On being mobbed

[Note 04/05/22: A couple of things I forgot to talk about, lights that emit ultrasonic sound and the possibility of using lights as “players” in a harassing sound system.]

Before Wardenclyffe Tower, before Marconi’s boast of a wireless transmission across the Atlantic, and before the loss of J.P. Morgan’s backing brought Nikola Tesla to financial ruin, the inventor traveled to Colorado Springs to further his theories on wireless power transmission in the thin air of the Rocky Mountains. There, close to the ascendency of Pikes Peak, Tesla developed his theory of a worldwide wireless system. The year was 1899.

The Tesla Experimental Station housed a massive Tesla coil, a near 50-foot prototype of the “magnifying transmitter” Tesla later installed at Wardenclyffe. He announced he would use the spark gap transmitter to experiment with wireless telegraphy, but his experiments with artificial light were perhaps more memorable.

Tesla illustrated the principles of wireless power transfer by creating fields of light. In these strikingly visual experiments, the inventor arranged rows of light bulbs in an open field. He wound electric wire around the bulbs, enclosing the array to create an electrical field. The bulbs were then wirelessly lit by power transmitted through the air (“Eccentric and Electric: Tesla’s Tower of Power in Colorado Springs,” https://themaverickobserver.com/tesla-eccentric-and-electric-teslas-tower-of-power-in-colorado-springs/).

Electrical discharges from the Tesla coil at the lab transmitted millions of volts up to 135 feet, illuminating Tesla bulbs scattered about the lab and anywhere within range of the radio frequency power. Bulbs within 30 meters of the lab glowed even when they were switched off. The air was electrified and the effects of the uncontained charge were surreal. Sparks skipped from the earth beneath the feet of passersby. The translucent wings of butterflies burnt blue with St. Elmo’s fire, and horses bolted at the “ground currents” that swept across the metal shoes fastened to their hooves (“Underground connection to earth,” https://teslaresearch.jimdofree.com/wardenclyffe-lab-1901-1906/connection-to-earth/). The ground around the laboratory became so highly charged that sparks beneath the feet were commonly seen by those walking by in darkness; electrical arcs spouted from a water main a hundred feet away (“Colorado Springs Laboratory (1899-1900),” https://teslaresearch.jimdofree.com/colorado-springs-lab-1899-1900/).

Tesla’s field of lights illustrates the principle of near-field wireless power, in which energy is transferred over a short distance by magnetic fields. In this case, wireless power transfer is enabled by the inductive coupling of coiled wire. Examples of devices using inductive power transfer include cardiac pacemakers and electric vehicles. Ground waves propagate parallel and adjacent to the surface of the earth (“Underground connection to earth,” https://teslaresearch.jimdofree.com/wardenclyffe-lab-1901-1906/connection-to-earth/). Because they travel close to the earth, attenuation is steep. Early radio services relied on the long wave with the use of lower frequencies and ground-wave propagation (“Surface wave,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_wave#Ground_wave). Audio ground waves (AGW) propagate through the earth, benefitting from its efficient transfer of low frequencies.

The wireless discharge of the Tesla coil created an electric field, causing an interaction between light bulbs and free-floating electrons. This contrasts with wired lighting, in which electrons are conducted over copper wiring to the bulb.

The high-voltage near-field power that supplies our homes with wired power is enabled by the capacitive coupling of metal electrodes. Some of the discussion of power-line interference on amateur radio forums is focussed on the deteriorating condition of infrastructure that supports safe and effective capacitive coupling. The neighborhood utility pole is a case in point (“Stray Voltage, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stray_voltage). Baron Alaric captured the result of failing infrastructure in his 2010 image of a vertically suspended fluorescent lamp illuminated by the capacitance of the power lines above (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stray_voltage#/media/File:Fluorescent_tube_under_electric_line.jpg).

With his field of lights, Tesla sought to demonstrate the wireless transmission of power aided by the natural conductivity of earth’s atmosphere and the resonance of the earth. In a relatively complex example, the inductive charge from the spark gap transmitter wirelessly lit 200 50-watt light bulbs.

