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I have been a follower of John Dvorak's articles on PC Magazine for a long time. His column comes out like clockwork, but his Opinions page was not updated for weeks. A little searching found an article on Medium from John himself. He says that he was released for his article that was critical of the forthcoming 5G system, and the magazine went so far as to replace his article with a pro-industry article. You can read John's story here.
A sad sign of the times where advertising rules everything.
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John C. Dvorak Released from PC Magazine
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(Score: 2, Troll) by Alfred on Monday October 15 2018, @03:38PM (2 children)
*we don't know the long term problems
*consumers are suckers to marketing
*a lot of people suspect problems with it, go look
*there is no real benefit
All are valid points to consider
"Epidermis" and "cornea" as scary medical words. Come on, as a non medical person I have been able to point to those parts since I was 12.
Weaponized by the military doesn't mean it needs to have the signal integrity to carry significant bandwidth. And two transmitters of equal power but one is omni (telecom) and one is very very directional (military) will have very different effective ranges. His point stands though he didn't explain it well and you didn't think deeper about it.
You can't say a "frequency" is safe because it is in use in medicine. A specific use case in a medical environment is different from a public wide administration of the same. You may find You need a dose of Viagra to improve your life from time to time but that is no basis to add it to the water supply.
He doesn't need to complain about Wifi or the myriad of microwaves or airport scanners. Either because that is a lost cause, he is focusing on prevention or its not as harmful. Maybe it is a fight that could be won later and maybe it is worse but it isn't the fight he is waging today. Disagreeing with his scheduling does not invalidate his argument or arguments he didn't raise.
I have no grounds to fight the statement that there needs to be more long term research and you don't either.
If skin cancer wasn't a real thing then I would be cool with assuming there is no long term concern with the limited penetration from millimeter waves, but right now that is only an assumption made when you are suckered into the marketing from the people selling the very tech in question. It's a similar "Take my money and tell me I'm safe" human behavior that we execute when buying into this tech, that we are told is safe, or when sending money to a televangelist for safety in the afterlife. Praise the Lord!
Scaremongering, nah, not really. Valid, yeah. Well documented, no, not by him or long term research or those that say it is safe. This discussion will go on for years and the data still won't show up and people will be making money on it all along the way which is what it is really about.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday October 16 2018, @07:40AM (1 child)
"*we don't know the long term problems"
But we do. We have studied them for decades. They are USED IN MEDICAL TREATMENTS. That's my point. We know quite a lot about them, and have zero reason to suspect anything untoward. A lack of evidence in the case of looking means that there's no immediate need to panic.
"*consumers are suckers to marketing"
Granted. And suckered by attack pieces trying to discredit "all of 5G" because the author believes "one frequency" isn't as well-studied as he'd like.
"*a lot of people suspect problems with it, go look"
And though lots of people suspect problems, and though humans have been around it for decades (everything from inter-building microwave links to radar systems on destroyers, etc.) nobody has yet managed to gather any significant data that shows any correlation to any ill effect whatsoever at EVEN HIGHER power than we'd ever need for 5G.
"*there is no real benefit"
No real benefit... except for all those people who will go out and buy a 5G phone for the faster speeds? I have to say this one I agree more than anything else, but there are commercial reasons, which means there's something to sell, which means there's something people want, which means there's a benefit to doing (or else phone companies wouldn't be spending millions for 5G frequency licensing in the first place, and someone else would be using it for something else instead).
"All are valid points to consider."
Yes. And disregard out of hand when there's zero evidence for them.
"Epidermis" and "cornea" as scary medical words. Come on, as a non medical person I have been able to point to those parts since I was 12. "
Yes. And I guarantee that you call the first one "skin" every time you refer to it. I'm not saying "nobody knows what it means" (if that was true it wouldn't work in the article at all), I'm saying they've chosen a medical word because it sounds more "devastating". And I'm saying that's to deliberately scaremonger.
"Weaponized by the military doesn't mean it needs to have the signal integrity to carry significant bandwidth."
Correct. It does mean, however, that someone has done sufficient testing to know what does damage and what doesn't, and what affects those people near the gun (I don't know about you, but the military in my country still have to do the same health-and-safety stuff for their own personnel as anyone else. Maybe higher boundaries, but it means they know exactly what this stuff does or doesn't do.
"And two transmitters of equal power but one is omni (telecom) and one is very very directional (military) will have very different effective ranges. His point stands though he didn't explain it well and you didn't think deeper about it."
I'm actually PRICING UP A MICROWAVE BUILDING LINK as I was writing it. Including writing to a church parish council to allay their fears over the "types of radio waves", directionality, power, antenna gain, ionisation, etc. He doesn't even touch on that. He just equates "radio wave frequency" with "damage to the epidermis", without consideration for emitted power, the power absorbed by the body, etc. etc. etc. If he had, his point might stand. In fact, he moans about "there being more towers closer together", when in reality that absolutely equals "you would need less power from each tower".
"You can't say a "frequency" is safe because it is in use in medicine."
Covered above.
"He doesn't need to complain about Wifi or the myriad of microwaves or airport scanners. Either because that is a lost cause, he is focusing on prevention or its not as harmful. Maybe it is a fight that could be won later and maybe it is worse but it isn't the fight he is waging today. Disagreeing with his scheduling does not invalidate his argument or arguments he didn't raise. "
He could say that. And to know that, he'd have to point out research to that effect. 802.11ad is a standard you could buy equipment for today, and it's much more likely that you'll be around an 802.11ad wifi point in the future than anything 5G, and much more likely that's produced by cheap Chinese kit that's not in FCC / CE specifications, etc. Not a mention. Because he knows that neither of them are actually harmful. He could easily fold in that standard and say it does the same things, he doesn't. Because he knows he's talking rubbish and trying to bad mouth 5G because of the timing of it.
