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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by bignose@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

The Sapienza computer scientists say Wi-Fi signals offer superior surveillance potential compared to cameras because they're not affected by light conditions, can penetrate walls and other obstacles, and they're more privacy-preserving than visual images.

[…] The Rome-based researchers who proposed WhoFi claim their technique makes accurate matches on the public NTU-Fi dataset up to 95.5 percent of the time when the deep neural network uses the transformer encoding architecture.

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[-] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 6 days ago

you can also take a picture of a person with a camera that senses light beams

[-] Krudler@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

The most primitive of physics concepts, the transmission/absorption/reflection of energy, is completely unknown to most people it would seem.

[-] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 16 points 6 days ago

You know, this, and the using wifi to see through walls stuff to me just immediately seemed to fall into "don't research this, it can only be used for evil".

I don't get why we bother studying these types of things.

[-] chunes@lemmy.world 19 points 6 days ago

95.5% accuracy is abysmal for any use case these people want to use it for

[-] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 6 days ago

what if you combine it with other types of imaging

[-] Evotech@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

Dingdingding

[-] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 days ago

It's not at all bad for an initial proof of concept.

[-] Hikermick@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago

Reminds me of the Christian Bale batman movie where he could spy on everywhere from the bat cave. Seemed so far fetched it almost ruined the movie

[-] 2910000@lemmy.world 19 points 6 days ago

No-one suspected Bruce Wayne's "free WiFi for Gotham City" initiative

[-] millie@slrpnk.net 10 points 6 days ago

Time to start making faraday clothes.

[-] cannedtuna@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

With wild and crazy shape lines. Ultra futuristic fashion here we come!

[-] HertzDentalBar 7 points 6 days ago

Well of course the Sapienza scientists would figure this out, Agent 47 keeps killing everyone in the labs

[-] voodooattack@lemmy.world 10 points 6 days ago

Wait… so the guys with tinfoil hats were on to something?

[-] Baleine@jlai.lu 13 points 6 days ago

Except that the tinfoil hats don't work

[-] 2910000@lemmy.world 10 points 6 days ago

Maybe wearing a different tinfoil hat every day would mess up a person's "fingerprint"

[-] Sundiata@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago

And this here folks is the true ending. No one there is going to stop it as always.

Congratulations! You are now fully fucked!

There is the draft dodger, he is located in building #52556 in this city, info updated 125 milliseconds ago. He left his phone at his house 5 states away, go get him.

[-] modus@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

Time to carry a WiFi jammer

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 3 points 6 days ago

The resulting image must just basically look like a shadow, I can't imagine that they're going to get much internal detail with Wi-Fi considering that my router's signal practically gets blocked by a piece of cardboard.

This research essentially amounts to, humans can be individually identified with nothing more than low quality x-rays. Well yeah, so what, you can also use visible light and in any situation where you're going to use Wi-Fi to detect someone, it's got to be easier to buy a cheap CCTV camera.

[-] voodooattack@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago

First of all: cardboard does NOT block electromagnetic waves. You need a Faraday Cage for that. And even then, it has to have holes of a certain size to block specific wavelengths/frequencies. It’s why you have a mesh on the door of your microwave for example.

Secondly: they’re not attempting to photograph you. Just identifying your unique signature once would allow them to track your location anywhere where they have the gear installed.

[-] leburb@sopuli.xyz 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

EDIT: I suppose your comment is written in a way that it's not clear whether you're saying certain frequencies absolutely require meshes of a certain size to be blocked or if you're just adding that extra detail about the design of Faraday cages for the hell of it. But...

Original comment: It doesn't have to have holes to block radiation. A continuous sheet blocks all frequencies. A mesh is just nice so we can see through the cage or allow air to pass etc.

From the page you linked: "A Faraday shield may be formed by a continuous covering of conductive material." "... if the conductor is thick enough and any holes are significantly smaller than the wavelength of the radiation."

[-] voodooattack@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

My bad, a Farady Shield works just as well and it doesn’t need holes. But I was thinking about ways to combat this while posting and a solution involving conductive fabric was going through my head during that moment.

[-] jj4211@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago

They explicitly went into the advantages over cameras:

  • Any light condition (of course IR lighting with IR cameras are the gold standard so this can argueably be met otherwise)
  • The ability to cover multiple rooms through walls with a device. A sub-10 GHz signal can penetrate most interior walls. People could be tracked without even being able to see a camera and by extension not knowing where to mess with to defeat surveillance.

So perhaps a building takes a picture of everyone as they come in the front door and also establishes a 'WhoFi' profile for that person. They could keep track of their movement through the building while maintaining an actionable correlation to a photo.

[-] Goretantath@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

When they send a drone to your house they can make sure exactly where you are so they can shoot you through the wall.

[-] jjlinux@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 days ago

This has me wondering how my sack of potatoes body would look 🤣

[-] axEl7fB5@lemmy.cafe 1 points 6 days ago

Can I become obese in a day to avoid being fingerprinted?

[-] dtrain@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

I did that over 40 years.
Doesn’t help.

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this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2025
554 points (100.0% liked)

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