Ok so the horrible coms issue

[Exterous]

needs to stop being used in action movies. All kinds of high tech gear and gadgets but the manage to lose coms if the sky gets partly cloudy. Can hack into a computer system in 5 seconds but can't maintain coms through a wooden shack.

Also - If I ever become an evil villain I am going to make all my guards wear heart monitors. "Hmmm...half of my guards just flatlined in the last 30 seconds despite the quiet evening. I think its time for me to leave"

 

[Red Squirrel]

LOL yeah the loss signal stuff always makes me laugh. "Oh no we just got a flat, and I have no cell service, and it's dark and raining, maybe I can go to that creepy looking house overthere to use their phone!". Next thing you know you've been knocked out and your mouth is being sewed to someone else's butt by some insane surgeon villain.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Some of you need to leave the city occasionally and see how the real world works.

 

[Exterous]

Some of you need to leave the city occasionally and see how the real world works.

Yes because outside cities are where all action movies take place where they lose coms and are completely without signal from high tech military gear. I mean its not like the military was able to have complete and utter control and communications with massive formations deep in a desert hundreds of miles from the nearest city or anything.

 

[John Connor]

Kinda reminds mt of the movie Jason Bourne. They showed hacking and crap shutting down a power grid and it was done in minutes. Now since I read up on the subject of SCADA systems, and have the tools, it's gonna take a while before you can do it.

But movies are just movies. Who cares!

 

[Red Squirrel]

Most SCADA systems are on closed networks too and will use rather proprietary systems. I can swact radios and stuff on ours at work, I could bring down the whole north if I needed to, and when we used to handle cell sites I could turn them down and up as needed. But an average person who got to a computer and was lucky enough that the app was already open would still not know what to do.

Though I suppose someone with experience would at least know where to look, if they broke into a building that had such systems. A tech might have his laptop open with a sticky note with a password etc and you go from there, then dig in documentation. Depends how much time the attacker really has.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Yes because outside cities are where all action movies take place where they lose coms and are completely without signal from high tech military gear. I mean its not like the military was able to have complete and utter control and communications with massive formations deep in a desert hundreds of miles from the nearest city or anything.

I dont know what movies you watch, but it's usually the boonies, not the cities where that's an issue.

 

[John Connor]

All I need is a POTS phone line and my laptop. From there on out the world is MINE! All MINE! MUHAHAHAHA

 

[Red Squirrel]

Acoustic modem and Capt. Crunch whistle and you can hack anything! Those free AOL minutes do come in handy for doing covert internet operations on a tapped phone line.

 

[John Connor]

I am wanting to research the possibility of creating my own personal dial-up ISP from a VOIP box at home and using a hacked bluetooth connected dial-up modem for my smartphone.

Be comical to have 56K going through the phone signal of a cell phone. Even though it's absolutely worthless, it could provide Internet when there is no LTE, 4G or 3G, etc and all you have is a phone signal.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That could be interesting actually since you could even drop the data plan and save a bunch of money. For most things I personally use data for it would probably actually work fine! Cheaper to get unlimited minutes than a data plan and if you get unlimited minutes and do dialup there won't be a cap either.

It would definitely be comical to set something like that up.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I do frequently lose cell service when I'm in the boonies, but it's getting increasingly rare. In most cases, it's simply a matter of walking up a hill to get a clear cell signal anyway. Anybody who actually cares (the locals) do the research and get the right provider for their needs. Or even get their own micro-cell-tower if they can get internet some other way.

"Missed communication" plots from the mid to late 20th century already make little sense to people with cell phones. And it's only gotten worse since smartphones became a thing.

 

[John Connor]

That could be interesting actually since you could even drop the data plan and save a bunch of money. For most things I personally use data for it would probably actually work fine! Cheaper to get unlimited minutes than a data plan and if you get unlimited minutes and do dialup there won't be a cap either.

It would definitely be comical to set something like that up.

