Acid Test of puri.sm's Faraday Bag

General Privacy & Security
1

I think my son’s 'droid got hacked (or it went haywire). I makes a siren sound then calls 911 by itself. (Euro equivalent of 112, or U.K.'s 999.)

He has to redial 911 every time it happens to tell them his phone is haywire.

Periodically? Randomly? Happened 3 times in the last 3 hours.

It is late on a Sunday, the T-Mobile brick and mortar shop is not open.

He also has one of those 'droid models without a power off button (or it isn’t working).

What do you know? I bought one of puri.sm’s Faraday bags. I put it in the bag.

So now his 'droid may go off. It may make the siren sound. Shoulld I bet the 911 call won’t go through?

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2

Well it has a reset function.
And you can take the SIM out or disable the eSIM.

3

It would probably be a good idea to call your local police department’s non-emergency line and report what happened. And that your son didn’t mean to do it. :slight_smile:

Apparently that malware is not a new thing: https://www.totaldefense.com/security-blog/malware-forces-phones-to-call-911/

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4

Erm, no. Not typically. Typically you can call emergency services without a working SIM (for obvious reasons).

I would just turn the phone off.

But, hey, if you have a Purism Faraday bag handy, put it to the test.

What’s the update? Doing the job?

5

Update.

We haven’t heard a peep since putting it in the bag. So I’m thinking it must also “receive” a trigger signal before setting it off.

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6

I’ve tested the phone sleeves and they appear to work for mobile connections – I didn’t receive my test SMS messages until I took them out of the sleeves. I don’t think they work with 5GHz Wi-Fi since it appeared that they were still connected to my router.

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7

Addendum: If you feel a small lump at the bottom of your L5 Faraday Bag, remove the little silicone packet they added to absorb moisture.

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8

Might not be a bad idea leaving it in there, actually.

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9

I’m a boardgame collector. I put those things in my cardboard boxed games in the attic. Helps in the high humidity climate U.S. East Coast.

10

I’m sure it will have no negative impact on the efficacy of the bag but I am not sure that the packaging of the sachet is designed for long term use in a bag that is carried around and joggled around and contains electronic equipment.

The sachet is also a choking hazard. So if in an environment where pets or small children might get hold of it, best to throw it out.

Armed with those caveats, yep, you could leave it there - but really the main goal should be to store the bag where it gets good air flow.

Technically, silica gel, not silicone, I would suppose.