A simpler example was described in the June 1900 issue of Century Magazine as “three ordinary incandescent lamps lighted to full candle-power by currents indicated in a local loop consisting of a single wire forming a square of fifty feet each side, which includes the lamps, and which is at a distance of one hundred feet from the primary circuit energized by the oscillator.” (“The Problem of Increasing Human Energy,” The Century Magazine, https://teslaresearch.jimdofree.com/articles-interviews/the-problem-of-increasing-human-energy-with-special-reference-to-the-harnessing-of-the-sun-s-energy-by-nikola-tesla-century-illustrated-magazine-june-1900/). Based on his experiments with wireless lighting, Tesla concluded that the wireless transmission of power was possible at any distance on earth. The industrial use of “aerial power transmission,” he claimed upon his return to New York, was assured.

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Tesla’s investigation into lighting was not limited to the transmission of power but extended to the dynamics of the light bulb. This was inevitable once he found that the high-frequency emissions of the coil created light. He believed he could develop lighting more efficient than the Edison bulb by using the radio-frequency power to ignite the bulbs. For Tesla, the answer would be in the creation of glass bulbs whose light would not come from a fragile filament but from a gaseous substance that would glow wirelessly, within proximity to a high-voltage charge. Tesla called the high-voltage lamps he created “phosphorescent” lamps. The invention was based on the work of Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel (1820-1891); “fluorescent” lamps are based on Becquerel’s application of a fluorescent coating to the interior of a high-voltage tube.

Tesla’s phosphorescent lamps were slowly illuminated but retained their luminance even after the power transfer ceased. The energy discharge of the Tesla coil generated long-wavelength radio whose signal was strong enough to be a viable energy source.

The interaction between radio-frequency and electricity is a theme in the creation of efficient energy. This interaction and the potential it generates distinguishes the use of certain devices in criminal harassment, whether territorial to an automobile, a residential home, or the human body. For example, something I noted in mobbing at the Seattle house, when I tried to work with an external monitor and the harassment was aggressive, it was as though my face was being pelted with particles of some kind. There were cutting sensations and my face would feel burned. A similar sensation often accumulates during the night when I sleep in modestly sized rooms necessarily close to the wall and to the fissures in the wall around outlets that might be points of leakage for radio-frequency waves from a power-line connection, for example. It felt as though pinholes were being made in my eyes and I visited the ophthalmologist I had begun to see as the mobbing wore on. It is upsetting to have realized in the last year that the particulate jumping off my Dell monitor was probably radio-frequency or electromagnetic interference from boosting and some kind of power-line connection. Given the involvement in this ongoing battering of neighborhood watch captains in Seattle and at least one block coordinator in Albany who appears to be ingratiated with emergency responders of several departments (and who was probably a watch captain before Albany converted its neighborhood watch to block coordinators of emergency services in the very recent past), it’s impossible to view these unelected appointees as anything but corrupt and to wonder about the relationship between the hate activity they engage in and the increasing efforts by the ultra-right-wing and militia groups to organize on the local level. [Note 05/23/22: For example, if the KKK finds it useful to infiltrate the National Neighborhood Watch program, other groups–including militia, hate groups and real estate speculators–may find it useful as well. Local organizations like neighborhood watch groups give unelected interest groups easy entrance to governance.]

High-intensity discharge (HID) lamps are modern arc lamps. Light is produced by an electric arc between tungsten electrodes in a vessel of noble gas that creates a plasma. Plasma is a scientific term denoting one of four states of matter. Plasma matter is distinguished by its content of a high degree of electrically charged particles. In an industrial setting, plasma can be created by applying heat or an electromagnetic field to a natural gas. Because plasma includes a significant content of charged particles, it conducts electricity. It can also generate and be affected by magnetic fields. An example of naturally occurring plasma is lightning, discharging vast amounts of energy including gamma rays as well as radio waves (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics)).

Tesla’s experiments with the impact of high-frequency power in glass vessels led to his invention of the plasma lamp, alternately called a plasma globe. Plasma lamps are another gas-discharge lamp energized by radio-frequency power. External electrode fluorescent lamps (EEFL) are designed with external electrodes or terminal conductors that create a radio-frequency field. Recent applications have included stage lighting and the now discontinued plasma televisions once dread interferers on the block. High-intensity gas-discharge lamps have replaced incandescent lamps in many regions.

