FCC Proposes $2.8 Million Fine Against HobbyKing

[Mr. Scram]

What it seems HobbyKing were trying to get away with is this:

Further, we are unpersuaded by HobbyKing’s attempt to shift its compliance obligation to its customers by claiming its website warns that users must be aware of local laws prior to purchase.49

This could have some impact on other companies that sell devices to "makers" or in other ways expect the end-user to respect the local regulations. Which as we know has all kinds of issues (such as making it difficult to provide open-source firmware for wifi chipsets). HobbyKing is arguably in a border-line area as they sell essentially modules and components (though it doesn't sound like they made much of an effort to defend such a position if such would have been their intent).

In most places it works that way. The person importing the goods is responsible for ensuring it's legal. However, it seems Hobbyking has several connections to the US even though the FCC also seems to target the Hong Kong part of the business.

"HobbyKing is the trade name of several U.S.-based companies (ABC Fulfillment Services LLC and Indubitably, Inc.) as well as a Hong Kong-based company (Hextronik LTD), all associated with an individual named Anthony Hand. 3  HobbyKing.com, HobbyKing’s website, markets numerous recreational radio frequency devices intended for use with model airplanes and drones to customers all over the world, including the United States. 4  HobbyKing has a New York office and customer service operations in the United States. 5"

[dmills]

While the FCC is bureaucratic, inefficient, often ineffective, overly politicised and occasionally heavy handed, this seem to me like a perfectly valid slapdown.

Intentional radiators are, when sold to the general public, somewhat regulated for a reason, and at the volumes they move there really is no excuse.

Ignoring governments in markets in which you deal is also seldom a good plan, bit like ignoring a letter from the taxman really, it seldom ends cheaply.

73 Dan.

[Nominal Animal]

this seem to me like a perfectly valid slapdown.

I agree.

When I was young, in the era of analog TV broadcasts, I lived north of the Arctic Circle. Whenever anyone rode a snowmobile in the vicinity (say within 100m or 300ft or so), there'd be an awful lot of noise in some TV channels. Requiring manufacturers to limit EM radiation to under specific limits, and to certain frequency bands, is pretty important nowadays.  I'd personally get pretty irate if my WiFi/LTE connection dropped out just because a neighbor is flying their el-cheapo drone.  Or if my wireless temperature sensor went crazy, or something like that...

[Mr. Scram]

I agree.

When I was young, in the era of analog TV broadcasts, I lived north of the Arctic Circle. Whenever anyone rode a snowmobile in the vicinity (say within 100m or 300ft or so), there'd be an awful lot of noise in some TV channels. Requiring manufacturers to limit EM radiation to under specific limits, and to certain frequency bands, is pretty important nowadays.  I'd personally get pretty irate if my WiFi/LTE connection dropped out just because a neighbor is flying their el-cheapo drone.  Or if my wireless temperature sensor went crazy, or something like that...

Still, it's a matter of jurisdiction. If they retract from the US market the US really hasn't got a say in what they sell.

[dmills]

Well, WiFi is generally in an ISM band so you really have no meaningful protection there, if the radio was properly restricted to the appropriate frequencies it could maybe have been approved.

Now if we could get them to slap down the "Ethernet over Mains" and "ADSL and never mind the line balance" crowd....

I don't entirely get the 70cms thing, I mean a licensed amateur specifically is allowed to buy random radio transmitters and modify them before placing them on the air, because we are assumed (not always a safe assumption!) to be technically competent to do so.

Regards, Dan.

[niladherbert]

Why is the law generally that possession of this/use of this is illegal, where it could be: If, by using this, you are harming a person or reducing their freedom, we would kindly ask you to change your ways so that you do not harm them or reduce their freedom, and should you persist, we shall confiscate your equipment until such time as we believe you shall change your ways, or else destroy it as the equipment has no non-malicious usage

[Nominal Animal]

If, by using this, you are harming a person or reducing their freedom, we would kindly ask you to change your ways so that you do not harm them or reduce their freedom

Because there are too many humans who read that as "I can do whatever I want, because I am a good person; and therefore I also have the right to demand others do as I want; but if they demand anything from me, they are just mean, because as a good person, I am not doing anyone any harm".

