Humans can be tracked with unique 'fingerprint' based on how their bodies block Wi-Fi signals
The Sapienza computer scientists say Wi-Fi signals offer superior surveillance potential compared to cameras because they're not affected by light conditions, can penetrate walls and other obstacles, and they're more privacy-preserving than visual images.[โฆ] The Rome-based researchers who proposed WhoFi claim their technique makes accurate matches on the public NTU-Fi dataset up to 95.5 percent of the time when the deep neural network uses the transformer encoding architecture.
Humans can be tracked with unique 'fingerprint' based on how their bodies block Wi-Fi signals
: Wi-Fi spy with my little eye that same guy I saw at another hotspotThomas Claburn (The Register)
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besselj
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pelespirit
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hornedfiend
in reply to besselj • • •wouldnโt that make it worse? basically any signal can bounce off you, making yourself even easier to track.
edit: wording
besselj
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Flagstaff
in reply to besselj • • •DasFaultier
in reply to Flagstaff • • •Diplomjodler
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in reply to Flagstaff • • •MadMadBunny
in reply to Passerby6497 • • •kerntucky
in reply to MadMadBunny • • •Capricorn_Geriatric
in reply to hornedfiend • • •Since it 'figerprints' you, changing your fingerprint by blocking parts of the signal with pieces of foil doesn't seem like a terrible idea.
Now, the question is: is such a tactic like wearing gloves, or like using super glue?
hisao
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in reply to jmill • • •This is fine๐ฅ๐ถโ๐ฅ
in reply to pdxfed • • •setVeryLoud(true);
in reply to This is fine๐ฅ๐ถโ๐ฅ • • •hakunawazo
in reply to This is fine๐ฅ๐ถโ๐ฅ • • •FiddlersViridian
in reply to hakunawazo • • •๐ Here is an award for the best comment in the thread.
This may be the largest gap between the quality of an actors performance vs the movie it's in.
Truly an abysmal movie, but Rahul Julia is so much fun to watch in it.
kazerniel
in reply to hakunawazo • • •๐ฆ๐บ๐๐ฆ๐๐ฅ๐๐๐๐ฃ๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐
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in reply to hisao • • •- YouTube
www.youtube.comDiplomjodler
in reply to hisao • • •TonyTonyChopper
in reply to Diplomjodler • • •artyom
in reply to bignose • • •hhhhwat. How can they identify you and also be privacy preserving? ๐ค
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sorter_plainview
in reply to artyom • • •artyom
in reply to sorter_plainview • • •realitista
in reply to artyom • • •artyom
in reply to realitista • • •realitista
in reply to artyom • • •Well they can identify you are the same person but not your identity.. So it's like a disenbodied fingerprint.
I suppose they could potentially make some database and train an AI on it someday to match to actual identities, but usefulness would be pretty limited at only 95% accuracy. That's a false reading 1/20 times, so I suspect it would fail bigly to accurately recognize people from large data sets.
Warehouse
in reply to realitista • • •And when has something like that ever stopped anyone?
realitista
in reply to Warehouse • • •Vinstaal0
in reply to artyom • • •They know you are a person and they can call your a certain UUID, but there will be a hard time matching you to your name etc.
Camera's can do face recognition (if your face is even in the database) to know who you are.
This only works until the point where they have your form in a database which they can check...
artyom
in reply to Vinstaal0 • • •Vinstaal0
in reply to artyom • • •Never said that it wasnโt easy, itโs just harder than with facial recognition.
In theory you could do it correctly in a way that it isnโt indentifiable.
Also this works in places where faces are protected
Diplomjodler
in reply to artyom • • •Empricorn
in reply to artyom • • •LillyPip
in reply to bignose • • •Neat. Good luck protecting yourself from this.
On the other hand, Iโm seriously considering opening an Etsy shop selling foil-lined clothes. Iโm pretty good at sewing. What do you think?
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in reply to LillyPip • • •LillyPip
in reply to MysteriousSophon21 • • •I feel like youโre overthinking this. There are people who buy crystal-infused drinking cups to reset their personal feng shui. (Spoiler: itโs just glitter.)
I really wish I didnโt have morals. Itโs so easy to make money if youโre willing to fleece people.
e: autocorrect
BananaOnionJuice
in reply to LillyPip • • •boonhet
in reply to LillyPip • • •ayyy
in reply to LillyPip • • •License Plate
xkcdThis is fine๐ฅ๐ถโ๐ฅ
in reply to bignose • • •Chuck vindicated. What a chicanery.
