When Edward Snowden received visitors in Hong Kong, he reportedly insisted they keep their phones inside a refrigerator.
Guardian journalist Luke Harding, who reported on the Snowden files, has also spoken of keeping his phone in a cocktail shaker to keep it safe from snooping.
The common thread here is Faraday cages. Surround your device with metal and all electromagnetic waves will be blocked. That's also the premise behind the CHBL Jammer Coat, described as a "piece of clothing that enables it user to disappear."
The coat, from Austrian architectural design firm Coop Himmelb(l)au, is made from metallised fabrics and has pockets for multiple handsets and a tablet. "It is not about hiding, but an individual decision about ones visibility in an environment where the controlling mechanisms are increasing," explains Coop Himmelb(l)au CEO and Design Principal Wolf D. Prix in an email to Wired.co.uk
Previous designs for anonymising clothing, such as Adam Harvey's 'anti-drone' stealth wear, had an explicitly political aesthetic, drawing on the form of the hijab for example.
Created for the Abiti da lavoro "Work Clothes" exhibition at Milan's Triennale museum, the CHBL Jammer Coat is less overt and seeks to disguise the wearer's body shape by creating an "illusion of strange multiple body parts, which hides and frees the individual physicality". "Sometimes in our controlled society, disappearing can be liberating," says Prix.
It also looks very much like a big warm duvet. Which might just be perfect for when you want to wrap up in bed and avoid having any contact, electronic or otherwise, with other human beings.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
