17 ms·

The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)

205 points by transpute 5y ago

pmontra 5y ago
There is some previous work dating back at least to 2015. They were detecting people and gestures using current WiFi technologies. http://rfcapture.csail.mit.edu/ http://rfcapture.csail.mit.edu/
kornhole 5y ago
This could inspire some clothing designs that weave in rf blocking or distorting materials to wear in retail or work places.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  That would be like hiding from cameras by wearing a bright orange reflective vest.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
blurbleblurble 5y ago
And just what do people think 5G is for? I've been frustratedly trying to tell people this for a few years now. Glad it's finally "coming to light". ^^^ this pun has something to do with electromagnetic radiation
giantg2 5y ago
I don't know. Maybe I'm just getting old. It seems this, like a lot of new tech these days, will end up offering little benefit while providing new malicious capabilities.
- dragonelite 5y ago
  There is a difference between consumer benefits and maybe industrial benefits. Maybe it might make communication between sorting bots more accurate and quicker.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Doubtful. Beam forming would be more beneficial.
- C19is20 5y ago
  It's been the same throughout history. Invent a tool...use it to kill.
  - oblio 5y ago
    I wouldn't be as negative. Frequently we create the tool in order to kill with it. After that we also use to tool to create. We're equally capable of good and evil and yes, we are frequently good, too.
    - MrYellowP 5y ago
      It's not negative, it's true.
      - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
        I'd say it's both ways: inventions perceived as positive at first were later used for nefarious things and the technology used to create military technologies found many civilian applications that turned out very beneficial to the society at large. Over these years I also realized how little you can do to actually stop research, no matter what your opinions of it are. Even if something is officially forbidden, you can be sure someone else works on it if it's interesting enough, so in the end you're at a disadvantage. There are many examples of it nowadays.
      - loceng 5y ago
        Literalism is a killer.
      - oblio 5y ago
        It can be both at the same time. If you look at my comment, you can construe it as even being more negative and cynical, since I'm saying that instead of creating a tool and finding ways to kill with it, we're frequently building tools just to kill with them, and only later we find ways to use them for something non-lethal.
  - Lucasoato 5y ago
    ...also the other way: a lot of inventions were used in the civil world just after being designed and developed in the military one.
- ksec 5y ago
  One thing I see 802.1bf ( Sensing ), along with 802.11be ( WiFi 7 ) could be used together in setting up consumer mesh WiFi Network. Home Wireless Networking is still pretty much an unsolved problem for average consumers. Edit: Turns out there are other comments below mentioning this.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    "Home Wireless Networking is still pretty much an unsolved problem for average consumers." What do you mean? Most consumers have a wireless router, and that works for their needs.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      If you live in anything other than an apartment, your wifi connection drops considerably once a few walls and a floor are in the way. Mesh networks solve this by repeating the signal halfway to your hard-to-reach devices, although it must be done in an intelligent way if you want seamless band switching and its performance might be greatly improved with wifi 7's sensing capabilities.
      - giantg2 5y ago
        My router is in the basement. Reception is great throughout the house, including the second floor, and even decent out in the garage or on the deck. Similar setup and results for my in-laws who have a massive house (3000-3500 sqft).
        judge2020 5y ago
        Many houses and places of business have walls or floors made with thicker material that block/hinder the waves - things like solid wood floors, brick walls or concrete walls can do a number on even 2.4ghz signals.
        giantg2 5y ago
        The in-laws have hardwood floors on both levels. I haven't seen internal masonry walls in most places. Even if that is a concern, I don't see sensing as being a benefit.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  It's very scary shit. We could soon have no privacy at all in our own homes because of other people's WiFi networks. If the output is strong enough, all you have to do is connect to/crack someone's WiFi and use it to get a layout of all their neighbor's places.
  - everdrive 5y ago
    This is a great example of why people don’t have privacy. Ethernet cables exist, and wholly forgo these problems. But, they are less convenient. Consumers complain a lot about privacy, but do little to really demand it. Of course manufacturers deserve much of the blame here for actually implementing these things, but it doesn’t seem as if consumers are trying to steer them in the right direction at all.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      Yep. I have ethernet cables throughout the house and use it for most stuff. I still have a wireless router for the phones though.
  - transpute 5y ago
    > all you have to do is connect to/crack someone's WiFi and use it to get a layout of all their neighbor's places. It's much worse: neither crack nor connection is required. The technology is entirely passive, it only uses reflections from Wi-Fi radios, same as radar. No connection to the router is required, hence the acronym DFWS (Device-Free Wireless Sensing). To be clear, this can be done today with $20 ESP32 WiFi devices + custom firmware, i.e. any motivated attacker can already see through the walls of homes and businesses. The Wi-Fi 7 Sensing draft standard is proposing to make this available to everyone. Perhaps we need a celebrity to help demo SENS transparency of their home walls, to help consumers and regulators understand the implications. That could motivate research investment in privacy controls. More details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29901979 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29901979
    - judge2020 5y ago
transpute 5y ago
(2010) early public firmware for research on Wi-Fi sensing, https://dhalperi.github.io/linux-80211n-csitool/ https://dhalperi.github.io/linux-80211n-csitool/ (2012) military use case, https://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-07/seeing-through-walls-wireless-router/ https://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-07/seeing-thr... (2017) industrial use case, https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/wi-fi-radiation-transparent-walls/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/wi-fi-radiation-tran... (2020) slide #20 on use cases for Wi-Fi 7 SENS, https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/pdf/wi-fi-7-and-beyond.pdf https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents... (2021) HN threads on "seeing through walls" radar for human monitoring: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28479057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28479057 & https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27123493 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27123493 (2021) IEEE working group, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.14918.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.14918.pdf > This paper reports ongoing efforts by the IEEE 802.11bf Task Group (TGbf), which is defining the appropriate modifications to existing Wi-Fi standards to enhance sensing capabilities through 802.11-compliant waveforms. (2021) panel discussion on RF sensing, https://staceyoniot.com/what-you-missed-at-the-rf-sensing-event-last-week/ https://staceyoniot.com/what-you-missed-at-the-rf-sensing-ev... > we could use terahertz spectrum to detect specific molecules and in turn use terahertz frequencies and radios as a way to track specific ingredients in food or pollutants in the air. (2021) EU-funded CSI countermeasures research in privacy protection, https://ans.unibs.it/projects/csi-murder/ https://ans.unibs.it/projects/csi-murder/ (2022) product launch ahead of the 2024 standard, https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/3/22864783/sengled-smart-health-monitoring-smart-bulb-ces2022 https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/3/22864783/sengled-smart-hea... > The Sengled Smart Health Monitoring Light is a dual Wi-Fi / Bluetooth bulb with built-in health monitoring using radar technology. It’s designed to track your sleep and certain biometric measurements, such as heart rate and body temperature, as well as other vital signs. The bulb can work alone, or multiple bulbs connected via a Bluetooth mesh network work together to create a virtual map that can help detect human behavior.
