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this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2025
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Fucking cool, and also remember to leave your phone at home, or at least on airplane mode.
In airplane mode and even while turned off, phones have been known to still transmit data via background services. Leaving it behind, or a Faraday bag are the only assured options I'm aware of
Not while turned off, generally. Screen off, sure.
Edit: apparently at least some do
There is no such thing as "off" on modern Smartphones. Even if you power it down things like the baseband prozessor and bluetooth still stay active most of the time.
If the battery is integrated into device there ist no real way to completely shut this things down.
100%. That's why Snowden asked every visitor from the press to put their phones in the microwave before they started their interviews. Of course he didn't turn it on, it was to function as a Faraday cage.
microwaves don't work as faraday cages
For the curious:
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/746684/why-does-a-microwaves-faraday-cage-block-microwaves-but-not-larger-wavelength-r
The metal screen on the microwave door is designed to block the specific wavelength being used to heat your food. It isn't a full cage and isn't effective at blocking other frequencies.
Yes. However the frequency it blocks is ~2.45GHz which is the same frequency as WiFi, Bluetooth, etc. and used to be the only other antenna other than the cellular antenna, where the frequency ranges from 600MHz-2.5GHz.
This used to be good practice because you would first remove the sim card disabling the LTE communication, unless the hardware was compromised, and then place it in the microwave to disable all other signals.
With the introduction and proliferation of eSIM on both devices and carrier sides, removing the SIM card no longer provides much protection and the additional of many other communication methods, most notably 5GHz 802.11x, the microwave trick doesn't really do anything either.
But it used to work.
wtf got a source on that? Sounds quite scary tbh
No they don't
Just as an example:
https://www.apple.com/icloud/find-my/
"Some devices can still send their location for up to 24 hours after they’ve been turned off or have low battery life."
https://www.91mobiles.com/hub/exclusive-google-find-my-device-feature-phone-off
"Google began rolling out this feature as “Powered Off Finding” with the Pixel 8 series, letting users locate their phone even when it’s switched off by keeping the Bluetooth chip active."
And those are only some of the official known possibilities