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PSA: Nokia is out there pitching a vision for what 6G mobile networks will look like, and they're pitching this as a _feature_ of the media. Nakia wants 6G dev

PSA: Nokia is out there pitching a vision for what 6G mobile networks will look like, and they're pitching this as a _feature_ of the media. Nakia wants 6G devices to act as 3D imaging clients, and for network operators to have access to a realtime, 3-dimensional visualization that can see right through walls. this was literally used as a plot point in one of the batman movies a decade ago to highlight how dangerously invasive tech can be. https://www.nokia.com/about-us/newsroom/articles/nokias-vision-for-the-6g-era/ https://www.nokia.com/about-us/newsroom/articles/nokias-visi... https://www.bell-labs.com/institute/blog/building-network-sixth-sense/#gref https://www.bell-labs.com/institute/blog/building-network-si... > A very exciting innovation that 6G will bring to the table would be its ability to sense the environment. The ubiquitous network becomes a source of situational awareness, collating signals that are bouncing off objects and determining type and shape, relative location, velocity and perhaps even material properties. With adequate 6G solutions for privacy and trust, such a mode of sensing can help create a “mirror” or digital twin of the physical world in combination with other sensing modalities.

wahnfrieden 3y ago
US govt and military give a lot of money to Nokia
- Scanner771 3y ago
  Nokia has NSA rooms in their R&D offices. It's creepy.
  - 37469920away 3y ago
    What's even creepier is that parent company also owns Github.
    - Yajirobe 3y ago
      Microsoft?
    - seanp2k2 3y ago
      ahh, the golden days when the smartphones that mattered ran Symbian and we thought Elop was going to be our Elon.
      - harry8 3y ago
        N900 ran linux and it mattered
    - rgblambda 3y ago
      Microsoft purchased Nokia's Devices & Services division, and rebranded it as Microsoft Mobile. Nokia then pivoted to telecommunications infrastructure and IoT. So there's no longer a relationship between the two companies.
      - ianburrell 3y ago
        Also, the Nokia smartphone brand is licensed to HMD Global.
      - darkclouds 3y ago
        Yeah someone at Microsoft thought they could get Windows CE to run on the popular Nokia 3210. /s
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    They revealed that publicly? (Do you work for Nokia? (or the NSA?))
    - antoineMoPa 3y ago
      If he does, he probably does not anymore.
    - anon____ 3y ago
      I think it's a misunderstanding. I found a couple of articles mentioning both Nokia and NSA, but here NSA stands for "Non-Standalone 5G network". Here's a press release, for example: Nokia selected by Dedicado for 5G NSA network in Uruguay (https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2022/12/08/nokia-selected-by-dedicado-for-5g-nsa-network-in-uruguay/ https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2022/12/08/noki...) And a Linkedin profile (he must have a room in the office): Yuriy Pavlov - NSA Infrastructure Information Systems Manager. Nokia. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuriy-pavlov-1969904 https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuriy-pavlov-1969904)
Spivak 3y ago
Well, because it is a feature. It's really cool and I already have ideas for projects I want to do with it. An omnidirectional way to map an entire space that doesn't have the limitations of or require cameras is incredible. And one that I can potentially use to map myself as I walk around. It's basically the end game of motion controls. The popularity will explode the moment someone makes a commercial where someone is cooking with something messy and using their phone without ever touching it. It's the people who make or break it. "This technology is too dangerous and must be destroyed, but hold on I need to use it first because it's really useful" doesn't feel like the strongest condemnation.
- YakBizzarro 3y ago
  The only result will be that the router of my neighbor, provided by his ISP, will happily reports the inside of my apartment. Sorry, I can be excited for a radar-based controller for a console, but as part of wifi, I can't really find any legit use
  - Spivak 3y ago
    I, maybe naively, assumed this capability will also comes to handhelds but yeah if it's only for stationary APs then it's kinda lame.
  - solardev 3y ago
    Beamforming around moving (or even static) obstacles? Integrated motion sensing with fewer false positives for smart bulbs, doorbells, whatever? Or more realistically, your TV can make sure you don't skip the commercials. I probably wouldn't use that stuff myself either, but it's interesting to think about. Why would I care that my neighbor knows we're home and moving around? If they really wanna creep on us, they can already use IR cameras or audio amplification or laser mics or whatever.
    - buran77 3y ago
      > If they really wanna creep on us, they can already use IR cameras or audio amplification or laser mics or whatever. There's always a more sophisticated way to do something bad. Why would that be a good reason to lower the bar for doing it?
jacobwilliamroy 3y ago
I had a discussion with my church group about this and it was absolutely fascinating. On the one hand they welcomed the ubiquitous observation and judgement of all people, because they thought that would make it easier to control people's behavior. But also someone pointed out that is what the anti-christ would do. In the end there wasn't any real consensus on whether or not mass surveillance was good or bad.