kadoban 5y ago
Who is actually asking for this? It can't be for consumers just wanting to use the internet right? I don't get it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- zozbot234 5y ago
  It's most probably meant for opportunistic sensing in industrial environments, where it might become quite useful. It's not something you're going to use at home.
  - trulyme 5y ago
    However, it could be something employers would want to use when you are working remotely. Unfortunately.
  - varenc 5y ago
    I think there’ll be a decent amount of home interest, particularly for home security. Linksys is already doing WiFi sensing as part of their various smart home products: https://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=317804 https://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=317804 The Linksys docs even mention how you may have to tune the sensitivity to filter out motion from your neighbors...
  - transpute 5y ago
    Since this is passive sensing, an attacker outside your home can make use of the WiFi signals emitted from the router inside your home. Or they can broadcast their own signal.
- transpute 5y ago
  https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/pdf/wi-fi-7-and-beyond.pdf https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents... Security Environment Control Wake on approach, walk away lock Conference room occupancy Gesture control Elderly monitoring Baby monitoring Smart housekeeping Advertisement signage efficiency Motion detection Proximity detection People counting Human activity recognition Vital signs (e.g. heartrate) detection
barbazoo 5y ago
The only real practical example is fall detection, what's the real purpose of this?
- ryan93 5y ago
  Kept a lot of smart students busy
- freyr 5y ago
  I worked briefly for a company working on WiFi sensing, and besides fall detection, nobody could give a compelling use case. When pressed to come up with a motivating vision, the big idea was lights turning on automatically when you enter a room. I guess? Like a lot of R&D, it seemed a solution in search of a problem.
  - cpuguy83 5y ago
    Yeah seemed like a replacement for other motion sensing... but then how localized can this actually be?
  - wildzzz 5y ago
    They've been making that tech for years, every office and school classroom I've been to in the last 10 years has that now. This is just another stupid shot in the dark. Maybe someday someone will actually find a useful purpose. We are limited by what we can't even imagine so there's always hope but until then, I'll let those with deep pockets spend the energy trying to find a good use for it.
  - saltminer 5y ago
    > lights turning on automatically when you enter a room Was this really it? Or did they have some use-case not currently covered by motion sensors? I can see some potential use for security (cheap REX sensors can be easily tricked, allowing unauthorized access into secure areas). The fix is obvious (stop cheaping out on your REX sensors) but I can envision someone trying to bill wifi sensing as the hip new solution for REX systems.
  - daveofdaves 5y ago
GlenTheMachine 5y ago
Is it just me, or does this seems like a really, really bad idea? The privacy implications here seem… disturbing.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  Technology can't be stopped by individual engineers refusing to invent it, it can only be stopped by everyone agreeing on the ways it shouldn't be used. So it was for arson (fire), homicide (every weapon since the rock), and obscene material (all communications technology), and so must it be for privacy and the various techniques of monitoring us.
  - pjbeam 5y ago
    Even then it isn't stopped; once something exists someone will eventually use it, and likely in way not intended by the designer.
  - transpute 5y ago
    Since 802.11bf makes most existing walls transparent, it should lead to innovation in wall construction. It may also increase market demand for light-based wireless networking (Li-Fi) which has the advantage of being stopped by existing walls.
    - whatshisface 5y ago
      People will need indoor cell repeaters to undo what's done by their shielded walls.
      - transpute 5y ago
        Hopefully light-based networking gains mass-market traction. First Li-Fi tablet was announced at CES 2022, https://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/17597/first-li-fi-android-tablet-unveiled-at-ces-2022 https://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/17597/first-li...
      - 5y ago
jacob019 5y ago
Will be great for making targeted interactive ads that follow customers around as they shop.
waynesonfire 5y ago
Meh,not even web3.0 compatible. Very disappointing.
divbzero 5y ago
Some WiFi systems [1] [2] already offer sensing capabilities for home security. [1]: https://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=317804 https://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=317804 [2]: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171114005542/en/Next-Generation-of-Aura-Uses-WiFi-Motion-and-Mesh-Technology-to-Monitor-Your-Home-Without-Cameras https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171114005542/en/Nex... I agree with other comments that question the ratio of benefit vs. risk. But I’m an old fogey who feels similarly about other “smart” home devices.
- transpute 5y ago
  Also possible with open firmware on low-cost ESP32 devices, https://wrlab.github.io/Wi-ESP/ https://wrlab.github.io/Wi-ESP/ & https://github.com/StevenMHernandez/ESP32-CSI-Tool https://github.com/StevenMHernandez/ESP32-CSI-Tool But there's a big difference in custom firmware used in a few products and IEEE standardization in every new WiFi access point. We need more funding for countermeasures, https://ans.unibs.it/projects/csi-murder/ https://ans.unibs.it/projects/csi-murder/ > Imagine that someone wants to illegally track the position of a person inside a laboratory, for instance to measure how much time is spent doing different activities at different desks, as depicted in the upper picture. How much effective can this attack be? ... With CSI-MURDER, the localization becomes impossible because results will seem random, thus preserving the person privacy without destroying Wi-Fi communications. 400+ (!) papers on wireless sensing, over the last decade https://dhalperi.github.io/linux-80211n-csitool/ https://dhalperi.github.io/linux-80211n-csitool/ & https://groups.csail.mit.edu/netmit/sFFT/soda_paper.pdf https://groups.csail.mit.edu/netmit/sFFT/soda_paper.pdf & https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/103715 https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/103715
- deadmutex 5y ago
  > other comments that question the ratio of benefit vs. risk I think it is important to note that different people will have different inputs into benefits and risk. E.g. a 24 year old male living alone probably doesn't have a use case for elderly fall detection, etc. But, a 75 year old woman living alone probably does. Also, I am of the opinion that is possible to do this properly (i.e. securely and privacy preserving). Case in point: people carry microphones (in phones) that can record any audio with them... but they do it because they trust that their phone is secure and private.
vlovich123 5y ago
How much additional value does this provide vs the addition of ToF information in beacons that already exists? This seems primarily about providing tracking capabilities to operators whereas ToF provides tracking to the people who are actually trying to do positioning. The privacy implications are worrying.
hvacmike 5y ago
jimmySixDOF 5y ago
In a related note, this week Google ATAP and Ford announced Ripple, a open standard for consumer radio sensing based on Project Soli (60 Ghz) [1] https://github.com/CTA-Ripple/Ripple-v.0 https://github.com/CTA-Ripple/Ripple-v.0 [2] https://9to5google.com/2022/01/06/google-soli-radar-ripple/ https://9to5google.com/2022/01/06/google-soli-radar-ripple/
- transpute 5y ago
