Discover the importance of digital security and privacy for travellers with our comprehensive guide on Faraday bags. Learn how they protect your devices from hacking, tracking, and external interference while you're on the go.

Travellers have become increasingly concerned about digital security and privacy in today's world of ever-evolving technology. Protecting electronic devices from external threats is increasingly important as we rely more heavily on them to store sensitive information and stay connected. Introducing the Faraday bag - a modern solution for safeguarding your digital life on the go. Here, we will examine the purpose and functionality of Faraday bags, their benefits for travellers, popular brands, practical tips for use, and potential disadvantages.

What Are Faraday Bags and How Do They Work? Known as signal-blocking bags, Faraday bags are designed to protect electronic devices from external interference, hacking, and tracking. A Faraday cage is a conductive enclosure that surrounds a device and is named after the 19th-century scientist Michael Faraday. The enclosure blocks all incoming and outgoing electromagnetic signals, such as Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, and cellular signals, ensuring your devices remain private and secure.

Benefits of Using Faraday Bags for Travelers:

Faraday bags prevent unauthorized access to your devices by blocking signals and protecting sensitive information.
Faraday bags provide additional protection for your devices in unfamiliar environments where you may not have control over network security.
As far as tracking is concerned, Faraday bags help prevent unwanted tracking by blocking GPS signals.

Popular Faraday Bag Brands and Products:

Mission Darkness: The Faraday bags offered by Mission Darkness are known for their high-quality materials and military-grade signal-blocking capabilities. Several unique features include a water-resistant exterior and a double-sealed enclosure.
Silent Pocket: Known for its stylish and functional Faraday bags, Silent Pocket offers a selection of modern, durable leather and nylon bags. Its unique selling points include RFID protection and easy-to-use magnetic closures.
EDEC: EDEC's Faraday bags offer industrial-grade signal-blocking performance and rugged construction. To provide increased protection, they use multiple layers of shielding materials.

Practical Tips for Using Faraday Bags:

Using them in high-risk situations, such as when crossing borders or entering an unfamiliar public Wi-Fi network is recommended.
Store devices inside the bag and seal them properly to ensure maximum signal blocking.
It is important to keep in mind that using a Faraday bag will prevent you from receiving incoming calls, messages, or notifications. Please plan accordingly and inform your contacts if necessary.

Potential Drawbacks and Limitations:

Faraday bags provide protection against unwanted signals and potential hacking, but they have some disadvantages as well:

Inconvenience: You cannot access Wi-Fi, GPS, or other wireless signals when your devices are inside a Faraday bag. While your device is in the bag, you may miss important calls, emails, or notifications.
Loss of tracking features: If you lose your bag with your devices inside, you cannot use services like "Find My" to track them down, as the bag blocks the necessary signals.
Limited functionality: While your devices are in a Faraday bag, you cannot use location-sharing features or other wireless services that may be beneficial to your safety or convenience.
Frequent removal: Removing your devices from the Faraday bag frequently can be cumbersome and time-consuming, particularly if you need to access them frequently.
Signal-blocking effectiveness: The effectiveness of a Faraday bag in blocking signals may vary depending on its quality and the strength of the signals in the surrounding environment

A Faraday bag is an essential digital security measure for privacy-conscious travellers. In unfamiliar environments, they protect sensitive information and privacy by blocking signals and protecting electronic devices against interference, hacking, and tracking. Even though there may be some drawbacks and limitations to using a Faraday bag, the benefits far outweigh the risks. Consider investing in a Faraday bag to protect your digital life when planning your next trip.

This post is not sponsored, and none of the links included are affiliate links.

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Navigate to your destination without using GPS

October 16, 2020GeneralEdward Kiledjian

I remember a time before Google maps when navigation meant buying paper maps from the petrol station and required a navigator. Then came the smartphone with its GPS magic powered by Google Maps, and our lives became instantly better.

There are times when GPS is unreliable (like dense city centers), or you want to maximize your smartphone battery life, or there are times you simply don't want to give Google your precise location for privacy reasons.

This is where an Android app called SmartNavi shines. SmartNavi uses steps to determine your location instead of an always-on GPS antenna. Without a GPS components, this app is more geared towards pedestrians, hikers, bikers, skateboarders or other non-car users.

Your phone is a cornucopia of sensors and SmartNavi uses these to calculate your steps and then guesses your current location. At startup, the app connects to the internet and GPS to pinpoint your starting location but from that point on, no more cheating.