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in reply to This is fine๐ฅ๐ถโ๐ฅ • • •TonyTonyChopper
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Telorand
in reply to PattyMcB • • •WizardofFrobozz
in reply to Telorand • • •unmagical
in reply to bignose • • •I'm generally pro research, but occasionally I come across a body of research and wish I could just shut down what they're doing and rewind the clock to before that started.
There is no benefit of this for the common person. There is no end user need or product for being able to identify individuals based on their interactions with WiFi signals. The only people that benefit from this are large corporations and governments and that's from them turning it on you.
Continued research will ease widespread surveillance and mass tracking. That's not a good thing.
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realitista
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Vinstaal0
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unmagical
in reply to Vinstaal0 • • •If all you need is presence detection then a motion sensor would be vastly more efficient.
If you actually need identity detection, then maybe, but you'll still have to have a camera or detailed access logs to associate the interference signature with a known entity and at that point you may as well just put an RFID reader under the bowl you throw your keys into or use facial or gait detection.
Vinstaal0
in reply to unmagical • • •Jarix
in reply to unmagical • • •unmagical
in reply to Jarix • • •Probably not.
This kind of thing relies on the fact that the emitter and environments are static, impacting the propagation of the signals in a predictable way and that each person, having a unique physique, consistently interferes with that propagation in the same way. It's a tool that reports "the interference in this room looks like the same interference observed in these past cases."
Search and rescue is a very dynamic environment, with no opportunity to establish a local baseline, and with a high likelihood that the physiological signal you are looking for has been altered (such as by broken or severed limbs).
There are some other WiFi sniffing technologies that might be more useful for S&R such as movement detection, but I'm not sure if that will work as well when the broadcaster is outside the environment (as the more rubble between the emitter and the target the weaker your signal from reflections against the rubble).
Don't think of this as being able to see through walls like with a futuristic camera, think of this as AI assisted anomaly detection in signal processing (which is exactly what the researchers are doing).
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nooneescapesthelaw
in reply to unmagical • • •FINDER Finds Its Way into Rescuersโ Toolkits | NASA Spinoff
spinoff.nasa.govunmagical
in reply to nooneescapesthelaw • • •Microwave based ground penetrating radar is actually different from WiFi. Also the technology referenced in the link is a motion based body locator, not an identity recognition device.
This is different technology doing different things than what the original article was talking about.
Revan343
in reply to Jarix • • •Jarix
in reply to Revan343 • • •I mean I don't understand this as a lay person, so if it doesn't work then fair enough, but if wifi signals can identify human beings, and pets, when a building collapses better than other methods, or even augment the capabilities already used, then at least there is some benefit from this technique. It's not going to disappear, Genie is out of the bottle now, so why not at least put it to a good use instead of keeping it only being abused by the billionaires and other evil entities.
It's too late now to stop that and I hate that they can do this.
Please don't mistake me trying to find a silver lining as anything other than trying to find a reason that this isn't just another way we are fucked but the science is what it is so out it to better use. It's an interesting capability regardless of how it can be abused, and since we aren't going to stop using the technology we should really understand exactly how this works by using it and making it was beneficial as possible.. Until we were ready to ban the tech, which I have no faith that we will ever.
A bespoke device made to do this, not just your wifi router at home, might as well study it for good praises, or we may if only be abused with little defence against our collective abusers
nooneescapesthelaw
in reply to Jarix • • •You are correct because something similar has already been used
spinoff.nasa.gov/FINDER-Finds-โฆ
Microwaves are the same as wifi waves, these are able to detect bodies and whether the bodies are beating or not
FINDER Finds Its Way into Rescuersโ Toolkits | NASA Spinoff
spinoff.nasa.govunmagical
in reply to nooneescapesthelaw • • •WiFi uses a subset of the significantly wider microwave band. Ground Penetrating Radar also uses a subset of the microwave band. While there can be some overlap, the frequencies desired for GPR will very broadly based on what you are looking for, what you are looking in, and how deep you are looking for that thing. The wattage supplied can also differ.
WiFi and Microwaves in general are most definitely not the same thing and I will absolutely encourage you to not set up a 1kW 3GHz jamming antenna for your WiFi needs.
Could you use WiFi for search and rescue? Maybe for a narrow set of circumstances, but in almost all situations a dedicated GPR option will be better.
This also won't identify a victim, only revealing that one exists.