  That's based on UWB (Ultra Wideband), which is also present in some iPhones. https://staceyoniot.com/two-companies-show-where-our-uwb-future-is-heading-2/ https://staceyoniot.com/two-companies-show-where-our-uwb-fut... > Outside of fine-grained location tracking, UWB is also used for radar sensing. Google is using UWB for its Soli radar, which is embedded in the most recent Nest Hub display to track respiration during sleep ... Novelda, argues that UWB sensing is more effective than the traditional motion sensors that hotels have historically deployed because they can sense a person even when they are still by “seeing” micromovements made by the person’s breathing. Lenovo embedded the Novelda chip into its laptops as a way to keep the screen on only when a person is in front of it, which helps save on battery power.
ahonhn 5y ago
Finally! X-Ray glasses like what the ads in the comic book promised!
- transpute 5y ago
  Thanks, MIT! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dina_Katabi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dina_Katabi > In 2012, her work on Sparse Fourier Transforms was chosen as one of the top 10 breakthroughs of the year by Technology Review ... In 2014, on the celebration of Project Mac's 50th anniversary, her work on X-ray vision was chosen as one of the "50 ways that MIT has transformed computer science."
petarb 5y ago
I want my Wi-Fi to deliver me fast internet access, not track my position. Have a feeling this will be used for il-intent and monetized by future routers
- Haemm0r 5y ago
  +1 As many APs today are already cloud dependent I can totally see where all the sensed data will be stored and out of the owners control.
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    I’m skeptical there are customers really asking for this.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - klabb3 5y ago
      If there's one thing I learnt the last decade, it's to not underestimate how even the shittiest of tech, like a smart fridge or an iot juice press, will become must-haves for the consuming class. In this case, perhaps it's "find my keys", "alert me when my toddler wakes up", "metaverse body tracking", etc/whatever.
      - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
        Yeah, I realized we are on a far side of the bridge when I saw how many people in the USA decided to buy their Echos. It is estimated the USA has ca. 140 housing units, and that there are 40 millions of Echos in use now. A device I would refuse to install in my house even if someone paid me a lot for it.
    - mschuster91 5y ago
      Customers also didn't ask for even more ads and tracking in their TV, but they did ask for cheaper devices - the result is that you'll have to shell out serious bucks for "digital signage"-style displays if you want to live in peace.
thegagne 5y ago
Not mentioned in the article but a futuristic guess would be to provide omniscient eyes for AI/robots. Short term smart bots that can navigate and clean a cluttered household with little kids and toddlers knocking about. Longer term, maybe nanobots. It could be Rosie from the Jetsons but more likely it’s Amazon analyzing my poop density to sell me some goofball supplements.
- transpute 5y ago
  Terahertz-radar doorbell breathalyzer virus test decides whether to smart unlock front door to allow leaving the house? Philip K. Dick would be proud.
KingMachiavelli 5y ago
There seems to be a lot of FUD about this. Make no mistake, the malicious and privacy invasive applications are already being used; they just don't follow a IEEE spec and aren't associated with WiFi directly. If a maliciously controlled router wants to track you it already can because your phone, smart watch, and laptop already broadcast themselves. This technology may not seem useful to the purpose of WiFi on it's face but that couldn't be further from the truth. Knowing the population of a room in terms of devices but also people is useful for WiFi deployment planning and power level optimization. 2000 people with 2 devices is different from 4000 individual people. People already have WiFi enabled lights and other sensors so providing a standard for object & people detection will make those use cases even better.
- leoh 5y ago
  So there’s FUD about something we should already reasonably have FUD about?
  - lifeisstillgood 5y ago
    When analysing FUD always use the ELMER acronym E - Expectations L - Lifetime M - Motivation E - Environment R - Reward :-)
    - tucosan 5y ago
      Can you elaborate? What is this?
      - err 5y ago
        I interpreted it as a joke. Elmer Fudd is a cartoon character. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Fudd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Fudd
      - MisterTea 5y ago
        Elmer Fud is a character from the Warmer Brothers Bugs Bunny animated series of children's cartoons and used as a mnemonic device. I assume the ELMER acronym is some set of metrics used to judge the validity of a claim to determine if it is FUD or not.
nerdbaggy 5y ago
Cisco has been doing something like this with Angle of Arrival with a 16 antenna array for the past few years. It’s pretty cool but only works in perfect setups, and the antennas need to be mounted above you. https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/technotes/8-8/b_ap_4800_hyperlocation_deployment_guide.html https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/te...
Ice_cream_suit 5y ago
Nice... SWAT teams, home burglars and the NSA will all be clients for the data. Once the granularity gets fine enough, movements involved in prayers, sex and elimination of waste can all be monitored remotely by state actors. Malware from around the world will now be able to transmit details of your body movements back to their controllers. Imagine being able to blackmail you because malware detected you having sex when your partner was away or performing Muslim prayers in an islamophobic society.
- visarga 5y ago
  Hmm, this is what I imagined: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/07/21/books/review/0721-bks-SHONEcover/0721-bks-SHONEcover-superJumbo.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/07/21/books/review/0721...
- skocznymroczny 5y ago
  Just put it under "contact tracing and covid prevention" and people will cheer you for it and ask for more.
jagger27 5y ago
I'm surprised that there's not a single comment here about 802.11ay which is also 60GHz. Each channel on that standard can do something like 40Gbps, which is nuts. From Wikipedia[0]: > The link-rate per stream is 44 Gbit/s, with four streams this goes up to 176 Gbit/s. Yes, it can't penetrate walls, but is huge for point to point communication. Think VR headset bandwidth, file transfers between devices, wireless backhaul between buildings. It's not just for spying on your cat. I think it's important to remember that it's not magic, it's just radio waves. You can "sense" with a lot more resolution if you use a camera and light bulb. There are plenty of eyeballs, cameras, and lights all around you right now. Even worse, someone could be looking in your window with binoculars. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ay
- zeepzeep 5y ago
  > It's not just for spying on your cat. Can we stop downplaying privacy issues please?
  - EveYoung 5y ago
    Not trying to be provocative, but how is this any worse than existing cameras or motion sensors?
    - fsflover 5y ago
      Do you have those at home?
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      RF is far less hindered by stuff like walls.
    - justaj 5y ago
      With cameras and motion sensors you more or less know how they'll be used and as a user you can choose to disable them (or at the very least block them if you can't disable them). With this technology, it will be integrated into your router (and clients?), so turning those off will mean to turn off WiFi altogether. Added to that, I'll bet that most people wouldn't even begin to imagine that WiFi could be used for sensing people, and they'll continue using WiFi without being aware for the grave privacy implications.
akomtu 5y ago
This is the natural evolution of ultrasound radars, currently present in some devices.
transpute 5y ago
(2021) privacy comments on Wi-Fi 7 standards work for 802.11bf, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.14918.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.14918.pdf > it has been shown that SENS-based classifiers can infer privacy-critical information such as keyboard typing, gesture recognition and activity tracking ... since Wi-Fi signals can penetrate hard objects and can be used without the presence of light, end-users may not even realize they are being tracked ... individuals should be provided the opportunity to opt out of SENS services – in other words, to avoid being monitored and tracked by the Wi-Fi devices around them. This would require the widespread introduction of reliable SENS algorithm for human or animal identification. Would this require a worldwide database of biometric signatures for each human that opts out?
