this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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“We developed a deep neural network that maps the phase and amplitude of WiFi signals to UV coordinates within 24 human regions. The results of the study reveal that our model can estimate the dense pose of multiple subjects, with comparable performance to image-based approaches, by utilizing WiFi signals as the only input.”

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[–] DragonTypeWyvern 112 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Absolutely ludicrous to paint this development as anything but the wet dream of both a burglar and a police state.

[–] MossyFeathers@pawb.social 45 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Also VR nerds. Current tracking is either based on the headset, so you can't move your arms unless the headset can see them, or your arms have to be seen by lighthouses, or you rely purely on gyroscope and accelerometers for tracking, which tend to drift. So either you have blind spots, have to deal with occlusion, or will slowly drift and have to recalibrate periodically. Wifi-based tracking seems like a neat idea tbh.

Edit: considering wifi is just photons that aren't wiggling fast enough for us to see, I'd be surprised if the government doesn't already have this technology behind closed doors.

[–] CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

For VR I don’t see why we wouldn’t use a variety of other technologies before we ever use WiFi. The main issue with the WiFi thing is going to be polling rates and interference (which limits polling rates). They’re also using a neural net here which requires both processing power and time so there’s latency far beyond VR uses. That’s without talking about tracking that would be needed for higher spatial resolution which this also doesn’t have currently. So it’s not impossible to use this, just not currently practical or even close.

The real solve to that stuff is just an improvement on existing tech or maybe Lidar. With the progress that has been made on the Quest with hand tracking, I’d bet their next goal is body and face tracking so you’ll see this soon.

As for the government having this, I doubt they really need to have it this specific to track poses or body parts. If you have a cell phone on you, they likely know exactly where you’re at in a room. If you don’t, I’m betting they have access to other important data. Motion detection, number of people, room shape and some contents, interference sources.

[–] herrvogel@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Home automation nerds would also cream their pants if they could get their hands on this. Imagine you could use your existing wifi router to detect presence in your home. Say goodbye to shitty IR sensors that forget about your existence within 3 seconds, no more finicky radar modules that are either too sensitive or not nearly sensitive enough.

[–] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 5 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I literally just have my machine ping my phone every ten seconds. Surprisingly effective presence detection.

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[–] assassinatedbyCIA@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Honestly, I wouldn’t be at all shocked if uncle sam and his favourite three letter agencies have been playing around with this tech for years.

[–] sundray@lemmus.org 82 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I mean you can look through my walls if you want, but don't come crying to me if you don't like what you see.

(I'm painting fantasy miniatures. They're for a friend.)

[–] EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 67 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Same, but the fantasy miniatures are sex toys and the paint is my butt.

[–] sundray@lemmus.org 33 points 9 months ago

A good hobby is a wonderful thing, indeed!

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[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 68 points 9 months ago (2 children)

You know what else let's you see through walls? Windows. (Suck it, Linux users!)

[–] hakunawazo@lemmy.world 15 points 9 months ago

In more than one sense, yes.

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[–] Tire@lemmy.ml 54 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Lead paint coming back into fashion.

[–] LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 27 points 9 months ago

I lick that 👍

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 9 points 9 months ago

paint myself in lead paint to become invisible. got it. /s

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 37 points 9 months ago

"we threw a deep neural network at the wall to see if it sticks"

[–] NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 34 points 9 months ago

Time to plaster your outer walls with fine wire mesh.

[–] xia@lemmy.sdf.org 32 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Which leads to the obvious question: how long has the military been able to do this?

[–] maness300@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] wikibot@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Here's the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

TEMPEST is a U. S. National Security Agency specification and a NATO certification referring to spying on information systems through leaking emanations, including unintentional radio or electrical signals, sounds, and vibrations. TEMPEST covers both methods to spy upon others and how to shield equipment against such spying. The protection efforts are also known as emission security (EMSEC), which is a subset of communications security (COMSEC).

^to^ ^opt^ ^out^^,^ ^pm^ ^me^ ^'optout'.^ ^article^ ^|^ ^about^

[–] TargaryenTKE@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Good bot (does this work here?)

