Keep Your Gadgets Private With OFF Pocket

Remember the spy-drone blocking stealth hoodie? well, the creators of that piece of kit are back with a similar line of privacy enabled tech, in the form of the OFF Pocket.  It is the latest privacy accessory, sporting a water-resistant metal-fabric pouch which is designed to hold a smartphone and block all wireless signals including cellular, Wi-Fi and GPS  so you are no longer carrying a personal location tracker in your back pocket.

The OFF Pocket Kickstarter project is timed impeccably, given the ongoing revelations about mass government surveillance programmes.  The OFF Pocket’s creators based in New York say the pouch beats other shielding alternatives, such as sticking your phone in the fridge (a trick used by Edward Snowden) or using a cocktail shaker for another purpose other than to make your martinis.

The product has a shielding score of over 100 db working on frequencies between 800MHz and 2.4GHz. It is also a better option than just turning a phone off which, believe it or not, may not block all signals.  Also, not all models of phone let you remove the battery to kill your way of being traced entirely; add to that, turning a phone off and removing its battery takes time versus quickly slipping the device into a fabric case!

This version of the OFF Pocket is actually the second-generation prototype; the earlier model was sold out after its debut back in January. The creators have since been spending their time crafting design improvements and working on additional field testing. They are now seeking a crowd funding amount of $35,000 to get the second-generation accessory to the market and they have raised just over a third of that with only a couple of weeks left to run on the campaign. The price for each pocket is approximately $85(as all the $75 early bird pledges have already gone). The first batch of OFF Pockets are due for shipping to  backers at the end of September 2013.

The field of privacy accessories being designed to counteract increasingly overreaching technology powered surveillance, includes the facial recognition stopping glasses and the stealth hoodie, mentioned at the start of this article, which blocks thermal radiation scanners which are currently used by spy drones.

Doesn’t all this cat and mouse between the authorities and society feel a little bit like Big Brother in George Orwell’s classic book 1984?

[Image via Kickstarter]

SOURCE: http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/05/off-pocket/