people want to experiment with something dangerous then they will eventually get caught because there are enough people per square mile these days that someone has to see something which is why there are a lot of people getting caught for crimes that are reported in the news. The other ones will get hurt and either learn the hard way by getting injured or going to the hospital and having to explain to the doctor how they got hurt and then the doctor calls the state.
Chuck
I have a scar on my arm from a Li Ion batt that decided it wanted to me a A sized Estes rockit motor .
I swear the flame Looked JUST like one going off as it launched its selfe in to my arms and got me good .
I think this succinctly sums up what is wrong with the world today. Hells bells, if old Ben had not flown a kite in the middle of an electrical storm where would we all be. Post a youtube video of how to fly a kite in an electrical storm a see how many "nanny" police report you for endangering life and limb.
Dangerous stuff happens every day, people do it knowingly and unknowingly and most of them survive. The ones that don't make it serve as a nice example to the rest of us for "what not to do" (or in my case, "Oh I see where he went wrong, so I'll just do the same thing but a bit differently"). Jeff's avatar strongly resonates with me. I've been "bitten" more times than I can count, mostly doing dumb stuff. It's how we learn. To mangle a quote "Homosapiens are the only species capable of learning by the mistakes of others, however we show a severe disinclination to do so".
I agree with kwinn, the gene pool seriously needs some chlorine.
And I applaud you for holding yourself to your own standards.
OBC
Sometimes a dangerous idea. That we know best and need to protect
the dimwitted from themselves. This is often a false front for the desire
to control. The gospel of gun-grabbers, religious moral crusaders and others
of their ilk.
Noblesse oblige --Faulkner
White Man's burden --Kipling
Jewish public responsibility --Every Jewish intellectual I ever met
Overeager busybodies?
Simple WorryWarts?
You can't protect idiots from themselves. Plus it would be a full time job.
Jeff, I was a MacGyver fan. I have only admiration for anyone who puts them self at risk for the benefit of others. Not so much for the idiots who do stupid and dangerous things for no good reason. Idiots are most definitely not on the endangered species list. If they manage to kill themselves without harming others I can only consider it a good thing. Even better if they do it before making a contribution to the gene pool.
Hate to say.... done that.
What's worse? Creating your own DIY electrical cord or running 20-50 electrical cords because the place you lived in only had *1* outlet per room. (And thanks to the wife, 1 fire extinguisher per room, "just in case") Saaay, THAT's why McGuyver could do all those crazy, dangerous stunts! Not because he had a solid background in applied Physics, but because he was single!
I suspect the best one can do is to comment, "If you think it through, it could be the kind of idea that comes back and bites you."
"It makes prefect sense." or "It is perfectly legal." are usually a warning.
A most excellent point Holly. The most frightening of all are those who claim they are doing it "for your own good", "to save you from yourself", "to save your soul", "for the good of humanity", etc.. Truly the battle cry of the power hungry control freaks.
a idot wil do what he will do . but it is your job to do your home work ,,
Let me give you a Exmple
"""
what I did was COVER MY A33 and made shure the person whome may do this that he or she needs to do a reality check so that others are not put at risk .
any Real RF tech would only do this under Very controlled condition's but the dude up the street will not .
Now that really could be dangerous!
A kw at 2450.
I take it all back...we do have an obligation to warn the clueless.
You would not want these guys playing with a microwave.
But would it be the helpful tinkerer on YouTube that the onus falls upon, or YouTube itself?
Something along the lines of a blanket introduction when you log in:
"Warning: The two gentlemen in the above photo are YouTube contributors. Unless you are them, you have been warned."
You know, growing up I did some stuff. One of those things was a TV jammer to annoy the rich kid down the street that kept talking us geeks down. Let's just say he shut up when the threat of no more "Batman" turned out to be very real. That was a signal generator, scored out of the thrifty, connected to a tube RF amp, built from a schematic out of some HAM magazine, capable of a few watts, modulated by noise from the FM dial...
Fetched worms to sell for fishermen once by watering a yard, then sending 10Kv into it, from a old step up transformer we talked a guy out of because it was supposed to be for "antenna wire". They came up darn quick!
Many others. Most dangerous, some really dangerous, though we did do our reading as kids, and took every precaution we could think of, which wasn't enough.
Here's the hard truth on these things. Many people, who desire to work with tech on that level get to be professionals, and that's good. Some of them don't, and it could be good or bad, depending on a whole lot of things.
If we are free enough to enjoy technology, then we are free enough for these kinds of things to happen. The alternative is pretty grim, with licenses, restrictions, and all manner of things designed to prevent the few, impacting the many. I can't sleep well at night, thinking about that, and the impact it would have had one me as a kid. Folks, I was dirt poor, and the ability to just learn and do meant everything. Gotta keep that in place, and today we have Internet where info gets posted. Then it was stories books, and such. I don't see a material difference, in that those that want to probably will. In the end, we either lock the world down, or those of us who know better, work hard to model it for those that don't know better, and that is as good as it gets.
all it takes is some person in a crowded Bldg and a hacked µW oven to mass over dose tons of People with RF . no its not going ti KILL you Like Co-60 but you may never hve kids again for a whike and may go blind not to menttin RF burns are nasty ......
KW power its not a joking matter
All We should ask is a tad more common sense when we publish .
And no a nanny state is not going to work but in the corce of a hack or a project being published that may have some legal, moral issues a note to ask others to read up , Do HW learn . befor they try a hack ...
this is not much to ask.
and some stuff just should not be messed with . the 120V AC in the wall is one and the CATV and SATV and Telephone are a few others .
modding a lamp or a riggiing a amp or messing with a TV is not realy going to cause others serious harm .
BTW I owned a modded Microwave with a Horn Maggi ( magnotron ) and a CW Key . its a ham radio rig by defnition .
2.450 is in the ham band CQ DX ?
I did a DX with it for feild day many moons ago ... -
now the Horn is a flower vase and the rest is gone . .
Peter
Attaching a couple of wires to odd things is not "hacking". It's the sort of thing I started doing about age 9 and soon realized it's not always a good idea. One needs to think ahead to the possible consequences.
Going to the trouble of making a video about attaching a couple of wires to odd things is just dumb.
Not at least mentioning the possible negative outcomes is just dumb.
A while back my local electronics junk/surplus store they had a pile of microwave oven transformers that they were selling off for a couple of euros each. They were happy to sell them to anyone with out any mention of the extreme danger that could arise as a result of misuse. Thousands of volts at many amps is just waiting to be unleashed. That is just negligent.