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WiFi could become an invisible mass surveillance system

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Re: WiFi could become an invisible mass surveillance system

#91

Post by Bender »

WiFi 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.

Re: WiFi could become an invisible mass surveillance system

#92

Post by srean »

devmor wrote: post #90
srean wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make that "every vibrating surface can be a potential microphone ..."

The laser on a hotel window experiment comes to mind.

Or an adapted Theremin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

Re: WiFi could become an invisible mass surveillance system

#93

Post by thesuitonym »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #60
sponaugle wrote: post #26

This 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 w…

Yes, but things could be refined. With more resources and research thrown at it, it could become more versatile, that's why the title of the post says "could". And chances are, there are private and government entities already doing this. Research like this has been coming out for at least a decade now. Even Xfinity has motion detection in homes using this technique now: https://www.xfinity.com/hub/smart-home/wifi-mo…

Yeah, it can and will be refined, but the major limiting factor is resolution. Wi-Fi radio waves are just too big to get a very clear image.

Re: WiFi could become an invisible mass surveillance system

#94

Post by spyder »

mahrain wrote: post #16
palmotea wrote: post #5

> 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 ident…

What happens is that a large body of water (pun intended) has the ability to absorb and reflect wifi signals as it moves through the room. For this you need to generate traffic and measure for instance RSSI or CSI (basically, signal strength) of the packets. If you increase frequency you can detect smaller movements such as arms moving vs. a body, or exclude pets if you reduce sensitivity. It works well for detecting…

You are confusing it with the earlier methods. This is similar but not the same method that doesn't use RSSI or CSI and it is passive.

This approach relies solely on the "unencrypted parts of legitimate traffic". The attacker does not need to send any packets or "generate" their own traffic; they simply "listen" to the natural communication between an access point and its clients.

BFI is much more complex than simple signal strength. RSSI is an aggregation of information that the researchers describe as "not robust" for fine-grained tasks In contrast, BFI is a high-resolution, compressed representation of signal characteristics. This rich data allows the system to distinguish between 197 different individuals with 99.5% accuracy, something impossible with basic RSSI.

While older CSI methods often focused on walking directly between a specific transmitter and receiver (Line-of-Sight), BFI allows a single malicious node to capture "every perspective" between the router and all its legitimate clients.

Also CSI requires specialized hardware and custom firmware, this one isn't, just wifi module in monitor mode.

Re: WiFi could become an invisible mass surveillance system

#96

Post by anigbrowl »

alexpotato wrote: post #23

Not 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/comment…

How many people have Alexa devices vs wifi? I got gifted an Amazon Echo Dot some years ago. We set it up and switched it off later the same day because it felt creepy to have the thing listening to everything we said.

Re: WiFi could become an invisible mass surveillance system

#97

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

BatteryMountain wrote: post #82
sponaugle wrote: post #26

This 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 w…

Unless they start storing data about your specific gait & posture, skull shape, limb dimensions and build up a "fingerprint" of your body.

You mean like those scanners at the airport?

Re: WiFi could become an invisible mass surveillance system

#98

Post by jajuuka »

sponaugle wrote: post #26

This 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 w…

Yeah I've seen this same type of study done over the years with the same dire warning. But like you pointed out it's just extremely labor intensive when it's simply easier to attack phones, security cameras or any other smart device that can be easily hacked. Or just install your own bugs.

Would not be surprised to see this get more traction right now due to the political climate.

Re: WiFi could become an invisible mass surveillance system

#99

Post by toss1 »

"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.

Re: WiFi could become an invisible mass surveillance system

#100

Post by spyder »

sponaugle wrote: post #26

This 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 w…

Yes it's in a controlled environment not in a real world noisy environment. But this is more stealthy than a camera and could potentially work with non-line-of-sight or even through walls.

And based on that I could imagine with a combination of a camera and this method, you could train the model on data where both the camera and this method is seeing the individual and then continue to track them with the wifi sensing + the trained model even where the camera cannot see them anymore.

But yea real world is noisy, so it could be very challenging.

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