Until the 1980s, fluorescent lighting remained the low-voltage and less efficient style that Westinghouse Electric Company introduced at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. This is probably the type of fluorescent light fixtures that remain in the basement of my family home in Albany. The basement was seldom used the last decades. I keep the circuit breakers for those lights off nearly all the time, with the main breaker off during sleeping hours since last fall. Those lights have the unmistakable buzz of the older fluorescents with the low-voltage ballasts. I’m not sure how much effect the boosting and radio-frequency interference of mobbing could have on them, despite their external electrodes. The arsonous potential of mobbing is clear in research showing that at least poorly designed ballasts can overheat and cause fires. The murderous potential is also clear, and especially so the last days as clouds of some noxious matter waft into the house from next door. It was not until the 1980s, amid increasing interest in efficient energy, that fluorescent lighting based on the use of high-frequency ballasts like those pioneered by Tesla came into use (“Nikola Tesla Inventor Official Website,” https://nikolatesla-inventor.com/INVENTIONS/index.html). At least the ballasts of the more efficient fluorescents we now use emit radio frequency (“The Fluorescent Lamp,” Edison Tech Center, https://edisontechcenter.org/Fluorescent.html).

The design of efficient lighting has moved us toward a luminance of radio frequency. The October 31, 2002 article, “RF Lighting Tunes in Improved Illumination” in the California trade periodical Electrical Construction & Maintenance (EC&M) welcomed the new lighting technology. “Lighting isn’t exactly the first thing you think of when you hear ‘radio frequency’,” reads the article. “More comfortable in the lexicon of HAM radio operators, the term is just now making headway in the business of illumination, thanks to designs that employ RF technology and offer appreciably longer life and lower maintenance. Even at these early stages of development, RF lamps are finding a foothold in applications traditionally dominated by fluorescent and high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps, giving lighting designers a larger pallet of products from which to choose on their next project.” The article goes on to contrast the newer radio-frequency lights with the older lighting and to provide technical description of microwave-powered sulfur lamps, high- and low-frequency coil induction lamps, and cavity lamps (https://www.ecmweb.com/content/article/20887887/rf-lighting-tunes-in-improved-illumination). Like radio waves, visible light travels the electromagnetic spectrum.

Tech startup Luxim offered its own radio-wave powered improvement in lighting design with “light fidelity” (LiFi) bulbs making light of radio frequency. The 2007 c|net article “A lightbulb powered by radio waves” introduced Luxim’s improvement on HID that uses a radio-frequency amplifier to pump RF waves into a resonant cavity containing an antenna. The radio frequency is drawn toward the antenna; the interaction converts the gases in the cavity into plasma (https://www.cnet.com/culture/a-lightbulb-powered-by-radio-waves/).

The coalescence of radio frequency and visible spectrum that Luxim calls LiFi appears to be different than the wireless communication technology of the same name. Li-Fi uses light to transmit high-speed data over ultraviolet, infrared, and visible light. The transmission of data in visible light is currently limited to LED lamps. Li-Fi is an offshoot of optical wireless communications (OWC) technologies like fiber optics. The Li-Fi communication technology is compared to the 802.11 wireless protocol (WiFi) although Li-Fi transmits data by the modulation of light in contrast to WiFi’s transmission of data by using radio frequency to modulate an antenna.

LEDs emit light when adequate voltage is applied to their terminals. LEDs, including those increasingly used in automotive lighting, generate EMI and RFI and are frequent interferers into WiFi, television and other radio signals; with the exception of poorly designed bulbs, the interference is typically caused by ballasts that introduce interference into the AM radio band (EMC Fastpass, https://emcfastpass.com/emi-led-lighting/). One begins to wonder if audible harassment could be transmitted by vehicles with LED lighting; perhaps that would begin to explain why turning mirrors away from driver view quiets much of the audible harassment in a vehicle traveling without an enabled radio. Or whether the increased ambient signal allows for harassment by backscatter. Perhaps the principles of backscatter also apply to residential mobbing.

Li-Fi communication technology is being explored as a WiFi alternative that does not contribute to electromagnetic interference (EMI). Light waves do not penetrate walls, however, and the falloff of light is rapid in accord with the inverse square law. These constraints make Li-Fi a short-range technology although the signal does retain carrier strength when reflected off walls. It is also assumed to be more secure than WiFi, the reasoning goes, because if transparent surfaces like windows are covered, the transmission stream would not be accessible outside. This assumes the problem is exfiltration, however, and not infiltration of malicious data across glass windows, for example, which could perhaps occur as though a stream of light. Visible light communications (VLC) is a switching technology, that transmits data by switching the current on and off so rapidly as to make the light flicker-free. Perhaps this rapidity would contribute to a disruption, however, of the electromagnetic spectrum, similar to the disruption caused by current switching power supplies. (“Li-Fi,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li-Fi).