"I have no grounds to fight the statement that there needs to be more long term research and you don't either."
I actually 100% agree that we all need more long-term research into everything. Even climate change. To suggest otherwise is a nonsense. But the current evidence gives ZERO reason for such an attack piece, and especially such a highly targeted, vague, and yet cherry-picked on.
"If skin cancer wasn't a real thing then I would be cool with assuming there is no long term concern with the limited penetration from millimeter waves, but right now that is only an assumption made when you are suckered into the marketing from the people selling the very tech in question. It's a similar "Take my money and tell me I'm safe" human behavior that we execute when buying into this tech, that we are told is safe, or when sending money to a televangelist for safety in the afterlife. Praise the Lord!"
Skin cancer's been around a long time. As has anything microwave. There's not even a suggestion that walking in front of huge 60-80GHz emitters with ridiculous power does anything to the people who would on them and have done for decades. Lack of evidence is not proof of zero harm, but you have to have a reason to yell and scream. Hell, even a guy who "claims" he was given skin cancer by working on a big military radar for decades - that'd be something. But there isn't one. And even if there was, likely the cause is very different to what they might claim.
"Scaremongering, nah, not really. Valid, yeah. Well documented, no, not by him or long term research or those that say it is safe. This discussion will go on for years and the data still won't show up and people will be making money on it all along the way which is what it is really about."
It's absolutely scaremongering before of the above. Most of it isn't valid. It's not well-documented, because there's nothing to really document. There are no recorded instances of that particular frequency being "worse" at the same radiated power, and in 5G and even Wifi the radiated power would be pitiful any reasonable distance away from the source.
Of course we'll talk for years. Like the parents of a school into which I put their first wifi and was angrily told by a parent: "You know you're frying children's brains, don't you?!" Actually, no, I don't know that. Not only do I not know that, I knew it was as much bollocks as I could imagine. Especially from a parent with a mobile phone stuck to her ear while she "rang her husband" about it (which incidentally connected to a cell tower that was about 30 feet above her head at the time, on top of the school itself). 20 years later, does it really look like we've been frying children's brains? That tower is still there, that wifi has been upgraded no end of times by now. Because it's not about "I think it's scary". It's about having even one iota of medical evidence, or even measured physical effect that could potentially have a medical effect, that you could then use to follow up on.
Believe it or not, people who put products out into your homes and businesses have a duty to check their products as they go out. The relevant authorities have a duty to know this stuff before they issue out frequency allocations and power limits in those allocations. Those authorities talk worldwide and swap information. Now I'm not saying they know absolutely everything, but they've checked a damn-sight-more than this guy. They have lists and medical data and other information available. And guess who gets in trouble for accepting a few million in licensing if it turns out what they licensed (and have been doing so for decades) turns out to be harmful even when used within the official limits.
You're assuming Dvorak > all the radio-handling regulators, producers, researchers, manufacturers, testers, lawyers, etc. That's not to say that such waves *couldn't* harm you. It's to say there's no more evidence of 2.4GHz doing it than 60GHz. Until that changes, he's scaremongering a tech that doesn't even exist yet, on frequencies that have been in used for DECADES at much higher power than anything a 5G phone/tower would emit.
Of course, with 24/7 exposure, right next to your head, things may be different. Billions of man-hours of exposure statistics help a lot. Tell me... how did those "cell phones are frying your brain" studies go? I guarantee you we found "something", and I guarantee you someone tried to use it to sue everyone involved in that licensing decision too. Tell me: Did we ban mobile phones yet?
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday October 16 2018, @01:31PM
"They are USED IN MEDICAL TREATMENTS. That's my point."
Safe in one context does not equate to safe in not the exact same context.
I suspect you have blood drawn before. Would you allow me to draw your blood. It's obviously safe and well understood.
"Skin cancer's been around a long time. As has anything microwave. "
Understanding under one set of parameters does not guarantee a matching understanding under other parameters.
Latent variables are real. A designer could understand that a bridge is safe in the wind until a factor they haven't considered is manifest in a obvious way, I'm thinking tacoma narrows.
"Hell, even a guy who "claims" he was given skin cancer by working on a big military radar for decades - that'd be something."
Lack of evidence is not a proof to the contrary
"Believe it or not, people who put products out into your homes and businesses have a duty to check their products as they go out."
Responsibility or presence of duty does not equate to that responsibility actually being met.
You can't say that every product reviewed and studied for safety that was released has been safe and never recalled?
"You're assuming Dvorak >..."
Actually I assume all journalist are idiots that couldn't get a real degree, that is my bias from doing tech support for them. Not all of them are idiots but saying they all are is accurate to withing the margin of error.
"Tell me: Did we ban mobile phones yet?"
Current Ban status does not correlate with safety
Some things are not banned until later when there is evidence that damage will occur. Usually this is after getting past years of manufacturer interference and cover up. Damage done, here have a measly check while I jump ship with my golden parachute.
Anyhow I just picked a few fallacies you presented. I don't intend to respond to any response of yours.
The moral of the story is that there is always more to the story than one considers. I'm not out here saying that the adoption rate of WiFi correlates to increase of cases in Autism. I dismiss that though I can't prove it there is not a connection. The experts that could possibly prove it will just dismiss it, like I would, and their dismissal becomes scientific fact without scientific rigor. In general, all fields of science are lacking in scientific rigor because it is expensive and "doing science" doesn't pay bills like being a corporate science drone does. Those drones that work for corporations that are in it to make money, not make it safe. (Or to restate, corporations and boards make money at the expense of the public well being.) Those corporations are the ones telling you it is perfectly safe.