New Radar Sees Through Walls

artemis67 writes "A small Israeli company has developed a radar system that uses ultra-wideband technology to produce three-dimensional pictures of the space behind a wall from a distance of up to 20 meters. The pictures, which reportedly resemble those produced by ultrasound, are relatively high-resolution and are produced in real time. Wow, it sounds like the potential benefits of this device are huge, saving lives of soldiers, firemen, or police; the potential for privacy invasion, however, is similarly large."

Comments

Don't blame the tools

[Alan Cox]

It seems odd to me that the same people who can follow that the DMCA is problematic because it bans the tools not the abuses of the tools can't make the connection when its non-computing related.

Peering through neighbours walls (with this technology or drilling peepholes) is the offence. Would you argue that drills should be regulated because they could be used this way ?

If anything the main reason to regulate it is likely to be because long exposures to low levels of radio frequency radiation seems to do bad things to human beings so operating one might require training, care and exposure limits.

I'd also disagree its just a military tool. It has clear civilian usages including earthquake searches (because it can visualise spaces not just people so gives more info) and even boring stuff like inspecting buildings. Having had a large hole hacked in my house to see if a crack was structural I can certainly appreciate the civilian value of having tools to inspect it effectively without the mess, and the dust, and the redecorating.

Re:Our gratitude

[geoffspear]

That's why we have that whole "beyond a reasonable doubt" burden of proof thing.

If they have a low-res recording of you building a bomb, your defense attorney can reasonably argue that the blob the jury sees could be doing anything. I doubt such images would ever even be considered admissible by the courts if they were of such low quality.