

Stealth Wear, Coming to a Store Near You - srivast
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/31/stealth-wear-coming-to-a-store-near-you/?src=me

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eksith
There's one potential issue with this in that all electronic devices these
days can store data. It may not be able to transmit while in the pouch, but
there's no reason it could store and forward when you next come into rage of a
wifi station. We already know malware exists for mobile devices; there's no
reason a 0-day exploit can't be implanted to do just that.

Besides, it's not just your phone that could be transmitting signals. Whether
accidentally or not, pretty much any gadget sophisticated enough to pick up
audio may also be transmitting :

[http://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/comments/1le3if/so_i_discover...](http://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/comments/1le3if/so_i_discovered_that_my_hp_laptop_leakstransmits/)

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mikegioia
Store and forward what? The only thing I'd want to prevent my phone from
beaming to the mothership is my location. If your phone is inside this Faraday
shield then it can't get a GPS location to store.

Edit: microphone will still work inside pouch

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eksith
Store and forward any audio it picks up. Why stick to GPS when your location
can be triangulated by cross referencing the sounds around you? E.G. A fire
engine/ambulance, school bus with loud children or garbage truck passing by at
a particular time or the voice of someone else who's cell isn't protected and
is being monitored.

Software to accomplish these things already exist.

~~~
mikegioia
Yea I understand what you mean now. I would still say that's a little
aggressively paranoid given the nature of this pouch, but you're right -- the
makers of the pouch seem to imply that you're "safe" when your phone's inside
which apparently isn't 100% true.

~~~
eksith
Oh yes, it's definitely on the paranoid side. I would argue that an old
fashioned feature phone with the battery removed is a much cheaper
alternative, but the point of these items, I believe, is more symbolic than
functional.

I mean, if you think about it, someone wearing one of those hoodies... they
don't really care about the fashion statement or even the "protection" they
offer. The reality is that someone wearing that would stand out like a sore
thumb, and I think that's part of the point. It's more of a conspicuous
protest in plain sight without being disruptive.

Maybe that's the real sales pitch all along. A bit of "I am Spartacus" with a
high-tech woven mesh and face hiding.

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dguido
This kind of stuff has been around since 2005:
[http://difrwear.com/](http://difrwear.com/)

If you want to turn off your cellphone... turn off your cellphone. It has an
off switch and airplane mode. This kind of protective casing is really only
needed for the type of things you can't turn "off" like all the RFID chips
embedded in credits card you own (and probably don't even realize you have).

Also, this is pretty lol: "Mr. Harvey said that he could not afford to hire an
outside firm to extensively test the effectiveness of his products, but that
he tested them himself with most of the popular smartphones and major wireless
carriers." If you haven't tested it, I doubt it works at all.
[http://difrwear.com/pages/certifications](http://difrwear.com/pages/certifications)

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rdtsc
Unless you take the battery out how do you know your phone is ever off. It
doesn't just have hardware toggle button probably. So you'd have to take the
battery out. Well then isn't it easier to put it in a Faraday cage than mess
with the battery.

~~~
ars
And how exactly do you plan to use your phone?

As soon as you take it out it can transmit everything it captured while in
there.

This thing is useless for a cell phone.

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H3g3m0n
It isn't going to be able to record without a battery...

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ars
If you take out the battery why are you using this pouch?

Again, this pouch is useless.

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rtkwe
It prevents a straight forward tracking and forces anyone wishing to track you
using a cellphone to throw a lot more resources at you than before. Inside the
case it doesn't get any simple tracking info, the only thing it really gets
would be physical orientation (gyroscope, accelerometer, and compass) and
audio.

In order to turn the first into tracking the phone has to either do the
inertial tracking itself (possible but computationally expensive and it
diverges pretty quickly unless there have been some major improvements).

The second requires some luck involving an identifiable sound marker some
where in the recording then the processing power to cross reference
everything.

It's a mistake to confuse imperfect with useless.

~~~
ars
It's useless.

Just turn the phone off. Or really just the GPS off since that's the only
thing this thing blocks.

