Article

2017-11-29 -Lurid Crime Tales-

Employee used crisp packet as 'Faraday cage' to hide his whereabouts during work

[YAHOO] A man in Australia was sacked after he relied on a 180-year-old scientific discovery to help prevent his colleagues discovering his whereabouts while he played golf during work hours.

Tom Colella, a 60-year-old electrician in Perth, lost his job after an anonymous letter to his firm claimed that he left work to play golf at least 140 times over the last two years.

Australia’s Fair Work Commission, a workplace tribunal, heard that Mr Colella blocked his whereabouts by storing his personal digital assistant, a phone-like device that has a GPS inside, in an empty foil packet of Twisties, a puffy cheese-based snack that is popular in Australia.

The tribunal found that the packet was deliberately used to operate as an elaborate "Faraday cage" - an enclosure which can block electromagnetic fields - and prevented his employer knowing his location. The cage set-up was named after English scientist Michael Faraday, who in 1836 observed that a continuous covering of conductive material could be used to block electromagnetic fields.

"I can find no plausible explanation why Mr Colella would create a Faraday cage around his PDA, except to obstruct the GPS collecting capacity of the device," said Bernie Riordan, a commissioner at the tribunal.

Posted by Skidmark 2017-11-29 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11129 views ] Top

#1 Okay, you can't use the PDA without pulling it out of the faraday cage and thus giving away your location so why not just leave the PDA behind?

Posted by rjschwarz 2017-11-29 11:38|| 2017-11-29 11:38|| Front Page Top

#2 Hopefully Australian teens don't notice and hide those parental trackers using the same trick.

Posted by rjschwarz 2017-11-29 11:39|| 2017-11-29 11:39|| Front Page Top

#3 Kudos to Tom!

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2017-11-29 12:28|| 2017-11-29 12:28|| Front Page Top

#4 RJS, its' because they would page him on his phone and he has to respond within probably 30 minutes. Hear the ring, head down the road and answer.
It's part of the 'always on call' that a lot of people work under now.
I find that forgetting to put it on the charger works well.

Posted by ed in texas 2017-11-29 13:22|| 2017-11-29 13:22|| Front Page Top

#5 gettin pretty close to "1984" when they GPS track you and no one seems to think it obtrusive, on the contrary, its "normal".

Posted by 746 2017-11-29 13:32|| 2017-11-29 13:32|| Front Page Top

#6 ...he left work to play golf at least 140 times over the last two years.

Who does he think he is, Barack Obama?

Posted by Raj 2017-11-29 16:51|| 2017-11-29 16:51|| Front Page Top

#7 ed in texas, if he's on call but still manages to take the call and do what is necessary does it really matter that he was golfing?

Posted by rjschwarz 2017-11-29 17:34|| 2017-11-29 17:34|| Front Page Top

#8 A clever electrician putting his knowledge to use.

Posted by JohnQC 2017-11-29 18:10|| 2017-11-29 18:10|| Front Page Top

#9 We were trying to get a Tom gps to reset its satellites, and had to put it in the microwave. Wrapping it in aluminum foil didn't do it.

Posted by KBK 2017-11-29 18:39|| 2017-11-29 18:39|| Front Page Top

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