On being Mobbed

I hoped that a visualization of the bombardment by sound that I’ve been subjected to by at least one of the co-captains of a corrupt Seattle neighborhood watch, some rather reactionary real estate speculators and a small-time builder would compel the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police department to do something about a campaign of domestic terror in Seattle’s South Cedar Park neighborhood. “Are you sure you don’t have an unintentional antenna on your property?” he asked me.

Rendering an accurate visualization of sound turns out to be difficult. Acoustic cameras are expensive, with prices that began well above the $10,000 mark last I looked. Acoustic cameras are complicated devices, controlled by software that collects and creates visualizations of data from a microphone array. I had considered renting a camera to be shipped without the benefit of an operator. This seemed like it might have a higher chance of escaping notice by my neighbors but I wanted to make sure the results were backed by expertise. The acoustician told me that more reliable acoustic cameras were coming on the market and, for the interim, suggested a survey over a period of days using a professional infrasound meter and study. He would place the meter, analyze the data collection, and produce a report of the survey.

I decided against inviting the acoustician onsite at that time. The reasons were twofold. I was unsure whether the infrasound was transported through the air or over wired or wireless network. There was a pattern of the audible harassment ceasing when people entered the property or showed up at the door. It would do me no good to retain an expert to perform a survey for infrasound if the neighbors saw him position the meter. I had also considered whether the question of the nature and destination of multimedia broadcasts by the Sonos wireless sound system, for example, would be easily and reliably answered based on NetSpot surveys, Airtool collections, and device specifications. Sonos had blocked my efforts to use this reliable approach to analysis by refusing to identify a shortlist of Sonos components whose MAC addresses were not transparent unless they were approached by police. I wasn’t asking whether they could identify the owner based on the MAC address; given the network data, I didn’t believe that was necessary. I wanted Sonos to identify components whose MACs did not so I could use information that was freely available to confirm the range of sound that the device emitted, for example. I asked the acoustician whether scientists in his field used network frame collection tools like Wireshark and Airtool to learn more about the networks and network-capable devices emitting the sound they surveyed. Based on the response, I gathered that the field of acoustic science is not yet informed by these digital tools. Nevertheless, it should be possible for others to cross-reference acoustic data with an Airtool timeline, for example, of active devices. [Note 09/22/21: As of late, I’ve also been thinking about how frame capture could be used as “timecode” for other household systems affected by mobbing, for example, a power logger could be used to record data from a household electrical system to be paired with and informed by a synchronized frame capture. All that’s required is to have timestamped data from different “dimensions.”]

Given the results of my quietly performed network surveys coupled with observation and experimentation, I had begun to suspect the deployment of some sort of circuit was in play—like that used to open a garage door, for example—interrupting the harassment whenever potential witnesses were in proximity. The fact that I’d been able to document in a complaint to the City of Seattle a few years before a motion-detecting light aimed at the entrance to my home by the north mobbing house owner made this an increasingly reasonable possibility. As the months of mobbing wear on and the aggressiveness of my esteemed neighbors mounts as I continue to reside in my rental home unaided by authorities who have seemingly ignored my appeals, the noise harassment is once again on the rise with the increasing encroachment of lights that may serve as triggers in a malicious Internet of Things (IoT), falling over the passageways I traverse, onto the deck that should be a place of repose, and even into the radio-battered bedrooms of my small home.

When professional network heat mapping revealed with great clarity the deployment of 5G and 2.4G Eero WiFi extenders around and over my small home (Mobbing by WiFi range extender), the possibility of whole house surveillance by IoT in addition to what I’ve often called the “surround-sound system” of harassment, became a stronger possibility. Another issue was the fact that I was unsure how the infrasound was transported, whether through the air or over the network.

The predatory battering crime of mobbing is so unfamiliar that the acoustician asked whether I might have an “unintentional” antenna. If there were antennas, I assured him, they were on the properties of the mobbers flanking mine.

This was a rather naive discussion given a world of wireless protocols, smart phones and multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) routers in which the devices we use moment-to-moment are powered by multiple antennas emitting multiple spatial streams. But even if you disregard the terrain, my discussion with the acoustician overlooked a less obvious antenna: Coaxial cable. This physical media designed to shield and transport radio frequency (RF) signal is a component of household infrastructure almost as ubiquitous as the radio tuner.

Coaxial cable runs through my well-lived-in 1940s home on the lakeside, along and under the siding where it was brought to the house, down in the concrete basement where multiple lines are ordered into a metal box behind sliding closet doors I seldom open, and up again into the living room and dining room where these days their terminators remain open and unattached.

I’ve recently been spending more time in the Bay Area, living the COVID-19 pandemic in two places. Such are the joys of traveling. I compare the expression of the mobbing that continues to follow me in different houses, positioned both next door and two states from those who have sought to evict me using brutal, criminal means, and supported by different technology and transport.