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  Did the church group not already believe there to be an entity capable of ubiquitous observation and judgement of everyone, that as an added bonus happens to be entirely benevolent? I'm not sure how any human-made competition in this department could be beneficial.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    This is indeed a big paradox in organized religions. When I was young my parents wanted me to learn about religions so I could make my own choice about which to follow. But I was constantly like "wtf how does this make sense???". And disruptive in class :) They had to take me out of Sunday school. Another thing I never understood is predestination in calvinist religions, which are big in Holland. They believe it's already decided whether you go to heaven or hell, regardless of your actions during your life. So how would you live your life? Personally I'd go for maximum enjoyment because whatever happens is already decided. But no, they're very strict and regimental in general. Never understood why. But of course I did only have Sunday school for a short while :)
    - ben_w 3y ago
      > Another thing I never understood is predestination in calvinist religions, which are big in Holland. They believe it's already decided whether you go to heaven or hell, regardless of your actions during your life. > So how would you live your life? Personally I'd go for maximum enjoyment because whatever happens is already decided. But no, they're very strict and regimental in general. Never understood why. But of course I did only have Sunday school for a short while :) I heard about the predestination thing well before I heard of Newcomb's paradox, but now I realise this is basically the same as "one box, or both boxes?"
conradev 3y ago
My understanding is that the 3D imaging is somewhat inherent to how the protocol operates: higher frequency data over a wider band of frequencies means they can locate you more precisely. Cell phone network operators need to know your location in order to route traffic to the correct tower in order to reach you, and that is not changing anytime soon. Same principle for WiFi beamforming.
- darkclouds 3y ago
  I had an app that ran on Android about a decade ago, which let the user ignore some of the cell masts, so you could not be triangulated, it let you stick to just communicating with the cell mast of your choice. Dont know if its still around.
- judge2020 3y ago
  Not just to the correct tower, but also for adaptive beamforming.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > Cell phone network operators need to know your location in order to route traffic to the correct tower in order to reach you, and that is not changing anytime soon. But that's obviously false. They can know which tower to route your traffic to by the simple fact that that's where your traffic came from. They know where you are because you broadcast simultaneously to all of their towers, but that's not something they need.
  - selectodude 3y ago
    That assumes a stationary target. As cell sizes shrink due to higher frequencies, the need to anticipate where you are and where you're going goes up.
- femto 3y ago
  It's deeper than that. You can't have advanced communications without gleaning the information needed to form a 3D image. To get maximum data throughput, modern communications systems measure how the channel (ie. environment) changes the radio signals and then reverses those changes in the receiver. (search term: channel estimation). So it's inherent that a modern communications system is modelling its environment. A primary way communications systems become better is to increase the sophistication of their environment model. Once the model becomes sophisticated enough, the only difference between a radar and a communication system is which information you choose to extract: the information the environment imprinted/modulated on the radio signal/carrier (ie. the model of the environment) or the information the transmitter imprinted/modulated on the radio signal/carrier (ie. the message). The first is radar, the second is communications. There is no technical reason why you can't extract both.
reaperman 3y ago
> this was literally used as a plot point in one of the batman movies a decade ago to highlight how dangerously invasive tech can be. In the movie Charlie’s Angels (2000) the supervillain technology allowed them to track the locations of the vast majority of people on the planet in realtime. The real world has already jumped the shark for many different fictional supervillain doomsday technologies.
b3orn 3y ago
It's not just Nokia, basically everyone working on 6G proposoals is working on this under the name joint communication and sensing.
ActorNightly 3y ago
Its interesting that any time where someone can gather some form of data is now labeled as "privacy invasion" Which makes the whole discussion about privacy a joke because nobody can define what privacy is.
- mecha_ghidorah 3y ago
  > Its interesting that any time where someone can gather some form of data is now labeled as "privacy invasion" .... I think technology that enables visualization through walls is pretty obviously a privacy invasion. People are used to walls giving them privacy...
  - ActorNightly 3y ago
    IR cameras existed for quite some time. You can also locate people through walls with sound. Simply by going about your day you publish metadata about yourself that can be used to derive behavior.

