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The police has access to the planimetry of your home. Secondly, if they get close enough they can measure the distance between the agent and the router, and the

The police has access to the planimetry of your home. Secondly, if they get close enough they can measure the distance between the agent and the router, and then deduce all the relative distances from the router to the people inside.

Aurornis 1y ago
This is sci-fi fantasy mixed with paranoia. The floor plan of every home is not on file, especially older homes. Police aren’t accessing your floor plan and then accessing your router and combining these into a perfect model that maps people’s locations. Where in this supposed plan are the police deducing the location of your WiFi router in the house and constructing a model of all materials and objects in the house that impact the model? This just isn’t how those research papers work. It’s not something the police are going to combine with a file from the planning office and magically have a map of you in your house like in a movie.
- mothballed 1y ago
  They could easily find it for most people. It is generally public record, in my county it's available online, unless the individual built the home themselves (mine isn't on file because I opted out of building codes and planning, but commercial home builders can't do that here). But let's be real, police constantly barge in to the wrong address, looking for people that have been gone for years, accomplishing not much more than shooting a beloved dog on a hair-brained last second witch hunt. It's not that they can't do it, it's that they have the attention span and executive planning facilities of a burnt out coke addict 3 hours post their latest scratch off ticket winnings.
  - nedrylandJP 1y ago
    (fyi, hare-brained... like a hare)
    - mathgeek 1y ago
      Depends on how far you go back with the language. https://grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/10/harebrained-hairbrained.html https://grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/10/harebrained-hairbrain...
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    A floor plan is not equivalent to a complete RF characterization of an environment. Ignore the floor plan comments because they don’t enable WiFi positioning. Think through it: Does your floor plan contain info about the precise location of your WiFi devices and any obstructions between them? Even that isn’t enough to get a WiFi location model, but it’s not in there regardless.
- chaostheory 1y ago
  Yet. Given the availability of the data online and that most new startups are defense or security oriented, it’s only a matter of time.
- addicted 1y ago
  Yeah, your local friendly police officer isn't gonna do that. They're gonna pay Anduril, Palantir, and a whole host of other business or consulting firms a ton of your money to do that. The criticism that "it's technically too challenging for the police department therefore its sci-fi" is extremely silly given that the current article literally is about private companies that are building surveillance networks that they will then sell to the police. Which makes the entire situation a lot worse.
  - wildzzz 1y ago
    It's a lot cheaper to just bust the door down, toss in a bunch of flash bangs and light up anyone who doesn't have their hands raised. Maybe they'll just send an armed robot in first if there's a specific threat involved.
- _DeadFred_ 1y ago
  Everything about our world today was the stuff of dystopian paranoia 20 years ago.
- array_key_first 1y ago
  Police aren't doing anything, they're worthless. Tech companies are doing stuff and giving police free for all access and use. Which is worse, because as stated, police are worthless. You think they consider the consequences or the rights of the people they use those tools on? Come on now. This can be provided as a service, if it isn't already. Im sure something similar already exists.
msie 1y ago
Police won't even check the address before they raid a place, so I don't think so.
- hollywood_court 1y ago
  Yep. I used to be a building/remodeling contractor. If I accidentally showed up to the wrong address and demolished the wrong deck, I'd be responsible for making the property owner whole again. If a cop serves a warrant and the wrong address and ends ups murdering a child, that cop will receive sympathy and paid time off.
  - FireBeyond 1y ago
    Yeah, people have (attempted to) sue PDs and cities for even woefully negligent wrong address raids (different street to warrant and documentation), and the courts have happily told them "sucks to be you, they have no requirement to pay for any damage".

Aurornis 1y ago

This is sci-fi fantasy mixed with paranoia. The floor plan of every home is not on file, especially older homes. Police aren’t accessing your floor plan and then accessing your router and combining these into a perfect model that maps people’s locations. Where in this supposed plan are the police deducing the location of your WiFi router in the house and constructing a model of all materials and objects in the house that impact the model? This just isn’t how those research papers work. It’s not something the police are going to combine with a file from the planning office and magically have a map of you in your house like in a movie.

mothballed 1y ago
They could easily find it for most people. It is generally public record, in my county it's available online, unless the individual built the home themselves (mine isn't on file because I opted out of building codes and planning, but commercial home builders can't do that here). But let's be real, police constantly barge in to the wrong address, looking for people that have been gone for years, accomplishing not much more than shooting a beloved dog on a hair-brained last second witch hunt. It's not that they can't do it, it's that they have the attention span and executive planning facilities of a burnt out coke addict 3 hours post their latest scratch off ticket winnings.
- nedrylandJP 1y ago
  (fyi, hare-brained... like a hare)
  - mathgeek 1y ago
    Depends on how far you go back with the language. https://grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/10/harebrained-hairbrained.html https://grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/10/harebrained-hairbrain...
- Aurornis 1y ago
  A floor plan is not equivalent to a complete RF characterization of an environment. Ignore the floor plan comments because they don’t enable WiFi positioning. Think through it: Does your floor plan contain info about the precise location of your WiFi devices and any obstructions between them? Even that isn’t enough to get a WiFi location model, but it’s not in there regardless.
chaostheory 1y ago
Yet. Given the availability of the data online and that most new startups are defense or security oriented, it’s only a matter of time.
addicted 1y ago
Yeah, your local friendly police officer isn't gonna do that. They're gonna pay Anduril, Palantir, and a whole host of other business or consulting firms a ton of your money to do that. The criticism that "it's technically too challenging for the police department therefore its sci-fi" is extremely silly given that the current article literally is about private companies that are building surveillance networks that they will then sell to the police. Which makes the entire situation a lot worse.
- wildzzz 1y ago
  It's a lot cheaper to just bust the door down, toss in a bunch of flash bangs and light up anyone who doesn't have their hands raised. Maybe they'll just send an armed robot in first if there's a specific threat involved.
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
Everything about our world today was the stuff of dystopian paranoia 20 years ago.
array_key_first 1y ago
Police aren't doing anything, they're worthless. Tech companies are doing stuff and giving police free for all access and use. Which is worse, because as stated, police are worthless. You think they consider the consequences or the rights of the people they use those tools on? Come on now. This can be provided as a service, if it isn't already. Im sure something similar already exists.

msie 1y ago

Police won't even check the address before they raid a place, so I don't think so.

hollywood_court 1y ago
Yep. I used to be a building/remodeling contractor. If I accidentally showed up to the wrong address and demolished the wrong deck, I'd be responsible for making the property owner whole again. If a cop serves a warrant and the wrong address and ends ups murdering a child, that cop will receive sympathy and paid time off.
- FireBeyond 1y ago
  Yeah, people have (attempted to) sue PDs and cities for even woefully negligent wrong address raids (different street to warrant and documentation), and the courts have happily told them "sucks to be you, they have no requirement to pay for any damage".