Searching on Google's shopping site showed dozens of links to devices that are advertised as signal jammers, including anti-drone devices. Google itself does not sell them, but instead directs shoppers to third-party sellers, such as electronics retailers in China. These retailers typically say they can ship to the United States, and their marketing materials are not specifically for military or law enforcement use. One Chinese seller posted a video on YouTube, which is owned by Google, demonstrating how its product blocks cell phone signals.
A Google spokesperson said the company has reviewed the cases shared by NBC News and is removing listings that violate its policy prohibiting the sale or promotion of such devices.
Sometimes it's unclear who is behind the online sellers. One retailer called itself "Professional Global Signal Jammer Manufacturer Online Jammer Store" but did not disclose its location. The company did not respond to a request for comment. The FAQ section of its website includes the following dialogue:
"So far, we have not encountered this situation."
It is unclear how many people may have illegally purchased radio frequency drone jammers from the various websites reviewed by NBC News. At least some of the companies said they sell their products to customers outside the United States, where the FCC's strict rules don't apply.
At the other end of the radio signal jammer market are military suppliers, government contractors and other companies that don't generally target their products at consumers. Many of these companies have websites marketing their products, but they don't list prices or offer options to buy them immediately. Instead, they list options to "request a consultation" or "contact an expert."
An FCC spokesman pointed to the commission's standing advisory on law enforcement and a 2020 federal interagency advisory on drone defense.
On Wednesday, after NBC News published the report, the FCC said it had received several investigations related to jammer marketing, including one involving Amazon.
"We are conducting several investigations into retailers, including Amazon, for possible violations of the commission's rules by marketing and selling devices without proper FCC authorization," FCC spokesman Jonathan Uriarte said in a statement.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the investigations on Wednesday.
The FCC has cracked down on radio frequency jammers and their online sales. In 2016, the commission said it had fined a Chinese online retailer, CTS Technology, $34.9 million for selling hundreds of illegal jammers over two years and selling some to undercover FCC agents.
There have been no similar fines in the U.S. since then, though other Chinese retailers still market radio jammers to Americans online, an NBC News review of their websites shows. NBC News could not determine if any of them have shipped products to the U.S.
The FCC has also targeted buyers in past years. In 2018, the FCC said it fined the operator of a Dallas warehouse $22,000 for using a jammer to prevent employees from using their cell phones while working. In 2016, the commission said it fined a Florida man $48,000 for using a jamming device to prevent people in other vehicles from talking on their cell phones during his daily commute. In 2014, Marriott agreed to pay $600,000 to settle allegations that one of its properties in Nashville, Tennessee, interfered with Wi-Fi signals at non-Marriott hotels.
Over the years, the FCC’s focus has shifted to other topics, such as combating robocalls, said Dale Hatfield, a former chief engineer at the commission.
“Their enforcement activity seems to be more targeted at things that are more directly visible to consumers,” he said.
It’s hard to determine how big a problem illegal jammers are because signal interference is often brief and hard to document, said Hatfield, an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. For the same reason, he said, interference cases are difficult for the FCC to handle.
“It can be very intermittent,” he said. “How do you go back and figure out why?”
Former FCC Commissioner McDowell said the commission’s enforcement efforts are largely determined by the types of complaints it receives.
“Typically, the enforcement process comes into play when an outside agency notifies the FCC of a situation,” he said.
Jamming devices have many potential uses, from disrupting unwanted drones to disrupting Wi-Fi networks to disabling doorbell cameras. On a Reddit message board dedicated to Ring doorbell cameras, some posters complained about people using jammers to disrupt the cameras and avoid detection during thefts. One Reddit poster said the irony was that Amazon seemed to be profiting from both sides: Ring is a division of Amazon, and Amazon is also a marketplace for buying devices that can disable Ring cameras.
Amazon did not respond to questions about jamming Ring devices.
Jammers, or radio frequency "blocking," are also a frequent topic of discussion in online forums dedicated to people who believe that the government or others are conducting deep surveillance on them, a belief or phenomenon sometimes referred to as "gang stalking."
Potential markets for anti-drone systems such as RF jammers include large businesses and organizations that are concerned about drone terrorism but are not legally allowed to use jammers. Last year, four major sports leagues, including the NFL, urged Congress in a letter to congressional leaders to allow state and local law enforcement to use anti-drone capabilities.
Prison officials in some states have said they want legal authority to use jammers to prevent prisoners from using their phones.