- klabb3 5y ago
  No, the future is decentralized. In the US, you will always be tracked because of regulatory capture of the FCC. In Europe, your phone will display a tracking consent pop-up everytime you go into a cafe. If you don't comply, you will have to get your coffee and free wifi elsewhere.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    I can no longer tell apart sarcasm and real dystopia
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    > If you don't comply, you will have to get your coffee and free wifi elsewhere. You will be able to take legal action against the café, but it won't make a difference.
- judge2020 5y ago
  My concern is that people opting out of this protocol won't actually be opting out of the sensing technology. Any attacker trying to sense keystrokes using RF waves already can do that and won't be hindered by some opt out program nor be considered whether or not wifi 7 sensing is allowed to be part of new routers.
layla5alive 5y ago
This has nearly zero non-orwellian use-cases inside a home.
- beebeepka 5y ago
  Of course there are all sorts of positive applications for the user. It's just their number is dwarfed by the real purpose of these things. We've known they've been coming for a while. Now they here and we'll have to fight it, then lose.
- bluGill 5y ago
  You have no idea what the future will come up with. There is a lot of potential on both sides.
dirtyid 5y ago
I expected wifi sensing to be exploited when I saw the tech demo years ago but I did not expect it to become a standard.
hoseja 5y ago
Please dance the Amazon Verification Dance. I cannot fathom any good use for this technology.
- rocqua 5y ago
  Adaptive ventilation and maybe even heating of rooms depending on the number of people present.
  - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
    You can add a 100 euro CO2 sensor to control your HVAC. There isn't a use case for this that isn't abusive outside an industrial setting. I think if ISPs push for these in routers we will see comeback of rewiring houses with ethernet points.
    - withinboredom 5y ago
      I can see ISPs forcing you to use their modem with this WiFi built in. Then even if you put it in bridge mode, the WiFi stays active while it tracks you.
      - transpute 5y ago
        If an exclusive/monopoly ISP took that approach, the modem could be surrounded by copper mesh which allows air circulation for cooling, but impedes RF.
        ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        And if everyone in the world setup TOR gateways and used TOR for everything then the survailiance and ad instry would collapse overnight. Back in the real world it would be frightingly effective.
        Ginden 5y ago
pazimzadeh 5y ago
Do smell next.
neonihil 5y ago
I see a nice niche market opening for devices that scramble this kind of spatial detection. Co-founders are welcome to contact me.
qwertox 5y ago
This is not a future I'd like to see. What bothers me even more, is that if the neighbors above me decide to join an "Apple Security Sensing Program" by toggling it on, it may as well be sensing and logging my activity. Other than that, I do have a lot of ESP32s at my place sensing for activity via IR as well as by creating an FFT-"audio" log. No sound just FFT aggregated over one second, but all these devices store the data on my home server, not in some cloud.
- Ginden 5y ago
  > What bothers me even more, is that if the neighbors above me decide to join an "Apple Security Sensing Program" by toggling it on, it may as well be sensing and logging my activity. 60 Ghz is heavily blocked by walls, glass and doors, even more than 5Ghz, so that's very unlikely scenario.
  - transpute 5y ago
    > that's very unlikely scenario. Wi-Fi sensing works with 2.4 Ghz and higher.
- thebeastie 5y ago
  Tell us more about the home sensors why ir? And what is the fft data for?
  - lnsru 5y ago
    I feed fft data into machine learning system for signal classification. It’s a nice real time system with midrange Xilinx ZynQ SoC. Some Xilinx IP blocks with hand written classification engine. I guess author wants to classify sounds in his environment too.
    - qwertox 5y ago
      Correct, the ultimate goal is to perform automatic activity logging. For example my bathroom has two IR sensors (https://www.amazon.de/dp/B08LBDYPYD https://www.amazon.de/dp/B08LBDYPYD), one inside the shower, one outside of it. This lets me log the time and duration of when I take a shower or how often I shave. It also has an I2S MEMS microphone which collects the data for the FFT where the goal is to replace the IR in the shower with it since the water sound is enough information. Also temperature and humidity, where the latter also gives a good indication of when I showered and when I forgot to close the window some time after showering. My bedroom also has the same "setup", where the FFT shows me how big of a problem I have with snoring. Eventually I can add some logic on the server to slightly wake me up if I snore, but currently I'm just logging. The PIR serves as a measurement of how much I'm moving at night without requiring a camera for this. Though I have another ESP32 under my bed fixated at the slatted frame which contains an 9dof-IMU and logs any significant movement which may be related to quality of sleep. Also the magnetic field which is why I have a strong magnet attached to my bed tablet, so I know when it changed position. Even though the tablet knows that itself because it is logging its own accelerometer every minute. I live alone, so all of this is no problem. At this point I'm mostly only logging, and only using the shower and bed data to see when I used them, which I can then see in Grafana. I think the data will only gain value when watched over a long time frame.
cblconfederate 5y ago
This is great because, finally we can start selling ads with verified "proximal views" to advertisers and make more money! In fact we can think of all the wonderful product synergies here. For example, we can increase the number of proximal views by automatically locking the smart lock in their room so they can't get out for the duration of the ad. Or we can lock the doors of our smart cars while the ads are playing, that's up to 6 verified viewers all at once! We can have ad screen on toilet stalls that autoplay when someone s(h)its. Your phone can start playing ads whenever you come near it! The possibilities here are endless
sydthrowaway 5y ago
Sounds like a coup for Cognitive
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marstall 5y ago
can someone who knows more than me speak to the GDPR (European privacy law) implications of a technology like this?
sandos 5y ago
I need this, room occupancy is still not a cleanly solved problem for home automation. Most methods relies on BLE or phone wifi but that sucks in many ways. This is awesome!
r1ch 5y ago
Wouldn't this have to be constantly transmitting to work? I can't imagine the amount of interference this would create. The lower frequencies are already congested enough...
- bluGill 5y ago
  your access point is transmitting beacons on a regular basis anyway.
- transpute 5y ago
  It uses reflections from existing transmissions.
transpute 5y ago
Thanks to the person who posted this comment on the article, https://staceyoniot.com/the-next-big-wi-fi-standard-is-for-sensing-not-communication/#comment-121317 https://staceyoniot.com/the-next-big-wi-fi-standard-is-for-s... > Great article. To get out ahead of this, I’ll go ahead and pre-write this for the IEEE. They’re going to need it in a few months. > “The IEEE has heard the concerns of consumers and takes privacy very seriously. We recognize that the potential value of the proposed standard is enormous, but that it must be paired with technologies that prevent it’s misuse in an ever more dangerous cyber world. As such, we are delaying the implementation of this technology in the .bf standard, and we will re-address it once we have come to a consensus across all stakeholders including privacy and consumer advocates.”
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Jimmc414 5y ago
This could easily fall within the realm of the Supreme Court's decision in KYLLO v. UNITED STATES where it was ruled that a thermal imaging search of a home is a violation of the US 4th amendment. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/kyllo.htm http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/kyllo.h...
- EricE 5y ago
  As we know, outlawing activities is a sure-fire way to prevent them from happening!
riddleronroof 5y ago
Your next door neighbor’s wifi will know your every movement, and can probably image it too. End of privacy within closed doors. I guess I always thought that should be sacred space.

