For any local folks on this list, the Hobart City Council is holding an information session on Hobart’s smart city plan. Should be interesting, especially if the local Stop 5G group shows up. My opinion on the initial Hobart smart city strategy in August 2018 is here. Don ***************************************** Connected Hobart Public Forum Help
Read more →On the scale of security threats, hackers scanning potential targets for vulnerabilities might seem to rank rather low. But when it’s the same hackers who previously executed one of the most reckless cyberattacks in history—one that could have easily turned destructive or even lethal—that reconnaissance has a more foreboding edge. Especially when the target of their scanning is the US power grid….SNIP
Read more →From Microwave News
Excerpt:
New government data, released in May by a member of the Danish Parliament, show a near doubling of glioblastoma (GBM), a usually fatal brain tumor, in Denmark since the year 2000.Equally provocative: The trend is very similar to what was reported in England last year.Take a look at some graphs and decide for yourself whether these trends are worth talking about. The RF establishment would have me believe this isn’t real. I need to be convinced…SNIP
The following article in the Washington Post has interesting implications for the future of today’s society as we enter the world of 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT), where more and more of our thinking, and most importantly, our children’s, is done for us by our devices. How will, what has been called the Google Effect, change they way we think and our ability to think independently of our devices? A shrinking brain perhaps?… From the Washington Post By M.R. O’Connor June 5 Excerpts: M.R. O’Connor is a journalist who writes about science, technology and ethics, and is the author, most recently, of “Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World.”It has become the most natural thing to do: get in the car, type a destination into a smartphone, and let an algorithm using GPS data show the way. Personal GPS-equipped devices entered the mass market in only the past 15 or so years, but hundreds of millions of people now rarely travel without them. These gadgets are extremely powerful, allowing people to know their location at all times, to explore unknown places and to avoid getting lost.But they also affect perception and judgment. When people are told which way to turn, it relieves them of the need to create their own routes and remember them. They pay less attention to their surroundings. And neuroscientists can now see that brain behavior changes when people rely on turn-by-turn directions. In a study published in Nature Communications in 2017, researchers asked subjects to navigate a virtual simulation of London’s Soho neighborhood and monitored their brain activity, specifically the hippocampus, which is integral to spatial navigation. Those who were guided by directions showed less activity in this part of the brain than participants who navigated without the device. “The hippocampus makes an internal map of the environment and this map becomes active only when you are engaged in navigating and not using GPS,” Amir-Homayoun Javadi, one of the study’s authors, told me.The hippocampus is crucial to many aspects of daily life. It allows us to orient in space and know where we are by creating cognitive maps. It also allows us to recall events from the past, what is known as episodic memory. And, remarkably, it is the part of the brain that neuroscientists believe gives us the ability to imagine ourselves in the future.Studies have long shown the hippocampus is highly susceptible to experience. (London’s taxi drivers famously have greater gray-matter volume in the hippocampus as a consequence of memorizing the city’s labyrinthine streets.) Meanwhile, atrophy in that part of the brain is linked to devastating conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder and Alzheimer’s disease. Stress and depression have been shown to dampen neurogenesis — the growth of new neurons — in the hippocampal circuit.What isn’t known is the effect of GPS use on hippocampal function when employed daily over long periods of time. Javadi said the conclusions he draws from recent studies is that “when people use tools such as GPS, they tend to engage less with navigation. Therefore, brain area responsible for navigation is less used, and consequently their brain areas involved in navigation tend to shrink.”.. SNIP
Read more →From Louis Slesin, Microwave News June 3, 2019
Excerpt: Americans in their 20s are getting more colon and rectal cancer. Those born in 1990 now face four times the risk of developing rectal cancer and twice the risk of colon cancer, compared to those born around 1950, according to the American Cancer Society. Similar patterns are being seen in many other countries. Known risk factors for colorectal cancer include obesity, an unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity. But De-Kun Li, an epidemiologist and veteran EMF researcher, doesn’t think they explain what’s going on. Li offers a different hypothesis: Young people’s habit of carrying their cell phones in the front or back pockets of their jeans. “When placed in trouser pockets, the phones are in the vicinity of the rectum and the distal colon and these are the sites of the largest increases in cancer,” he says…SNIP
From Leszczynski’s blog: between a Rock and a Hard Place, May 31, 2019
Excerpt
