1) Julian Gresser, Attorney and Chair of the BroadBand International Legal Action Network (BBILAN), has provided a report on his group’s activities over the last 8 months. More and more legal actions are taking place at various levels — federal, state and local in the USA as well as internationally — addressing wireless technology and the environmental harm being done (and ignored). If you haven’t already, please consider signing the International Declaration on Protecting Children from RF Radiation. BBILAN needs to have as much support and as many voices behind it as possible.
BBILAN Progress Report (2022-2023)
“It has been a fertile and productive eight months since our last report. We have advanced our existing cases and added several new and exciting collaborative initiatives.
… we have now entered an Age of Defiance where wireless companies and government bureaucrats believe they can act in open disregard of law, and are getting away with it with impunity.”
https://mailchi.mp/bbilan.org/bbilan-13844325
2) Below in Letters is a success story about a fiber optic network provided by a long-time Coalition member. This approach has been recommended by many experts, such as Dr. Timothy Schoechle. It truly is a win-win for all — better service over which the community has control and ownership and profit staying with the local network. Please feel free to share this with your local Councils and encourage them to investigate further. Many thanks to Art Joyce for sharing.
3) Hacking is becoming easier, less intrusive, and can be done with simple “smart phones”. Wireless devices are so vulnerable and we are having less choice about having “smart’ devices or appliances in our homes and cars — making us more vulnerable.
(click on photos to enlarge)
Researchers Reveal How Power LEDs “designed to indicate when a device is turned on” Can Be Exploited by Hackers
“If you were looking for more reasons to loathe LED lights (biological and environmental health risks, high costs) as well as “smart” home devices, and smartphones (cybersecurity vulnerability, health risks from radiation exposure, privacy violations, etc.), researchers have revealed how hackers can exploit power LEDs to additionally spy on you.
The video-based attacks presented on Tuesday reduce or completely eliminate such requirements. All that’s required to steal the private key stored on the smart card is an Internet-connected surveillance camera that can be as far as 62 feet away from the targeted reader. The side-channel attack on the Samsung Galaxy handset can be performed by an iPhone 13 camera that’s already present in the same room.”
Letters:
From: Art Joyce, New Denver
A Local Fibre Optic Success Story
The other day I arranged for a local EMF expert, Shonna Hayes, to tour the facilities of the Kaslo Infonet Society (KiN), which is building out its own nonprofit fibre optic network. We met up with Don Scarlett, a KiN board member and electrical engineer, who showed us around. KiN covers a 70 km. range from Ainsworth Hot Springs through Kaslo to the north end of Kootenay Lake, and are bringing fibre right up to the homes of their customers, even in remote areas! Don showed us all their equipment in Kaslo, the main servers plus the junction boxes where the main trunk line splits off to neighbourhood homes. They used an underwater cable to get it across Kootenay Lake from the east shore mainline, and all the fibre cable within the community is buried, not on poles. They’ve had to use some “last mile” wireless in some areas but their plan is to phase these out completely so that all customers eventually have direct wired fibre optic internet!
Scarlett told us that this was a community response to the terrible service offered by Telus, which was basically no more than ADSL. Because these communities are so small, the “economy of scale” just wasn’t there, said Telus, so don’t expect much anytime soon. A telecom technician moved to town and said, “This is nuts, we should do this ourselves!” So KiN was formed as a nonprofit, the tech guy trained local workers to do the installations, excavators were donated for digging the trenches, and before long, they put the lie to the idea that “it’s just too expensive to give everyone direct wired access”!
On our tour we were shown all the latest in fibre optic technology and the means to install a network in one of the most challenging terrains in Canada. Because the country here is surrounded by glaciers and granite, running the main fibre line presented a major problem. We have very little soft ground here for digging. But by using the lake to bypass rocky, inaccessible areas, or by using flexible aluminum conduits to cross glacial rockfall, they solved these problems.
Even Columbia Basin Broadband Corporation (CBBC), which was formed from money paid by the power corporations to Columbia Basin Trust as part of a compensation program for the Columbia River dam system, doesn’t seem to get it. They didn’t believe KiN could do it without the big corporate fibre companies, but they did! KiN bypassed the middle men and got their fibre at wholesale. By using locally trained workers, they eliminated the steep rates charged by Telus for installation. Best of all, KiN is creating skilled jobs for locals and instead of Telus siphoning off money from the community, it remains here to support local businesses.
Most important of all in this equation is that KiN is a registered nonprofit. This means they are not bound to shareholders demanding a constant ramping up of profits at all costs. Nonprofit-based internet societies are the future as far as Don Scarlett and the KiN board are concerned and they have made presentations to the village governments throughout the Slocan Valley to foster this model.
By contrast, this is how ridiculous Telus is, that they’ve had a fibre optic trunk line in the Slocan Valley for at least a decade or more, yet refused to connect it because wireless is cheaper. When CBBC approached Telus about leasing the trunk line, it was a flat out “no.” This despite the fact that the line was largely built with government subsidies. The message: “We don’t think it’s profitable enough with such a small population but we won’t let you use it, either.” So CBBC has had to spend millions to lay its own fibre optic trunk line, side by side with the Telus one. And they are leaving the “last mile” connections to the villages.
I’m trying to convince New Denver councillors not to go for the wireless “last mile” since, as Don Scarlett says, wireless is not only unreliable, it’s fast becoming obsolete. Wireless seems cheaper initially, he points out, but in the long run won’t be because once fibre is installed, it’s permanent and by simply changing the different light spectrums passed through the cable, the capacity can be continually increased. And a fibre optic line can transmit signals at least 20 km without needing a booster. Whereas wireless routers quickly become obsolete and have to be replaced.
Interestingly, I noticed Telus trucks installing new poles the other day near New Denver. All their vehicles now say nothing about wireless, instead sporting the catchphrase “Fibre is Friendly.” So they know wireless is finished too. I think they also know 5G is a nonstarter. Scarlett says from an engineering perspective, 5G is utterly useless in a mountain environment like ours—every ridge, stand of trees, brick or stone building will block the signal. The cost to build out a 5G antenna network would be obscene in this environment. So while Telus markets it like they have 5G in Nelson, he believes it will never come here.
Hallelujah for small blessings!
Sharon Noble, Director, Citizens for Safer Tech
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” Albert Einstein
Sent from my wired laptop with no wireless components. Practice Safe Tech.