What’s a Faraday bag and why should every prepper have it?

Smart preppers should know how to protect their electronic devices. These devices are vulnerable either to attack or detection. In order to reduce this vulnerability, a smart prepper should have a Faraday bag. (h/t to TheSimplePrepper.com)

The Faraday bag is named after Michael Faraday, a 19th-century scientist who discovered a lot about electromagnetism and electrochemistry. One of the phenomena he discovered was that excess electrical charge flows through an exterior conductor and has no influence on anything inside the conductor. A Faraday bag, then, is a bag that has material around it which prevents electrical charge from flowing into its interior.

The bag is designed to stop a sudden surge of electromagnetic energy from damaging the sensitive circuitry or wires inside your electronic equipment. It also prevents your mobile and radio frequency identification (RFID) devices from getting hacked, since it blocks radio and cellular signals from getting through.

A similar device for bigger items that a smart prepper should have in his survival kit is a Faraday cage. It is a container with an electricity-conducting material surrounding it. You can make it from an aluminum or steel trash can with lid. Just insulate the inside with foam, plastic, or rubber to prevent your electronics from the touching the metal sides. (Related: Are you prepared for an EMP attack? Stock up on these items that will continue to work after one.)

Protection against EMP

EMP stands for electromagnetic pulse. It can come from a lightning strike, a meteor hitting Earth, a nuclear explosion, a transformer blowing up, or even something as simple as an engine starting up. Whatever the cause, the event causes a massive amount of charged particles surging through wires or conducting materials that eventually damages the latter. Having a mini-Faraday cage around your bag stops these charged particles from damaging your cellphone, tablet, or hard disk drive stored inside.

As you can see, your bug-out bag should also be a Faraday bag. You may not know exactly when an EMP would hit, so it would be wise to have your most essential electronics stored in it. An EMP event may knock down the power and internet in your area, but there are a couple of electronic equipment that you may need to use: solar power chargers, handheld radios, cell phones, backup computers, portable lamps, etc. These devices should be ready to work at this critical time. And when SHTF big time, you might be able to trade those.

Protection against hacking

Nowadays, Faraday bags are being used in more mundane manners. When you go to live theater or concert performances, you are sometimes handed a bag or pouch to put your smart phone in. Since theater goers usually forget to silence or turn off their cell phones, theater operators have found a way to do it for their audience. The bag you are handed contains a Faraday-style insulating material that blocks cell signals and signals emanating from your phone.

You may have heard of cases where hackers were able to extract information out of RFID devices. Signals from your smart phone offer the same opening to hackers as well. Your bag can protect you from potential hackers just in case you happen to be using public WiFi and forgot to turn off your phone’s WiFi.

If you value your privacy, the Faraday bag does more for you. Most phones have GPS, and all phones signal its presence to a cell site nearby. By blocking signals to and from your phone, the Faraday bag puts an invisible electronic cloak on you. This enables you to disappear from electronic surveillance.

You can read more prepping tips at Preparedness.news.

Sources include:

TheSimplePrepper.com

GetKisi.com