[…The below presented brief opinion is not a comprehensive review of the issue but opinion pointing towards few of the important issues associated with the deployment of the 5G technology…]The currently ongoing deployment of the 5th generation of the wireless communication technology (5G) is being met with great enthusiasm by the telecommunication industry and national governments and general public. However, there is also some resistance from the part of the population in various locations around the globe. The opposition towards deployment of the 5G is caused by the uncertainty whether radiation emitted by the 5G networks and devices will have any health effects on human health and environmental impact on fauna and flora. Author of this ‘Brief Opinion’ considers the rapid deployment of the 5G technology as premature, in the context of the very limited scientific research on effects of low level exposures to sub-millimeter- and millimeter waves, as expressed e.g. in final points of conclusions of the invited lectures: (SNIP)
The Chinese government’s desire to ensure social control is well known with its “social credit’ monitoring system the stuff of nightmares for those of us accustomed to personal freedom. But part of the software used by the Chinese government is now being exported and found a customer in the City of Darwin. The City of Darwin has been looking at adopting smart city technology and has decided to implement facial recognition software and other monitoring solutions in order to detect anomalous behaviour or if a known criminal or someone banned from entering a specific area….SNIP
AND from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute
China’s ‘social credit system’ (SCS)—the use of big-data collection and analysis to monitor, shape and rate behaviour via economic and social processes1—doesn’t stop at China’s borders. Social credit regulations are already being used to force businesses to change their language to accommodate the political demands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Analysis of the system is often focused on a ‘credit record’ or a domestic ranking system for individuals; however, the system is much more complicated and expansive than that. It’s part of a complex system of control—being augmented with technology—that’s embedded in the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) strategy of social management and economic development…SNIP
We all have read and heard about the increasing problem of cell phone addiction but here is another take on the problem. People getting so addicted to health fitness trackers that it becomes an obsessive preoccupation triggering the nocebo effect. To quote from the article:
“For Golden, a 38-year-old patient advocate who began with an Excel spreadsheet and later used specialized apps, tracking initially helped her provide better information to her doctor. But she became focused on every possible factor that could make her headache worse. “I’ve seen people become very obsessed with it. I was at one point,” she says. “What did I do at lunch? What did I do at dinner? It can be all-consuming.” The symptom tracker doesn’t just reveal your highs and lows. It produces a state of anxiety—and possibly more pain”…AND… “Kelly Baron, a clinical psychologist and director of the Behavioral Sleep Medicine program at the University of Utah, saw potential in using devices to coax people into better sleep habits. But then she began to see patients whose sleep issues seemed to stem from the trackers.” …SNIP
From the Washington Post (Consumer Tech section) by Geoffrey Fowler
Apple says, “What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.” Our privacy experiment showed 5,400 hidden app trackers guzzled our data — in a single week.
It’s 3 a.m. Do you know what your iPhone is doing? (Links removed)Mine has been alarmingly busy. Even though the screen is off and I’m snoring, apps are beaming out lots of information about me to companies I’ve never heard of. Your iPhone probably is doing the same — and Apple could be doing more to stop it.On a recent Monday night, a dozen marketing companies, research firms and other personal data guzzlers got reports from my iPhone. At 11:43 p.m., a company called Amplitude learned my phone number, email and exact location. At 3:58 a.m., another called Appboy got a digital fingerprint of my phone. At 6:25 a.m., a tracker called Demdex received a way to identify my phone and sent back a list of other trackers to pair up with.And all night long, there was some startling behavior by a household name: Yelp. It was receiving a message that included my IP address -— once every five minutes.Our data has a secret life in many of the devices we use every day, from talking Alexa speakers to smart TVs. But we’ve got a giant blind spot when it comes to the data companies probing our phones.You might assume you can count on Apple to sweat all the privacy details. After all, it touted in a recent ad, “What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.” My investigation suggests otherwise…SNIP
Read more →As published on Dariusz Leszczynski’s blog Between a Rock and a Hard PlaceBelow is the next in a series of Guest Blogs on BRHP. The opinions expressed in this Guest Blog are of Don Maisch himself. Publication of these opinions in BRHP does not imply that BRHP automatically agrees with or endorses these opinions. Publication of this, and other Guest Blogs, facilitates an open debate and free exchange of opinions on wireless technology and health. . . . In early 2002 the New York based technical publication, Microwave News published an examination of a rather arcane topic: Brillouin precursors. The issue at that time was non-ionising radiation from the phased array PAVE PAWS radar facility at Cape Cod , Massachusetts, USA. A Brillouin precursor is a very fast pulse of radiation, which when it enters the human body, may generate a burst of energy that can travel much deeper than predicted by conventional models. . . SNIP
Read more →One of the prime reasons for the 5G rollout is its supposed ability to make a world of autonomous vehicles a reality by removing the imperfect human element. Well, so far, Tesla’s efforts to create the perfect driverless car are not going so well, according to Consumer reports. It seems that Tesla’s Autopilot artificial intelligence is on a par with a drunk driver way over the limit…