Or, if you prefer a more blunt wording, because very few humans are capable of seeing beyond their own navel.

[Twenty4Pack]

True: PayPal has also declined to support the folks at KnifeCenter.

[The Doktor]

True: PayPal has also declined to support the folks at KnifeCenter.

And Russian music service allofmp3/alltunes. Visa blocked them as well.

[VK3DRB]

I don't know about you guys, but seven years would be a serious chunk of off time for me.  While I agree that the ratio between time served and the crimes is wrong, both sentences get into the real bugaboo territory.  You can laugh off a couple of days in jail as an embarrassment.  Maybe you can make arrangements to pick up the pieces of your life after a month or two in the pokey.  But when you start talking about years it is a serious reboot.

People don't seem to understand this. They want to lock up people for years for relatively petty crimes, but don't understand this basically means starting from square one. You don't easily get a job any more, you have a hole in your resume if you ignore the conviction, you've lost your house and probably are in debt if you owned that house, you lost most or all personal belongings and everyone around you moved on. With a bit of luck your family will still accept you, but a spouse or children will have had their own lives for years. You generally also lose the best years you have left. If you started serving your sentence 15 years ago you stepped out of the world when Facebook didn't exist. Smartphones weren't ubiquitous and the world wasn't anywhere near as connected as it is now. People don't realize how quickly the world around us changes and how much people are left behind.

If people weren't terribly well adjusted when they're convicted, how can we ever expect them to cope with a world that has changed in major ways and isn't very keen on them? Some people did things that should have consequences, but a sentence should be both reasonable and functional. Society isn't served by creating useless outcasts that have nothing but the criminal skills they honed in prison. The best scenario is having these people become productive members of society again, rather than a burden and dead weight. That's not possible in all cases, but shifting the focus more towards reintegration instead of punishing and warehousing convicts would definitely help a lot.

In the USA, 17 US states provide no compensation to exonerees, including no social support - just a "You are free to go" by some smug judge. Recently one man walked out with nothing but the shirt on his back after spending 18 years in jail for a crime proven he did not commit. When he did get a job, the bastards garnished his paycheck and froze his bank accounts to get $40K in child support he could not pay whilst in jail.

I am reading this book The Sun Does Shine. No surprise it happened in Alabama (the good 'ol white boy state)...
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oprahs-latest-book-club-selection-is-an-epic-memoir-by-an-exonerated-death-row-inmate_us_5b15d081e4b093ac33a10742

Anyone who believes the USA is "The Land of the Free" must have rocks in their head.

[Halcyon]

The Volkswagen exec only got 7 years, but a black guy in California got 25 years for allegedly stealing a slice of pizza. https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/05/us/25-years-for-a-slice-of-pizza.html.

What does the colour of someone's skin have to do with crime and sentencing?

The guy didn't get 25 years just for stealing pizza, he got 25 years because he was a shit bag with prior convictions for robbery, drugs and motor vehicle offences. The stealing was just the icing on the cake.

[metrologist]

Anyone who believes the USA is "The Land of the Free" must have rocks in their head.

And then the typical follow-up is, it's still the best place on earth.

[Mr. Scram]

In the USA, 17 US states provide no compensation to exonerees, including no social support - just a "You are free to go" by some smug judge. Recently one man walked out with nothing but the shirt on his back after spending 18 years in jail for a crime proven he did not commit. When he did get a job, the bastards garnished his paycheck and froze his bank accounts to get $40K in child support he could not pay whilst in jail.

I am reading this book The Sun Does Shine. No surprise it happened in Alabama (the good 'ol white boy state)...
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oprahs-latest-book-club-selection-is-an-epic-memoir-by-an-exonerated-death-row-inmate_us_5b15d081e4b093ac33a10742

Anyone who believes the USA is "The Land of the Free" must have rocks in their head.

I didn't know there were states that don't compensate or help people to some degree after a wrongful conviction. That just seems cruel beyond comprehension.