wahnfrieden 3y ago

US govt and military give a lot of money to Nokia

Scanner771 3y ago
Nokia has NSA rooms in their R&D offices. It's creepy.
- 37469920away 3y ago
  What's even creepier is that parent company also owns Github.
  - Yajirobe 3y ago
    Microsoft?
  - seanp2k2 3y ago
    ahh, the golden days when the smartphones that mattered ran Symbian and we thought Elop was going to be our Elon.
    - harry8 3y ago
      N900 ran linux and it mattered
  - rgblambda 3y ago
    Microsoft purchased Nokia's Devices & Services division, and rebranded it as Microsoft Mobile. Nokia then pivoted to telecommunications infrastructure and IoT. So there's no longer a relationship between the two companies.
    - ianburrell 3y ago
      Also, the Nokia smartphone brand is licensed to HMD Global.
    - darkclouds 3y ago
      Yeah someone at Microsoft thought they could get Windows CE to run on the popular Nokia 3210. /s
- wolverine876 3y ago
  They revealed that publicly? (Do you work for Nokia? (or the NSA?))
  - antoineMoPa 3y ago
    If he does, he probably does not anymore.
  - anon____ 3y ago
    I think it's a misunderstanding. I found a couple of articles mentioning both Nokia and NSA, but here NSA stands for "Non-Standalone 5G network". Here's a press release, for example: Nokia selected by Dedicado for 5G NSA network in Uruguay (https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2022/12/08/nokia-selected-by-dedicado-for-5g-nsa-network-in-uruguay/ https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2022/12/08/noki...) And a Linkedin profile (he must have a room in the office): Yuriy Pavlov - NSA Infrastructure Information Systems Manager. Nokia. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuriy-pavlov-1969904 https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuriy-pavlov-1969904)

Spivak 3y ago

Well, because it is a feature. It's really cool and I already have ideas for projects I want to do with it. An omnidirectional way to map an entire space that doesn't have the limitations of or require cameras is incredible. And one that I can potentially use to map myself as I walk around. It's basically the end game of motion controls. The popularity will explode the moment someone makes a commercial where someone is cooking with something messy and using their phone without ever touching it. It's the people who make or break it. "This technology is too dangerous and must be destroyed, but hold on I need to use it first because it's really useful" doesn't feel like the strongest condemnation.

YakBizzarro 3y ago
The only result will be that the router of my neighbor, provided by his ISP, will happily reports the inside of my apartment. Sorry, I can be excited for a radar-based controller for a console, but as part of wifi, I can't really find any legit use
- Spivak 3y ago
  I, maybe naively, assumed this capability will also comes to handhelds but yeah if it's only for stationary APs then it's kinda lame.
- solardev 3y ago
  Beamforming around moving (or even static) obstacles? Integrated motion sensing with fewer false positives for smart bulbs, doorbells, whatever? Or more realistically, your TV can make sure you don't skip the commercials. I probably wouldn't use that stuff myself either, but it's interesting to think about. Why would I care that my neighbor knows we're home and moving around? If they really wanna creep on us, they can already use IR cameras or audio amplification or laser mics or whatever.
  - buran77 3y ago
    > If they really wanna creep on us, they can already use IR cameras or audio amplification or laser mics or whatever. There's always a more sophisticated way to do something bad. Why would that be a good reason to lower the bar for doing it?

jacobwilliamroy 3y ago

I had a discussion with my church group about this and it was absolutely fascinating. On the one hand they welcomed the ubiquitous observation and judgement of all people, because they thought that would make it easier to control people's behavior. But also someone pointed out that is what the anti-christ would do. In the end there wasn't any real consensus on whether or not mass surveillance was good or bad.

