Journaling the Coronavirus (COVID19) Pandemic, Reflection #27
April 15, 2020
Faraday. Michael Faraday, from the 1800s. He was an expert on electromagnetism. He invented what’s called a Faraday cage, as effective today as it was back then. You can get a Faraday bag for twenty bucks or less on Amazon and less on eBay.
Why get a Faraday bag?
A Faraday bag is a metal filament (usually copper) weave wherein no electrical charge may enter or leave. No microwaves. No radio waves. Nothing electrical. Now, when your bag comes, start carrying your cell phone inside it when you are driving or resting somewhere or wherever. Be careful to know where the bag is at all times because ‘find my phone’ is not going to work while your cell phone is inside the bag. While your phone is in the bag it cannot be tracked by anything known to modern man. Why is that important? It may not be, but if things get more wired down than they are going to go into open season, and big brother might get serious about trying to ascertain who is obeying the social distance rules and who is not. Deemed to be not obeying is a five hundred dollars fine and jail time if the police might want to push it, although they are not doing that yet. It may come to that.
Get a Faraday bag and have some peace of mind. Don’t disobey the distance rules but remember, many people go to jail or pay huge fines for doing stuff they really didn’t mean to do, or know they were doing. In the last analysis, if you really want to have the protection of this sort cheaply, go to a hardware store and buy a thin sheet of copper for a couple of dollars. Put your phone under it on the seat next to you. Cheap Faraday cage. Brass will work, too but not as well as copper.
Your thoughts about this or is it just Poppycock?
Yes we’re still alive in WV! Been social distancing since 1863 – our motto here is “You stay in your holler, I’ll stay in mine“.
I have always wanted a faraday cage, your post is the impetus I needed. Stay well James.
Thanks for the compliment about me confirming the Faraday cage application.
We have to do what we have to do to feel better during this mess.
Semper fi,
Jim
Good on you! Great info.
Thanks Mike, much appreciate the compliment…
Semper fi
Jim
My conjecture. A cage would probably work to prevent a ping response; depending on the grid size of the cage.
Power at the phone is only needed for amplifying and transmitting signals? I don’t believe a battery would be required to be in a phone for it to be pinged. The power to “ping” could be supplied by the tower? The ping inductively couples too and energizes the receiver circuit which in turn would return a pulse indicating its presence.
The location can be triangulated by knowing the time difference between the return pulse at the different lobes of the tower and the distance between them. Or the time the pulse is received at a different tower.
If you don’t wish to be located by that method then leave the phone at home; or use somebody else’s. Phone swapping would pretty much screw up the game I would think. Not real sophisticated but probably pretty effective. Cloning or jamming would probably work well also.
But a real spook would use the effective length of your nervous system; now that’s a tough nut to crack and pretty hard on you I would imagine.
We are on very sensitive ground here; as a lifelong fan of science and technology (and I am getting pretty old) the first thing I noticed is the dichotomy that exists within the realm of applied science. There is the side of light and the side of darkens in almost everything I study.
Back in the 70s I envisioned using RF inductive coupling to the human nervous system as a possible method of remote heart monitoring; but the dark side and potential for weaponization and privacy invasion turned me off. So I said fuck it; I ain’t putting a dog into that fight. Ain’t nothing gonna come with it but a good ass whoopin.
I’m confident that by now the dark side is applied in depth; so be it, I didn’t want any part of that fight. But now; with common humanity under attack by power that transcends the nation state; the gloves are coming off.
Care to discuss coil guns and pointing (aiming) algorithms? I’m all in. I figure any university with a decent electrical engineering department should be able to put something together that can easily reach out and touch something that isn’t maneuvering too awfully fast out to 50 or 60 thousand feet where the target ground track is some number of miles from the launch site. Get it under the ground track of a space based system and one might put something in the flight path out to 100 miles or so; maybe more.
I am probably putting myself at great risk here; but it doesn’t matter. There are thousands of people just like me. Besides; there is no more honorable way to die than at the hands of evil men who fear your truth.
Sun Tzu said something like this – “To win without fighting is best.” There is no way I can prevail in this fight; but that doesn’t mean that I cannot stand upon “Duty, Honor, Country.” This ain’t about me; it’s way, way, bigger than that. By this realization the battle has already been won. And we WILL be handing those evil bastards their asses on a stick; with or without me. There would be no greater pleasure for me than to let those folks know what’s coming their way.
What can I say to that detailed and most excellent missive you’ve just put up here? Truth, justice and the American way live and breathe
in my heart too and the futility of it all does not deter me at all. It’s the trying that counts and the never giving up.
Thanks for the compliment of commenting and risking on here, along with me…
Semper fi,
Jim
Used to turn location off and realized that was insufficient technically. Ordered a faraday bag but started thinking that systems on my vehicle can be co opted for nefarious purposes and rendering them silent is fairly difficult. I’m concerned about where all this will go. Thanks for your observations and publishing same.
Be well.
The sophistication it takes to hack into your automotive systems is well beyond the capability of nearly all common criminals.
If you have pissed off the CIA or NSA your defenses are not going to matter one whit, but for everyday stuff and even the coming
troubles your main concerns will be local. The locals will have the capability to track but it won’t be extensive, satellite or any of that stuff.
They were no more prepared for this than the public has been. You use a Faraday bag because you want to have the decision about what you do and what happens to you
not because you want to commit crimes or avoid helping other people or doing the right thing. It is American for you to choose and not be forced, however.
Semper fi,
Jim