[Mr. Scram]

And then the typical follow-up is, it's still the best place on earth.

Obligatory video response.

https://youtu.be/VMqcLUqYqrs

[coppice]

In the USA, 17 US states provide no compensation to exonerees, including no social support - just a "You are free to go" by some smug judge. Recently one man walked out with nothing but the shirt on his back after spending 18 years in jail for a crime proven he did not commit. When he did get a job, the bastards garnished his paycheck and froze his bank accounts to get $40K in child support he could not pay whilst in jail.

I am reading this book The Sun Does Shine. No surprise it happened in Alabama (the good 'ol white boy state)...
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oprahs-latest-book-club-selection-is-an-epic-memoir-by-an-exonerated-death-row-inmate_us_5b15d081e4b093ac33a10742

Anyone who believes the USA is "The Land of the Free" must have rocks in their head.

I didn't know there were states that don't compensate or help people to some degree after a wrongful conviction. That just seems cruel beyond comprehension.

When law enforcement is rated by convictions, rather than exposing the truth, why would you expect compensation for false convictions to be taken seriously? Only a few legal systems, such as France and Scotland, have a specific role for someone in the court to try to figure out, and make public, what actually occurred. In most places its a pure gladiatorial game, with the judge merely ensuring the game is conducted according to the rules.

[CatalinaWOW]

This is all way off topic, but interesting. 

Part of the problem is figuring out what just compensation for a wrongful conviction is.  Lost wages is the easiest part and that is hard.  When you add in loss of reputation, loss of non-work life, possible punitive damages it becomes both enormous and incomprehensible.

All of this adds up to confirm my belief that there should be two types of prison sentences.  One which is intended to keep dangerous people away from society should basically always be life, or at least into old age.  And should be pretty rare.

The other is intended as a preventative measure, a penalty which will cause at least some people to think twice before doing something wrong.  It doesn't take much to make whatever difference this is going to make.  For any case where the person gains under a million dollars (and somehow retains this through the conviction) a year is enough.

[nctnico]

Part of the problem is figuring out what just compensation for a wrongful conviction is.  Lost wages is the easiest part and that is hard.  When you add in loss of reputation, loss of non-work life, possible punitive damages it becomes both enormous and incomprehensible.

AFAIK in the NL there is a fixed compensation for each you spend in prison when it turns out an error has been made.

All of this adds up to confirm my belief that there should be two types of prison sentences.  One which is intended to keep dangerous people away from society should basically always be life, or at least into old age.  And should be pretty rare.

We have such a system here. Dangerous criminals end up in a psychiatric hospital after serving in prison and depending on what they did only a judge can decide whether the criminal can be released or not. In less severe cases a doctor can recommend to release (or not).

[Mr. Scram]

This is all way off topic, but interesting. 

Part of the problem is figuring out what just compensation for a wrongful conviction is.  Lost wages is the easiest part and that is hard.  When you add in loss of reputation, loss of non-work life, possible punitive damages it becomes both enormous and incomprehensible.

All of this adds up to confirm my belief that there should be two types of prison sentences.  One which is intended to keep dangerous people away from society should basically always be life, or at least into old age.  And should be pretty rare.

The other is intended as a preventative measure, a penalty which will cause at least some people to think twice before doing something wrong.  It doesn't take much to make whatever difference this is going to make.  For any case where the person gains under a million dollars (and somehow retains this through the conviction) a year is enough.

A problem might be the assumption that most criminals weigh their actions in a rational manner before they engage in them. I understand that engineering approach, but I'm not too sure that's what actually happens. There obviously are some that very deliberately engage in crime, but it seems a lot of people aren't very much aware of their decision making process due to various reasons and shortcomings. I'm not saying they're not responsible for their deeds, but they might do a lot better with some help.

From a societal point of view it makes a lot of sense to focus on re-education and reintegration. Warehousing people with hundreds of other not fully functional members of society isn't very likely to make anyone better citizen. Meanwhile, these people are a burden to the working members of society, so getting them back on track and productive again makes sense. Unfortunately this is generally perceived as "being soft", despite the very obvious counter productive results of "being tough on crime". It's easy to politically sell yourself as a hardliner, even if you're effectively making things worse. People should be demanding criminals to be released reformed and not eating up more resources than required, but that's unfortunately not what we see.

