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Comment by sparker72678 | Hacker News Reader

> tracking occupancy patterns, correlating signal presence with known devices, identifying sleep cycles

Wait til you find out about Wifi and GSM!

From the article. "A great part of discussion in comments on the original thread I've made was about soldiers on the battlefield and a heavy usage of devices close to the line of contact. Android users might turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and even remove their SIM card, thinking they’ve minimized their radio footprint. But NFC often remains active by default — and since most people assume it only matters within arm’s reach, they don’t bother disabling it."

> soldiers on the battlefield and a heavy usage of devices close to the line of contact. Android users might turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and even remove their SIM card

I would think a faraday bag would be far more efficient for this - should take care of the NFC issue too

I'm assuming they're still using the phone in some capacity in (what they thought) was offline mode. What they really need are phones with hardware switches for all radios, which of course almost don't even exist as a product. If a faraday bag worked for them they'd probably be better off just removing the battery altogether when they don't need the phone (removable batteries also aren't that common anymore).

It speaks to how terribly fit for purpose mobile devices are for soldiers in an active modern battlefield. Not only do they require discipline and technology training to prevent leaking positions, but most of them actually lack the capability to prevent leaking altogether no matter how trained you are.

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