But under current law, the list of government agencies authorized to buy and use radio frequency jammers is short, including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as the Departments of Energy and Defense.
Companies that specialize in drone countermeasures often focus on foreign buyers.
Drone defense company IXI Electronic Warfare warns on its website that drones pose a potential threat to stadiums, prisons and airports, and says drones can help "eliminate threats in seconds," including using a radio frequency jammer called a "Dronekiller." But overall, stadium operators, prisons and airport authorities do not have the legal authority to buy such products in the U.S.
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Police in Florham Park, N.J., are warning residents that robbers may be using Wi-Fi jammers to prevent victims from using their cell phones to call for help.
A Florham Park resident was in his basement around 11:30 a.m. Monday when he heard a loud bang from the first floor, police said. When he checked his home security footage, he saw a stranger trying to enter his home.
The man then lost service on his camera system and cell phone, according to police.
Police believe the suspect used a Wi-Fi jammer — a device about the size of a smartphone that disables devices that use the signal.
Police said the suspect ran away, and the victim, still unable to use his phone, ran outside and flagged down a pedestrian who helped him call 911. Officers arrived shortly after, but police said the suspect had already fled.
"The victim had enough time to leave the area between the time he stepped outside and the time he flagged down a passerby and had him call the police," said Lt. Brian Ford of the Florham Park Police Department.
WiFi signal jammers can even block signals from police intercoms, home alarm systems and surveillance cameras that connect via Wi-Fi. The devices are illegal under federal law, and state Rep. Carol Murphy introduced legislation earlier this year to criminalize them at the state level.
"Every time I see something like this, I think, 'Wow, I need my law to pass,' because it's about giving law enforcement the resources to do what they have to do. I never want to see a story like this again," Murphy said.
"While Wi-Fi jammers are nothing new to criminals, this is the first time we've seen or heard of them being used in Morris County," Florham Park Police Chief Joseph Orlando said in a statement.
No arrests have been made.
The Florham Park Police Department may be linking the incident to a theft ring known as the "South American Theft Syndicate."
According to police, they usually work in groups of three and install hidden cameras in the landscape to track the movements of potential victims.
Police recommend that if you can, you should change your daily routine, check and report any suspicious devices and cars inside and outside the house, and even install wired security cameras and landlines.
GLENDALE, Calif. (KABC) -- Glendale police have issued a warning about residential burglars who use WIFI jammers to disable security alarms and surveillance cameras.
As described by police Sgt. Victor Jackson, the devices used by thieves block the signal or scramble the WiFi. "So if you have a Ring camera, a Nest camera -- any kind of alarm system that is WiFi-based or a camera that's WiFi-based -- it blocks the signal and knocks it out," he said.
A disproportionate surge in residential burglaries plagued Glendale and Southern California in the fall, leading investigators to the crime trend.
"As our detectives started going into these cases, that's when they realized what was happening," Jackson said. "In some cases, because of the way the device works, it made it look like when you went back and rewound your tape and looked, it wasn't a black screen -- it was seamless. It didn't exist there, so there was no evidence."
The Glendale Police Department's residential burglary task force has been working to lower the number of break-ins, officials said.
"Our patrol officers, our motor officers, our special enforcement detail, and detectives -- we have them undercover in the area -- and we saturated the area," Jackson said.
Nora Alabi, a Glendale resident, told ABC7: "I feel like there's no part of the city that you can be in and not run into a cop or not run into a police car.
"If I stand here for five minutes, I might see like three cop cars drive by," she said. "So, because of that, I feel like it's a safe city."
Bear will endeavor to explain the intricacies entailed. Firstly, there is the question of what and how they are disrupting. Bear will assume that they are causing interference instead of hacking, which constitutes an entirely separate affair.
If a human experiences a loss of network connection to Ubear but retains phone, data service, and GPS connectivity, it is highly probable that the problem lies with the Ubear app. There is no need to suspect that nearby drivers are causing disruptions. When Ubear loses coverage, a common situation in its mountainous habitat, no specific actions are required to regain access to U/L. This issue appears to be related to the human's phone.
