Technology

"This technology turns every router into a potential means for surveillance," warns Julian Todt from KASTEL. "If you regularly pass by a café that operates a WiFi network, you could be identified there without noticing it and be recognized later -- for example by public authorities or companies."

Later...

Inexpensive or older routers either don’t store history at all or keep it for a short time.

Newer models can store more information for more extended periods.

https://www.thetechwire.com/how-long-does-a-router-store-history/

Have fun watching me be balls deep in my partner, fed boys. Be jelly cause you can't fuck like me.

It would be great if there were some open source tool kits for this. If the technology is going to exist it should be in the hands of the people.

From what I've read this is built into the required wifi router for Xfinity. I discovered this when I signed up for Xfinity fiber, had the fiber installed and setup and then cancelled it the same day, because of this and not being able to buy and run my own hardware, and needing to install an app on my phone to manage the router, and apparently not being able to choose my DNS. They required that I rent their hardware for an additional $15/mo. Oh well, at least fiber is in the house now, if anyone wants it in the future. I sure won't be paying them to spy on me.

Fuck Comcast, still.

Very interesting concept. I was curious about how in the hell this could be done. This article explains the general method.

When an inert object like a person moves around between the router and stationary connected devices like computers and printers, it interferes with the signal. The pattern of interference plus math can be used to plot the movement of the object - and even measure subtle changes like hand gestures. Home security software from companies like Xfinity can already use this tech to send you an alert when something is moving around in your house, without needing additional hardware. Imagine an informercial where a guy holds up a handful of "clumsy motion sensors" with wires sticking out of them, and "confusing instructions". Not if you just let your router do it!

As far as being a new and sinister means of surveillance, evil companies could already theoretically tap into anybody's motion sensors or security cams. The difference with WiFi tracking is that you wouldn't necessarily know it's there.

Product idea: clothing with jaged edges and radio absorbing plates.

"Oh my goodness, this is a nightmare" typed everyone into their government approved location recording devices that can show them cats and boobs.

That's cool and all but if true, why use an animated photo instead of a real life example?

Comcast Is watching you masturbate. Awesome.

may soon be able to

Building codes should probably include Faraday-cage type shielding.

Pretty sure this is old news? It's basically sonar, which The Dark Knight predicted in the film.

Edit: a word

Comcast routers already have a feature to detect people's presence.

The Dark Knight tech was a lot closer than we realized in 2008.

Ok now what router do I gotta buy and what firmware do I have to flash to plug this into Home Assistant?

The question with mandating US made routers may be either to protect citizens from foreign attacks - or to make sure every US router has a router with a government-approved backdoor.

On which option would you bet?

How do they identify a particular person though? I get you could see people as present or not or moving around the room, but it's insane that they would be able to tell facial features etc.

At this point I'd prefer the Chinese routers.

It‘s like the phone sonar tech from the Dark Knight everyone said was total BS but totally real…

If you read the article ( https://dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10.1145/3719027.3765062 ) they are testing this in an EXTREMELY controlled enviroment and directed subjects... I have my doubts that this could provide any insight on whether this is even feaseble for public surveillance, let alone effective...

Hmm. The article appears to conflate multiple things?

One of them is “viewing” the RF spectrum to build up an image. The other is reading the unencrypted beamforming data from a router. That second one depends on people carrying a WiFi-capable piece of electronics with them doesn’t it? There has to be something for the beam to focus on, some sort of beacon signal.

Although I guess all it really needs is for the person to step between the router and a device connected to the router; that should enable analysis of the disruption patterns.

Router and WiFi Access Point are different things. There are tons of routers that do not have WiFi.

If I was a capitalist, knowing I am few and and my power only comes from the resources I own, resources stolen from the masses. I would use my stolen wealth to safe guard my own class interests against the masses. Hence we see surveillance capitalism.