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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[–] besselj@lemmy.ca 162 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 61 points 1 week ago

A faraday hat.

[–] hornedfiend@sopuli.xyz 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

wouldn’t that make it worse? basically any signal can bounce off you, making yourself even easier to track.

edit: wording

[–] besselj@lemmy.ca 38 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The tracking happens even with a big reflector/scatterer on your head, but as long as you dont wear it regularly, the system would have difficulty identifying you from wave propagation alone

[–] Flagstaff@programming.dev 30 points 1 week ago (2 children)

So wear many different hats. Got it.

[–] DasFaultier@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I mean, wouldn't you anyway? You don't wear your good Sunday tinfoil hat to work. That one's for church and swinger club visits only!

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

Yeah, wouldn't want to have to change hats, when I go to the swinger club after church.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Many different items of tinfoil clothing. Tinfoil shirt today, tinfoil codpiece for the weekend

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[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 120 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Chuck vindicated. What a chicanery.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's a very unique fingerprint he's got.

[–] TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz 8 points 1 week ago

"Hey boss come look. This microwave is walking around again"

[–] 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.

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[–] ObviouslyNotBanana@piefed.world 81 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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

[–] INHALE_VEGETABLES@aussie.zone 31 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Your poo time has expired and your pay is docked. Flushing will cost 50 dollars for the next week. Get back to work

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You get poo time? That's socialism!

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[–] SGG@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Please drink a verification laxative?

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[–] hisao@ani.social 74 points 1 week ago (4 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 70 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A truly horrifying prospect.

[–] pdxfed@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago (5 children)
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[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You had non work related thoughts on three separate occasions last week. Please report to HR for attitude adjustment.

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Time for tin foil hats

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[–] ileftreddit@piefed.social 70 points 1 week ago (4 children)

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

[–] StenSaksTapir@feddit.dk 27 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Well I heard about this and thought "this will be great for home automation", but I also know that someone was equally excited about using this to rob people of basic freedoms or being a fucking creep or both.

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[–] gcheliotis@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I can imagine this being initially an accidental discovery like oh every time so and so’s body interacts with the WiFi signal it’s the same pattern… until someone starts exploring this further… and then some engineer or their manager started looking for applications for this. In my experience engineering researchers especially are very good with coming up with use cases for whatever tech they’re working with, with little ethical consideration.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I doubt it. You'd need to be looking really closely at the waveforms to notice this, so they were likely already doing something similar, like that research that can pinpoint where people are in a house based on their WiFi. They were probably already doing something creepy before they noticed that this was more straightforward than they expected.

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[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago

Everything is incremental progress in some way.

I remember years back someone doing experiments with Wi-Fi to see if a room was occupied based on signal attenuation.

This just looks like an extension of that.

Not everything is a giant leap

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[–] Seleni@lemmy.world 68 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 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.

[–] iglou@programming.dev 19 points 1 week ago

My thought exactly. Their definition of privacy is... interesting

[–] D_C@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

When anyone or anything says that their product works "up to x%" I always presume it doesn't really work at all.
Christ, 1% is included in that "up to 95.5%" vague bullshit statement.

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[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 52 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Incorrect bio-signature detected, drink verification can to continue your content.

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[–] artyom@piefed.social 42 points 1 week ago (11 children)

they're more privacy-preserving than visual images.

hhhhwat. How can they identify you and also be privacy preserving? 🤔

[–] sorter_plainview@lemmy.today 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's all AI. You should not worry about it. In fact you should not think about it. All is going to be fine.

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[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 28 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Neat. Good luck protecting yourself from this.

On the other hand, I’m seriously considering opening an Etsy shop selling foil-lined clothes. I’m pretty good at sewing. What do you think?

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[–] ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Someone’s going to use this to drop missiles on “baddies” with their sleeping families in 3 2 1

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[–] Glitterbomb@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 0 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Well, that’s quite different, it didn’t identify anyone

[–] GrantUsEyes@lemmy.zip 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I was having a nice day :(

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[–] PattyMcB@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So, you're saying the tin foil hat people were right all along?!

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ironically, they're still wrong, because even in their wildest conspiracies, they didn't imagine Wi-Fi could be used to "take pictures" of a sort.

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[–] Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Let me know when I can selfhost LibreFi Security on my router and use it for myself. Sounds great for private home use.

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[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 week ago

Stilsuits: get it for the unbearable heat as we turn the Earth into a desert, now with wifi blocking!

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