Revan343
in reply to unmagical • • •Cat tracker
unmagical
in reply to Revan343 • • •Revan343
in reply to unmagical • • •muusemuuse
in reply to Revan343 • • •pulsewidth
in reply to unmagical • • •First - someone comes up with this. Next, privacy researchers and black/white/grey hat techies come up with methods to defeat it.
Better for surveillance tech research like this to be published out in the open than developed in some secret lab. I figure these researchers are doing more positive than negative by publishing their findings. It's not like if they didn't publish, someone else wouldn't come up with this and possibly use it clandestinely.
Seleni
in reply to bignose • • •Oh fuck all the way off.
iglou
in reply to Seleni • • •D_C
in reply to Seleni • • •Christ, 1% is included in that "up to 95.5%" vague bullshit statement.
novus_dervish
in reply to D_C • • •I believe the reason they had to say "up to" is because the "signatute" will vary day to day ever so slightly (natural weight fluctuation), and if you gain or lose weight it can change dramatically, so the AI would have to constantly consider that and adjust it's records.
Honestly, unpopular opinion, but as long as it isn't very short wavelength RF and they allow for self-hosted/open-source alternatives, I do find it a bit more privacy respecting than cameras, of course they have to say they are using the technology in public places.
It also has it's ways of fooling it, instead of wearing a wig and a false nose, you could wear a carbon-infused silicone fat suit to change the way you interact with RF.
toynbee
in reply to D_C • • •I hate it when commercials say "up to 100%." It's literally a pointless metric; that could mean anything from 0% to 100%, inclusive.
edit: Closed quote.
Smoogs
in reply to Seleni • • •no banana
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i_dont_want_to
in reply to Diplomjodler • • •SGG
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muusemuuse
in reply to INHALE_VEGETABLES • • •Valmond
in reply to bignose • • •ParadoxSeahorse
in reply to bignose • • •IndustryStandard
in reply to ParadoxSeahorse • • •Sabata
in reply to bignose • • •ayane_m
in reply to Sabata • • •Vanilla_PuddinFudge
in reply to bignose • • •hodgepodgin
in reply to Vanilla_PuddinFudge • • •Sorry dude I forgot to add your bio signature to my WiFi router.
Vanilla_PuddinFudge
in reply to hodgepodgin • • •Glitterbomb
in reply to bignose • • •This shits already used by xfinity
xfinity.com/hub/smart-home/wifโฆ
WiFi Motion: Detect Movement In Your Home
www.xfinity.comEvotech
in reply to Glitterbomb • • •GrantUsEyes
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hakunawazo
in reply to GrantUsEyes • • •- YouTube
www.youtube.comileftreddit
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gcheliotis
in reply to ileftreddit • • •sugar_in_your_tea
in reply to gcheliotis • • •turtlesareneat
in reply to sugar_in_your_tea • • •Once you start playing with radiowaves and antenna you start noticing the intricate ways it plays with and around bags of water like bodies. I'm sure the original research on location/movement tracking was due to scientists trying not to get interference, later once they figured it out it was natural to see how much data they could get out of a radio interference profile.
I remember the original tech was going to be marketed as a way to tell if your old person (parent etc) had fallen down and stopped moving. Not the best use case, and then the privacy implications became clear. Once that happens the race begins to exploit the tech.
...But the eventuality here is something like a Star Trek tricorder that can take multiple vitals and detect irregularities from across the waiting room. Sensors that remember who was in a room and what settings they had. Etc. Some cool thing besides the bad stuff (microtarget those ads).
StenSaksTapir
in reply to ileftreddit • • •Echo Dot
in reply to StenSaksTapir • • •StenSaksTapir
in reply to Echo Dot • • •Cameras require light, while radio waves works almost as well in darkness.
A motion sensor is an extra device that needs to be connected, have power and so on.
There are already radio wave motion- and room occupancy sensors where you can specify zones and so on, but if I could have personalized on top of that I'd take it.
Finally, using a thing for something useful other than its intended purpose is kinda fun.
douglasg14b
in reply to ileftreddit • • •Everything is incremental progress in some way.
I remember years back someone doing experiments with Wi-Fi to see if a room was occupied based on signal attenuation.
This just looks like an extension of that.
Not everything is a giant leap
MouldyCat
in reply to ileftreddit • • •You think if people who publish their work publicly didn't research things like this, they would just never be discovered?