If human is being jammed, most off-the-shelf (all illegal) jammers are going to be broadband and omnidirectional. In fact, bear finds in a search that such devices advertise their broadband capability. So any driver using one is going to potentially take out not only cell service but also TV broadcast (which still uses the parts of the good ol' UHF band that haven't been sold to the cell providers) and possibly GPS, and maybe even local 2.4GHz services (wifi, bluetooth), within the range of cell phone jammers. These devices aren't exactly subtle and many of them have a stupid amount of broadcast power. Bear saw one device with 8W transmit; in comparison, bear's marine radio normally uses 1W, but if bear is about to drown (bear can swim quite well) and needs the Coast Guard to come from miles away to save bear, bear can kick it up to 25W which gives range of up to 60 miles (the Coast Guard has bigass antennae to receive).
Therefore, signal jammers will unintentionally hinder their own ability to receive signal, leading to their disconnection from the network.
If you had a particularly sophisticated rideshare driver/jammer, they would deploy a network of directional jammers to yield a shaped jamming coverage that created a window for them to receive signal at these magical hotels, but block pings from going to outside drivers. Not impossible, radio stations have to shape their broadcast signals in order to avoid interference with surrounding markets. Just somewhat technically challenging for a rideshare driver with off-the-shelf equipment (bear did not see any directional antennae on the first few results in a Goggle search). This would be the type of thing that is going on in the Ukraine war with government-sponsored technicians.
Moreover, a hotel should allocate a specific window of approximately one hour for their busy checkout time. In a stationary location, this timeframe is set at a minimum of 15 minutes. This duration surpasses the period in which the driver, who was apprehended for jamming a specific cell tower during his morning commute
Maybe, just maybe, they possess a low-power device that functions within a limited range. Their knowledge of the human's daily nap location enables them to drive right next to the human and momentarily disrupt their device's signal. This clever tactic takes advantage of the human's subpar phone, which is susceptible to such interference. Excellent! Now they simply need to repeat this maneuver with the other ants waiting nearby, as they continue their journey.
All to earn $0.60/mile on a ride?
Bear advises that individuals keep another service, like Pandora, active while they take a nap. If Pandora does not encounter the same disruptions, it indicates that the person is not being jammed (unless they are solely interfering with the GPS, which should not necessitate them to restart their phone in the described manner).
The Bear possesses a test receiver that offers extensive coverage across all bands, from FM to UHF, spanning frequencies from approximately 75 to 900MHz. Humans are welcomed to borrow this receiver! By setting it to a TV band within the human's market and suppressing the audio signal of the TV station, the human can effectively counteract interference. Once gps jammers is activated, its disruptive noise will overpower the squelch, leaving the human with absolute certainty.
I’ll be due for a new full size (not certain of brand) truck this fall and would like to add laser protection. I am 75% Iowa driving with the balance in IL and MO. I run from +10-20 PSL, usually set cruse on +15. Judging by the open IA state contracts I could run into a range of guns including DE. I don’t know what flavors of LiDAR are actually in widespread use.
Obviously, ALP’s are the way to go but I really don’t encounter much laser (zero in local driving) and am not interested in rear protection. From what I’ve seen first-hand rear shots are rare, if at all, here – correct me if I am wrong. I’d rather not spend up for the ALP’s and have cash left over to add a system to the wife’s mini-van.
This leaves me at the TMG and APX systems. Either would be fine with me but I do like the smaller remote on the APX. My biggest concern with either system is the lack of self checks and notifications for head issues. I’m not very interested in app integration or gun id’s. Fun, but not necessary for me. I just want the system to do its job reliably. I would install the system myself.
TMG has had its fair share of dramas and reliability issues over the years but has a larger user base than APX’s automotive system. TMG has a better feature set. From what I have gathered the A-17 has taken care of the reliability issues?? More people here on the forum to bounce questions off of, too. I like that their heads have disconnects for easy replacement. Does the A-17 require a totally independent power supply? I find the power supply issue odd but can be worked around.
TPX looks like solid choice as they have been at it with motorcycles for awhile. Simple system and tests well. A JTK button and failed head notifications look to be about the only missing features (and head pigtails). On the other hand, we don’t have years of testing and fine tuning or history of updates on the automotive side.
The R7 won’t work with the Uniden signal jammer. Only the R4/8 will and it requires a box that holds the programming which then runs the jammer heads. I don’t recall seeing anyone try an R7 with the R9 laser jammers heads but I’m pretty doubtful it would be that backwards compatible; even less so with non-factory firmware.
Currently Uniden has said they have no plans to release them as an add on option (something Vortex posted), even though they and other accessories were mentioned on release. That might change as mentioned above.