Created for compatibility with incandescent light fixtures, the compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) is a small fluorescent bulb powered by a compact electronic ballast at its base. The CFL is a gas-discharge light subject to the same failures as earlier tube-type fluorescent lamps, among them the diminished representation of light and the toxic mercury that requires hazardous waste disposal. General Electric invented a spiral CFL in 1976 but the cost of factory retooling made it impossible to bring the lamp to market. In 1995, however, the helical CFLs now familiar to Americans went into production in China. Undaunted by the difficulty of manufacture, Shanghai Xiangshan used cheap Chinese labor to bend the tubes by hand. Producers like General Electric have ceased production of CFLs, turning instead to LEDs for high-efficiency light (“Compact fluorescent lamp,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp). CFLs emit infrared light and can interfere with the function of devices that use infrared remote control like televisions, radios, and remote controls.

The same interactions that create energy—light—can be used to disrupt other circuits. Lighting can be used to disrupt radio signal and power. I’ve been focused on mobbers’ use of lighting within the IoT ecosystem, to track, control, and trigger malicious processes at home. These things have been obvious in the mobbers’ use of motion-activated lights that extend onto my steps, my deck, across the street and into my home. For example in Seattle, the direction of a motion-activated light at my doorstep by the north mobbing house owner or the string lights on the front deck of the south mobbing house owner that come on whenever I enter my driveway and then stay on. But aside form their utility as triggers, I hadn’t really considered them as part of a system of lights set up to create a boosted environment of interferers interacting with WiFi and with my household power. Now as I think about the likelihood of a power generator in play, I find myself wondering if the same effects could be created simply by boosting the victim environment and extending light and signal into the victim’s power service. For example, instead of potentially being a radio used to disrupt radio signal, could the device that shone from the headlight of the lowlife’s old car have been nothing more than a LED or another light that would disrupt my electric meter not more than six feet away? If there are communications technologies based on light, surely there are lights that could disrupt fiber optic signal of a household service exposed on the side of the house next to the electric meter. But mobbing is not just one thing and even if lights play a larger role than I might have thought, a power generator capable of polluting the victim environment with EMFs as well as creating malicious hotspots that can target compatible household appliances as distributors of whole-house harassment could still be useful. [Note 07/08/22: Think ungrounded generator.] One more detail about power generators: The new ones come with key fobs that can be remotely used. This means that some of the key fob chiming you hear might not be coming from the mobbers tending transmitting devices in their cars but instead from their triggering a device to pipe noxious matter into your home. Of course, with IoT triggers, there are other variations on this theme. [Note 07/06/22: One connection I have not adequately explored, is that of the emission of EMFs, speakers, and harassment using the Sonos or other ultrasonic sound system. Not too long along I noticed a post on a Sonos forum about the level of EMFs emitted by the Sonos sound system and it has occurred to me that boosting RF and increased emission of EMFs might support the extension of harassing sound into the victim environment. I’ve also wondered what the effect would be of using powerline technology to network Sonos onto victim electrical wiring. Sonos does not support the use of powerline technology last I checked. At any rate, the prevalence of EMFs in the victim environment might be a characteristic of harassment using a sound system like Sonos.]

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Some weeks back, perhaps influenced by learning about the spark gaps and the wireless transmission of power, I decided to remove the bulbs from the vanity lights in the bathroom that shares a wall with the bedroom I’ve been sleeping in. It was an experiment, to see what would happen. Months back I taped over the sensitive motion-detecting switch after beginning to wonder if it could be used to track me in my home. Later on, I began to place an aluminum cookie sheet over the switch plate, to interfere with any signal that could be used to excite the switch. I was also placing another cookie sheet on the sill of the window that, I assumed could allow ingress to an exciting signal.

