The City of London Police (Action Fraud Squad) and UK Trading Standards are to target sales of the bizarre £300 5GBioShield, which was recommended by a member of Glastonbury Town Council’s much criticised 5G Advisory Committee and falsely promised to create a shield against 5G mobile radiation. Except it’s just a USB stick.
The situation began last month after Glastonbury Town Council published a report that called for a government inquiry into the safety of 5G mobile. Some four members of the associated committee, including an electronics engineer, molecular biologist and one with a physics degree, resigned before the report was completed because, as one of them said, the “whole thing turned out to be a clueless pantomime driven by conspiracy theorists and sceptics” (more on that here).
One of nine external members of that committee, Toby Hall, added a recommendation to use a USB device called the 5GBioShield – “We use this device and find it helpful,” said Hall. A quick glance at the product’s website reveals some impressive pseudoscience: “The 5GBioShield USB Key with the nano-layer is a quantum holographic catalyzer technology for the balance and harmonisation of the harmful effects of imbalanced electric radiation. The nano-layer operating diameter is either 8 or 40 meters.”
Except, leaving aside the fact that you’d be plugging an electronic device into another electronic device (a laptop is pictured on their website) that will be giving off their own EM radiation, the 5GBioShield cannot in fact do what it claims, not that those claims make any sense in the first place.
As the security experts at Pen Test Partners found when they took it to pieces: “[It’s] nothing more than a £5 USB key with a sticker on it [and 128MB of storage]. Whether or not the sticker provides £300 pounds worth of quantum holographic catalyzer technology we’ll leave you to decide. We do not believe this product should be promoted by publicly-funded bodies until a full, independent, peer-reviewed scientific study has been undertaken.”
More than a few people on social media have described anybody who spends money on such a device as paying an “idiot tax,” but we rather prefer the comment from Professor Jim Al-Khalili OBE FRS at the University of Surrey: “As a ‘renowned world expert’ on quantum biology, quantum entanglement and relativistic time dilation, I can say, categorically, that if you spend £339 on a 5GBioShield then you’re an utter numpty.”
The BBC now reports that Trading Standards are taking a tougher approach.
Stephen Knight, Director for London Trading Standards, said:
“We consider it to be a scam. People who are vulnerable need protection from this kind of unscrupulous trading.”
Trading Standards and the City of London Police are currently seeking a court order to take down the company’s website. A number of anti-virus vendors have also added the distributor’s website to their warning list, which means that if you try to visit it then a warning will pop-up to help protect your sanity from browsing any further.
As barmy as all of this may sound, it also occurs at a time when “mindless” 5G conspiracy theorists have been roving the country to attack telecoms engineers and infrastructure. Both mobile masts and fixed broadband services have been damaged because apparently they aren’t able to tell the difference.
The criminal activity has been fuelled by a bogus conspiracy theory that links the spread of COVID-19 to the 5G roll-out. The theory itself seems to vary, with some claiming that 5G created or directly transmitted the Coronavirus (biologically impossible) and others suggesting that 5G signals weaken the immune system so as to help the virus spread (also without any credible foundation).
Both theories are of course complete nonsense and ignore the fact that COVID-19 is spreading just as fast in countries and areas with no 5G network at all (as well as no mobile networks full stop). Sadly some of the same people also believe that vaccinations against deadly viruses are evil and the world is run by lizard people, although they might yet be right on that last part.
Any conspiracy theory that steps over the line toward criminality, causing actual harm during a real public health crisis, deserves no oxygen or tolerance; but if you fancy a USB flash drive as a fix for £300.. have at it. We have previously run a number of articles to help fact check some of the claims (5G health claims fact check) and strongly recommend those with a concern take the time to both read and understand those.
Comments are closed