Nördnytt! 🤓WiFi Could Become an Invisible Mass Surveillance System
- sponaugle - 24026 sekunder sedanThis is a VERY controlled environment - and they used 20 passes of each person walking with direct knowledge of each person to train for identity. They did no tests with multiple people walking at the same time, or with any other external moving distortion effects (doors opening, etc) . This is very far from actual 'identification' of people in real public settings - and no doubt the cell phone everyone is carrying with them offers many orders of magnitude better opportunity. In a real crowded environment this would be nearly worthless.
The devices that reported BFI information were also stationary, and there were no extra devices transmitting information that would be conflicting.
A single camera would be much more effective.
- alexpotato - 24202 sekunder sedanNot sure how many people are aware that the newer Alexa devices have "presence detection" that uses ultrasound so they can detect when people are nearby. [0]
Heck, even Ecobee remote temperature sensors can do this.
Reminds me of the story about how the Google Nest smoke detector had a microphone in it. [1]
0 - https://www.amazon.com/b?node=23435461011&tag=googhydr-20&hv...
1- https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/asmusq/google_says...
- palmotea - 25981 sekunder sedan> The method takes advantage of normal network communication between connected devices and the router. These devices regularly send feedback signals within the network, known as beamforming feedback information (BFI), which are transmitted without encryption and can be read by anyone within range.
> By collecting this data, images of people can be generated from multiple perspectives, allowing individuals to be identified. Once the machine learning model has been trained, the identification process takes only a few seconds.
> In a study with 197 participants, the team could infer the identity of persons with almost 100% accuracy – independently of the perspective or their gait.
So what's the resolution of these images, and what's visible/invisible to them? Does it pick up your clothes? Your flesh? Or mosty your bones?
- barrystaes - 21483 sekunder sedanAndroid devices already know exactly where they are even with GPS disabled, because they sniff the nearby WIFI networks and then ask Google where they are. QED Google knows already, all combined is mass metadata surveillance already provided to those that tap into it.
Any sub-meter precision or presence detection does not really matter, if these companies have all your other questions, queries, messages, calendars, browse history, app usage, and streaming behaviour as well.
- palata - 3730 sekunder sedanThis "could become" sounds exactly like when you look at a cool robotics project, and when you ask the researcher what it could be used for, they say "it could be used for search & rescue after a natural disaster".
The truth is that it's cool research that currently has zero use-case. But a) journalists would not write about that and b) researchers may try to use examples to explain what their research does. Probably researchers are tempted to find a cool use-case of course, because it's better for them if journalists write about their research.
This sounds like cool research that is not remotely close to becoming an invisible mass surveillance system.
- srcreigh - 24400 sekunder sedanVarious cheating to get their conclusions (from the paper):
> To allow for an unobstructed gait recording, participants were instructed not to wear any baggy clothes, skirts, dresses or heeled shoes.
> Due to technical unreliabiltities, not all recordings resulted in usable data. For our experiments, we use 170 and 161 participants for CSI and BFI, respectively. [out of 197]
I wish they had explained what the technical unreliabilities were.
- Legend2440 - 1411 sekunder sedanI'm skeptical; this seems like a pretty crappy way to do surveillance. Cameras give you much more information.
- bagels - 2973 sekunder sedanWiFi is already part of invisible mass surveillance systems, though not in the way described in the article. It's part of how cell phones fix location, based on nearby wifi endpoints, which is then sent to google, apple, every app, every advertiser, etc.
- prepend - 1621 sekunder sedanI remember reading about this in a Cory Doctorow novel decades ago, Eastern Standard Tribe, I think.
- jbotz - 25014 sekunder sedan
- chasd00 - 17617 sekunder sedanFunny how mass surveillance concerns are popping up here and there these days. That boat sailed 20 years ago.
- Bender - 13121 sekunder sedanWiFi Could Become an Invisible Mass Surveillance System
Highly unlikely and would be a waste of effort and resources. In the real world we are already well surveilled by cameras, microphones, satellites, cell phones, televisions, modern vehicles with a large number of cameras, web enabled doorbell cameras, refrigerators, AirTags, robot vacuum cleaners that map our home and monitor us, anything bluetooth enabled and that is even before actual spy devices like laser microphones that can turn most windows into a giant microphone.
All of these methods are far more attainable without trying to recreate microwave imaging that has been used by the feds for ages and the feds use a handheld device vs. this complex lab setup and this is even before we talk about advanced high resolution milspec FLIR which some companies have managed to get into serious trouble for selling to sanctioned countries for ITAR violations.
- diggyhole - 5610 sekunder sedanYou're carrying a mass surveillance system in your pants pocket
- rubatuga - 17917 sekunder sedanI was really impressed that a ESP32 Antenna Array Can essentially make a WiFi camera - it uses both time and phase differences to localize based on MAC addresses (which are sent plaintext) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXwDrcd1t-E
- puppycodes - 17860 sekunder sedanThere are much better invisible mass surveillance devices like the one you carry around in your pocket every day.
- blacksmith_tb - 19721 sekunder sedanYou can do it to yourself[1], I am using Tommy for presence detection in Home Assistant, works great (my house is small, so two ESP32s works fine, I am sure having 3-4 would let it see my cat breathing).
- transpute - 14817 sekunder sedanWiFi Sensing is part of Wi-Fi 7 and present in most recent laptops and smartphones. Local NPU machine learning can be combined with WiFI radar. Malware can attack phone and radio basebands and exploit this capability. It can uniquely fingerprint human biometrics, measure breathing rate, record keystrokes and more. Thousands of academic papers have been published in the last 15 years on "device free wireless sensing", before the capability was ratified by IEEE as 802.11bf. It's being rolled out commercially. Mitigations include drywall or insulation with a layer of RF shielding.
"Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion", 500 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44426726#44427986
"Wi-fi signal tracks heartbeat without wearables", 80 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45488908
2022 laptop demo of respiration sensing, https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/research/respiration... | https://community.intel.com/t5/Blogs/Tech-Innovation/Client/...
2025 biometric signature, https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/22/whofi_wifi_identifier...
> Researchers.. developed.. a biometric identifier for people based on the way the human body interferes with Wi-Fi signal propagation.. CSI in the context of Wi-Fi devices refers to information about the amplitude and phase of electromagnetic transmissions.. interact with the human body in a way that results in person-specific distortions.. processed by a deep neural network, the result is a unique data signature.. [for] signal-based Re-ID systems
- glitchc - 15347 sekunder sedanCaveat: Indoors. However, since indoors is typically a private space, the degree of surveillance depends on the owner of the space. Civilians can only compel government agencies to make sure that government buildings do not enable tracking. We won't be able to stop Walmart, they can always play the security card which trumps privacy every time.
- j3th9n - 1692 sekunder sedanWho cares, we have nothing to hide.
- thedangler - 17856 sekunder sedanHow good is ethernet over electrical sockets these days. I had one about 15 years ago maybe, but it wasn't that good.
Has tech changed. I'd use it over my wifi setup if its was fast.
- dpc050505 - 19867 sekunder sedanCameras just use light waves and are already a mass surveillance system.
- boring-human - 25673 sekunder sedanCould this be countered by wearing wire-mesh patch clothing, perhaps in randomized stylish arrangements?
- ibejoeb - 21769 sekunder sedanReminds me of the xfinity in-home wifi motion detection, discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44426726
- elias_t - 24609 sekunder sedan> In a study with 197 participants, the team could infer the identity of persons with almost 100% accuracy
That a super impressive! I wonder how that would be at scale, with a few millions people. I’m don’t think that would remain as accurate
- gnarlouse - 20028 sekunder sedanSo, should I start walking around with a jammer or something?
- TimTheTinker - 22382 sekunder sedanI don't see how this is categorically any different from hidden networked cameras. Perhaps that's the real issue we should be focusing on in terms of privacy and mass surveillance.
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- misiek08 - 21841 sekunder sedanScary title, 3 month late into the party… really we don’t deserve better articles with non-dramatic content, much faster?
- ddtaylor - 11036 sekunder sedanXfinity does it or at least say they do.
- an-allen - 6919 sekunder sedanCould? Is mate. Is.
- cauenapier - 24076 sekunder sedanPerhaps we should ask be using aluminium foil hat now
- toss1 - 11764 sekunder sedan"As radio waves move through a space and interact with people, they create distinctive patterns that can be captured and analyzed. These patterns are comparable to images produced by cameras, but they are formed using radio signals rather than light. "
The concept sounds not unlike like the multispectral imaging produced by Geordi's visor in TNG.
Seems conceptually possible, but likely too much computing power and observing time (to build up and learn each individual's pattern in that part of the RF band), at least in current times.
I'm sure it could be developed to work in the field, but what is the use case where it pays off to make the silly-money investment to make it happen? Especially so when it's far easier to simply notice pings and get better data when approximately everyone always carries their mobile phone.
- bitbytebane - 23048 sekunder sedanLOL @ "Could"
Nothing says "out of touch with reality" like 'murcan media.
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- kittikitti - 19077 sekunder sedanBeamforming information is utilized for creating this surveillance. There are also a lack of configurations in common routers to turn off BFI. The BFI information is available to any WiFi snooping and can easily be used to detect presence. You just need to read the BFI data (its plaintext) and if it changes, you can track wherever the smartphone the beam is now pointing towards. Detecting exactly who is another feature but in general, WiFi technologies are insecure and easily available as surveillance devices.
- bethekidyouwant - 21763 sekunder sedanI’m not understanding this. You still have to deploy a piece of hardware to read the Wi-Fi waves. Why wouldn’t you just deploy some other piece of hardware that’s better at surveilling the surroundings? Also, if the Wi-Fi device is in the area are not busy now your camera is off that doesn’t seem good. Also, I imagine you have to tune it for every environment, geometry that doesn’t sound easy. And then after all that work, I move my Wi-Fi router 4 inches to the left.
- bethekidyouwant - 21775 sekunder sedanI’m not understanding this. You still have to deploy a piece of hardware to read the Wi-Fi waves. Why wouldn’t you just deploy some other piece of hardware that’s better at surveilling the surroundings? Also, if the Wi-Fi device is in the area are not busy now your camera is off that doesn’t seem good. Also, I imagine you have to tune it for every environment, geometry that doesn’t sound easy.
- bethekidyouwant - 21848 sekunder sedanI’m not understanding this. You still have to deploy a piece of hardware to read the Wi-Fi waves. Why wouldn’t you just deploy some other piece of hardware that’s better at surveilling the surroundings? Also, if the Wi-Fi device is in the area are not busy now your camera is off that doesn’t seem good
- bethekidyouwant - 22030 sekunder sedanI’m not understanding this. You still have to deploy a piece of hardware to read the Wi-Fi waves. Why wouldn’t you just deploy some other piece of hardware that’s better at surveilling the surroundings?
- josefritzishere - 22571 sekunder sedanThere is no could. This is a turnkey function for any modern managed wifi system right now.
- firecall - 418370 sekunder sedanThis reads like proper science fiction tech!
- october8140 - 25679 sekunder sedanCan we make WiFi 2 that doesn’t let people do this?
- khana - 7552 sekunder sedan[dead]
- AndrewKemendo - 25276 sekunder sedan“Could become”
Already is and widely used for exactly what the article worries about
- mgh2 - 409894 sekunder sedanNot surprised, related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46920315