7 Things to Know About Faraday Bags and Pouches

Here we will list 7 important pieces of information that anyone interested in these bags should know about before buying. 

• The Invention of Faraday Bags

While talking in-depth about anything, it is best to start with their origin. Faraday bags did not pop out of thin air, and the theory behind them dates back to the late 19th century. The original device was called the Faraday Cage, and it was made by a scientist named Michael Faraday. 

The principle behind the Faraday Cage is fairly simple. It is a literal cage made of conductive material that scatters the external electric charges. It acts as a shield that nullifies all charges directed at it and protects the internal space.

However, after everything is said and done, a large metallic cage has very little practical usage. One cannot lug something like that around as an insulator against electro charges, as that would be a whole new level of a tin-foil hat.  Instead, they made a much more reliable Faraday bag. 

Faraday bags are a lot more practical and it provides reliable protection against a lot of things. It is one of the best insulating materials against hackers and government surveillance. 

• How Faraday Bags Work 

Faraday bags are made of conductive material that disperses electromagnetic signals. It makes a fully insulated area out of those conductive materials where you can store your devices. The effect is not a physical shield per se, it is more like a nullifier. The conductive material interacts with the outside charge and spreads it across the cover.

Faraday bags function as an anti-surveillance accessory because they can nullify all kinds of radio, electro-magnetic, and plasma waves. This process allows your devices to stay undetected by government agencies, or hackers. It is also one of the most reliable ways to hide your location.

You might be wondering why one needs to go through all this trouble. Isn’t it a lot easier to just turn off all the Wi-Fi, GPS, or Bluetooth on one’s phone and be done with it? The answer is no. If you wish to truly secure your data and prevent hackers from accessing your devices just turning these off won’t do.

Experienced people can access your electronics as long as they can get their signal to it. You won’t notice a thing and be blissfully unaware while all your digital information gets ransacked. That is why digital privacy is a hard thing to keep against competent hackers. 

The only reliable option is to place your electronic devices in the faraday bag and let it do its thing. It would not have been this troublesome if we had an off switch on our devices, but almost everything comes with an unremovable battery nowadays. As long as the power source exists, the device can be accessed by anyone competent enough.

In that sense, faraday bags and pouches function as an off switch. As long as the device is inside the bag, it seems as if it is dead. You can reduce the chance of information leaks by limiting the exposure time of your devices.

• Objects Faraday Bags Can Help Protect

Faraday bags can protect against every kind of cellular signal and successfully isolate your phone from outside interference. It can also block Wi-Fi, RFID, Infrared, and NFC as well as Bluetooth. 

RFID is the signal used on electric car keys. Protection against RFID is probably the most crucial because car thieves can clone your RFID signal and use it to steal your car effortlessly. RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). It is a data tagging system that uses radio waves to tag certain objects. 

NFC stands for near-field communication. It allows a pair of devices to exchange data with each other when they are placed in close proximity. It can work anywhere as long as both devices have an NFC chip. This signal is usually seen on cards and other devices that people use to complete transactions.

You might be unaware, but some governments have scanners for collecting and altering information. These are generally seen in less developed countries. The government usually uses such technology during riots or large gatherings, and every electronic device in the range comes under surveillance.

One of the best ways of countering such a situation is to store things such as smartphones inside a Faraday bag. Otherwise, all information inside it can be inspected by others.

• Use of Faraday Bags 

People generally store their electronic devices that have connective capacity. Things like electronic key fobs, cards, smartphones, laptops are good candidates for placing inside a faraday bag,

As you know by now, faraday bags are insulators made out of flexible conductive material. The fabric generally acts as copper foil insulators, and you can even make them by hand. However, one’s manufactured by reputed companies generally have higher quality and offer better protection.

These bags and pouches do not have much technical aspect to them. That’s why there are faraday bags of all shapes and sizes. There can be bags as small as wallets, to as large as duffle bags. More people carry a wallet or pouch-sized bag for their cards and car key. People who like their privacy a bit more choose bags for keeping their phones and other electronics.

People responsible for carrying sensitive information on their laptops would also place them in a faraday bag. The military has been using the technology for a long time now. They use it to store their equipment inside suitable bags to prevent information leaks.

• How Safe Are Faraday Bags?

Faraday bags are safe, and they do not harm your devices in any way. Also, there are no legal ramifications for using such a thing. Some anti-surveillance technology is illegal, such as signal jamming, but not faraday bags.

You can use these to your heart’s content without worrying about someone knocking down your door. However, faraday bags are not fall-proof, and there are some methods that hackers can use to bypass them.

Faraday bags can keep your electronic devices safe and secure. They can limit exposure to malicious signals and protect your information. Most importantly, they do not cause any harm while keeping your key fobs, and transaction data safe.

• Reasons to Get A Faraday Bag 

That depends entirely on how much privacy you want. It’s up to you if you want your smartphone information from being hacked, and honestly speaking, hackers don’t have the time to hack every random person they come across. However, I would recommend you at least get a faraday pouch for your car key to prevent relay theft.

To make things easy for you, I’ll list a couple of common reasons for keeping a faraday bag.

• Anti EMP

Electromagnetic pulse is a devastating force that can cripple all electronic devices. The primary source of EMP is lightning strikes. There are also weaponized versions of EMP in the military that aims to destroy enemy electronic machinery. EMP is also a byproduct of nuclear blasts.

There’s little chance that you’ll get nuked, and military people already have faraday technology for their gears. That leaves very little reason for the general public to seek EMP protection. However, if you live anywhere where there are frequent lighting strikes, then these babies can come in real handy. 

If you have a hobby of storm chasing, that too will require you to get EMP protection. Faraday bags just so happen to be the most accessible and distributable Anti-EMP tech you can get your hands on.

• Protection Against Identity Theft

Identity theft is a relatively common occurrence, and it can happen to anyone. It can happen while you have little to no clue that someone has been using your identity. Strictly speaking, less than 50% of the victims of identity theft manage to find out that their identities have been stolen. 

A lot of it happens while people tap into your devices to dig out information. Digital thieves can use website visits, Log-in information, password combinations, etc. to hack into your accounts and use them for their purposes.  They can do this even while your device is not connected to the internet. The only way to prevent it is to isolate the device entirely.

There’s also another crucial digital theft of credit card scanning. These hackers can scan your credit cards while you are in a certain range. There are not many ways to deal with it other than keeping it hidden in a faraday bag.

• Sensitive Job 

If you have a sensitive job such as a policeman or work for an agency that lets you handle sensitive data, you might find it useful to keep a faraday bag. Firewalls and other software-based security measures are not wholly reliable. They can be breached as long as there’s a competent hacker nearby. 

People from the military don’t need to be told, as their superiors already tell them to take such measures. The military has been using the technology for far too long, so it is almost second nature at this point. 

This reminder is mostly for civilians who work under competitive corporations. Handling data is one of the most important things, and if you use your phone or laptop to store sensitive data then a lot of people can hack into it as long as they are close enough. That’s why it would be best to keep a faraday bag. As the saying goes, it is better to be safe than sorry.