A few years ago in Seattle, I switched from Comcast to AT&T’s fiber-optic service. The mobbing continued. Last month where I stay in the Bay Area, I was able to switch from Comcast to Sonic, a reseller of AT&T fiber. Despite my experiences in Seattle, I knew that light pulses over glass offered greater security than radio frequency (RF) over coaxial cable. And unlike Comcast and AT&T, Sonic does not mandate the use of a router with “unadvertised SSIDs,” guest networks, or open access points. Still, the mobbing continued. I was disappointed to learn that the router that Sonic provisioned included capabilities for WiFi. But of course it would, because manufacturers of residential routers know WiFi is what the consumer wants. Nevertheless, because WiFi is a preferred entry point for network intrusions, and because mobbing relies on wireless signal, I hoped the Sonic installation might allow me to revert to the use of a router that supported only Ethernet. I could add a WiFi router later on. I haven’t had a chance to check back with Sonic on a one-off modification to their equipment, but I do hope they might support one. The ability to not only change Internet provider but to make decisions that affect infrastructure is critical when signal—radio frequency—is being used to assault you in your home and WiFi is “provisioned” for you without your knowledge.

Ω

On an overcast day around the time that the mobbing began into my Seattle home, I watched and eventually photographed a familiar looking old man who arrived in a no-name “satellite” service provider truck as he scaled the utility pole that appeared to serve me, the nasty neighborhood watch co-captain across the street, and the south house mobbing owner. The shared use of this pole that was within a few feet of the neighborhood watch captain’s parking strip was unsettling, and it was more so when this no-name service vehicle showed up. Even early on in the mobbing, this was the preferred location on that side of the street for the deployment of some rogue transmitter into a vehicle that usually seemed to line up with my wireless gateway and router—a baseline requirement for signal boosting by WiFi extender. That pole was the origin of the coaxial cable that snaked down the siding and into my 1940s Seattle home as well as for the POTS (plain old telephone service) wires and any digital subscriber lines (DSL).

Another contributor to my growing sense of discomfort was the cluster of physical symptoms, including headache and the sensation of a prickly heat or electricity, that began to surface when I sat in the dining room on the south side of my small home. This put me a scant few feet from the location of the Seattle City Light service drop and electric meter affixed to the south exterior wall, along with the service boxes for Comcast and Century Link (AT&T) and the household ground wire. The neighborhood watch co-captain (“the nasty neighborhood watch lady”) across the street and her minions appear to be aware when I sit at these windows that look out on Lake Washington.

During the day when the others are busy with work, the nasty neighborhood watch lady emerges from her home like clockwork, chiming her key fob again and again as she tends a device that a heat map revealed to be an open access point. If she’s not tending a device in her vehicle, one of her conspirators does, whether from the driveway of the south mobbing house owner, from the veranda of the north mobbing house owner, or from other vehicles that conveniently arrive and maneuver into position to be within range of some open access point at the time of a regular television or radio broadcast.

The transmission of verbal abuse onto any device on which the volume is elevated is intensified with these on-cue arrivals that so often follow the departure of a vehicle whose owner appears to be tending a device in his or her own vehicle. This is a strong component of what I’ve referred to as “shift changes” between the owners, occupants, and minders of the mobbing houses. The symptoms are exacerbated when the mobbing is likely intensified by the presence of certain vehicles—perhaps those with strong dash-cams or radios—or with the occasional use of high-speed video transmitters that may be deployed from the verandas of the mobbing houses in combination with the low-power television transmitters that appear in network surveys when I turn on the Roku and TV.

Installing Sonic’s services at the Bay Area house gave me the opportunity to change the infrastructure and observe the effect. The first thing I did after Sonic installed fiber was to cut the coaxial cable that tethered the house to the pole. I cut it as I was advised to do, after the Comcast service box, and before it entered the house. This ensured that the cut wire remained secured to the house and would not be a hazard before it could be removed.

The result was unexpected. I hoped severing the connection to the pole might reduce the severity of the mobbing. It did. The nightly infrasound that could not be staunched by the acoustic board in the bedroom windows of my Seattle home was nearly quieted at the Bay Area house.

With the switch to Sonic, the coaxial cable at the Bay Area house became “abandoned” infrastructure, joining the miles of neglected cables and wires that have been a feature of modern life since the late 1890s when Americans first connected to the electrical utility grid (“A Brief History of Home Electrical Wiring,” The Spruce, https://www.thespruce.com/how-old-is-your-wiring-1152880). According to Seattle’s Wire Free Sky (https://wirefreesky.com/), most houses in the city host up to four abandoned overhead wires. A few miles of abandoned wire exists for every person living within the Seattle city limits.

To find out what happened next, read Mobbing, infrasound and leaky feeders (part 2).