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Comment by yborg

1 month ago

I remember reading this paper when it came out, didn't think it would be commercializable, and here we are.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2486001.2486039

9 comments

yborg

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hopelite  1 month ago

I have a sneaky suspicion this is not something that Xfinity/Comcast just woke up one day and thought they should implement. This has all the hallmarks of the treasonous surveillance state injecting itself to instrumentalize corporations to claim they’re not violating the supreme law called the Constitution if they simply make others commit the treasonous crimes against the people.

Because we all know, of course, the Constitution only applies to the federal government, right? If mega-corporation USA Inc uses its shell company Comcast to violate the Supreme law of the land in a treasonous manner, then you are of course SOL asa mere citizen since they aren’t the federal government and the Constitution does not apply to them.

In case it want clear, that was sarcasm.

andy_xor_andrew  1 month ago

Yeah, it's bizarre.

Normally the pathway for this kind of thing would be:

1. theorized

2. proven in a research lab

3. not feasible in real-world use (fizzles and dies)

if you're lucky the path is like

1. theorized

2. proven in a research lab

3. actually somewhat feasible in real-world use!

4. startups / researchers split off to attempt to market it (fizzles and dies)

the fact that this ended up going from research paper to "Comcast can tell if I'm home based on my body's physical interaction with wifi waves" is absolutely wild

  • nomel  1 month ago

    It's not too crazy, if you're familiar with comms systems.

    The ability to do this is a necessity for a comm system working in a reflective environment: cancel out the reflections with an adaptive filter, residual is now a high-pass result of the motion. It's the same concept that makes your cell location data so profitable, and how 10G ethernet is possible over copper, with the hybrid front end cancelling reflections from kinks in the cable (and why physical wiggling the cable will cause packet CRC errors). It's, quite literally, "already there" for almost every modern MIMO system, just maybe not exposed for use.

  • transpute  1 month ago

    > the fact that this ended up going from research paper to "Comcast can tell if I'm home based on my body's physical interaction with wifi waves" is absolutely wild

    The 15-year path was roughly:

      1. bespoke military use (see+shoot through wall)
  2. bespoke law-enforcement use (occupancy, activity)
  3. public research papers by MIT and others
  4. open firmware for Intel modems
  5. 1000+ research papers using open firmware
  6. bespoke offensive/criminal/state malware 
  7. bespoke commercial niche implementations
  8. IEEE standardization (802.11bf)
  9. (very few) open-source countermeasures
  10. ISP routers implementing draft IEEE standard
  11. (upcoming) many new WiFi 7+ devices with Sensing features

    https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/27/1088154/wifi-sen...

    > There is one area that the IEEE is not working on, at least not directly: privacy and security.. IEEE fellow and member of the Wi-Fi sensing task group.. the goal is to focus on “at least get the sensing measurements done.” He says that the committee did discuss privacy and security: “Some individuals have raised concerns, including myself.” But they decided that while those concerns do need to be addressed, they are not within the committee’s mandate.

    • ddq  1 month ago

      Sounds like IEEE is in need of fresh leadership and soon. Complacency at this point is folly.