Without an awareness of the vulnerability of a wired light or switch, it becomes difficult to understand the likely cause when you open shut eyes in bed to a light mass “coursing over” you, as I described it in Make Albany safe again; dismantle the National Neighborhood Watch. The switch, even if it is motion-detecting or dimming with increased susceptibility to RFI or EMI, is assumed to be off. The explosion of light, if that’s what it was, occurred before I began shutting down the main breaker at night. I’ll talk more about mobbing and interior residential wiring in another blog, but we can assume that mobbers find opportunity in houses with knob-and-tube circuits or a knob-and-tube antenna in the attic as was apparently common in houses built before the 1940s in the United States. Knob-and-tube wiring cannot be grounded. Houses built with knob-and-tube were typical before the 1930s. These old houses with their grandeur and architectural detail, they may rely on outdated systems that are not up to code, the house may have settled, cracks and fissures may have developed in the joinery, there may be old galvanized plumbing lines and furnace and ventilation systems may have been abandoned and unused. When real estate speculators want your property and when your criminal neighbors expect to receive remuneration for clearing it for them, these common problems that you may be planning to repair over time and in a manner befitting of the original architecture–they can become your greatest weaknesses. If the product of a power generator or some modified air conditioning unit is expelled from a mobbing house and vented into the walls of your own, these flaws, fissures, and even carefully cut holes for speaker wires may begin to vent noxious matter into your living space as the mobbers try to trick you if they can—or harass you if they cannot—into putting your home on the market. On the other hand, however, if you were inclined to buy a newly built home with “smart” features, the build quality might not compare and a dwelling built on IoT and the availability of signal can be easily overrun.

When I removed the canister-shaped covers of the fixture, the bi-pin lights protruded from their mounts exposing about half the length of their pins as though pulled or pushed from their positions. These are halogen gas lights whose power supplies are usually the culprit when there is RFI. I could only conclude that excess voltage from power-line interference triggered a force that displaced them. After removing them, the din of mobbing from within that wall was significantly quieted. The other small lights I removed were the small wedge-type incandescents from some exterior staircase lighting exposed at the front of the house. Most of these lights were blown out and to my understanding, the bulbs themselves are not susceptible to RFI. A few weeks before, I had found and finally unplugged the nearby transformer that powered the sprinkler system or the low-voltage lights during a morning of aggressive harassment. Based on what I heard from another open microphone on an extender a few minutes later, the transformer was missed. [Note 06/08/22: It may also be worth removing the tubes from older fluorescent lights if the fixtures cannot immediately be replaced, even if power is disabled at the electrical panel. The ballasts in the fixtures may be designed as capacitors, inductors or transformers with electrode ends that allow preheating of the filament before an inductive pulse. Tube lights, in and of themselves, may be vulnerable to monkey wrenching by boosting, IoT over WiFi extender, or ambient power. I’m not yet sure of the causal connection but some recent experiments of my own suggest that this step may be helpful to mitigate some of the dirty electricity that the mobbing sabotage creates in the environment.]

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The cookie sheet technique isn’t something I’ve talked about here, and it’s not something I would have considered. But when I was looking into the radio-frequency blocking window film, I came across a page that listed cookie sheets along with other radio-frequency blocking methods. The recommendation of a domestic baking sheet makes me wonder about how often women in particular find it necessary to block radio frequency attacks on their homes. The method is effective, though other sheets of metal would probably also be, and can significantly reduce the bite of radio-frequency transmissions through window panes. I’ve also used cookie sheets in combination with acoustic board, although I’m no longer comfortable with blocking air flow across windows—if a power generator is being used to pipe particulate matter into the walls or ventilation system of the house, you don’t want to block air flow by blocking windows. This is also true if instead of a power generator, wireless power generation might be combined with WiFi extenders, antennas and forced air, and used to create some kind of energy field that might be used to draw or vent EMFs and other toxins or pollutants from neighboring sources into your home. In addition to the question of whether or not a power generator is involved, I’ve also thought about the use of belt-driven generator, like an alternator or perhaps even a hand-made generator that could almost have been hand-cracked or an older bike light generator based on some of the sounds I heard through apparent open phone microphones in the last months. The basic point is that mobbing creates a deliberately dangerous situation that may not only be an attempt to put you out of your home by intimidation or harassment, but by arson or physical harm. If you’re in a situation where your neighbors turn out to be criminals deliberately conspiring to make your home unlivable by piping in toxic particulate, you need all the fresh air you can get.

