this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2025
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The Sapienza computer scientists say Wi-Fi signals offer superior surveillance potential compared to cameras because they're not affected by light conditions, can penetrate walls and other obstacles, and they're more privacy-preserving than visual images.

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

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[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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

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

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

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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

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

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)

We study it because EVERYTHING can be used for good or evil.

If we'd stopped researching anything that could be used for evil we'd never have gotten into the stone age

[–] jaemo@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, like, why learn how to split the atom if all we can do is splode stuff. It's not like we can cure cancer or power things without emitting planet killing gasses or anything.

[–] Brickhead92@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

But, but, splosion make line go up. Splosion good...?

[–] Hikermick@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago (2 children)

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

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

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

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 8 points 6 days ago

It was very much not even far fetched at that point. 1984 wrote about the same kind of surveillance, and at that time it would have been pretty far fetched. It was published in 1949; the video camera was only 24 years old at that point.

[–] millie@slrpnk.net 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Time to start making faraday clothes.

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

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

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

[–] Sundiata@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago

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

Congratulations! You are now fully fucked!

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

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

Time to carry a WiFi jammer

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

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

[–] axEl7fB5@lemmy.cafe 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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

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

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

[–] besselj@lemmy.ca 162 points 1 week ago (10 children)

Ironically, a tin foil hat would probably work to prevent that kind of surveillance

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 62 points 1 week ago

A faraday hat.

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[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 119 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Chuck vindicated. What a chicanery.

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[–] unmagical@lemmy.ml 107 points 1 week ago (18 children)

I'm generally pro research, but occasionally I come across a body of research and wish I could just shut down what they're doing and rewind the clock to before that started.

There is no benefit of this for the common person. There is no end user need or product for being able to identify individuals based on their interactions with WiFi signals. The only people that benefit from this are large corporations and governments and that's from them turning it on you.

Continued research will ease widespread surveillance and mass tracking. That's not a good thing.

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

First - someone comes up with this. Next, privacy researchers and black/white/grey hat techies come up with methods to defeat it.

Better for surveillance tech research like this to be published out in the open than developed in some secret lab. I figure these researchers are doing more positive than negative by publishing their findings. It's not like if they didn't publish, someone else wouldn't come up with this and possibly use it clandestinely.

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[–] ObviouslyNotBanana@piefed.world 79 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Great, another dystopian way for authorities to observe me on the shitter

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[–] hisao@ani.social 74 points 1 week ago (5 children)

I've seen some article recently that the patterns of Wi-Fi/Bluetooth (don't remember which one) interference with brainwaves can be scanned to reconstruct brainwave signature remotely, meaning that it might be possible to scan anyone's EEG from Wi-Fi/Bluetooth distance. And there are some AI advancements for reconstructing inner monologue from EEG. So maybe we're not so far from actual remote mind-reading.

[–] jmill@lemmy.zip 71 points 1 week ago (6 children)

A truly horrifying prospect.

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[–] ileftreddit@piefed.social 70 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Why would someone research something like this? God damn, like use your life for good, homie

[–] MouldyCat@feddit.uk 11 points 6 days ago

You think if people who publish their work publicly didn't research things like this, they would just never be discovered?

At least this way, we all know about the possibility, and further research can be done to see what can mitigate it.

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[–] Seleni@lemmy.world 69 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

accurate matches up to 95.5% of the time

and they’re more privacy-preserving than visual images

Oh fuck all the way off.

[–] Smoogs@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

Sounds like an ad tailored specifically to putin

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