Read more →While searching through the Internet for absolutely unnecessary and possibly dangerous ‘smart” devices that will be part of the Internet of Things (IoT) I came across this great example. No longer will you have to risk getting nasty baby poo on your fingers when you check to see if your baby has done a dump. Just wait for the message on your smart phone! Note where the bluetooth transmitter is placed. As the old saying goes a picture is worth a thousand words…. SNIP
Read more →If you had a choice between a better, faster cell phone signal and an accurate weather forecast, which would you pick? That’s the question facing federal officials as they decide whether to auction off more of the wireless spectrum or heed meteorologists who say that such a move could throw US weather forecasting into chaos.On Capitol Hill Thursday, NOAA’s acting chief, Neil Jacobs, said that interference from 5G wireless phones could reduce the accuracy of forecasts by 30 percent. That’s equivalent, he said, to the quality of weather predictions four decades ago. “If you look back in time to see when our forecast scale was roughly 30 percent less than today, it was 1980,” Jacobs told the House Subcommittee on the Environment.That reduction would give coastal residents two or three fewer days to prepare for a hurricane, and it could lead to incorrect predictions of the storms’ final path to land, Jacobs said. “This is really important,” he told ranking committee member Frank Lucas (R-Oklahoma)…SNIP
Read more →By Ripu Bhatia May 14 2019
Excerpt
The latest cellular network technology 5G could pose a risk to people’s health, critics say.
Waiheke Local Board chairwoman Cath Handley has written to Auckland Council’s environment and community committee calling for an independent safety assessment of the fifth-generation service. “The board’s request is that a precautionary approach should be adopted until evidence of effects is fully documented and well understood,’ she wrote. “As the largest and most densely populated city in the country, Auckland should take a leadership role in ensuring the safety of the proposed network.”University of Auckland psychology professor Susan Pockett said radio frequency emissions were linked to many health problems. “Approximately 600 peer-reviewed research reports from a range of international scientists show us that radio frequency radiation is linked to infertility, diabetes, various kinds of cancer and psychiatric disorders,” she said. “The present situation is already bad and adding 5G on top of it will hugely increase the amount of radiation to which everyone is exposed and make the whole situation much worse.” A 2018 article by Pockett in the New Zealand Medical Journal said evidence existed that radio frequency emissions at some intensities could impact people’s health. “The biological effects of radio frequency emissions are clearly complicated, but there is no longer any reasonable doubt that under some circumstances, levels common in the present environment do have harmful biological effects.” The paper concluded until more was known about the effects, a “precautionary approach” in the rollout of cellphone and WiFi technology was justified. Overseas, more than 200 scientists have written to the United Nations and the World Health Organization expressing concerns about potential health risks from the technology…SNIP
Read more →From the CHEscience posting by Deborah E Moore, PhD. Executive Director, Second Look: To anyone who has any doubts about the NYT unethical connection with Telecom, here is an excerpt of the transcript from a January 2019 report on the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show on the Verizon website. The whole article can be found here: https://www.verizon.com/about/news/hans-vestberg-keynotes-2019-consumer-electronics-showOf course — a movie on 5G. Of course on 4G it takes you three to four minutes with a 90 minute video or movie it’s going to take you 10 seconds when you have ultra wideband. That’s a use case. But that’s to limit your — that’s not to limit yourself what you can do with it because there’s so much more you can do when you have that type of speed and through-put it’s a quantum leap compared to what we have today. I asked two iconic American companies to talk about how they can use it and how they view 5G. Very different from thinking about that you can download quicker. Because this is how we need to challenge ourselves to use these currencies to actually create something very new and transformative in the world we live in today. So the first iconic American company we have is the New York Times. I have the pleasure of inviting to the stage Mark Thompson, the CEO of New York Times. Mark, please come up on the stage. (Applause)…SNIP
Read more →That’s right folks, according to a New York Times article written by American science journalist, William Broad “Your 5G Phone Won’t Hurt You. But Russia Wants You to Think Otherwise”. Now, in Australia, 5G community concerns are trying to be dismissed by the promoters of the technology as just a result of media misinformation and needless worry, but in the the U.S., William Broad brings in the Russians, suggesting that any evidence on possible adverse effects from 5G technology is coming from Russia Today America (RT America), a global television news network based in Moscow, Russia and funded by the Russian government. It is no surprise that the Russian Government, using its propaganda arm, RT America, would like to spread fear amongst the American public and perhaps delay the rollout of 5G in the US. That’s what they are paid to do. HOWEVER for William Broad to then dismiss all evidence of 5G hazards as just Russian propaganda shows his own bias in scientific (mis)understanding of the issue. Understandable if he was a science advisor for President Trump but not for a science journalist writing for the prestigious New York Times. Read on….
