Let's Stop the 5G Hysteria: Understanding Hoaxes and Disinformation Campaigns
troyhunt.com
troyhunt.com
I haven't seen the 5G hoax promotions, only the legitimate journalism articles describing the fallout. I presume that none of the hoaxers actually reference the weather radar issue? Let's hope it stays that way because it's much harder to dismiss it all as a hoax if they mix in real truth with all the other bogus stuff.
I have never seen them do this, and I think it's unlikely they will do enough research on 5G (despite telling everyone else to "do the research") to learn about this.
> Let's hope it stays that way because it's much harder to dismiss it all as a hoax if they mix in real truth with all the other bogus stuff.
I'd say they already do this, but I'm not sure they do, and I'm not sure they need to. Conspiracy theorists don't rely on facts to bolster their narrative; they rely on things that sound like facts.
If they mix up weather radar in there I can only imagine the theories about government mind control that will come next.
Those high frequency bands are going to be reserved for high population areas. Their entire purpose is to avoid crosstalk by using signals with low penetration. So, the expectation is that those higher frequencies be used for things like low power micro cell towers in buildings, or downtown city streets.
That means the actual disruption, if it occurs, will only be over the high population areas of cities. Not generally wherever coverage occurs.
Or US government conspiracies: the more well-documented something is, the less it's talked about. Nobody bothers with Iran-Contra conspiracy theories, or even to talk about it any more : there was genuinely a criminal conspiracy, those responsible for that particular bit of treason were indicted, pardoned, and allowed to return to normal politics.
It's derailed into a political debate between those who "know for a fact" there are zero health implications and those who "know for a fact" that you'll certainly die within a week from a 5g antenna being placed next to your apartment.
(Extreme) heating effects can cause cancer, but the source of heat is irrelevant. The power levels 5G uses make even this point completely moot.
If you really have to search for something that could cause you cancer, perhaps those rather carcinogenic compounds your phone is made out of could be studied instead? Although I prefer just not to pulverize my phone and breath in the resulting dust. :-)
We are talking about orders of magnitude weaker radiation than what you get dosed with every time you go outside. But further, sunlight does contain ionizing radiation (hello UV).
DNA is conductive, and there are researchers who believe that this might be an important component in how the cell detects and repairs damage to its DNA [1].
There have been a couple of papers that claim that DNA can act as a fractal antenna allowing it to react to wavelengths that you would at first expect to be way too large to affect it. Here's one [2], which claims it interacts over a wide range of frequencies with a resonance at 34 GHz.
If DNA charge transport does turn out to play an important role in how the cell identifies damaged DNA, and if it turns out that those fractal antenna claims are true, then we'd have a potential mechanism for non-ionizing, non-heating radiation to increase cancer rates.
Note that it would not cause cancer, but it might prevent a cell from finding and repairing damage that if left unrepaired will lead to cancer.
The first part of the above, that DNA is conductive, is firmly established. How the cell detects damaged DNA is not known. That charge transport plays a role in that is currently just one theory that researchers are studying, but it is a theory that if it turns out to be true will not surprise anyone.
I haven't been able to find much on fractal antennas, especially very small ones, so can't tell if the claims about DNA acting as an antenna have merit.
[1] http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jkbgrp/Research.htm
[2] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-10-5699-4_...
What are the specific health concerns from what 5G is doing differently to 4G?
Because I remember a couple of petitions from scientists none of whom in the radio field with no specific scientific information or concerns.
5G’s benefits over 4G are:
-
4G’s benefits over 5G are:
- Fewer towers necessary because larger coverage areas
- Better penetration of materials
- Doesn’t interfere with weather data collection
Why is there even a push for 5G? What is the benefit to the consumer? A higher bill because a 10x increase in infrastructure is necessary? Asinine. Just use wifi. I don’t understand what 5G was even made to technically accomplish.
It enables huge numbers of connections, making it more feasible for IoT appliances to use cell radios instead of wifi radios, taking yet more control away from consumers.
Oh wait, 'benefits'... well I suppose that's a matter of perspective..
You can literally google "5g benefits" and read through any number of whitepapers.
For one, it has much lower latency, making it competitive with fibre in many areas.
It's more efficient, allowing more devices in the same area. The 60GHz band in particular will allow extreme densities as seen in sports stadiums or major train stations in rush hour.
It has higher peak bandwidth.
It includes special modes optimised for very lower power devices with modest bandwidth requirements.
Etc...
What do people do on their phones ? I'm forcing mine in 3g all the time and it's faster than I need already. Why would you need 1ms ping and 1gbs d/u speeds ?
