[ollyfg]

> police were lurking outside people’s windows and sending powerful electronic signals into their private homes in order to collect information from within.

Is it just me or does this not sound terribly terrible? My neighbours wifi router sends "powerful electronic signals" into my private home every day.

[pyre]

Police aren't allowed to troll through neighborhoods with heat sensors looking for pot-growers, so how is this that different?

The idea is that they are probing the contents of private homes without a warrant, no? What's the purpose of a warrant if the police can just scan the contents of your house from the street?

[ekianjo]

> My neighbours wifi router sends "powerful electronic signals" into my private home every day.

Making your phone use max power to emit information is nothing like the wifi radiation you get from your neighbors.

[nness]

It is though; its all non-ionising radiation. Both the wifi and your phones broadcast information indiscriminately in the interest of connecting to infrastructure.

The similarity between the two shouldn't be ignored, since there's potential for the comparison between phone's and wifi devices to come up in legal proceedings (if they haven't already).

[ekianjo]

> It is though; its all non-ionising radiation. Both the wifi and your phones broadcast information indiscriminately in the interest of connecting to infrastructure.

I was not referring to their nature, but to the power of the emission.

> Whereas a mobile phone can range from 21 dBm (125 mW) for Power Class 4 to 33 dBm (2W) for Power class 1, a wireless router can range from a typical 15 dBm (30 mW) strength to 27 dBm (500 mW) on the high end

The radiations from your phone are more powerful than from your traditional router, plus your emitter is usually close to your body, while you usually far away from a wifi router.

[yongjik]

According to Wikipedia[1], the solar radiation at Earth is roughly 1361 W/m^2 at the top of the atmosphere. The atmosphere will deflect a small fraction of it, but won't change the value much. Therefore, if you draw a circle of 2-inch diameter on your palm and hold it out toward the sun in a sunny day, that circle receives about 3W of energy (0.0254^2 * pi * 1361 = 2.76), i.e., greater than all the energy your body receives from a "Power Class 1" mobile phone (assuming you somehow magically absorb ALL its radiation).

Not to mention that the solar radiation actually contains ionizing UV rays. Sunlight is vastly more likely to cause cancer than cell phones. Literally.

If you're so worried about radiation, use sunscreen. You're welcome.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_constant

[ekianjo]

Thanks for the Strawman ! I did not expect this one. First, where did I ever write that I was worried about radiations ? I was simply clarifying what I meant when i said that the emissions were different between a wifi router and a mobile phone. If I say an apple and an orange are different, does it mean i'm worried about eating those?

> Not to mention that the solar radiation actually contains ionizing UV rays.

I guess the ozone layer is completely useless then. I'm glad I learn things on HN every day.

> Sunlight is vastly more likely to cause cancer than cell phones. Literally.

Where did I mention anything about Cancer ?

[DonHopkins]

Didn't Congress just pass a law that makes it illegal to get brain cancer from your cell phone?

[dragonwriter]

> My neighbours wifi router sends "powerful electronic signals" into my private home every day.

But it isn't sent by government agents "in order to collect information from within", which is a key factor in the description.