[–] leo@lemmy.l0l.city 5 points 9 months ago
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[–] Atelopus-zeteki@kbin.run 22 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Umm, article from Jan 19, 2023. I remember seeing it then. Is there anything new on this?

The paper: [Submitted on 31 Dec 2022] - I'm not sure if it's out of prepublication yet.
DensePose From WiFi - https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.00250

Here's another tidbit from July 2, 2023 DensePose from WiFi - See through the walls. - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/densepose-from-wifi-see-through-walls-alejandro-fern%C3%A1ndez

And another from July 25, 2023 Revolutionary Applications of DensePose From WiFi: Enhancing Corporate Security and Empowering Military Tactical Teams - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/revolutionary-applications-densepose-from-wifi-enhancing-zack-hamm

[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Here's a video summary of the paper I thought did a good job too from two minute papers.

https://youtu.be/kBFMsY5ZP0o

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[–] AWittyUsername@lemmy.world 22 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Wasn't this the plot point of The Dark Knight?

[–] hakunawazo@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago


We only have to enter his name to be safe.

[–] Chakravanti@sh.itjust.works 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

And everyone thinks Batman was the good guy.

starts putting paint on face

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[–] dog_@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If I didn't have a reason for why Ethernet is superior, I have one now!

[–] HopFlop@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

... that you CANT see through walls? Seems like a downgrade to me...

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[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Duh? I don't think anyone with the right field of study thought this wasn't possible. It just doesn't have good use cases.

[–] Milkyway@feddit.de 11 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I'm an EE, and I have serious doubt about this actually working nearly as good as they are putting it. This sort of stuff is hard, even with purpose built radar systems. I'm working with angle estimation in Multipath environments, and that shit fucks your signals up. This may work it you have extremely precisely characterised the target room and walls, and a ton of stuff around it, and then don't change anything but the motion of the people. But that's not practical.

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[–] deafboy@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Full body vr tracking without sensors?

The human presence sensors based on this are already on the consumer market, we just need to dial up the sensitivity.

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[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I am going to repeat myself forever it seems. We got it wrong when we decided that you only have privacy when someone can't physically see what you are up to. Nothing else is treated this way. You are not allowed to drive as fast as your car can physically move. You are not allowed to go into anything locked as long as you are able to pick it. You are not allowed to steal whatever you want as long as no one tackles you for it. And yet somehow some way it became understood that merely because someone can get a photo of you they have the legal right to do so.

As if access to better technology means you should follow less moral rules vs the opposite. Someone with a junk camera of the 80s can do far less perving compared to the new cameras+drones out there.

[–] EatATaco@lemm.ee 6 points 9 months ago (8 children)

it became understood that merely because someone can get a photo of you they have the legal right to do so.

What jurisdiction is this true? There are certainly times that there is an expectation of privacy and getting a photo of you would be illegal. Easy example: and owner of a store can't photo you in the dressing room, the even tho they could put a camera in there. It's the same thing here, there is an expectation of privacy in your home (or for many enclosed and private spaces), so this kind of "picture" would likely already be a violation.

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[–] Xavier@lemmy.ca 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Henceforth, the building code shall make mandatory that every room be perfectly grounded Faraday cages (/s).

Still, imagine lethal drones integrated with that technology (of course, they already have infrared, maybe even some adequate wavelength of X-rays).

Nevertheless, pretty cool to see how far we can take preexisting technology with the help of some deep learning layers.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

Here's what they're putting in the goggles that Infantrymen wear now.

I don't care to guess what the drones are packing.

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[–] mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 9 months ago

Doesn't this mean the matrix film was right with their visualization (regardless of orientation)?

[–] GhostEye@lemmy.l0l.city 12 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Wait, I thought this was a crackpot conspiracy thing?

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[–] Telodzrum@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)

This article is a year old. Do we have posting standards in here?

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[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

Years ago there was a journal on gait recognition through home WiFi.

[–] THEDAEMON@lemmy.ml 9 points 9 months ago

No one else getting batman : the dark knight vibes ?

[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 7 points 9 months ago

Y’all, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

[–] wabafee@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

I wonder if it's real time? If yes then this is good for VR.

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