On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study

http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/index.html

by rms • 17 years ago

72 14 17 years ago

people.csail.mit.edu

taitems• 17 years ago

Excuse us non-technical foreign people, but this says that wearing tin foil hats actually amplifies radio signals instead of blocking them? And paranoid people wear them under the false impression it will block government radio signals?

makmanalp• 17 years ago

This "study" is obviously disinformation spread by the government... :)

dave_au• 17 years ago

Aaaargh - I don't want to give away the punchline but I also don't like the idea of some people becoming horribly confused.

If only HN has spoiler tags...

sp332• 17 years ago

http://www.rot13.com/

m_eiman2• 17 years ago

Hang on, an amplification of 30dB at 2.6GHz? Sounds like someone needs to check if a tinfoil hat can be used to improve Wifi reception! Is it close enough to 2.4GHz to be of any use?

olliesaunders• 17 years ago

Yes it can, that's been done.

m_eiman2• 17 years ago

Cool. Does it work for both receiving and transmitting? If it does, there should be a business opportunity in tinfoil hats for laptops.

dbz• 17 years ago

On my wireless thingy- it has two antennae. I made two tinfoil "dishes" around them. The antenna are always at the focal point so they can receive signals from farther away. It works- but if it is not at the focal point it might not work, so my suggestion is drawing the hyperbola first and then finding the focal point.

abrahamsen• 17 years ago

Already debunked: http://zapatopi.net/blog/?post=200511112730.afdb_effectivene...

onreact-com• 17 years ago

This is satire, isn't it?

jacquesm• 17 years ago

It is good to see that the MIT takes the interests of the truly paranoid so serious. What surprises me though about the whole affair is that the government allowed this information to be released.

In our circles the fallibility of the tinfoil hat is well known, which is why those are only used in emergencies (an emergency is a paranoid individual emerging from their den or dwelling).

Personally I prefer the 'whole cage' approach. This is a little more involved than the tin-foil hat, but well worth the investment imho.

To implement it simply coat every surface of your house with chicken wire, make sure to make solid interconnections (preferably soldered) every couple of inches where two sections meet, and do not forget the windows (you'll get used to it quickly enough).

I'm still a little worried about my internet connection being used to inject radiation into my carefully constructed cage of Faraday, so I've put all my computing gear behind grounded chicken wire as well.

The only things protruding are the mouse and the keyboard, since the installation of the cage I sleep much better, feel much better in general and my headaches are gone.

I can recommend it whole heartedly.

DanielBMarkham• 17 years ago

A fine copper mesh is much better.

I notice that the propeller-head tinfoil hat was not mentioned in the study -- obviously to lead us astray from its powerful abilities. Also the Cowboy model, which as I understand it prevents cows from interfering with your delicate private matters.

I know that only when I finally accepted the fact that aliens were talking to me from my microwave I was able to establish communication with their race and make all this progress. Who'd would have thought? An entire planet led by Orville Redenbacher.

I'm currently working on a SCIF for my X-box. Hope to have that finished by the time the invading spaceships arrive so I can fight them off with Halo, which is NOT a video game. It's actually a battle-control device that remotely controls events on their home planet.

</humor>

nico• 17 years ago

Hahahaahaha :D

azgolfer• 17 years ago

Next they should address the spider problem.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/meth_addicts_demand_gov...

On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study

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