Recently there have been a number of videos and images shared on Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube and other social media channels, claiming that Samsung Mobile has implanted a suspicious looking chip. These chips can apparently hack, steal or spy on personal information and artefacts stored on your mobile such as photos, contact details, messages and other data.
Does Samsung Hack your Personal information from the Chip planted on the Battery ?
In actual fact, this is yet another fake rumour started by some smart asses and shared on social media in an attempt to get attention. Others have jumped on the bandwagon and the story has kind of snowballed from there. Despite being completely false, many people have been fooled into thinking this story is genuine.
Check this video for example.
What is that weird chip-like thing stuck on the back of your phone’s battery?
It was a total fake story, the SIM Card behind your Samsung Battery was not a SIM Card, it is just a NFC Chip. It does not steal your Data.
What is NFC?
NFC, or Near Field Communication, is essentially just another transceiver inside your phone or tablet. NFC can let you share information between phones, read information from a sticker or sign, or even buy goods and services as easily as you would do with a credit card.
What differentiates NFC from your Bluetooth, WiFi, or cellular radio is primarily the distance it can cover, and the power it requires to run. NFC runs on a ridiculously little amount of power, but requires a fairly large antenna to work. That’s where your battery comes in to play.
How does NFC work?
The tech involved is deceptively simple. Evolved from Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, an NFC chip operates as one part of a wireless link. Once it’s activated by another chip, small amounts of data between the two devices can be transferred when held a few centimeters from each other.
No pairing code is necessary to link up and because it uses chips that run on very low amounts of power (or passively, using even less), it’s much more power-efficient than other wireless communication types.
At its core, NFC works to identify us by our enabled cards and devices (and by extension, our bank accounts and other personal info).
Why NFC in Your Battery?
Your battery has a large surface area which some manufacturers have decided is a good place to put an NFC antenna. Notice I said this was just the antenna, not the chip. The chip itself is integrated into your phone. Yes, you can safely replace or upgrade your battery — as long as it’s made for your phone, and includes the necessary NFC innards.
So please do not believe or share things without doing some research first. It could be that you are wrong, and will be responsible for spreading unwanted fear among your friends, while looking a fool to others.
Would Samsung Spy on you?
Why would Samsung need spy on your personal information from another SIM or a Chip? You already gave all your data to them the moment you registered your Samsung Galaxy S3, or whatever device you own.
Your photos are synced on the cloud, your contact details are saved on their servers, if they want to spy on you they don’t need to embed a new chip on the batteries, they could have already implanted inside the motherboard itself.
For more details, check out the video.
How to identify a genuine Samsung battery:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ97w9fCL1I
