FreeSense: Indoor Human Identification with WiFi Signals • Hacker News Board

Re: FreeSense: Indoor Human Identification with WiFi Signals

#31

Post by daurnimator » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 3:17 AM UTC

givinguflac wrote: post #14

EGreg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No seriously. Maybe wear some kinda suit?

Run Ethernet throughout your home and hardwire 100% of everything. Disable all wireless radios in your house. That will stop your own gear from being used like this, but unless you turn your home into a faraday cage someone could probably blast your home with 2.4GHz externally to achieve similar results. If as you mention, perhaps you had some kind of suit that is completely absorbent to wireless spectrum, though tha…

You can buy coating for your windows that blocks RF.

e.g. http://www.scottishwindowtinting.com/residential-window-film...

Can usually get in via custom order from anywhere that does window tinting.

Re: FreeSense: Indoor Human Identification with WiFi Signals

#32

Post by vasili111 » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 7:09 AM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #3

How would a person be able to avoid this?

Very simple. Just use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

Re: FreeSense: Indoor Human Identification with WiFi Signals

#33

Post by ahier » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 7:16 AM UTC

MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) did this last year:

http://rfcapture.csail.mit.edu/

Re: FreeSense: Indoor Human Identification with WiFi Signals

#34

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 7:17 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: FreeSense: Indoor Human Identification with WiFi Signals

#35

Post by will_hughes » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 8:29 AM UTC

droopybuns wrote: post #6

The only good application of this work I can come up with is to reduce the danger that comes from surprised cops in no-knock warrants. Still kinda evil though.

Better home automation, perhaps.

Re: FreeSense: Indoor Human Identification with WiFi Signals

#36

Post by qrv3w » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 11:03 AM UTC

SEJeff wrote: post #30

qrv3w wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FIND author here. It's not doing internal positioning with Channel State Information (CSI), but there are folks that are [1]. The approach in FIND is different [2] - FIND just uses RSSI+MAC information which works great on mobile devices and simple esp8266 chips and doesn't require code for the specific network interface. As far as I know you have to write some network card specific code to be able to use CSI. [1] ht…

Still no IOS support yet I take it? I was so excited about that before realizing it only worked on Android.

Sorry! Apple is very restrictive. iOS 9+ is supports access to WiFi RSSI, but requires permission and approval from Apple. We requested permission 3 weeks ago and no word yet.

Re: FreeSense: Indoor Human Identification with WiFi Signals

#37

Post by goodplay » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 3:20 PM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #3

How would a person be able to avoid this?

Tinfoil. Lots and lots of tinfoil.

Conductive meshes work as well provided that the holes are small enough.

Re: FreeSense: Indoor Human Identification with WiFi Signals

#38

Post by jevyjevjevs » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 4:59 PM UTC

Hi everyone! I'm VP Product at aerial.ai. We are using some of these techniques for presence, activity and identification. We have 7 patents in this area.

Happy to answer any questions!

Edit: We're hiring DSP, ML and Growth people

Re: FreeSense: Indoor Human Identification with WiFi Signals

#39

Post by jevyjevjevs » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 5:00 PM UTC

yashinm92 wrote: post #13

lovelearning wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Useful for detecting if aged or ailing family members haven't moved in a while, and check on them.

A team from MIT has created a product for this specific purpose using a very similar technology: http://www.emeraldforhome.com/

Not using WiFi, but their own RF spectrum. Very cool though.

Re: FreeSense: Indoor Human Identification with WiFi Signals

#40

Post by jevyjevjevs » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 5:17 PM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #3

How would a person be able to avoid this?

VP Product at aerial.ai (using similar strategies as this paper) here. A few major caveats to make this work:

a) There needs to be enough traffic happening on the network to have the resolution needed to differentiate between people. b) The device needs to be able to see the traffic. This won't protect you from a device in the home that has this technology, but it will from people standing outside of the home (as the signal attenuates a lot outside of the home)