4 ms·

Article notes this impacts soldiers (or I suppose others trying to be stealthy) who would have turned off bluetooth and wifi.

ghostly_s 2y ago
They mention android for this risk factor specifically-does android not have an "airplane mode" equivalent? I would assume it disables NFC also on iOS, but I guess I don't know —no mention of NFC on Apple's support page.
- schaum 2y ago
  Andoird has an airplane mode Once enabled airplane mode you can enable Bluetooth again and airplane mode stays on,so just no mobile data an.same is true for WiFi. NFC however isn't touched by the airplane mode ...At least it was like that on the android phones I owned
  - eichin 2y ago
    Samsung Note (9 and 24 at least) has an "NFC and contactless payments" toggle (and a UWB one) on the page with wifi and bluetooth (Settings → Connections) but I don't know if it's "doesn't emit" or just "doesn't interact"...
- c10ned 2y ago
  I’m the author. Let me clarify, as that was indeed worded rather vaguely in my post—I forgot to mention why exactly Android is at risk. On the Pixel 7, Airplane mode absolutely did not disable those frequency spikes upon screen unlock. Only disabling NFC through the dedicated setting in the phone’s parameters did (Settings > Connected devices > Connection Preferences > NFC). This theoretically puts Android users at greater risk, since on iOS, Airplane mode does disable those polling signals. It’s easy to see how an average user might assume they’ve gone completely dark by enabling Airplane mode on an Android device—when in fact, they haven’t. I’ll update the original post with this information, and thank you for pointing it out.
pajko 2y ago
If the transmission contains some identifying information and can be used for coarse triangulation to decide if a specific phone is in a specific building - well, that's pretty bad. Can be harmful even without identifying information in situations where it's enough to decide if some building is occupied or not.

ghostly_s 2y ago

They mention android for this risk factor specifically-does android not have an "airplane mode" equivalent? I would assume it disables NFC also on iOS, but I guess I don't know —no mention of NFC on Apple's support page.

schaum 2y ago
Andoird has an airplane mode Once enabled airplane mode you can enable Bluetooth again and airplane mode stays on,so just no mobile data an.same is true for WiFi. NFC however isn't touched by the airplane mode ...At least it was like that on the android phones I owned
- eichin 2y ago
  Samsung Note (9 and 24 at least) has an "NFC and contactless payments" toggle (and a UWB one) on the page with wifi and bluetooth (Settings → Connections) but I don't know if it's "doesn't emit" or just "doesn't interact"...
c10ned 2y ago
I’m the author. Let me clarify, as that was indeed worded rather vaguely in my post—I forgot to mention why exactly Android is at risk. On the Pixel 7, Airplane mode absolutely did not disable those frequency spikes upon screen unlock. Only disabling NFC through the dedicated setting in the phone’s parameters did (Settings > Connected devices > Connection Preferences > NFC). This theoretically puts Android users at greater risk, since on iOS, Airplane mode does disable those polling signals. It’s easy to see how an average user might assume they’ve gone completely dark by enabling Airplane mode on an Android device—when in fact, they haven’t. I’ll update the original post with this information, and thank you for pointing it out.

pajko 2y ago

If the transmission contains some identifying information and can be used for coarse triangulation to decide if a specific phone is in a specific building - well, that's pretty bad. Can be harmful even without identifying information in situations where it's enough to decide if some building is occupied or not.