205 points by transpute 5y ago

There is some previous work dating back at least to 2015. They were detecting people and gestures using current WiFi technologies. http://rfcapture.csail.mit.edu/ http://rfcapture.csail.mit.edu/

kornhole 5y ago

This could inspire some clothing designs that weave in rf blocking or distorting materials to wear in retail or work places.

whatshisface 5y ago
That would be like hiding from cameras by wearing a bright orange reflective vest.

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blurbleblurble 5y ago

And just what do people think 5G is for? I've been frustratedly trying to tell people this for a few years now. Glad it's finally "coming to light". ^^^ this pun has something to do with electromagnetic radiation

giantg2 5y ago

I don't know. Maybe I'm just getting old. It seems this, like a lot of new tech these days, will end up offering little benefit while providing new malicious capabilities.

dragonelite 5y ago
There is a difference between consumer benefits and maybe industrial benefits. Maybe it might make communication between sorting bots more accurate and quicker.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Doubtful. Beam forming would be more beneficial.
C19is20 5y ago
It's been the same throughout history. Invent a tool...use it to kill.
- oblio 5y ago
  I wouldn't be as negative. Frequently we create the tool in order to kill with it. After that we also use to tool to create. We're equally capable of good and evil and yes, we are frequently good, too.
  - MrYellowP 5y ago
    It's not negative, it's true.
    - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
      I'd say it's both ways: inventions perceived as positive at first were later used for nefarious things and the technology used to create military technologies found many civilian applications that turned out very beneficial to the society at large. Over these years I also realized how little you can do to actually stop research, no matter what your opinions of it are. Even if something is officially forbidden, you can be sure someone else works on it if it's interesting enough, so in the end you're at a disadvantage. There are many examples of it nowadays.
    - loceng 5y ago
      Literalism is a killer.
    - oblio 5y ago
      It can be both at the same time. If you look at my comment, you can construe it as even being more negative and cynical, since I'm saying that instead of creating a tool and finding ways to kill with it, we're frequently building tools just to kill with them, and only later we find ways to use them for something non-lethal.
- Lucasoato 5y ago
  ...also the other way: a lot of inventions were used in the civil world just after being designed and developed in the military one.
ksec 5y ago
One thing I see 802.1bf ( Sensing ), along with 802.11be ( WiFi 7 ) could be used together in setting up consumer mesh WiFi Network. Home Wireless Networking is still pretty much an unsolved problem for average consumers. Edit: Turns out there are other comments below mentioning this.
- giantg2 5y ago
  "Home Wireless Networking is still pretty much an unsolved problem for average consumers." What do you mean? Most consumers have a wireless router, and that works for their needs.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    If you live in anything other than an apartment, your wifi connection drops considerably once a few walls and a floor are in the way. Mesh networks solve this by repeating the signal halfway to your hard-to-reach devices, although it must be done in an intelligent way if you want seamless band switching and its performance might be greatly improved with wifi 7's sensing capabilities.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      My router is in the basement. Reception is great throughout the house, including the second floor, and even decent out in the garage or on the deck. Similar setup and results for my in-laws who have a massive house (3000-3500 sqft).
      - judge2020 5y ago
        Many houses and places of business have walls or floors made with thicker material that block/hinder the waves - things like solid wood floors, brick walls or concrete walls can do a number on even 2.4ghz signals.
        giantg2 5y ago
        The in-laws have hardwood floors on both levels. I haven't seen internal masonry walls in most places. Even if that is a concern, I don't see sensing as being a benefit.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
It's very scary shit. We could soon have no privacy at all in our own homes because of other people's WiFi networks. If the output is strong enough, all you have to do is connect to/crack someone's WiFi and use it to get a layout of all their neighbor's places.
- everdrive 5y ago
  This is a great example of why people don’t have privacy. Ethernet cables exist, and wholly forgo these problems. But, they are less convenient. Consumers complain a lot about privacy, but do little to really demand it. Of course manufacturers deserve much of the blame here for actually implementing these things, but it doesn’t seem as if consumers are trying to steer them in the right direction at all.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Yep. I have ethernet cables throughout the house and use it for most stuff. I still have a wireless router for the phones though.
- transpute 5y ago
  > all you have to do is connect to/crack someone's WiFi and use it to get a layout of all their neighbor's places. It's much worse: neither crack nor connection is required. The technology is entirely passive, it only uses reflections from Wi-Fi radios, same as radar. No connection to the router is required, hence the acronym DFWS (Device-Free Wireless Sensing). To be clear, this can be done today with $20 ESP32 WiFi devices + custom firmware, i.e. any motivated attacker can already see through the walls of homes and businesses. The Wi-Fi 7 Sensing draft standard is proposing to make this available to everyone. Perhaps we need a celebrity to help demo SENS transparency of their home walls, to help consumers and regulators understand the implications. That could motivate research investment in privacy controls. More details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29901979 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29901979
  - judge2020 5y ago

transpute 5y ago

(2010) early public firmware for research on Wi-Fi sensing, https://dhalperi.github.io/linux-80211n-csitool/ https://dhalperi.github.io/linux-80211n-csitool/ (2012) military use case, https://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-07/seeing-through-walls-wireless-router/ https://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-07/seeing-thr... (2017) industrial use case, https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/wi-fi-radiation-transparent-walls/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/wi-fi-radiation-tran... (2020) slide #20 on use cases for Wi-Fi 7 SENS, https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/pdf/wi-fi-7-and-beyond.pdf https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents... (2021) HN threads on "seeing through walls" radar for human monitoring: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28479057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28479057 & https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27123493 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27123493 (2021) IEEE working group, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.14918.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.14918.pdf > This paper reports ongoing efforts by the IEEE 802.11bf Task Group (TGbf), which is defining the appropriate modifications to existing Wi-Fi standards to enhance sensing capabilities through 802.11-compliant waveforms. (2021) panel discussion on RF sensing, https://staceyoniot.com/what-you-missed-at-the-rf-sensing-event-last-week/ https://staceyoniot.com/what-you-missed-at-the-rf-sensing-ev... > we could use terahertz spectrum to detect specific molecules and in turn use terahertz frequencies and radios as a way to track specific ingredients in food or pollutants in the air. (2021) EU-funded CSI countermeasures research in privacy protection, https://ans.unibs.it/projects/csi-murder/ https://ans.unibs.it/projects/csi-murder/ (2022) product launch ahead of the 2024 standard, https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/3/22864783/sengled-smart-health-monitoring-smart-bulb-ces2022 https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/3/22864783/sengled-smart-hea... > The Sengled Smart Health Monitoring Light is a dual Wi-Fi / Bluetooth bulb with built-in health monitoring using radar technology. It’s designed to track your sleep and certain biometric measurements, such as heart rate and body temperature, as well as other vital signs. The bulb can work alone, or multiple bulbs connected via a Bluetooth mesh network work together to create a virtual map that can help detect human behavior.

kadoban 5y ago

Who is actually asking for this? It can't be for consumers just wanting to use the internet right? I don't get it.