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switch007
So we pay $400+ for these devices every couple of years. But we don't trust
the manufacturers nor the carriers. Some are paranoid that they're tracking
every detail and transmitting at every opportunity.

Yet we continue to buy them?

Seeing the picture of the phone in the case, I can't help but think that this
is a rather ridiculous state of affairs. If we don't like being tracked, if we
don't trust them and if they breach our privacy, why don't we stop
using/buying them?

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andrewljohnson
Some would ask why we keep using electricity and fossil fuels, when we know
we're running out of energy.

The answer is that we think we'll arrive at a solution for energy before we
run out of oil. And the reason we keep using cellphones is because we believe
we'll fix the privacy issues before we become enslaved.

Boycotting cellphones would just be boycotting a symptom anyways. Governments
have always been corrupted to spy on citizens, every government ever, through
any means necessary.

~~~
ars
> when we know we're running out of energy.

This is a side note, but we're not running out of energy, we have enough for
at least 10,000 to 100,000 years (depending on the rate of energy use
increase).

And that is NOT including solar - just nuclear.

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aviraldg
Am I the only person who thinks they haven't though the OFF Pocket through?
Any phone inside that thing will go from 100% to 0% power in a matter of
hours.

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aroch
Shove an RFID patch in it that causes airplane mode to turn on

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ams6110
If you're going to keep your phone in a Faraday cage pouch, why not simply
turn it off?

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eikenberry
Because turning it off doesn't work. You can't fully turn it off without
popping the battery out.

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mindslight
I recall seeing some work on fingerprinting phones that are off by the
differences in passive radio signatures of their communication circuits.

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tristanj
If the pouch doesn't work as intended and the phone still has a very weak
connection to the tower, the phone will transmit at maximum power, which will
just eat through the battery life when sending and receiving data. I can't see
this becoming successful if the pouch has this issue.

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lostlogin
Confirmed. I work next to a Faraday cage and I get almost no signal - none
when I need it - and battery life sucks. At weekends I get plenty of life
despite using the phone more.

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jjp9999
Couldn't you just line a ziplock bag with a couple layers of tinfoil? Also,
when you put your phone in there it cuts off its WiFi, cellular connection,
and 3g/4g, which means your phone is useless while it's in there. You might as
well just take the battery out when you don't want to be tracked and save
yourself $400.

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MayankGoyal
But if you take your phone out of the packet, your location will be
"broadcasted" to the network. That is, everytime you want to make or receive a
call, or do anything with your phone, the network will know your location.

Flight mode would provide the same level of protection as this and at a much
cheaper price.

~~~
MayankGoyal
Unrelated to the product: Is it possible to throw the tracking off by blocking
some cellular towers and only connect to one? Then they have a radius you are
in, but not the exact location.

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inetsee
One of the most important reasons I have a cell phone is so that my wife can
reach me in an emergency. Disabling that functionality makes this a non-
starter for me, even though I hate the idea of my every movement being
tracked.

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ars
Um, what is the use of a shield that blocks signals from going to your
cellphone? What is the value of a cellphone inside such a shield? You can
never take it out of the shield, and you can never use it.

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mitchty
The use is knowing your phone isn't sending or receiving a signal.

The value is anonymity with the option of being able to use it when you want.
The true value is having a real "off" switch.

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ars
> The true value is having a real "off" switch.

Despite the conspiracy theories, your phone already has an off switch.

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mitchty
And?

Doesn't mean this isn't of use, or that I'm reaching for a conspiracy. But a
faraday cage to prevent communication might come in handy every now and again.

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Sniffnoy
People are talking about cellphones, but another use occurs to me: It could be
used to hold RFID cards that one has to use.

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luckysh0t
'stealth' & fashion: new levels of hipster martyrdom.

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PilateDeGuerre
What material are they using that creates the Faraday cage effect?

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matthewbadeau
A conductive cloth will give the Faraday cage effect.

~~~
ars
It's not that easy.

I put a cell phone in a metal lunchbox with a metal lid and it still rang when
I called it.