This sounds like phones having 4k+ screens to me, updating specs for the sake of updating specs, there is no real world need behind it. I guess many people are making big bucks in the scheme though, that's probably the major 5g benefit.
Remote desktop, ssh, VoIP, gaming... anything that's interactive. All of those work better and are more fun to use with low latency.
Even plain web browsing can be much more enjoyable with a low latency connection assuming there's no other bottleneck.
Our computers are millions of times more powerful than back in the days but somehow my 2018 macbook pro crawls to a halt if slack displays more than 2 gifs at the same time.
Anyway, I think we're artificially creating needs that aren't needs in the first place. "b-bu-but how am I supposed to telework from the subway if I don't have my 5g =(", "I can't even stream youtube 8k videos from the bus =("
So, yeah, how much do we know for a fact? I say that as a true sceptic (i.e. sceptical with my own views as well as anyone else's). Decades ago we knew for a fact that dumping a ton of plastic into the environment was totally fine. Also we "didn't know for a fact" that greenhouse gas emissions could play a part in affecting our climate for the worse.
Because it is transmitted at the same frequency as previous cell phone technologies. There are literally decades worth of studies around the effects of nonionizing radiation.
The only thing 5G changes is the transmission protocol.
It's fine to be a skeptic, but this is fear mongering. We don't need a 20 year long study to prove something we've known to be safe for 20 years because some crackpots claim it makes them nauseous or causes cancer. If you are going to be skeptical, why aren't you skeptical of the unverified negative claims?
Where's my proof? Google "non-ionizing radiation health". Would find a bunch of articles from reputable sources that all land on the same conclusion. It's safe.
Here's the CDC article on it. https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/nonionizing_radiation.htm...
TBH, unless you work directly in an area like this and stay up to date, it's a question of faith in experts either way. It basically becomes an appeal to authority, and as you can see, if you have multiple putative authorities, it becomes difficult to select.
This isn't the first anti-RF study he's published and I doubt it will be the last.
Looking further into his claims, he's said everything from "Alzheimer's is caused by WiFi" to "previous non ionizing studies were all flawed because that used the wrong test animal".
I expect when 6G rolls out he'll publish exactly the same study with an equally scary title.
I know, I'm committing an ad hominem fallacy. But at the end of the day I'm not buying his article see the rest of the claims. It is good enough for me that consensuses of much larger studies over longer periods are pretty much all against his study.
This shows the problem right now. If you're not an expert, you don't know what you don't know, and have to yield to some kind of authority. Noise is greater than it has ever been, and trust is low. This will get worse before it gets better....
AFAIK it is not, 5G also deploys >24GHz (up to 300GHz).
Happy to be proven wrong, but so far - from my POV - this has been the biggest hole in the theory that we do not need to test 5G because we already know it is safe...
There are however concerns about 5G itself, without corona. I haven't really dived into the matter but it passes at least a cursory smell test, see for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22317998
Facebook and group messaging apps are how a lot of people communicate.
Yeah, totally just for fun.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/06/at-least-...
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/04/uk-phone-mas...
Re 5G itself, the link you posted is debunked in the first reply. There are no credible concerns related to 5G
Farmers thought their cows milk would turn sour from the train noises and people thought their heads would explode or body damage would happen travelling that fast.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67806/early-trains-were-...
https://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/07/11/women-and-child...
Sick and tired of these idiots. The people in this thread who are arguing for research into the 'potential health implications' of 5G: you are part of the problem, you are giving cover to the idiots by allowing them to argue that there very well may be such implications so better safe than sorry before we're all going to be mind controlled.
For instance couple of years ago after a surgery I had plenty of time and I watched some conspiracy documentaries (like 9/11 or chemtrails), and I was almost disappointed how quickly they crumbled (within minutes) as they were completely lacking any data or proofs - and I really was curious and open-minded and was looking forward to learn something :)
This issue however becomes much more complicated when discussing environmental and health issues - there usually the technology at hand actually should and needs to prove its safety.
However deranged some of the 5G theories are, it should not hide the fact that - afaik - there is no proper safety study for continues exposure to >24GHz. Even thought theoretically we might think it is safe, it is still paramount to fully safety test it.
So lets stop with all the straw man stuff and do some real studies (or find them if they are already out there).
Edit: I live in a country where people will find such an explanation for anything ranging from bad weather, to a bad economy, to even covid. And such theories are so prevalent that “normal” people are basically outliers.
Germany cannot get good 4G coverage, why think about 5G!? It was a nightmare to drive and to talk to clients on the phone while driving in a field role. 30 miles outside of any city I had connection problems.
I'm not that massively excited about it either, it's not like the jump from 2G->3G where phone handset use is concerned, but I think it will have a bigger impact on non- (or not-just-) phone use.
