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Wireless Network Modded To See Through Walls
KentuckyFC writes "The way radio signals vary in a wireless network can reveal the movement of people behind closed doors, say researchers who have developed a technique called variance-based radio tomographic imaging which processes wireless signals to peer through walls. They've tested the idea with a 34-node wireless network using the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless protocol (the personal area network protocol employed by home automation services such as ZigBee). The researchers say that such a network could be easily distributed by the police or military wanting to determine what's going on inside a building. But such a network, which uses cheap off-the-shelf components, might also be easily deployed by your neighbor or anybody else wanting to monitor movements in your home."
wanting to determine what's going on inside a building.
Now when teens want to sneak out at night, they can easily see thru walls if their parents are sleeping!
Went straight for the "everyone is spying on me!" ploy a little quick there. Seriously, if anything my neighbors request to see LESS of my movements. This may be due to the fact that I have a clear shower curtain and my bathroom doors lines up to a big bay window facing the road...took me two months to realize that one.
Looks like it is time to get hold of some Aluminum Oxide paint.
What with three wireless hubs, an RFID scanner, and half-a-dozen Bluetooth devices always on, I'm pretty sure I'm already casting EMF shadows on my walls.
Been seeing some really big spiders, too...
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/09/30/1534202/Using-Aluminum-Oxide-Paint-To-Secure-Wi-Fi?art_pos=19
Step 1:Paint your house with it.
Step 2: Install a Faraday cage in the dungeon *ahem* basement.
Step 3: ??????
Step 4: Privacy!!!!
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
Terribly thin floors & cielings mean that I can monitor where my upstairs neighbor is and what he is doing at all times.
Of course my neighbors can monitor when I have sex and how good it is, but I kind of get off on that anyway...
Didn't Batman have some goggles that work like this in The Dark Knight?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This sounds like a job for... Aluminum Oxide Paint!
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh said that the U.S. military had developed a secret new technology for use in urban warfare. He said the technology was revolutionary, equivalent to the first time tanks were deployed on the battlefield. From what I remember, there was speculation that Hersh had learned that the military could now see through walls.
Up, down, up, down, what the heck are they doing?
You owe me a new mind's eye, I had to poke it out to get rid of that mental image.
It's called a window.
What, did you shower with your eyes closed?
How do you not realize that you can see the road from the shower if people can see in the shower from the road?
Question everything
"We envision a building imaging scenario similar to the following. Emergency responders, military forces, or police arrive at a scene where entry into a building is potentially dangerous. ... The nodes immediately form a network and self-localize, perhaps using information about the size and shape of the building from a database (eg Google maps) and some known-location coordinates (eg using GPS).
Anyone remember http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_in_Belgrade?
Oops! Map was wrong and we are in the wrong house!
1331461 is only semiprime *sigh* Alas - I am just short of 1337.
You can get xbee-equipped computers (mostly with pics, avrs, basic stamps, etc) for super cheap, like three for a bill. I'm considering them for a remote monitoring and control application where wifi is overkill in some ways and inadequate in others (line of sight issues.) Current xbee modules all seem to support mesh networking, which is really the big draw to me of the protocol itself here, or at least the most readily available implementation. Being able to put out a sensor net and get a sort of meta-sense out of it would be all the more exciting. I'm sure the same thought has occurred to everyone, of course. This seems like the kind of thing that would give the [para]military types a massive hard-on given that they're already playing with the idea of gigantic numbers of drones and communications devices scattered across the battlefields of tomorrow... and our homes and cities.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Which means they'll want WiFi access on the porch, the back yard - the patio and the sundeck.
I think you mean the front observation deck, the firing range, and the snipers nest.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
by "interrogating" this volume of space with many signals, picked up by multiple receivers, it is possible to build up a picture of the movement within it.
As I understand, the researchers used 34 receivers. You will need a whole lot of receivers. More than you might want to buy and maintain to offer you what is at best a poor resolution of moving things beyond walls.
Discerning the physical location and movement of an object with radio waves, what can we call such a thing?
Ahh, yes, Radar...
Sick of stupidity? http://www.patentlystupid.com
Although this thing idea is neat, there is an Israeli company that is currently selling RF tech to do the same thing. It comes in a package the size of a suitcase, and can be deployed without having to put transmitters/receivers all over the place. Check it out.
I actually applied to work for that company but wasn't smart enough. Blasted Israelis and their blasted smarter-than-me-ness.
The image in the article isn't really good. If you want to see a demonstration of what they did in real time, it's here.
Maybe he only showers every two months?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Another advantage of living in the country.
If someone is within 1 km of my house (and I doubt this system has that kind of range) the dogs and various livestock alert me WAY before that person can see my movements. And those movements will be important to that person at this point. Especially the "cocking the shotgun" movement.
Check out their demonstration videos at http://span.ece.utah.edu/radio-tomographic-imaging.
I was fortunate enough to see the demo at Mobicom last year. It's a really neat application, even if the math is nothing new.
They just reinvented RADAR for pity's sake! What is 802.xx? 2-5GHZ Microwave frequencies! It's rather like reinventing the wheel, only this time they used millimeter band, low powered microwaves to do it with. Hooray they are able to use it as a poor man's license-free RADAR system, I'll give them credit for that.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
... wherein the Supreme Court (including Scalia, amazingly) held that peering into homes using equipment that was not available in common use by the layperson was within the bounds of the 4th amendment, and therefore requires a search warrant.
The trick is to imagine the poster as a hot 19 year old chick, who refers to herself as a guy because she's a lesbian.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
George Takei and Robert Apsrin predicted this in "Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe" in 1979.
Whew! Imagine the fun the neighbours could have watching which room you're in: "They're watching TV, they're watching TV, they've put the the kettle on, they're watching TV...." I'm sure it will be worth the effort of setting up 32 receivers and a suitable transmitter and calibrating it - all so the neighbours can work out which room I'm in. The winter evenings are going to just fly by.....
Unicorn Setu. "Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines".
Interesting implication that, while your neighbours shouldn't be monitoring what you're doing inside your own house, it's perfectly acceptable for the police and the army to be watching you in this way.