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zozbot234 5y ago
It's most probably meant for opportunistic sensing in industrial environments, where it might become quite useful. It's not something you're going to use at home.
- trulyme 5y ago
  However, it could be something employers would want to use when you are working remotely. Unfortunately.
- varenc 5y ago
  I think there’ll be a decent amount of home interest, particularly for home security. Linksys is already doing WiFi sensing as part of their various smart home products: https://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=317804 https://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=317804 The Linksys docs even mention how you may have to tune the sensitivity to filter out motion from your neighbors...
- transpute 5y ago
  Since this is passive sensing, an attacker outside your home can make use of the WiFi signals emitted from the router inside your home. Or they can broadcast their own signal.
transpute 5y ago
https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/pdf/wi-fi-7-and-beyond.pdf https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents... Security Environment Control Wake on approach, walk away lock Conference room occupancy Gesture control Elderly monitoring Baby monitoring Smart housekeeping Advertisement signage efficiency Motion detection Proximity detection People counting Human activity recognition Vital signs (e.g. heartrate) detection

barbazoo 5y ago

The only real practical example is fall detection, what's the real purpose of this?

ryan93 5y ago
Kept a lot of smart students busy
freyr 5y ago
I worked briefly for a company working on WiFi sensing, and besides fall detection, nobody could give a compelling use case. When pressed to come up with a motivating vision, the big idea was lights turning on automatically when you enter a room. I guess? Like a lot of R&D, it seemed a solution in search of a problem.
- cpuguy83 5y ago
  Yeah seemed like a replacement for other motion sensing... but then how localized can this actually be?
- wildzzz 5y ago
  They've been making that tech for years, every office and school classroom I've been to in the last 10 years has that now. This is just another stupid shot in the dark. Maybe someday someone will actually find a useful purpose. We are limited by what we can't even imagine so there's always hope but until then, I'll let those with deep pockets spend the energy trying to find a good use for it.
- saltminer 5y ago
  > lights turning on automatically when you enter a room Was this really it? Or did they have some use-case not currently covered by motion sensors? I can see some potential use for security (cheap REX sensors can be easily tricked, allowing unauthorized access into secure areas). The fix is obvious (stop cheaping out on your REX sensors) but I can envision someone trying to bill wifi sensing as the hip new solution for REX systems.
- daveofdaves 5y ago

GlenTheMachine 5y ago

Is it just me, or does this seems like a really, really bad idea? The privacy implications here seem… disturbing.

whatshisface 5y ago
Technology can't be stopped by individual engineers refusing to invent it, it can only be stopped by everyone agreeing on the ways it shouldn't be used. So it was for arson (fire), homicide (every weapon since the rock), and obscene material (all communications technology), and so must it be for privacy and the various techniques of monitoring us.
- pjbeam 5y ago
  Even then it isn't stopped; once something exists someone will eventually use it, and likely in way not intended by the designer.
- transpute 5y ago
  Since 802.11bf makes most existing walls transparent, it should lead to innovation in wall construction. It may also increase market demand for light-based wireless networking (Li-Fi) which has the advantage of being stopped by existing walls.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    People will need indoor cell repeaters to undo what's done by their shielded walls.
    - transpute 5y ago
      Hopefully light-based networking gains mass-market traction. First Li-Fi tablet was announced at CES 2022, https://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/17597/first-li-fi-android-tablet-unveiled-at-ces-2022 https://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/17597/first-li...
    - 5y ago

jacob019 5y ago

Will be great for making targeted interactive ads that follow customers around as they shop.

waynesonfire 5y ago

Meh,not even web3.0 compatible. Very disappointing.

divbzero 5y ago

Some WiFi systems [1] [2] already offer sensing capabilities for home security. [1]: https://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=317804 https://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=317804 [2]: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171114005542/en/Next-Generation-of-Aura-Uses-WiFi-Motion-and-Mesh-Technology-to-Monitor-Your-Home-Without-Cameras https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171114005542/en/Nex... I agree with other comments that question the ratio of benefit vs. risk. But I’m an old fogey who feels similarly about other “smart” home devices.

transpute 5y ago
Also possible with open firmware on low-cost ESP32 devices, https://wrlab.github.io/Wi-ESP/ https://wrlab.github.io/Wi-ESP/ & https://github.com/StevenMHernandez/ESP32-CSI-Tool https://github.com/StevenMHernandez/ESP32-CSI-Tool But there's a big difference in custom firmware used in a few products and IEEE standardization in every new WiFi access point. We need more funding for countermeasures, https://ans.unibs.it/projects/csi-murder/ https://ans.unibs.it/projects/csi-murder/ > Imagine that someone wants to illegally track the position of a person inside a laboratory, for instance to measure how much time is spent doing different activities at different desks, as depicted in the upper picture. How much effective can this attack be? ... With CSI-MURDER, the localization becomes impossible because results will seem random, thus preserving the person privacy without destroying Wi-Fi communications. 400+ (!) papers on wireless sensing, over the last decade https://dhalperi.github.io/linux-80211n-csitool/ https://dhalperi.github.io/linux-80211n-csitool/ & https://groups.csail.mit.edu/netmit/sFFT/soda_paper.pdf https://groups.csail.mit.edu/netmit/sFFT/soda_paper.pdf & https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/103715 https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/103715
deadmutex 5y ago
> other comments that question the ratio of benefit vs. risk I think it is important to note that different people will have different inputs into benefits and risk. E.g. a 24 year old male living alone probably doesn't have a use case for elderly fall detection, etc. But, a 75 year old woman living alone probably does. Also, I am of the opinion that is possible to do this properly (i.e. securely and privacy preserving). Case in point: people carry microphones (in phones) that can record any audio with them... but they do it because they trust that their phone is secure and private.

vlovich123 5y ago

How much additional value does this provide vs the addition of ToF information in beacons that already exists? This seems primarily about providing tracking capabilities to operators whereas ToF provides tracking to the people who are actually trying to do positioning. The privacy implications are worrying.

hvacmike 5y ago

jimmySixDOF 5y ago

In a related note, this week Google ATAP and Ford announced Ripple, a open standard for consumer radio sensing based on Project Soli (60 Ghz) [1] https://github.com/CTA-Ripple/Ripple-v.0 https://github.com/CTA-Ripple/Ripple-v.0 [2] https://9to5google.com/2022/01/06/google-soli-radar-ripple/ https://9to5google.com/2022/01/06/google-soli-radar-ripple/

transpute 5y ago
That's based on UWB (Ultra Wideband), which is also present in some iPhones. https://staceyoniot.com/two-companies-show-where-our-uwb-future-is-heading-2/ https://staceyoniot.com/two-companies-show-where-our-uwb-fut... > Outside of fine-grained location tracking, UWB is also used for radar sensing. Google is using UWB for its Soli radar, which is embedded in the most recent Nest Hub display to track respiration during sleep ... Novelda, argues that UWB sensing is more effective than the traditional motion sensors that hotels have historically deployed because they can sense a person even when they are still by “seeing” micromovements made by the person’s breathing. Lenovo embedded the Novelda chip into its laptops as a way to keep the screen on only when a person is in front of it, which helps save on battery power.