This means that even if you are walking in the densest downtown (like Hong Kong) or lose your internet connection, you will still be able to navigate. The app claims it can save 80% more battery (compared to Google Maps or Apple Maps) by not using the GPS antenna.

There is also the important notion of privacy. There are times you simply want to go somewhere without big brother looking over your shoulder (logging and then analyzing your travel patterns). Using the app is simple. You download it from the Google Play Store (Appstore); you open and set-up the app (first time) and then input your destination.

During the initial set-up, the app asks for your height. This isn't to profile you but to better calculate your steps.

Obviously, this isn’t the perfect app for everyone but it does meet a unique need for many smartphone users.

The best way to share your location with friends or family

January 17, 2018GeneralEdward Kiledjian

Let's say you are meeting friends at a large outdoor concert, how do you provide your location? A street address may get them to the entrance gate, then what? What3words has proposed a solution that solves the issue of finding exact locations on a map?

What3words has divided the entire planet into 57 trillion 3mx3m grids and assigned each grid a unique three-word "address".

If I want to meet friends at the entrance of Union Station in Toronto, I can search for "Union Station" in Google maps, and it will take me to the building but not necessarily the front entrance:

Or I can give my friends the What3Words address for the main entrance 3mx3m square which is: tens.listed.surviving

The What3Words address takes them directly to the entrance where I want to meet them. No ambiguity and no confusion.

In most western countries, we have mailing addresses but these aren't always easy to find. The most accurate mechanism has been latitude and longitude (which would look like this 43°38'43.3"N 79°22'51.9"W). Obviously, the three-word descriptor is easier to communicate and remember than the latitude/longitude.

The entire world is mapped using about 40,000 words (it is available in multiple languages including French, Spanish, Arabic and more). Obviously, great care has gone into choosing the words to ensure there is nothing offending and no double meanings. They have assigned more common words to locations in major centers.

What3Words claims their tech is being used in over 170 countries by dozens of organizations from delivery companies (Aramex) to disaster relief coordination in the Philipines by the Red Cross.

The entire mapping can be downloaded for use offline and consumes about 10MB of space. They are partnering with companies to build this tech into third-party apps.

I really think this is a wonderfully unique approach to a problem everyone experiences and I hope more companies start using the What3Words technology. In the meantime, you can download their free Android and IOS app to get started. You can find the What3Words location address or navigate to any What3Words address (using your favorite Nav app installed on your IOS or Android phone (Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze).

Android App showing the entrance of Union Station

Once you enter a three-word address, you can click on the navigate app and it will send the exact GPS coordinates to the location to any GPS app installed on your device.

Once you enter a three-word adress, you can share the exact location using any messaging app installed on your smartphone (Google Messages, Facebook, Whatsapp, etc).

Facebook may be interested in WAZE GPS

May 9, 2013technologyEdward Kiledjian

Mark Zuckerberg is clearly taking mobile very seriously and want premium placement on your smartphone. We all heard of the Instagram acquisition last year and the release of Facebook home [for select Android phones]. Israeli newspaper Calcalilst is now reporting that Facebook may be interested in snapping up Waze.

Acquiring Waze and mapping users to their Facebook accounts would provider incredibly valuable signals to the social goliath it can use to further target ads. It will be interesting to see if this $1 billion deal actually materializes and if it does, how Waze's existing users will react.

Original article can be found here.

She drove 900 extra miles because the GPS told her to

January 16, 2013FunEdward Kiledjian

The internet is littered with horror stories about people doing wacky things because of a GPS. Why not add another story to the mix?

A 90 mile journey turned into a multi-day 900 mile excursion. How can this happen you ask? Because the GPS told her to do it. A 67 year old woman wanted to pick up a friend from a train station 90 miles away (both starting and ending point are in Belgium).

Instead of taking her to Brussels, the GPS directed her to Zagreb (Croatia). She admits seeing the language on roads signs change from French, German and Croatian but she was “distracted”.

To cap off her happy journey, her son was worried and sent the cops on a wild goose chase for a “missing person”. I don’t think the GPS is to blame here, maybe she needs to talk to “someone” and figure out why she never realized something may be wrong after the first full day of driving.

Source Article: here

Faraday Bags: A Must-Have for the Privacy-Conscious Traveler