This could inspire some clothing designs that weave in rf blocking or distorting materials to wear in retail or work places.
The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)
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Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)
#32This could inspire some clothing designs that weave in rf blocking or distorting materials to wear in retail or work places.
That would be like hiding from cameras by wearing a bright orange reflective vest.
Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)
#33Who is actually asking for this? It can't be for consumers just wanting to use the internet right? I don't get it.
It's most probably meant for opportunistic sensing in industrial environments, where it might become quite useful. It's not something you're going to use at home.
Since this is passive sensing, an attacker outside your home can make use of the WiFi signals emitted from the router inside your home. Or they can broadcast their own signal.
Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)
#34I want my Wi-Fi to deliver me fast internet access, not track my position. Have a feeling this will be used for il-intent and monetized by future routers
+1
As many APs today are already cloud dependent I can totally see where all the sensed data will be stored and out of the owners control.
Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)
#35[deleted]
Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)
#36Is it just me, or does this seems like a really, really bad idea? The privacy implications here seem… disturbing.
Technology can't be stopped by individual engineers refusing to invent it, it can only be stopped by everyone agreeing on the ways it shouldn't be used. So it was for arson (fire), homicide (every weapon since the rock), and obscene material (all communications technology), and so must it be for privacy and the various techniques of monitoring us.
Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)
#37There seems to be a lot of FUD about this. Make no mistake, the malicious and privacy invasive applications are already being used; they just don't follow a IEEE spec and aren't associated with WiFi directly.
If a maliciously controlled router wants to track you it already can because your phone, smart watch, and laptop already broadcast themselves.
This technology may not seem useful to the purpose of WiFi on it's face but that couldn't be further from the truth. Knowing the population of a room in terms of devices but also people is useful for WiFi deployment planning and power level optimization. 2000 people with 2 devices is different from 4000 individual people.
People already have WiFi enabled lights and other sensors so providing a standard for object & people detection will make those use cases even better.
Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)
#38Cisco has been doing something like this with Angle of Arrival with a 16 antenna array for the past few years. It’s pretty cool but only works in perfect setups, and the antennas need to be mounted above you.
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/te...
Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)
#39Nice...
SWAT teams, home burglars and the NSA will all be clients for the data.
Once the granularity gets fine enough, movements involved in prayers, sex and elimination of waste can all be monitored remotely by state actors.
Malware from around the world will now be able to transmit details of your body movements back to their controllers.
Imagine being able to blackmail you because malware detected you having sex when your partner was away or performing Muslim prayers in an islamophobic society.
Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)
#40I'm surprised that there's not a single comment here about 802.11ay which is also 60GHz. Each channel on that standard can do something like 40Gbps, which is nuts. From Wikipedia[0]:
> The link-rate per stream is 44 Gbit/s, with four streams this goes up to 176 Gbit/s.
Yes, it can't penetrate walls, but is huge for point to point communication. Think VR headset bandwidth, file transfers between devices, wireless backhaul between buildings. It's not just for spying on your cat.
I think it's important to remember that it's not magic, it's just radio waves. You can "sense" with a lot more resolution if you use a camera and light bulb. There are plenty of eyeballs, cameras, and lights all around you right now. Even worse, someone could be looking in your window with binoculars.