ahonhn 5y ago

Finally! X-Ray glasses like what the ads in the comic book promised!

transpute 5y ago
Thanks, MIT! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dina_Katabi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dina_Katabi > In 2012, her work on Sparse Fourier Transforms was chosen as one of the top 10 breakthroughs of the year by Technology Review ... In 2014, on the celebration of Project Mac's 50th anniversary, her work on X-ray vision was chosen as one of the "50 ways that MIT has transformed computer science."

petarb 5y ago

I want my Wi-Fi to deliver me fast internet access, not track my position. Have a feeling this will be used for il-intent and monetized by future routers

Haemm0r 5y ago
+1 As many APs today are already cloud dependent I can totally see where all the sensed data will be stored and out of the owners control.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  I’m skeptical there are customers really asking for this.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - klabb3 5y ago
    If there's one thing I learnt the last decade, it's to not underestimate how even the shittiest of tech, like a smart fridge or an iot juice press, will become must-haves for the consuming class. In this case, perhaps it's "find my keys", "alert me when my toddler wakes up", "metaverse body tracking", etc/whatever.
    - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
      Yeah, I realized we are on a far side of the bridge when I saw how many people in the USA decided to buy their Echos. It is estimated the USA has ca. 140 housing units, and that there are 40 millions of Echos in use now. A device I would refuse to install in my house even if someone paid me a lot for it.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    Customers also didn't ask for even more ads and tracking in their TV, but they did ask for cheaper devices - the result is that you'll have to shell out serious bucks for "digital signage"-style displays if you want to live in peace.

thegagne 5y ago

Not mentioned in the article but a futuristic guess would be to provide omniscient eyes for AI/robots. Short term smart bots that can navigate and clean a cluttered household with little kids and toddlers knocking about. Longer term, maybe nanobots. It could be Rosie from the Jetsons but more likely it’s Amazon analyzing my poop density to sell me some goofball supplements.

transpute 5y ago
Terahertz-radar doorbell breathalyzer virus test decides whether to smart unlock front door to allow leaving the house? Philip K. Dick would be proud.

KingMachiavelli 5y ago

There seems to be a lot of FUD about this. Make no mistake, the malicious and privacy invasive applications are already being used; they just don't follow a IEEE spec and aren't associated with WiFi directly. If a maliciously controlled router wants to track you it already can because your phone, smart watch, and laptop already broadcast themselves. This technology may not seem useful to the purpose of WiFi on it's face but that couldn't be further from the truth. Knowing the population of a room in terms of devices but also people is useful for WiFi deployment planning and power level optimization. 2000 people with 2 devices is different from 4000 individual people. People already have WiFi enabled lights and other sensors so providing a standard for object & people detection will make those use cases even better.

leoh 5y ago
So there’s FUD about something we should already reasonably have FUD about?
- lifeisstillgood 5y ago
  When analysing FUD always use the ELMER acronym E - Expectations L - Lifetime M - Motivation E - Environment R - Reward :-)
  - tucosan 5y ago
    Can you elaborate? What is this?
    - err 5y ago
      I interpreted it as a joke. Elmer Fudd is a cartoon character. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Fudd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Fudd
    - MisterTea 5y ago
      Elmer Fud is a character from the Warmer Brothers Bugs Bunny animated series of children's cartoons and used as a mnemonic device. I assume the ELMER acronym is some set of metrics used to judge the validity of a claim to determine if it is FUD or not.

nerdbaggy 5y ago

Cisco has been doing something like this with Angle of Arrival with a 16 antenna array for the past few years. It’s pretty cool but only works in perfect setups, and the antennas need to be mounted above you. https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/technotes/8-8/b_ap_4800_hyperlocation_deployment_guide.html https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/te...

Ice_cream_suit 5y ago

Nice... SWAT teams, home burglars and the NSA will all be clients for the data. Once the granularity gets fine enough, movements involved in prayers, sex and elimination of waste can all be monitored remotely by state actors. Malware from around the world will now be able to transmit details of your body movements back to their controllers. Imagine being able to blackmail you because malware detected you having sex when your partner was away or performing Muslim prayers in an islamophobic society.

visarga 5y ago
Hmm, this is what I imagined: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/07/21/books/review/0721-bks-SHONEcover/0721-bks-SHONEcover-superJumbo.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/07/21/books/review/0721...
skocznymroczny 5y ago
Just put it under "contact tracing and covid prevention" and people will cheer you for it and ask for more.

jagger27 5y ago

I'm surprised that there's not a single comment here about 802.11ay which is also 60GHz. Each channel on that standard can do something like 40Gbps, which is nuts. From Wikipedia[0]: > The link-rate per stream is 44 Gbit/s, with four streams this goes up to 176 Gbit/s. Yes, it can't penetrate walls, but is huge for point to point communication. Think VR headset bandwidth, file transfers between devices, wireless backhaul between buildings. It's not just for spying on your cat. I think it's important to remember that it's not magic, it's just radio waves. You can "sense" with a lot more resolution if you use a camera and light bulb. There are plenty of eyeballs, cameras, and lights all around you right now. Even worse, someone could be looking in your window with binoculars. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ay

zeepzeep 5y ago
> It's not just for spying on your cat. Can we stop downplaying privacy issues please?
- EveYoung 5y ago
  Not trying to be provocative, but how is this any worse than existing cameras or motion sensors?
  - fsflover 5y ago
    Do you have those at home?
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    RF is far less hindered by stuff like walls.
  - justaj 5y ago
    With cameras and motion sensors you more or less know how they'll be used and as a user you can choose to disable them (or at the very least block them if you can't disable them). With this technology, it will be integrated into your router (and clients?), so turning those off will mean to turn off WiFi altogether. Added to that, I'll bet that most people wouldn't even begin to imagine that WiFi could be used for sensing people, and they'll continue using WiFi without being aware for the grave privacy implications.

akomtu 5y ago

This is the natural evolution of ultrasound radars, currently present in some devices.

transpute 5y ago

(2021) privacy comments on Wi-Fi 7 standards work for 802.11bf, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.14918.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.14918.pdf > it has been shown that SENS-based classifiers can infer privacy-critical information such as keyboard typing, gesture recognition and activity tracking ... since Wi-Fi signals can penetrate hard objects and can be used without the presence of light, end-users may not even realize they are being tracked ... individuals should be provided the opportunity to opt out of SENS services – in other words, to avoid being monitored and tracked by the Wi-Fi devices around them. This would require the widespread introduction of reliable SENS algorithm for human or animal identification. Would this require a worldwide database of biometric signatures for each human that opts out?