At least this way, we all know about the possibility, and further research can be done to see what can mitigate it.
whotookkarl
in reply to bignose • • •like this
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ILikeBoobies
in reply to bignose • • •IhaveCrabs111
in reply to ILikeBoobies • • •ILikeBoobies
in reply to IhaveCrabs111 • • •People willingly provide enough tracking of themselves already
While this could have military applications, the need to generate a profile of the person you want to track makes this less of a concern for your average โcarries a phone everywhereโ person
IhaveCrabs111
in reply to ILikeBoobies • • •Echo Dot
in reply to bignose • • •The resulting image must just basically look like a shadow, I can't imagine that they're going to get much internal detail with Wi-Fi considering that my router's signal practically gets blocked by a piece of cardboard.
This research essentially amounts to, humans can be individually identified with nothing more than low quality x-rays. Well yeah, so what, you can also use visible light and in any situation where you're going to use Wi-Fi to detect someone, it's got to be easier to buy a cheap CCTV camera.
douglasg14b
in reply to Echo Dot • • •voodooattack
in reply to Echo Dot • • •First of all: cardboard does NOT block electromagnetic waves. You need a Faraday Cage for that. And even then, it has to have holes of a certain size to block specific wavelengths/frequencies. Itโs why you have a mesh on the door of your microwave for example.
Secondly: theyโre not attempting to photograph you. Just identifying your unique signature once would allow them to track your location anywhere where they have the gear installed.
enclosure of conductive mesh used to block electric fields
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)leburb
in reply to voodooattack • • •EDIT: I suppose your comment is written in a way that it's not clear whether you're saying certain frequencies absolutely require meshes of a certain size to be blocked or if you're just adding that extra detail about the design of Faraday cages for the hell of it. But...
Original comment: It doesn't have to have holes to block radiation. A continuous sheet blocks all frequencies. A mesh is just nice so we can see through the cage or allow air to pass etc.
From the page you linked: "A Faraday shield may be formed by a continuous covering of conductive material." "... if the conductor is thick enough and any holes are significantly smaller than the wavelength of the radiation."
voodooattack
in reply to leburb • • •jj4211
in reply to Echo Dot • • •They explicitly went into the advantages over cameras:
- Any light condition (of course IR lighting with IR cameras are the gold standard so this can argueably be met otherwise)
- The ability to cover multiple rooms through walls with a device. A sub-10 GHz signal can penetrate most interior walls. People could be tracked without even being able to see a camera and by extension not knowing where to mess with to defeat surveillance.
So perhaps a building takes a picture of everyone as they come in the front door and also establishes a 'WhoFi' profile for that person. They could keep track of their movement through the building while maintaining an actionable correlation to a photo.
Goretantath
in reply to Echo Dot • • •voodooattack
in reply to bignose • • •Baleine
in reply to voodooattack • • •2910000
in reply to Baleine • • •GreenKnight23
in reply to 2910000 • • •you might be onto something.
take a mylar square and place it somewhere random on your body every day.
Pulptastic
in reply to GreenKnight23 • • •Krudler
in reply to GreenKnight23 • • •Eat a piece of spinach and increase the iron in your body.
This is all beyond stupid and hysterical.
GreenKnight23
in reply to Krudler • • •instructions unclear, I have glued spinach to my skin and the rabbits won't stop chasing me.
need further instruction.
Krudler
in reply to GreenKnight23 • • •Actually you've gone far enough to baffle the system.
I would say have fun frolicking with the rabbits?
chunes
in reply to bignose • • •nutsack
in reply to chunes • • •Evotech
in reply to nutsack • • •nutsack
in reply to bignose • • •Krudler
in reply to nutsack • • •youmaynotknow
in reply to bignose • • •panda_abyss
in reply to bignose • • •You know, this, and the using wifi to see through walls stuff to me just immediately seemed to fall into "don't research this, it can only be used for evil".
I don't get why we bother studying these types of things.
Phoenixz
in reply to panda_abyss • • •We study it because EVERYTHING can be used for good or evil.
If we'd stopped researching anything that could be used for evil we'd never have gotten into the stone age
jaemo
in reply to Phoenixz • • •Sundiata
in reply to bignose • • •And this here folks is the true ending.
No one there is going to stop it as always.
Congratulations! You are now fully fucked!
There is the draft dodger, he is located in building #52556 in this city, info updated 125 milliseconds ago. He left his phone at his house 5 states away, go get him.
Hikermick
in reply to bignose • • •2910000
in reply to Hikermick • • •๐ฐ ๐ ๐ฑ ๐ฆ ๐ณ ๐ฆ ๐ฐ ๐ฎ
in reply to Hikermick • • •axEl7fB5
in reply to bignose • • •dtrain
in reply to axEl7fB5 • • •Doesnโt help.
HertzDentalBar
in reply to bignose • • •