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Stealth Wear, Coming to a Store Near You

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: Stealth Wear, Coming to a Store Near You

#31

Post by mikegioia »

eksith wrote: post #22
mikegioia wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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.

Re: Stealth Wear, Coming to a Store Near You

#32

Post by mikegioia »

tghw wrote: post #21
mikegioia wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why wouldn't the microphone pick anything up? Sound waves are unaffected by a Faraday cage.

Yea you're right, I thought the microphone itself wouldn't work but it still does.

Re: Stealth Wear, Coming to a Store Near You

#33

Post by andrewljohnson »

switch007 wrote: post #29

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 b…

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.

Re: Stealth Wear, Coming to a Store Near You

#34

Post by dguido »

This kind of stuff has been around since 2005: 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

Re: Stealth Wear, Coming to a Store Near You

#35

Post by eksith »

mikegioia wrote: post #31
eksith wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Stealth Wear, Coming to a Store Near You

#36

Post by rdtsc »

dguido wrote: post #34

This kind of stuff has been around since 2005: 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…

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.

Re: Stealth Wear, Coming to a Store Near You

#37

Post by saraid216 »

switch007 wrote: post #29

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 b…

If anything demonstrates failure of the marketplace, it's that people this stupid have the money to shell out for things like this.

Re: Stealth Wear, Coming to a Store Near You

#39

Post by rdtsc »

mikegioia wrote: post #19
eksith wrote: post #15

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 transmi…

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

> Store and forward what?

1) Well, surprise, your location. Just store tuples of position and time where you were

2) Everything you type, passwords, patterns

3) Picture of your face if you have face lock

4) Accounts you use and maybe passwords

Re: Stealth Wear, Coming to a Store Near You

#40

Post by leokun »

rdtsc wrote: post #39
mikegioia wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Store and forward what? 1) Well, surprise, your location. Just store tuples of position and time where you were 2) Everything you type, passwords, patterns 3) Picture of your face if you have face lock 4) Accounts you use and maybe passwords

How would it know where you were if it can't use GPS or connect to wifi networks? Obviously if you take it out you're not protected anymore.
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