Here's a graph of predictions of data usage over the next few years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/271405/global-mobile-dat...
People use their phones for data and the data consumption is increasing. You might not but people live stream sports, games, TV to their mobiles.
Frequency bands are like radio stations. Better algorithms/etc to transfer more data at an instant means that more people can have a better experience using the airwaves.
Like in busy train stations people will often have full signal but unusable internet connectivity.
Faster speeds means that people are not using the airwaves for as long.
Also mmWave is a way to get an extra density of data pushed as higher frequency means more throughput look at 2.4Ghz WiFi Vs 5Ghz WiFi. Of course the issue is that it gets blocked very easily.
It's a progression. 3G masts have been switched to 4G and it'll start in a few years for 5G.
But honestly it's a long multi year process. And it's not like 4G is going anywhere.
Other things that 5G does is latency is lower so it could open up use cases such as data for autonomous cars, AR and VR (I'm a bit dubious on that tbh). Reason being that the break out to the internet can be at multiple points rather than a single point as it often is with LTE.
But yeah, honestly from a user perspective there's not really going to be much of a difference. I don't think many operators are going to try selling 5G plans like they did for 4G
Not in the towers/coverage metric. I don't see how 5G could help in places that already have poor coverage (e.g. outside cities.)
Troy's article, while not explicitly defending 5g, is much more likely to encourage such a backlash than anything.
Please be critical.
The PS4 slim consumes less power than an original PS4
Or it's ignored as it's true?
Aside from the 5G hysteria, I've also noticed a large uptick in people believing that COVID-19 is engineered and patented by Bill Gates, as part of his project to reduce the global population. Why exactly would he want to do that? Well the why is not important, apparently. The Gates stuff is quite well explained in the associated Snopes[0] page.
Sharing that article with an acquaintance brought her to respond with:
> this Article is a Total BS
> All i can say. I dont trust anything that i read anymore. Only What i hear from people that are completely Free and independent. And no, im not wrong. If you still cant see it then go to YouTube do your research , when you still can. Cuz it might be censored one day
I explained that I am "completely free and independent", but apparently that's not the way it works.
Like Troy Hunt, I too have been trying to figure out why conspiracy theorists believe in some utterly insane ideas, but not others. And what if I start some of my own conspiracy theories? Would they be plausible? Would they catch on? Why? Why not? The first thing I came up with was:
> The African giraffe is actually a genetically-modified animal, engineered by the CIA. It was a covert government project to see if the necks of animals could be elongated — the ambition being to then apply this research to humans, making their brains develop less (because the biological development would now go to supporting their longer neck muscles) as a means to more easily mind-control the global population
So, if that one ever makes the rounds among the semi-literate on Facebook, you heard it here first.
[0]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-vaccinations-de...
Or if you prefer to believe politicians, just hey, go outside and take all the chloroquine you want.
A small sample.. https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2014/11/academic-studies-questio...
Also, epidemiology is an interesting one. As in all public health there are balances, but moreso here. Often anti-antivax people will claim "vaccines are entirely safe" which is unscientific. Their goals are noble, but they discredit themselves because data on negative outcomes is pretty easy to come by. The temptation is the same, public health is served by convincing people to take certain actions (eg not buy masks, because they're needed by healthcare workers). Sometimes these actions are contrary to individual needs. Governments will need to tell people to do things that are against those people's best interests ("don't seek medical care") because those actions preserve the population. Epidemiology is about preserving populations, not about keeping individuals healthy. That means there's always a tension, and I don't think _one_ can trust epidemiologists, but _we_ can trust them in general.
Would you like to save lives? Would you lie, knowing 100,000s would die ... because there was a high probability that it could save millions, but also a possibility that the deaths wouldn't help, or wouldn't be necessary?
(Unless you were thinking that they should be able to "protect us" without cooperation from their governments, but I'm having trouble seeing how that works)
- It will contribute to the planned obsolescence. There we're going to get insatiable with what we have and pay a ton of money for a new mobile phone model, this on account of the exploitation of children in the cobalt mines of Congo.
- It will make us even more addicted to screens. If we think we can no longer pay attention to anything, get ready for 5G.
In what way? 2G and 3G phones still work.
The only way that I see this as a valid point is that software will become more wasteful with higher bandwidth. But if we thought like that, things would never progress.
- Privacy concerns: the much higher density of antennas it requires will make geolocation really accurate.
- Weather radars interference: no need to explain why this is bad.
- Risk of proliferation of internet-connected IoT devices that are hard or impossible to secure with a firewall. We are already quite there.
- Higher energy consumption and shorter battery lifes.