It might be possible that some configuration could create the interactions necessary to “generate” the behavior, especially if the electrical system of the victim house includes weak points like knob-and-tube, ungrounded circuits, or open neutrals and the like. By deploying an extender, for example, from their own property to overlay components of your electrical system, mobbing criminals appear to strategically use wireless, battery-powered tools or perhaps tools with induction motors, in their yards—for example, gardening tools—in a manner so as to create ambient interference that you can feel. I’ve noticed an uptick in the intensity of the harassment on nights when more cars are in evidence, including an EV whose owner charges it in a driveway that lines up with the south border of this property and the garage of the contractor and his relatives. Wires travel overhead from that side of the street to this one; the communications to those houses are secured from this side of the street. And then there are the access points and extenders deployed to that side of the house. I’ve no idea what kind of EV charger is being used across the street or the vulnerabilities it might have. I also recently came across discussion online on how one might create an EMF generator that could “fill a room” with EMF (engineering.com, https://www.engineering.com/Ask@/qactid/7/qaqid/4397.aspx). EMFs are also associated with audio speaker function and might enable other dynamics useful to mobbers in their bid to make homes uninhabitable.

It may be that mobbing involves the creation of an energy field demarcated by transmitters and grounds. It would be best to provide a diagram showing some of the conditions that might be involved, but here it is in broad strokes. One day at least a year back, I drove up to the Albany house to see the guy who appears to be privy to the lowlife’s activities dragging the frame of a weight set up and down the street in front of the house, more or less between the utility pole on the corner and the one that services this house. I can’t find it again now but did find information about a Crossfit activity called the sled pull using a harness like this one from Rogue Fitness. The guy’s repeated trips back and forth in front of this house that day, beneath the power lines and between the poles, made me wonder about whether it might decrease the resistance of the pavement or create some kind of a ground. Naturally, given the involvement on the Seattle side of the mobbing of several Crossfitters based on their stickers and t-shirts, not to mention their activities along the property line and close to my windows and electric meter, I took note of the sled pulling with a weight rack.

There’s also the accumulation of metal junk on the lots north and south of this house, like the oversized truck rack visible from my bedroom window that the contractor to the south dropped in the driveway of that house’s garage as soon as he took possession of the house, and the diagonal that could be drawn between the rack at the southwest corner of this lot and the arrangement of metal objects in the lowlife backyard at the northeast corner. Not to mention the extension cord that connects to an exterior outlet amid the arrangement of lowlife metal and runs from there to the vintage car that represents an investment of metal unusual in late-model vehicles. The extension cord runs close to the fence that bounds this house from theirs; past the segment of fencing I had rebuilt last year to make it harder to trespass onto this lot. This extension cord might be an antenna–a longwire or ground-plane antenna.

Some of the worst of the RFI occurs at the back of the house not far from the end of the extension cord that is plugged in to power. A transmitter or radio of some kind appears to be positioned at the southeast corner of the lowlife lot before weekend NPR broadcasts I stream from a laptop in the kitchen near the northeast corner of the house and many nights late. This is pretty obvious based on the sound of babbling water that probably comes from the fish pond of the family who bought and enlarged the house at the eastern fence. If it’s a cell phone that’s used for these “calls,” it’s another indication of the likely use of open microphones being used to transmit over WiFi extenders and the resulting amplification of sound that WiFi extenders create and that could be limited by local codes on the use and placement of repeaters. Interestingly, my elderly relative told me not long ago that she received a phone call that went on for a long time with the audible sound of a woman’s voice talking over running water. She was not here at the time and I was not with her. The event made me think more about the possibility of harassing WiFi calls traveling over linked extenders, traveling a local loop, perhaps even made from the infrastructure of the victim’s own home.