klabb3 5y ago
No, the future is decentralized. In the US, you will always be tracked because of regulatory capture of the FCC. In Europe, your phone will display a tracking consent pop-up everytime you go into a cafe. If you don't comply, you will have to get your coffee and free wifi elsewhere.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  I can no longer tell apart sarcasm and real dystopia
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > If you don't comply, you will have to get your coffee and free wifi elsewhere. You will be able to take legal action against the café, but it won't make a difference.
judge2020 5y ago
My concern is that people opting out of this protocol won't actually be opting out of the sensing technology. Any attacker trying to sense keystrokes using RF waves already can do that and won't be hindered by some opt out program nor be considered whether or not wifi 7 sensing is allowed to be part of new routers.

layla5alive 5y ago

This has nearly zero non-orwellian use-cases inside a home.

beebeepka 5y ago
Of course there are all sorts of positive applications for the user. It's just their number is dwarfed by the real purpose of these things. We've known they've been coming for a while. Now they here and we'll have to fight it, then lose.
bluGill 5y ago
You have no idea what the future will come up with. There is a lot of potential on both sides.

dirtyid 5y ago

I expected wifi sensing to be exploited when I saw the tech demo years ago but I did not expect it to become a standard.

hoseja 5y ago

Please dance the Amazon Verification Dance. I cannot fathom any good use for this technology.

rocqua 5y ago
Adaptive ventilation and maybe even heating of rooms depending on the number of people present.
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  You can add a 100 euro CO2 sensor to control your HVAC. There isn't a use case for this that isn't abusive outside an industrial setting. I think if ISPs push for these in routers we will see comeback of rewiring houses with ethernet points.
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    I can see ISPs forcing you to use their modem with this WiFi built in. Then even if you put it in bridge mode, the WiFi stays active while it tracks you.
    - transpute 5y ago
      If an exclusive/monopoly ISP took that approach, the modem could be surrounded by copper mesh which allows air circulation for cooling, but impedes RF.
      - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        And if everyone in the world setup TOR gateways and used TOR for everything then the survailiance and ad instry would collapse overnight. Back in the real world it would be frightingly effective.
        Ginden 5y ago

pazimzadeh 5y ago

Do smell next.

neonihil 5y ago

I see a nice niche market opening for devices that scramble this kind of spatial detection. Co-founders are welcome to contact me.

qwertox 5y ago

This is not a future I'd like to see. What bothers me even more, is that if the neighbors above me decide to join an "Apple Security Sensing Program" by toggling it on, it may as well be sensing and logging my activity. Other than that, I do have a lot of ESP32s at my place sensing for activity via IR as well as by creating an FFT-"audio" log. No sound just FFT aggregated over one second, but all these devices store the data on my home server, not in some cloud.

Ginden 5y ago
> What bothers me even more, is that if the neighbors above me decide to join an "Apple Security Sensing Program" by toggling it on, it may as well be sensing and logging my activity. 60 Ghz is heavily blocked by walls, glass and doors, even more than 5Ghz, so that's very unlikely scenario.
- transpute 5y ago
  > that's very unlikely scenario. Wi-Fi sensing works with 2.4 Ghz and higher.
thebeastie 5y ago
Tell us more about the home sensors why ir? And what is the fft data for?
- lnsru 5y ago
  I feed fft data into machine learning system for signal classification. It’s a nice real time system with midrange Xilinx ZynQ SoC. Some Xilinx IP blocks with hand written classification engine. I guess author wants to classify sounds in his environment too.
  - qwertox 5y ago
    Correct, the ultimate goal is to perform automatic activity logging. For example my bathroom has two IR sensors (https://www.amazon.de/dp/B08LBDYPYD https://www.amazon.de/dp/B08LBDYPYD), one inside the shower, one outside of it. This lets me log the time and duration of when I take a shower or how often I shave. It also has an I2S MEMS microphone which collects the data for the FFT where the goal is to replace the IR in the shower with it since the water sound is enough information. Also temperature and humidity, where the latter also gives a good indication of when I showered and when I forgot to close the window some time after showering. My bedroom also has the same "setup", where the FFT shows me how big of a problem I have with snoring. Eventually I can add some logic on the server to slightly wake me up if I snore, but currently I'm just logging. The PIR serves as a measurement of how much I'm moving at night without requiring a camera for this. Though I have another ESP32 under my bed fixated at the slatted frame which contains an 9dof-IMU and logs any significant movement which may be related to quality of sleep. Also the magnetic field which is why I have a strong magnet attached to my bed tablet, so I know when it changed position. Even though the tablet knows that itself because it is logging its own accelerometer every minute. I live alone, so all of this is no problem. At this point I'm mostly only logging, and only using the shower and bed data to see when I used them, which I can then see in Grafana. I think the data will only gain value when watched over a long time frame.

cblconfederate 5y ago

This is great because, finally we can start selling ads with verified "proximal views" to advertisers and make more money! In fact we can think of all the wonderful product synergies here. For example, we can increase the number of proximal views by automatically locking the smart lock in their room so they can't get out for the duration of the ad. Or we can lock the doors of our smart cars while the ads are playing, that's up to 6 verified viewers all at once! We can have ad screen on toilet stalls that autoplay when someone s(h)its. Your phone can start playing ads whenever you come near it! The possibilities here are endless

sydthrowaway 5y ago

Sounds like a coup for Cognitive

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marstall 5y ago

can someone who knows more than me speak to the GDPR (European privacy law) implications of a technology like this?

sandos 5y ago

I need this, room occupancy is still not a cleanly solved problem for home automation. Most methods relies on BLE or phone wifi but that sucks in many ways. This is awesome!

r1ch 5y ago

Wouldn't this have to be constantly transmitting to work? I can't imagine the amount of interference this would create. The lower frequencies are already congested enough...

bluGill 5y ago
your access point is transmitting beacons on a regular basis anyway.
transpute 5y ago
It uses reflections from existing transmissions.

transpute 5y ago

Thanks to the person who posted this comment on the article, https://staceyoniot.com/the-next-big-wi-fi-standard-is-for-sensing-not-communication/#comment-121317 https://staceyoniot.com/the-next-big-wi-fi-standard-is-for-s... > Great article. To get out ahead of this, I’ll go ahead and pre-write this for the IEEE. They’re going to need it in a few months. > “The IEEE has heard the concerns of consumers and takes privacy very seriously. We recognize that the potential value of the proposed standard is enormous, but that it must be paired with technologies that prevent it’s misuse in an ever more dangerous cyber world. As such, we are delaying the implementation of this technology in the .bf standard, and we will re-address it once we have come to a consensus across all stakeholders including privacy and consumer advocates.”

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Jimmc414 5y ago

This could easily fall within the realm of the Supreme Court's decision in KYLLO v. UNITED STATES where it was ruled that a thermal imaging search of a home is a violation of the US 4th amendment. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/kyllo.htm http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/kyllo.h...

EricE 5y ago
As we know, outlawing activities is a sure-fire way to prevent them from happening!

riddleronroof 5y ago

Your next door neighbor’s wifi will know your every movement, and can probably image it too. End of privacy within closed doors. I guess I always thought that should be sacred space.