In my research I think what I have to do is setup a so-called VISP (Virtual Internet Service Provider). I also found manufactures back in the day make a dial-up modem that had Bluetooth wireless connectivity.

 

[John Connor]

I do frequently lose cell service when I'm in the boonies, but it's getting increasingly rare. In most cases, it's simply a matter of walking up a hill to get a clear cell signal anyway. Anybody who actually cares (the locals) do the research and get the right provider for their needs. Or even get their own micro-cell-tower if they can get internet some other way.

"Missed communication" plots from the mid to late 20th century already make little sense to people with cell phones. And it's only gotten worse since smartphones became a thing.

I downloaded the "Motorola Bible" and I acquired several old Motorola bag phones that used the AMPS analog cell system. I was going to turn them into two-way radios mainly because these babies pump out about 4 watts or more. A far cry from what cell phones pump out now.

On my radio scanner forum a member said he actually climbed a tree out in the sticks to get a cell signal with an old AMPS cell phone and hit the tower in the next county over. LOL

 

[NutBucket]

I thought all the AMPS towers went dark years ago.

 

[John Connor]

They did! But you can still mod the phones as a two-way radio! I thought I made that clear?

Same with an old Nextel phone. Nextel doesn't exist, but certain phones have direct talk (not to be confused with direct connect which used towers). The cell phone can act as a two-way radio and is pretty damn secure since they use FHSS with a VSLEP vocoder. No cell plan needed. Once again. They act like a two-way radio. Great for those SHTF moments.

 

[NutBucket]

I was referring to the story about climbing a tree and hitting a tower in the next county. Or I guess that was many years ago.

 

[smackababy]

Some of you need to leave the city occasionally and see how the real world works.

Maybe they are on Verizon. I never found a dead spot before I switched to TMobile.

 

[MrSquished]

Some of you need to leave the city occasionally and see how the real world works.

I think the city is more real world than the sticks

 

[ImpulsE69]

Maybe they are on Verizon. I never found a dead spot before I switched to TMobile.

Verizon certainly seems to have the best coverage. That's what we use, but unfortunately they still have issues here and there out where we are, as do Sprint and AT&T. US Cellular is the only one that doesn't, but has issues other places. No idea about T Mobile, but I imagine around here many of these companies lease towers from others.

 

[Murloc]

Usually they just don't answer the radio anymore, because they're dead, so I'm not sure what movies you're watching.

Still, sometimes being cut off is a necessary plot device. This is why fantasy/historical movies are good anyway, it's easier to build a credible good story when there is no comms at all, in our hyperconnected world some stuff that criminals or secret syndicates do in first world countries without detection in those movies is very unlikely, and the high-tech magic devices to avoid getting caught look like a cheap trick.

I was referring to the story about climbing a tree and hitting a tower in the next county. Or I guess that was many years ago.

I can do that but the signal is quite bad, I managed to get a call once though. And I just went to the second floor balcony.

 

[Exterous]

Usually they just don't answer the radio anymore, because they're dead, so I'm not sure what movies you're watching.

Still, sometimes being cut off is a necessary plot device. This is why fantasy/historical movies are good anyway, it's easier to build a credible good story when there is no comms at all, in our hyperconnected world some stuff that criminals or secret syndicates do in first world countries without detection in those movies is very unlikely, and the high-tech magic devices to avoid getting caught look like a cheap trick.


I can do that but the signal is quite bad, I managed to get a call once though. And I just went to the second floor balcony.

The first one that comes to mind (Since I recently saw it) was Specter on Netflix. Also I've been watching Strike Back and they lose coms every other episode. Yeah sometimes they are out in the boonies but even then they have coms in the middle of the amazon\desert right up to the perimeter of the bad guy base. Every. single. time.

 

[Ichinisan]

All I need is a POTS phone line and my laptop. From there on out the world is MINE! All MINE! MUHAHAHAHA

 

[rh71]

To think they couldn't do most storylines before cell phones were ubiquitous...

Jack Bauer on a sat phone all the time?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I think the city is more real world than the sticks

It's where all the people are.