Will Dove 00:13 Once again, I have with me Oliver Ross of Liberty Lives and we're back for episode number eight on our Privacy Series. And today, Oliver is here to discuss Faraday bags. Many of you will have heard of them, some of you will have not. This is a way of once again, protecting your privacy. Oliver, thanks for coming back. Oliver Ross 00:31 Thank you for having me back. Will Dove 00:32 So describe for our audience just exactly what a Faraday bag is. Oliver Ross 00:37 So a Faraday bag is a bag or a pouch, whatever, that you put your device of question in, could be a phone it could be a computer could be a desktop if you really wanted to. And the idea behind it is, there's no signals escaping that device. If it works properly there is no way of anybody, if you put your phone in the bag, there's no way of somebody calling you and going through, there's no way of you receiving any texts or anything like that, while it's in the bag. And you have the added benefit of reducing your EMF exposure if you're carrying your phone in your pocket, say. So it's a, it's a health benefit and it's potentially a privacy benefit that you would want to be aware of, and use to your advantage when you're going to certain places that maybe you don't want somebody seeing what you're doing. Will Dove 01:39 And how does the Faraday bag work? Oliver Ross 01:42 So that's there's a, whatever the material is, it's the signal itself is just it's, I don't know the exact mechanics behind how it's prevented from leaving, but it's the they are they have, I think it's an absorption of the signals. So it's a prevention of any escape of the signals from that device so that you are instead not being you're not able to actually use that device in the traditional way. And you're also going to be preventing things from coming in to that device. You could also set up things like Faraday rooms, if you're concerned about from a health perspective, EMF radiation exposure, you can completely redesign a room so that it has no EMF, that you will use your EMF reader and everything. And you could see that that room would not be able to receive any signals, unless you are obviously using a device within it. So you're, what you're doing is you're preventing. It's like a reflective shield for all of those frequencies that you can't see with the human eye. Will Dove 03:02 I don't think I really know for certainty, they call a Faraday bag because based on the same principles, the Faraday cage and a Faraday cage, what that would do is it would take electricity and guides it around whatever's inside the cage. So what's inside the cage doesn't get contacted by the electricity. So I think what we're talking about here is where the Faraday bag or Faraday room, it's actually taking those emf signals, and it's directing them around it. So that space inside of it is effectively invisible to those frequencies. Oliver Ross 03:32 Yeah, and you are, and by doing that, you are reducing exposure to those signals that ... have potentially have that negative health effects associated with them. Will Dove 03:46 Now, of course, a Faraday bag, you can buy them online, they're not very expensive, of course, they come in all different sizes and colors and whatever, which are like, how would a person build a Faraday room, though, this is something I've not heard of before. Oliver Ross 03:56 That is, I haven't done enough research on it to know the exact 100% logistics of it. But there's some paints out there that work for specific insulation, and there's materials that are used for the bags, sometimes that you could use for your rooms, or areas to build a shield around yourself of sorts and prevent the radiation exposure from getting into that room. Will Dove 04:26 No, of course, be quite the endeavor because it would have to go not you're not just talking to your walls, you got to do your ceiling, your floor, you got to do your door, your window is everything's got to be covered with this material. But as you say, if you do that, and maybe you are a person who is very sensitive to the emf frequencies, or you're concerned about the health effects, you could say build your bedroom this way. So that you're spending eight, nine hours of every day inside that room sleeping and you're not being affected by those frequencies. Oliver Ross 04:53 Exactly. I'd say that's where you if you're going to build the room, from a practicality perspective, it's probably best that it would be your bedroom, because it's - that's going to be the place where you're going to be in for a long enough period of time to warrant that extra effort for. Will Dove 05:09 And obviously, you know, if it was somebody like me, the last room I would want to do that with is my studio, because then I don't, I'd be cutting off all of my signals. So of course, you wouldn't want to do this in an office where you need to be communicating. But yes, a bedroom would be a perfect place for that. Is there anything else that our audience needs to know about Faraday bags? Oliver Ross 05:29 Depending on the bag, there are different qualities of bags out there, depending on what your standards are for ethical dilemmas when buying things from certain markets. But yeah, they're readily available anywhere I sell them, I carry higher end ones so that I don't like having the Chinese labor stuff that I'm trying to sell the people if I can avoid it. But yeah, you could find them anywhere that you were looking. You may want to have a Faraday bag for your computer if you are being very mobile with the computer because it will also, it could also be useful when it comes to hacking, and trying to prevent any hacking from occurring on that device when it's not in use. So you can always slip the computer into the bag when you have that tie. If you're if you're using your computer at home only, it's probably not as big of an issue. But there is always that potential of somebody stealing your data