There’s the umbrella-style clothesline in the block coordinators back yard that, yes, is considered by HAM radio operators to function as a discone antenna—apparently clothesline is a recommended wire for use in antennas (https://www.n4lcd.com/wireantennas/); see this example of a simple shortwave antenna made out of clothesline that looks kind of like yet another facet of lowlife backyard decor. An article from the Androscoggin Amateur Radio Club website observes, “If you’re camped out in suburbia with difficult, anti-antenna neighbors, a detachable feed line using alligator clips makes it the perfect disguised antenna. Who’s going to suspect a clothesline?” (http://www.w1npp.org) In this case, you might be able to draw a straight line from the clothesline of the Albany, California block coordinator and the glaring ground lights that come on nightly in her side yard and may be audible on my front window panes. At least, I have noted an increase in harassing verbiage with the lights on and when I do not crack a front window and block the pane with acoustic board. In Albany, a town apparently lacking codes on the shielding of exterior lights, there are other lights in the malicious configuration in which line-of-sight attacks are possible from any direction. Those at the lowlife house include LED lights installed on the hood of the lowlife’s car and in his front yard, at least those in the yard angled in a manner that might allow the signal to reach my electric meter. I mentioned the string lights of the south mobbing house owner in Seattle. About two years back, he had the wooden sides of his front deck torn out and put in wire fencing. This significantly intensified what was probably interference being generated by his string lights, whatever the bulb type was; the antenna effect of the wire fence in close proximity to my smart meter and communications infrastructure was immediately clear. This is not so much a reference to interference that can be detected in data; this is interference that is felt on the skin.

The trend to aggressive lighting is these days common in the urban landscape. But when you’re being harassed over your power service on any powered device, this constellation of IoT, WiFi and radio potential might add up to a low-power radio station, a criminal conspiracy, and even felony crime. In my case, where neighborhood watch captains or block coordinators have been instrumental in the harassment in Seattle and then in Albany as I began to travel to the Bay Area for work, felony stalking to harass is likely the starting place. A side issue is the need for a coherent strategy we can use to prove and prosecute in-home stalking by IoT.

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Living off the land (LotL) attacks use a strategy of exploiting whatever the environment provides. LotL exploits evolved with the rise of computer operating systems and are as varied as the features of the operating systems they attack. The Microsoft Windows operating system, for example, exemplary for feature creep, makes more than 100 Windows system tools available on the desktop for bad actors (“Living-Off-the-Land Attacks,” https://res.armor.com/resources/threat-intelligence/living-off-the-land-attacks/). According to Amer Elsa, “Attackers who use LotL tactics use trusted off-the-shelf and preinstalled system tools to carry out their work” (“What is Living off the Land?” https://medium.com/threat-intel/what-is-living-off-the-land-ca0c2e932931) On your computer, maybe it’s Microsoft Office; at your house, it’s the frayed knob-and-tube wiring you haven’t upgraded, the venting that supports your heating system, or the network interface device (NID) on your siding that used to support your landline. When real estate speculators set out to take your home, they use what they know about you to attack you in civil court. They use what they know about the trades to attack you in your home.

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California Proposition 13, the People’s Initiative to Limit Property Taxation, was enacted in June of 1978. I was not yet 18 and was ineligible to vote. Proposition 13 reset property taxes to their 1976 assessments and limited yearly percentage increases for properties that were not sold or rebuilt. The California “tax revolt,” as the proposition is described, gained strength from the belief that older Californians should not be forced from their homes by escalating taxes. In California politics, Proposition 13 remains a sacred cow.

In densely populated urban areas where lots are scarce, real estate speculators bank on change and the escalation of real estate prices. But especially in California with Proposition 13, when change means paying taxes at a reassessed amount, staying planted appeals to home owners in tough real estate markets. Nevertheless, over time properties are brought to market and sold and sold again, islanding California home owners who benefit from Proposition 13 amid blocks of home owners who pay more. From time to time, puzzled that multiple “neighbors” would enter into a criminal conspiracy to force the turnover of nearby residences, I have wondered whether real estate speculators have manipulated the neighbors of those who pay less based on their anger over the inequity, and whether, if that’s the case, those involved justify their crimes based on this anger. [Note 04/08/22: I omitted “white man’s grievance,” which cuts a wide swath through the off-cited conditions in the blame game played by haters, militia, and the women who unfortunately join them. Any dog whistle will do, and you can hear them in Albany, California. From what I can see, mobbing may not simply be a “shadow service,” as one of the Seattle mobbers said, but a sideline business that can provide upward mobility to men who see women as easy marks for technology crimes. With shared harassing voices and tracks distributed even from the cloud, non-native speakers may also be placing the cell phones and other transmitters or parking in Comcast hot spots and along WiFi extenders to victim infrastructure. The harassing tracks can be produced in one language or regional accent and played from any compatible transmitter. The confusion that is generated between the person with the greatest proximity and the voice that is heard only helps to indemnify the criminals who mob. I obliquely brought this up years ago in a post where I talked about these criminals using “avatars.”] But given all the things mobbers say, Proposition 13 would likely be just another rationalization for the harm some people are compelled to inflict on others. In my case at least, it continues to look like politics, religious beliefs, or gender might also be used to justify the victimization. At any rate, California’s Proposition 13 could hardly be used as an excuse for mobbing legal residents outside of California.

