Well after the MIL coming in the office all excited because her son called from Texas extolling the dangers of the hidden spy chip in the Samsung phones, I had to research it as it is also making it’s rounds on FB.
It seems some Pakistani guy made a video of a secret chip hidden in the wrapper of the battery of Samsung smart phones. Let’s put this one to rest.
- There is an antenna sealed in the battery wrapper on some Samsung phones that connects to a small chip on the batteries. THIS IS THE NFC (Near Field Communications) ANTENNA. Removing the wrapper and the antenna and chip will disable a useful feature of your phone!
- Samsung is to actually be commended for still producing phones with a removable battery that you can replace or carry an extra one for emergencies.
The antenna is hidden within the wrapper to
- Protect it,
- Make sure that you purchase an original Samsung battery for replacement to maintain your NFC capabilities because cheaper knock-off batteries probably won’t contain the antenna as an added cost. Just like Knock-off batteries for the older Droid phones don’t contain a “sensor” chip for battery level and gives a “?” error in the battery level.
It’s kind of comical in a way. Not since the guy that made a joke about removing the AOL.exe file from your computer would increase your IQ by 50 points has there been another thing like this to cause people to damage their own property. Of course I expected this from my BIL and SIL, after all she is the one that forwarded the “Send this email to 10 friends and Verizon will give you $25 off your next bill”. She fell for it hook line and sinker and I got an email from her and BIL. 
So please don’t fall for the reports circulating.