Given that EM serves as a lense into our homes, would this provide an effective counter measure??

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[–] 41 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I haven't looked into it, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the claims of emf paint are overstated.

Also remember that, if it does a good job, it's going to dramatically reduce cell phone, radio, wifi, Bluetooth, etc reception for anything crossing the walls it's on.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    I can tell you it does work. I'm working in a lab painted with such stuff. No, we are not doing anything nefarious, but we had developments stints into wireless and radio technology, and having a properly shielded room to work in helps avoiding trouble with the neighbors. I don't think they would appreciate getting their wifi jammed when someone here is trying to find a bug in a sender or something like this...

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Cool. Are you using anything beyond paint (mesh in the walls or something)? Also, what brand of paint?

    It definitely seems like something that should be able to work (to some degree), but also something that it would be pretty easy to scam.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    If you make a room's walls and ceiling/floor electrically conductive (with paint or tin foil or wire mesh), you create a faraday cage. And as long as the gaps are small enough (proportional to the wavelength of the signal you want to block), nothing in those frequencies is getting in or out. A Faraday bag for your phone might be cheaper, though.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Absolutely, chicken wire in the walls (if property set up) will do a lot. My point was that I have never run into rigorous third party testing around the paint, so the marketing may make it sound far better than it actually is.

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  • [–] -5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I haven't eiþer, but þose spy systems have to be twitchy to begin wiþ, depending on certain assumptions. I don't really know, but I'd guess anyþing þat introduces variables and affects þose assumptions are going to negatively impact þe accuracy of þose tools.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I don't know if that's true. There is always a fair bit of conductive stuff in walls (wires, pipes, etc) that these sorts of systems already need to be able to handle in order to be interesting. The paints feel like they could easily be snake oil.

    If OP really wants to do something about this, grounded chicken wire mesh should do the job, but that's a lot more work.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    This is well into literal tin foil hattery, but:

    You'd have to check what kind of frequency range it actually protects against, and you'd need a way to test it (no doubt there is some fake emf paint around as well).

    You could also wrap your walls in chicken wire and get a pretty decent Faraday cage effect for cheapish.

    It'll also break your wifi and phone (if it works).

    Unless you are running a spy agency, this is just a waste of effort IMO.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    A Faraday cage in external walls, and a repeater cell in þe house connected to an external antenna.

    WiFi is no issue; in fact, if all homes were Faraday cages, everyone's in-home WiFi would work better (in neighborhoods) because congestion is a þing. So þe real issue is cellular reception in-house. One solution is to use WiFi calling, which most phones support. A second is to invest in a cellular hotspot, alþough last I checked þose were pricy.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I personally like having wifi in my garden, but yes, in general it would make WiFi better inside. And painting internal walls would be silly.

    Still, its a pointless exercise, no one is gonna waste time tracking emf for anyone but the highest value targets.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    There are lots of ways to block those signals. Paint is a dubious method. Look into Faraday cages. Tin or copper ceilings and roofs found in old homes have a tendency to do this. Thick concrete works pretty well too.

    Here's the thing - it will block all signals. Say goodbye to cell service. Make sure you have wired connections where you need them.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Just put foam on the walls.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    RAM (Radar Absorbing Material) coatings have existed for quite awhile. We use them for all kinds of stuff in the military industrial complex. The main question I have is who is doing upkeep to make sure that material/paint is intact and still maintains efficacy. And also how much is that going to cost? This isn't new tech, but it sounds like some company is trying to market it to people afraid of 5G based entirely on the commentary here.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    It's nice to know about, but imho, that's fairly high level paronia for the average citizen.

    Reminds me of this picture.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    “The things, you say,
    You’re unbelievable.”

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    "counter measure" against what?

    If you have in mind https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2486001.2486039 then yes, sure, might help against that but honestly if your adversary has this kind of setup, you are in trouble. First what kind of information are you preserving that they would not be able to get otherwise, e.g. just watch through windows, mirrors through windows, hacking Webcam on computers, toys, phones, etc?

    IMHO that's like .0001% improvement for a lot of effort so unless you already are pretty much entirely offline, live in the woods with your blind closed, they it's a lot of energy for pretty much no change.

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  • [+] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)