Looking at the source articles, this seems to require specialized equipment and large antennas that are fairly close to whatever is being imaged. So unless there's been some sort of breakthrough, this is not a case of "someone could hack your router and see you in your home".
Your WiFi Can See You
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Re: Your WiFi Can See You
#42Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's Incorporated (2017) TV series, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7eKEHhSw00 & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporated_(TV_series), includes thought experiments on future workplace surveillance.
> The series takes place in a dystopian Milwaukee in the year 2074, where many countries have gone bankrupt .. In the absence of effective government, powerful multinational corporations have become de facto governments, controlling areas called Green Zones. The remaining territories are called Red Zones, where governance is weak or non-existent.
Consumer Wi-Fi 7 Sensing routers (estimated to arrive in 2024 with IEEE 802.11bf) can generate 3D images of human activity through the walls/floor/ceiling of homes and business, profiling human position, movements, breathing, keystrokes, emotion and more, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480760.
After standardization by IEEE in consumer routers, which remote parties would be interested in WFH WiFi Sensing Analytics? How could regulators, employers, employees and home-builders respond? Remote, through-wall, X-Ray vision monitoring can be entirely passive when there is ambient WiFi traffic, e.g. reflections from routers inside targeted urban buildings of interest. This has been possible for more than a decade, using either expensive LE equipment or low-cost DIY/RF/hacker toolsets. Will IEEE standardization of Wi-Fi 7 Sensing give X-ray vision superpowers to every neighbor?
On a positive note, there is some commercial interest in Li-Fi for wireless data transfer via optical light, so that data transfers will stop at a perimeter established by traditional walls. Until then, aluminum radiant barrier, conductive paint, RF shielding drywall (e.g. QuietRock) or metal mesh can reduce unwanted inbound/outbound RF signals. For temporary shielding of a room, consider a Zipwall-like tension pole frame supporting a cube of aluminum radiant barrier (USD $0.25 per square foot), plus shielded air ventilation.
Re: Your WiFi Can See You
#43The wifi router sees you (a bit like a mini radar), but someone outside your premises would still have to hack the router? Or do ISPs already have that access? Also curious to know how far wifi routers 'see'? If it's more than a few meters there could be more potential surveillance by wifi router than by cctv!
Look up TR-069. Always use your ISP-supplied router in bridge/modem mode only.
IIUC:
- 'TR-069' is the name of a protocol by which (most) ISPs operate
- It gives ISPs the rights/ability to interact with your devices remotely (under the guise of maintenance and remote troubleshooting)
- This isn't something that's going to happen one day far in the future; it already applies to most(/all?) routers currently in use in countries whose ISPs abide by the protocol
So ISPs can already see inside customer homes?! (since they can already access the data necessary to use the WiFi device as a makeshift imaging system? - wowzers!
Re: Your WiFi Can See You
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. The trajectory of technology generally is: possible -> prototype -> product -> common -> common and cheap If Wi-Fi surveillance were to become common and cheap, other methods would be produced to make data harvesting common and cheap to the surveillance state/bigco. The best way to avoid that dystopia is to safeguard it early in the process.
i don't think any safeguards will protect us from evils brought about by technology - it evolves too fast already for the society to catch up .
Well someone has to pay for the tech. Its not free. And that puts an automatic upper limit on what happens.
People have no idea how much debt Police depts (lets not even talk about the military) have racked up playing with high tech toys and paying off compensation every 2 days for people they accidentally harm or kill. So whats funny here as Big Bro gets access to more and more tools the more broke he gets.
And guess what the financiers of this debt will do when it cant be paid off. Raid police pension funds. Thats how financialization of public service works
No free lunch big bro. Have fun with all the "cool toys" while the good times last.
Re: Your WiFi Can See You
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. The trajectory of technology generally is: possible -> prototype -> product -> common -> common and cheap If Wi-Fi surveillance were to become common and cheap, other methods would be produced to make data harvesting common and cheap to the surveillance state/bigco. The best way to avoid that dystopia is to safeguard it early in the process.
What I'm trying to get at is, even if this type of Wifi surveillance becomes commong and cheap, it still requires access at a low level to the wifi router itself. Which should be hands-off in the first place. It's like having cameras in your house on your local network... if the police could legally hack into your network, they could watch you on the cameras to see if you are committing crimes! But... the point is th…
> it still requires access at a low level to the wifi router itself
Nope, remote sensing only requires custom radio firmware on the passive surveillance receiver (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480760
Re: Your WiFi Can See You
#46I just have a house full of manicans. Bonus, I never get lonely.
Re: Your WiFi Can See You
#47It’s enough to make you want to sleep in a Faraday cage coffin every night. A privacy vampire.
Re: Your WiFi Can See You
#48Reminds me of The Thought Emporium's camera that can see WiFi. https://youtu.be/g3LT_b6K0Mc?si=PRtkeXRqq8UmhpC9
Imaging like this is like scanning a scene with a one pixel camera. Cameras use a lens to focus an image onto a plane, and the plane has multiple sensors. What would that device look like for microwaves?
(Welcome to HN!)
Re: Your WiFi Can See You
#49How?
Re: Your WiFi Can See You
#50If using an FLIR camera is considered an unreasonable search without a warrant, I fail to see how this wouldn't be too.