that you can avoid, and protect, potentially protect that, excuse me. Will Dove 06:38 And of course, this brings up something that I think we skipped over. And that was my mistake there, I should have jumped on this, we were talking about getting a Faraday bag for your phone and you've been carrying your phone in it when you're walking around out in public when you're going around out there. I've heard stories and I don't know if this is true or not. People who have scanning devices where they just have to get it close to your phone, and they can be pulling data off of your phone. Now, as I said, I don't know if it's true or not. But if it is, I would imagine having your phone inside of a Faraday bag would prevent that. Oliver Ross 07:08 It should if the Faraday bag is well constructed, you'd have to do some tests on the bag itself once you've purchased it, test it with calling and texting, etc. But yes, that should be something that it would work well to defend against. There's also the apple, I don't remember what it was called. But there's a there's a small apple device that is available now that it's not specifically for hacking purposes but it can read if there's any other iPhones in close proximity. So it would be able to triangulate your phone use. So even if you're still using a Google phone or an iPhone, a Faraday bag, it's still useful. And it's still an It might even be an easier step for you to do that, instead of replacing the phone right away. Will Dove 08:04 And are there rating systems for these Faraday bags? Because you said they come in different qualities? Is there some sort of rating system where a person could simply look at that and they would know how quality? How good the quality of that bag was? Or is it something where you really have to just you got to do your homework on it? Oliver Ross 08:16 Well, you could always look at user reviews, if you're looking at if you really wanted to buy it through something like Amazon. I don't recommend it, please don't Will Dove 08:19 look at the you can look at the user reviews on Amazon than buy it somewhere else. Oliver Ross 08:25 Please don't buy it through Amazon, you don't have to. There's enough people out there selling it. So that could be at least somewhere that you get an idea. You could always look also at the company's website. See, some of the companies do more with military grade items, while other ones are more for the public. And if you are looking for higher end devices, you might -- or higher end bags, you might want a military grade device or higher. Will Dove 08:59 So I'm gonna ask you one more question. And you might not know the answer. But I think it's something would probably occur to some of our viewers. One of the sort of doomsday end of the world scenarios that I've heard of is detonates nuclear devices high in the atmosphere. And the EMP pulse basically destroys everything that's electronic, and sends that country back to the Stone Age. If your computer or phone was in a Faraday bag when that EMP pulse hit and I realized we're talking about something that's extremely unlikely that we're getting into the realm of almost science fiction here. But I know it's a question that occur to some people. Do you think that that would protect that device? Oliver Ross 09:36 Depends un ... I've actually done a little bit of reading on this area because I was curious. I wasn't thinking about what the nuclear bombs I was thinking about other potential solar flares, etc. But from what I understand, there's a proximity issue. If it's an there's a frequency issue, that theoretically if the device is really well made, and there's no holes in the fabric and everything, it should, but that's a 'should'. It should protect the device. However, depending on how tight the mesh is woven and the quality of device and how close you are, and probably a lot more, other issues that I've just brought up, it could be absolutely useless. But honestly, if we're dealing with that type of scenario where and you're close enough to the bombs being detonated, you'll be lucky if you get out of there. Why would you care about the device itself? Will Dove 10:44 What I'm talking about is, and once again, I -- when I said science fiction, I was actually being literal, because it's based on a science fiction story that I read years ago, but it was one of those stories where you had an author, and then you had a co author who was actually a physicist, I can't remember the title of the book anymore. But apparently, this is something that even the American military is very well aware of. It's a threat that they're concerned about that if the Chinese, for example, detonated two or three very high yield nuclear bombs very high in the atmosphere, so we're not talking about the blast is in any way going to reach the ground. The pulse from that could potentially destroy all electronics in the US. So that was where that question came from. of okay, something like that happens could you potentially protect your devices with Faraday bags? I don't know. And I'm not sure if you've been you know, but I just thought I'd bring that one up. Oliver Ross 11:36 Yeah, I don't have a good answer for that. Except that it's, it's a big maybe, and it could be useful. It could be helpful. But I wouldn't count on it. And I would put it is definitely something that if you're looking for being a prepper, and having backups, the backups, you can try it. And the worst that could happen is it doesn't work. But you've already you're trying that situation and see if it actually does, Will Dove 12:02 but if you're an end of the world prepper you've probably got a concrete safe somewhere in your basement that you're keeping backup phones in. Yeah, that would block that kind of thing. Alright, once again, Oliver, thank you so much for your time. This is concluding episode eight of our Privacy Series and Oliver we'll be back next week with episode nine. Thank you