Why buy a Faraday pouch for credit cards when....

[GrahamPlatt]

My own experience contradicts this though.

Me too. As a confident grunt I can make "broken" kit work for me just by looking at it and treating it as if it's supposed to work. Users seem to struggle with this and are unable to reproduce the "broken" experience when I'm there.

Goes for programming too: Juniors use “if / else” and “or”, but adepts seem to have an “or else”.

[MrFoolish]

I keep my car's proximity keys in a steel biscuit tin overnight.

I've just checked and found that, with the keys in the tin, the car can still detect them if the tin is within a foot or so of the lock.

So even that thickness of metal is not a perfect solution but hopefully sufficient when the tin is kept near the centre of the house.

Watis

Not to invalidate what you said but your proximity keys and an RFID card are somewhat different physics.

The keys are standard familiar radiated radio. The waves decouple from the source and travel away at the speed of light.

The card uses "near field" EM fields - it's more like a high frequency transformer that couples both power and data over very short distances. It is totally useless at distances over a few cm. The RFID name is something of a misnomer.

[Watis]

I keep my car's proximity keys in a steel biscuit tin overnight.

I've just checked and found that, with the keys in the tin, the car can still detect them if the tin is within a foot or so of the lock.

So even that thickness of metal is not a perfect solution but hopefully sufficient when the tin is kept near the centre of the house.

Watis

Not to invalidate what you said but your proximity keys and an RFID card are somewhat different physics.

The keys are standard familiar radiated radio. The waves decouple from the source and travel away at the speed of light.

The card uses "near field" EM fields - it's more like a high frequency transformer that couples both power and data over very short distances. It is totally useless at distances over a few cm. The RFID name is something of a misnomer.

Thanks for the clarification, MrFoolish - I hadn't realised that the key and the card use different technologies.

Watis

[simoan]

tbh most people that think they need one would be better off making a hat with the foil and sticking it on their head.


Actually, the reason I started thinking about it was nothing to do with aliens or Nigel Farage monitoring my brain or whatever. Simply that I read a comment from someone about how it was easier and faster for him to slip his phone into a light faraday pouch when travelling rather mess around with buttons. That got me onto protecting credit cards etc.

It also led me to a weird site in the USA about preppers/doomsday/ apocalypse loonies and how to protect your equipment from a massive EMP strike in a war. One comment asked about how best protect the whole house. I guess that any foil they have left over could be made into nice hats?

Steve

Don't get me wrong. I used to sit in meetings with customers wearing foil hats all the time. All part of the fun of designing secure systems for government and military customers As a consequence, I became quite fond of wearing a foil hat myself and read all manner of security blogs and took all kinds of countermeasures to protect my data and privacy. These days the paranoia has largely worn off and I really can't be bothered and opt more for convenience over ultimate security. I always found Matt Blaze one of the better communicators of complex security issues, along with Bruce Schneier (his blog is a must read). His findings on the unreliability of the aluminium foil solution do not surprise me, but in truth it probably is good enough in most instances if you can ensure a good tight seal. I never worked on RF systems myself but worked with many very talented RF engineers and learnt a hell of a lot doing EMC testing at BAe Filton when I was much younger.

[didds]

No. A faraday cage is a faraday cage. There is no field inside it. You can be sitting in your car when lightning strikes it and you'll be fine.

GS

I know what a Fataday cage is. The only question is whether wrapping something in Aluminium foil generates one. tbh most people that think they need one would be better off making a hat with the foil and sticking it on their head.

We have a 2FA igntion in our campervan (token in proximity and the physical key)

If we wrap the 2FA token in stadard kitchen tin foil and it is inside the van it doesnt detect it ie 2FA is not met.

didds