Wow even The Sopranos is now dated...

I got all 6 seasons of the Sopranos so I'm starting to watch them from the beginning. I originally started watching it about 4 years ago and quickly got caught up to where they were at.

I'm starting with season 1 which I guess is from 1999? That's a date they mentioned. No one has mobile phones. They call each other directly and when they say to call from an outside line they go to a pay phone. In another episode they steal a bunch of DVD players and some are skeptical that it will beat their laserdisc players.

Now it seems like the show started 20 years ago or something....heh. Has it really become dated this fast???

 

Yeah Season 1 is someone dated but the rest of the show is timless.

 

If you notice they have a Dreamcast too :thumbsup:

 

I think when mobile phones first came out, criminals were very hesitant to talk business on them. I know I was.

Did you ever see Pulp Fiction? "Is this a mobile phone? I don't know you... prank caller! Prank caller!"

 

It was becasue nobody had them, so it was easy for the authorites to identify and listen in. Still is for the most part, if you're a specifically identified target it's easy to grab your conversations (and even track where you are.) During the Balkan war in the late 90s, the DOD was able to zero in on targets in under 6 minutes by tracking thier cell phone useage, who knows what it's at today. They can even use cell phones to listen in on your conversations, even when the phone is turned off.

However with all the tricks you can do now it's a lot easier to avoid this kind of thing (stolen phones, cloning phones, prepaid phones, etc.) This is especially true if you buy your phone in some backmarket shop in some third world country and use some no-name eastern European provider for prepaid service. Arms dealers and terrorists by these phones in bulk, becasue they're disposable - use one for 15 days or so, then toss it. The fact that the NSA is still able to monitor chatter despite this says a lot about their capabilities.

 

Ha! I was chatting with a friend via instant messenger while watching the Sopranos, and I mentioned the fact that the show seemed dated, and he said the exact same thing, nearly word for word.

Actually there's a scene where he plays N64 with his son. I didn't even think about that...

 

AJ used to play Mario Kart.

 

I'll bet he raced as the Princess.

 

Yeah with Vito

No wait Vito pretty much WAS a princess.

Remember when Vito's Son went EMO.....then shit in his school shower.....
one of the few shining moments of the final Season.

 

I remember on the Drew Carey show there was a Dreamcast that lived on his TV... and before that a Saturn!

~Krelian

 

A friend of mine picked up this "hottie" at a club back when I was in college. He went back to hers, got his dick sucked and low and behold, she had a dick. When we were playing Mario Kart a few weeks later, he got stuck w/ the Princess,to which my roommate said, "oh, how befitting". At this point, I only knew that the guy was in a weird situation that required my roommate to go pick him up at 4Am. I said, "so was that chick a dude?". He said, "Yep".

 

The guy even borrowed my jacket w/o asking me. The jacket was the casualty (along w/ his sanity). I never got repaid for the jacket. I felt kind of bad asking for the dough.

 

the amount of PM's on this forum I've got regarding the "hot girl" in my avatar is astounding...

 

The US mobile phone networks are behind the rest of the world, but in 1999 the rest of the world had digital mobile phones. At the time it wasn't possible to grab a call out of the air and decrypt it. If you access to the telco's equipment then you can listen in, but thats the same for phone lines. In fact phone lines are easier to listen in on as you can just clip on to the wire at any point outside your house.

Today it is possible to grab a GSM call out the air and decrypt it, you'd have to be within range of the caller though. But everyone outside the US is rolling out UMTS or something similar, which is a whole new ball game.

Tracking a phone is possible, it would have to be switched on. If you want to know where the phone is then you'd need access to the telco. GSM probably is hacked enough that if you know where the phone is then you can follow them. On the other hand, you definately know where someone is when they use their land line.

A mobile phone that is truly switched off and uncompromised has no bugging ability. You could potentially pick up the voltage from the mic coil if you were close enough, but there are more effective ways of listening to someone if you are close enough to them.

If you're doing something that you're worried that the NSA will want to know about, then 15 days for a phone is probably too long. Buying in bulk is likely to get tracked quite quickly too. Once you know one IMEI & IMSI then just go down the supply chain. Even if you don't know who bought them, you've got the IMEI and IMSI of every phone they bought.

 

You guys sound like you're about to start talking about how the US didn't land on the moon.

 

Re: Vito...

Do you remember the episode in Season 1 where Chris is in the pastry shop and shoots the clerk in the foot? He's pissed off that he's made to wait and when a guy walks in and gets served before him he loses it. The guy who walked in was Vito. Chris tells him to take a walk and come back in 10 minutes and he leaves without protest.

I'm guessing they used him in the episode then invited him back to be a regular character. Obviously he wasn't mafia in season 1 but ended up being introduced as a capo in season 5 or 6...heh.

Re: Henner's picture...

There's a radio station in Tucson, AZ and I was at their website once. They had pics of all of the DJs and one that was pretty famous was really cute, so I sent her an email. I can't say I've ever done that before but the mood struck me. Anyway, what I didn't know is that a ton of guys send her emails so they had a segment on the morning show where they read the emails guys send her. They read mine...heh. From there they went to my website and talked about the stuff there, concerts that I'd seen, etc. I guess I was one of the more normal ones heh.

 

I have yet to see a transexual that didn't have some tell to give off a warning so I just can't understand how a sober person can get fooled. Was he just really drunk at the time or what?

 

what i meant by that; is that my avatar is a guy. lol

 

Nah, I'm not that paranoid.

Well, apparently the FBI can do it:

http://www.news.com/2100-1029_3-6140191.html

Apparently this only works with certian kinds of phones.

The thing about the DOD tracking phones in 6 minutes during the Balkans is hersay, but I wouldn't doubt it.