Read more →The following statement from Ronald Powell PhD was written to oppose two bills before the Maryland General Assembly in the state of Maryland, USA, but the points raised are relevant for the rollout of 5G networks regardless of location.****************************Ronald M. Powell, Ph.D / February 25, 20195G and its small cell towers threaten public health. Implications for HB654/SB937 and HB1020/SP713 before the Maryland General Assembly.This message describes, as briefly as I can, the answers to the questions below. Kindly read what interests you. I present these comments as a retired U.S. Government career scientist (Ph.D. in Applied Physics, Harvard University).* Why is control of 5G secondary to stopping its deployment? *Why are both HB654/SB937 and HB1020/SP713 fatally flawed? *What makes Maryland a leader in MANDATING exposure to harmful radiofrequency radiation? *What is Maryland’s implicit policy on exposure to radiofrequency radiation? *Why is human health so vulnerable to harm from radiofrequency radiation? *What is the evidence of the harm caused by radiofrequency radiation? *What are the advantages and disadvantages of 5G*What should our telecommunications goals be? *Who am I?…SNIP
Read more →So, scientists from Japan and South Korea plan on doing a partial replication study of the NTP study which found exposure to radiofrequency radiation in male rats resulted in tumors in tissues surrounding nerves in the hearts. Unfortunately it seems they may fall for the old Procrustean Approach spin in the choice of potential expert advisors for the study. Even ancient Michael Repacholi is being wheeled out of his cryogenic chamber for his sage like words of wisdom. The one name missing from the list of potential expert advisors is that of Rodney Croft who would have been useful by claiming that the adverse effects found in the NTP rats was the solely the result of a nocebo effect…Louis Slesin (Microwave News) and Dariusz Leszczynski have written excellent articles on the proposed study. SNIP
Read more →In recent months there’s been a lot of talk about 5G – the next generation of wireless technology. 5G is being touted as a necessary step to the ‘internet of things’ – a world in which our refrigerators alert us when we’re low on milk, our baby’s diapers tell us when they need to be changed, and Netflix is available everywhere, all the time. But what we’re not hearing is that evidence-based studies worldwide have clearly established the harmful effects of human exposure to pulsed radiofrequency radiation from cell towers, cell phones and other devices – and that 5G will make the problem exponentially worse…SNIP
Read more →Published on Daruisz Leszczynsik’s blog,Between a Rock and a Hard place, a paper by Don Maisch Phd …5th generation (5G) wireless technology, as the name indicates, is the next generation wireless communication network from 4G and 4G LTE. Once fully implemented it will predominantly operate in the millimetre (mm) radiofrequency band which will allow much higher data transfer necessary for driverless vehicles, the Internet of Things (IoT), faster video downloads as well as other applications, including military. The downside of 5G mmWave, however, is that the signals do not penetrate objects readily such as buildings and foliage, in comparison to the lower frequencies. This necessitates a far denser network of 5G small cell antennas which will be mounted on power poles, light poles, street furniture, bus shelters, etc. which in many cases will be close to homes, workplaces and public areas. In some cases internal antennas in buildings will also be used. This will result in higher chronic radiofrequency exposures to humans in these areas. The high number of small cells needed for an effective 5G network is causing community disquiet and that, combined with many scientific unknowns about the possible biological effects of prolonged exposure to mm waves, is resulting in increasing community opposition in Australia and internationally. As community opposition is most likely going to increase as 5G infrastructure continues to be rolled out nationally, the question arises: Is this opposition to 5G warranted or not?..SNIP
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