Live data from Hacker News

New police radars can 'see' inside homes

usatoday.com

111–117 of 117 posts

Re: New police radars can 'see' inside homes

#111
post #13

As disturbing as the police use is, I am more disturbed by the possibility (inevitability?) of devices like these, and similar audio devices, becoming so cheap and readily available that even basic privacy from strangers while in your home becomes a thing of the past. It seems to me that before too long anyone could pick up audio and video devices for a couple hundred bucks that would allow them to see you in your ow…

New homes (at least where I live) all have TechShield (or similar) radiant barrier installed for energy efficiency. It's basically siding or insulation covered with a thin layer of foil. It's effective enough as a Faraday cage that some of my friends with new homes can't get a cell signal in their home. I wonder if this will be enough to thwart the casual eavesdropper.

TechShield appears to be installed on the framing of the roof.

This device is used on outside walls.

Re: New police radars can 'see' inside homes

#112
post #95
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Development? The technique has been well known for a long time, I remember hearing about it in the late 90s. It isn't widely used because it isn't practical. Also, your countermeasure doesn't work if there is another reflective surface inside the room.

> Development? The technique has been well known for a long time The difference is that these things used to be the domain of major government agencies rather than a hobbyist with a few hundred dollars and a poor sense of privacy.

In the 70s maybe, but in the late 90s? No, it has been a potential hobby project for a long time now.

Re: New police radars can 'see' inside homes

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that if the police require any equipment in addition to the normal range of human senses to detect evidence, the use of such equipment should be considered a search. Whether the feet physically move onto the property or not, the equipment is breaching a privacy barrier. If you confess to murder in your own home on an ultrasonic carrier wave, and the police happen to be outside on the sidewalk pointing a…

I would argue that if the police require any equipment in addition to the normal range of human senses to detect evidence, the use of such equipment should be considered a search. What if the equipment is extremely common? Anyone can stand outside your home and see your WiFi networks. Should the cops need a warrant to say "from the street, I turned on my iPhone and saw a wireless network?" What if 75% of smart phones…

There will always be grey areas, but I think the recording/observing equipment would need to be both common and not deployed for the purpose of gathering evidence. If some evidence was somehow in the SSID of a Wifi network, and a police officer happened to see it on a laptop, I wouldn't call that a search (although I also probably wouldn't really call it credible enough evidence to justify any further action). If some conversations were broadcast over FM radio, and a police officer happened to hear it while driving by the source, I wouldn't call that a search.

Re: New police radars can 'see' inside homes

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that if the police require any equipment in addition to the normal range of human senses to detect evidence, the use of such equipment should be considered a search. Whether the feet physically move onto the property or not, the equipment is breaching a privacy barrier. If you confess to murder in your own home on an ultrasonic carrier wave, and the police happen to be outside on the sidewalk pointing a…

> If you confess to murder in your own home on an ultrasonic carrier wave, and the police happen to be outside on the sidewalk pointing an ultrasonic microphone at your house, no reasonable person could deny that was a search of your home. What if I broadcast my guilt on un-encrypted FM radio? Again, I think Kyllo was rightly decided. But I don't think the dissent's argument was "ridiculous." I think there's some log…

Because the wavelength determines whether you need to make an explicit effort to retrieve the information.

The search is not a matter of retrieving what is possible to retrieve, but is instead about intentionally breaching a privacy barrier.

As long as you have taken a single safeguard to protect yourself from casual observation, anyone circumventing that safeguard with the intention of observing you is performing a search.

Thus, if you want to make an FM broadcast, it would be prudent to do so on a frequency that is not expected to be routinely monitored. Anything that could be directly intercepted by commonly-available radio receivers, such as car radios, walkie-talkies, police scanners, or similar would not create a reasonable expectation of privacy. Anything that might cause interference in an electronic device is likewise non-private, as anyone who transmits should be aware that amateur and professional radio operators may investigate interference.

In those cases, sending your FM transmission from inside a Faraday cage, through a shielded cable, to the inside of another cage, would be sufficient precaution against casual observation that anyone hearing your signal must have been searching for it. I contend that even if the shielding is imperfect, the signal leaks, and the cops are able to monitor and record your transmissions, they are still peeking behind the fig leaf, so to speak. The instant that they become aware that the transmissions were intended to be private, all subsequent monitoring is a search.

Were it otherwise, a person not acting in his official capacity could breach the privacy barrier, and then later monitor under the presumption that no such barrier existed. A cop might take off his badge and shove a pin through the shielding on the cable into the center conductor, then put the badge back on and tune in the radio signal as though it were meant to be a broadcast.

The dissenting argument is ridiculous because the "searchiness" of an observation does not depend on some law of physics. It depends on whether you are exposing something that I wish to be private, regardless of the means by which you do it.

Re: New police radars can 'see' inside homes

#116
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is covered in the Range-R FAQ: http://www.range-r.com/FAQ/index.htm The RF bands they're using apparently don't go through metal so well.

By reading the article I would have thought it would be possible to walk down the street while pointing at a house and the device would show if/where someone is hiding but after reading this FAQ I don't think this device is working so well as people expect. Maybe in houses with wooden walls but not in buildings with thick brick or concrete steal enhanced walls. They even recommend to press the device against the wall…

In the warmer parts of the country, you are not looking at a lot of metal/brick. In California for example, you are looking at a lot of plywood and insulation mostly.

Re: New police radars can 'see' inside homes

#117
post #33
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't consider the passive/active distinction the definition for 'invasive.' I'd consider thermal imaging from the outside of the home w/out a warrant 'invasive', but a thermal camera is just picking up the heat radiated by your body.

The article links to the relevant Supreme Court decision. They, in "Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001), held that the use of a thermal imaging, or FLIR, device from a public vantage point to monitor the radiation of heat from a person's home was a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and thus required a warrant." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States The article goes on to say…

Thank god for that.
Post reply on HN