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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[–] millie@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Time to start making faraday clothes.

[–] cannedtuna@lemmy.world 3 points 23 hours ago

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

[–] Hikermick@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day 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 18 points 1 day ago

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

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 8 points 1 day 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.

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

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 day 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 1 day 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 1 day 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 1 day ago

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

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

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

[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

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

[–] Sundiata@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day 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 1 points 19 hours ago

Time to carry a WiFi jammer

[–] chunes@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago (2 children)

95.5% accuracy is abysmal for any use case these people want to use it for

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 hours ago

It's not at all bad for an initial proof of concept.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

what if you combine it with other types of imaging

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Dingdingding

[–] voodooattack@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wait… so the guys with tinfoil hats were on to something?

[–] Baleine@jlai.lu 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Except that the tinfoil hats don't work

[–] 2910000@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Maybe wearing a different tinfoil hat every day would mess up a person's "fingerprint"

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

you might be onto something.

take a mylar square and place it somewhere random on your body every day.

[–] Pulptastic@midwest.social 3 points 1 day ago

Yep it has to be random to mess with the algorithm. You could have fun and cut different shapes each day.

[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Eat a piece of spinach and increase the iron in your body.

This is all beyond stupid and hysterical.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

instructions unclear, I have glued spinach to my skin and the rabbits won't stop chasing me.

need further instruction.

[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Actually you've gone far enough to baffle the system.

I would say have fun frolicking with the rabbits?

[–] ileftreddit@piefed.social 70 points 2 days ago (4 children)

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

[–] MouldyCat@feddit.uk 11 points 1 day 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.

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day 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

[–] StenSaksTapir@feddit.dk 28 points 2 days 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 2 days ago (2 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.

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[–] jjlinux@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

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

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

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

[–] dtrain@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

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

[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 52 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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

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[–] besselj@lemmy.ca 160 points 2 days ago (10 children)

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

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