[CatalinaWOW]

This is all way off topic, but interesting. 

Part of the problem is figuring out what just compensation for a wrongful conviction is.  Lost wages is the easiest part and that is hard.  When you add in loss of reputation, loss of non-work life, possible punitive damages it becomes both enormous and incomprehensible.

All of this adds up to confirm my belief that there should be two types of prison sentences.  One which is intended to keep dangerous people away from society should basically always be life, or at least into old age.  And should be pretty rare.

The other is intended as a preventative measure, a penalty which will cause at least some people to think twice before doing something wrong.  It doesn't take much to make whatever difference this is going to make.  For any case where the person gains under a million dollars (and somehow retains this through the conviction) a year is enough.

A problem might be the assumption that most criminals weigh their actions in a rational manner before they engage in them. I understand that engineering approach, but I'm not too sure that's what actually happens. There obviously are some that very deliberately engage in crime, but it seems a lot of people aren't very much aware of their decision making process due to various reasons and shortcomings. I'm not saying they're not responsible for their deeds, but they might do a lot better with some help.

From a societal point of view it makes a lot of sense to focus on re-education and reintegration. Warehousing people with hundreds of other not fully functional members of society isn't very likely to make anyone better citizen. Meanwhile, these people are a burden to the working members of society, so getting them back on track and productive again makes sense. Unfortunately this is generally perceived as "being soft", despite the very obvious counter productive results of "being tough on crime". It's easy to politically sell yourself as a hardliner, even if you're effectively making things worse. People should be demanding criminals to be released reformed and not eating up more resources than required, but that's unfortunately not what we see.

I am not sure we disagree at all.  Deterrence will only work on some.  For those all aentences longer than a year are pretty much equal.  For the rest who aren't a direct danger to society the long sentences don't do anything other than consume resources. 

[Bassman59]

I didn't know there were states that don't compensate or help people to some degree after a wrongful conviction. That just seems cruel beyond comprehension.

Welcome to the USA, where fuck you.

And it has gotten significantly worse with the new regime installed in Washington.

I wish I could tell my European friends that Trump’s America is an anomaly, but I am not sure.

[Marco]

I am not sure we disagree at all.  Deterrence will only work on some.  For those all aentences longer than a year are pretty much equal.  For the rest who aren't a direct danger to society the long sentences don't do anything other than consume resources.

A long sentence still cuts down on the amount of crime they can commit.

I think escalating prison sentences make some sense, three strikes is too simplistic and parole only carries over once. You could come up with something better.

[Mr. Scram]

A long sentence still cuts down on the amount of crime they can commit.

I think escalating prison sentences make some sense, three strikes is too simplistic and parole only carries over once. You could come up with something better.

They can't commit crimes, but do live on resources taken from functioning members of society while they could very well be productive themselves. I'm leaving the crimes committed in and from prison out of the discussion here.

What makes sense are the sentences that lead to the least repeat offenders first, cost the least resources second and don't cause a long term burden. Society shouldn't accept anything else, especially when politics try to interfere with productive solutions.

[NottheDan]

For that you need to convince people first to let go of their revenge fantasies.

[VK3DRB]

...Anyone who believes the USA is "The Land of the Free" must have rocks in their head.

I didn't know there were states that don't compensate or help people to some degree after a wrongful conviction. That just seems cruel beyond comprehension.

Another oxymoron: "The UNITED States of America." When it comes to compensation of exonerees, it is Disunited Shambles of America. 

Most exonerees have difficulty getting work because their resumes have a big blank on it, or they are not trusted, or they have few skills. They won't even know how to use a computer or mobile phone. In some states, they are thrown on the trash heap as dead men walking. Some take their own lives, like Kalief Browder did. Remarkably, some forgive the bastards who put them in jail. But some don't...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=38&v=yf8hEj2qltE
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2010/nov/04/paddy-hill-birmingham-six-counselling