A French dad’s good intentions may just land him in jail for six months. Apparently, he shut down the whole town’s internet.
The father’s identity was not released but France Bleu Gascogne reported that he was desperate to block his kids from spending too much time on social media.
He also faces a hefty fine for disconnecting the Messanges’ town internet access with a scrambler, which is illegal under French law, the New York Post reported.
The father bought a jammer to block connection to the web in his home for certain hours, midnight and 3 a.m.
He believed that was the time frame his children would be addictively active on social media, authorities said.
However, he didn’t know the device blocked not only access to his home internet but also the entire beach town of Messanges’ internet.
The block prevented some 1,000 people from getting service and some began reporting area outages.
Service providers started looking into the issue that was eventually sent to the government’s National Frequency Agency (Agence Nationale des Fréquences or ANFR).
Officials were able to find the issue to the problem by using a radiogoniometry device and found the scrambler, which was blocking both Wi-Fi and mobile phone signals, at the dad’s home.
Officials also discovered the scrambler was also blocking the internet for nearby towns, which is a common thing with the machines.
Often, scramblers have a “wider range of action than one thinks or than the seller suggests,” ANFR detailed on its website
The father is now facing up to six months in prison and a 30,000 euro fine (about $34,000), as well as a 450 euro fee ($511) to cover the ANFR investigation
In the United States, federal law also “prohibits the operation, marketing, or sale of any type of jamming equipment” because “signal-jamming devices can prevent you and others from making 9-1-1 and other emergency calls and pose serious risks to public safety communications,” the Federal Communications Commission reported.