seabass-labrax 3y ago
Did the church group not already believe there to be an entity capable of ubiquitous observation and judgement of everyone, that as an added bonus happens to be entirely benevolent? I'm not sure how any human-made competition in this department could be beneficial.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  This is indeed a big paradox in organized religions. When I was young my parents wanted me to learn about religions so I could make my own choice about which to follow. But I was constantly like "wtf how does this make sense???". And disruptive in class :) They had to take me out of Sunday school. Another thing I never understood is predestination in calvinist religions, which are big in Holland. They believe it's already decided whether you go to heaven or hell, regardless of your actions during your life. So how would you live your life? Personally I'd go for maximum enjoyment because whatever happens is already decided. But no, they're very strict and regimental in general. Never understood why. But of course I did only have Sunday school for a short while :)
  - ben_w 3y ago
    > Another thing I never understood is predestination in calvinist religions, which are big in Holland. They believe it's already decided whether you go to heaven or hell, regardless of your actions during your life. > So how would you live your life? Personally I'd go for maximum enjoyment because whatever happens is already decided. But no, they're very strict and regimental in general. Never understood why. But of course I did only have Sunday school for a short while :) I heard about the predestination thing well before I heard of Newcomb's paradox, but now I realise this is basically the same as "one box, or both boxes?"

conradev 3y ago

My understanding is that the 3D imaging is somewhat inherent to how the protocol operates: higher frequency data over a wider band of frequencies means they can locate you more precisely. Cell phone network operators need to know your location in order to route traffic to the correct tower in order to reach you, and that is not changing anytime soon. Same principle for WiFi beamforming.

darkclouds 3y ago
I had an app that ran on Android about a decade ago, which let the user ignore some of the cell masts, so you could not be triangulated, it let you stick to just communicating with the cell mast of your choice. Dont know if its still around.
judge2020 3y ago
Not just to the correct tower, but also for adaptive beamforming.
thaumasiotes 3y ago
> Cell phone network operators need to know your location in order to route traffic to the correct tower in order to reach you, and that is not changing anytime soon. But that's obviously false. They can know which tower to route your traffic to by the simple fact that that's where your traffic came from. They know where you are because you broadcast simultaneously to all of their towers, but that's not something they need.
- selectodude 3y ago
  That assumes a stationary target. As cell sizes shrink due to higher frequencies, the need to anticipate where you are and where you're going goes up.
femto 3y ago
It's deeper than that. You can't have advanced communications without gleaning the information needed to form a 3D image. To get maximum data throughput, modern communications systems measure how the channel (ie. environment) changes the radio signals and then reverses those changes in the receiver. (search term: channel estimation). So it's inherent that a modern communications system is modelling its environment. A primary way communications systems become better is to increase the sophistication of their environment model. Once the model becomes sophisticated enough, the only difference between a radar and a communication system is which information you choose to extract: the information the environment imprinted/modulated on the radio signal/carrier (ie. the model of the environment) or the information the transmitter imprinted/modulated on the radio signal/carrier (ie. the message). The first is radar, the second is communications. There is no technical reason why you can't extract both.

reaperman 3y ago

> this was literally used as a plot point in one of the batman movies a decade ago to highlight how dangerously invasive tech can be. In the movie Charlie’s Angels (2000) the supervillain technology allowed them to track the locations of the vast majority of people on the planet in realtime. The real world has already jumped the shark for many different fictional supervillain doomsday technologies.

b3orn 3y ago

It's not just Nokia, basically everyone working on 6G proposoals is working on this under the name joint communication and sensing.

ActorNightly 3y ago

Its interesting that any time where someone can gather some form of data is now labeled as "privacy invasion" Which makes the whole discussion about privacy a joke because nobody can define what privacy is.

mecha_ghidorah 3y ago
> Its interesting that any time where someone can gather some form of data is now labeled as "privacy invasion" .... I think technology that enables visualization through walls is pretty obviously a privacy invasion. People are used to walls giving them privacy...
- ActorNightly 3y ago
  IR cameras existed for quite some time. You can also locate people through walls with sound. Simply by going about your day you publish metadata about yourself that can be used to derive behavior.