Last year or the year before, a reader wrote me to tell me that she was being mobbed and had been told that she would not be “allowed to inherit.” Knowing that some percentage of the comments I receive may be written as a form of social engineering, I did not respond. But threats that a woman would not be “allowed” to inherit are remarkable. I hope that no woman–no person–would believe criminals who attempt to frighten them out of claiming their inheritance. In California, property is inherited free of taxes. An estimated 35 to 45 percent of wealth is inherited, and not self-made (“Wealth, inheritance, and social mobility,” https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/01/30/wealth-inheritance-and-social-mobility/). Women’s rights to property and inheritance are key to upward mobility and economic development (“Securing women’s property and inheritance rights,” https://data.unaids.org/gcwa/gcwa_bg_property_en.pdf).

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Sometime back a reader left me a comment telling me that the people who are involved with mobbing set up WiFi extenders and then charge over them. That seemed too simple of an explanation at the time although the creation of such an interaction across victim power services might be fundamental to the havoc that mobbing creates. Seattle City Light told me that my problem would be solved if I dealt with interference in my own electrical system. Such advice is absolutely useless when the interference is deliberate and comes from neighbors involved in a clandestine criminal scheme to turn over your home. I did read online about the Seattle utility sending an interference investigator out to find that a neighbor’s solar inverter was the source of interference for one customer. Especially with the introduction of “smart” meters, the possibilities for RFI are increased for utility meters, including hacks that might involve IoT management software or making use of the cellular signal provided by certain types of meters. Perhaps this is another case where the concerns of male home owners are taken more seriously. Now as I am forced to breathe noxious air in my home and to try to stay alive in sleep by using multiple battery-powered air purifiers by my bed, I increasingly wonder about the use of EV chargers and home power banks in mobbing, about the possibility of charging across a neighbor’s circuits, and about what happens to discharged energy from a charger that is exposed to a WiFi extender hosting charging devices. The complete configuration appears to be complicated; I’ll continue to describe it in the next few posts if forced to by lack of action on the part of the cities of Albany, California and Seattle, Washington.

This entry is both longer and without some of the detail I hoped to include. Perhaps I can fill in the gaps when I write more in the next post about spark gaps and generators. The usual caveats apply; I am not a technical expert and this post, like the rest, likely includes some technical inaccuracy. Corrections are welcome; even more so is federal investigation of the Neighborhood Watch programs in Seattle, Washington and Albany, California as well as Albany’s recent remaking of the watch program into a network of “block coordinators” of emergency services. Without investigation, a class action lawsuit may be necessary to begin to expose and force an investigation–perhaps against the cities that refuse to take responsibility for the actions of these corrupt and self-dealing co-captains and coordinators. Alternate or complementary strategies might include product liability lawsuits against companies marketing infrastructure that comes with poorly secured and controlled hot spots or overly powerful WiFi extenders or extenders whose use undermines network security or safety. Companies like Comcast turn a deaf ear to such complaints; a lawsuit might be required to get their attention.

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I promised a reference to torture by telephone from Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain and will provide that soon. In the interim, as a small gesture of support for Ukraine and all who face tyrants, here is a small bit of information about another application of electric shock torture by telephone. According to the Wikipedia entry, “phone call to Putin” is a method of electric shock torture favored by the Russian police. The phone call to Putin is made by the administration of electric shocks to the earlobes, the site of many nerve endings (“Mikheyev v. Russia,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikheyev_v._Russia). Its use is well documented in the case of Aleksei Mikheyev, falsely accused of murder and tortured in 2006. After the termination of a “call” to Putin, Mikheyev escaped his captors by jumping from a third-story window, an act that left him a paraplegic. His case was later heard and the human rights crime recognized by the European Court of Human Rights.

Slava Ukraini! Stay tuned for more on punishment by electric shock when I get back to writing the last part of the series on mobbing and hate culture in Albany.