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MIT's AI Uses Radio Signals To See People Through Walls (inverse.com)
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a new piece of software that uses wifi signals to monitor the movements, breathing, and heartbeats of humans on the other side of walls. While the researchers say this new tech could be used in areas like remote healthcare, it could in theory be used in more dystopian applications. Inverse reports: "We actually are tracking 14 different joints on the body [...] the head, the neck, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrists, the hips, the knees, and the feet," Dina Katabi, an electrical engineering and computer science teacher at MIT, said. "So you can get the full stick-figure that is dynamically moving with the individuals that are obstructed from you -- and that's something new that was not possible before." The technology works a little bit like radar, but to teach their neural network how to interpret these granular bits of human activity, the team at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) had to create two separate A.I.s: a student and a teacher.
[T]he team developed one A.I. program that monitored human movements with a camera, on one side of a wall, and fed that information to their wifi X-ray A.I., called RF-Pose, as it struggled to make sense of the radio waves passing through that wall on the other side. The research builds off of a longstanding project at CSAIL lead by Katabi, which hopes to use this wifi tracking to help passively monitor the elderly and automate any emergency alerts to EMTs and medical professionals if they were to fall or suffer some other injury. For more information, a press release and video about the software are available.
[T]he team developed one A.I. program that monitored human movements with a camera, on one side of a wall, and fed that information to their wifi X-ray A.I., called RF-Pose, as it struggled to make sense of the radio waves passing through that wall on the other side. The research builds off of a longstanding project at CSAIL lead by Katabi, which hopes to use this wifi tracking to help passively monitor the elderly and automate any emergency alerts to EMTs and medical professionals if they were to fall or suffer some other injury. For more information, a press release and video about the software are available.
Cool cover story, will be interesting to see what it's really used for.
Of course this will only ever be used for good and will never be used (read: abused) by the military, security forces, police, etc.
This was in the news and on TV science shows years ago.
The source signal isn't designed to be used for imaging. Yes, you can train an AI for one particular room and its reflections. This isn't going to transfer to learning in a different set of reflections.
If you want to look in people's house, just use IR.
I'm glad I installed Cat 5e ethernet cable in my home 10 years ago!
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Forget body armour or drones, now attackers can shoot through walls.
I assume internal movement will be detected via wave scatter over multiple receiving antennas.
Wifi for seeing through walls isn't new:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/808289/x-ray-vision-wifi-Technical-University-of-Munich (2017)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352864816300426 (2016)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/sciencetech/video-1224807/Researchers-WALLS-using-WiFi.html (2015)
It's the tracking limbs etc that is pretty nifty, but ultimately, just an extension.
Man! Those dudes were right! Next they'll be beaming thoughts into peoples' heads.
you have reported the same thing being done using wifi signals about 10 years ago. Since WiFi signals are also only radio signals, there is no news here other than MIT being very very late to the party.
And it also wasn't new when you reported it in 2013:
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/06/29/138230/mit-researchers-can-see-through-walls-using-wi-fi
We havenâ(TM)t had a Tesla, Trump or AGW story in hours!
News from 2011.
See-Through Walls: Motion Tracking Using Variance-Based Radio Tomography Networks
https://www.semanticscholar.or... [semanticscholar.org]
I wonder if maybe that's why the summary said "The research builds off of a longstanding project at CSAIL lead by Katabi".
In 2013 they could detect that a person (or person-sized object) was present. Now they have a stick figure showing what the person is doing, the positions of their head, arms and legs, along with a clear path on how to see finger movements and such.
...tried it but I kept tripping on the Cat5e cable that was connected to my phone.
Facebook will be using this technology so that the Zuck can watch you fuck.
In the book and game from like 20 years ago a device called the "Heartbeat Monitor" was a key tool in knowing where terrorists and hostages were when planning a breach. It used radio waves to detect where people were behind a wall.
Used to have lots of fun staying up all night at LAN parties playing Rainbow 6 and its sequel Rogue Spear. We loved how once you were dead that was it - no respawning - and how you only needed one or two bullets to be taken out. Made for very tense games.
fuckin mit using wallhax goddamn cheaters wtf get off my game
Every day they seem less crazy than before.
CAPTCHA: mental
Guess which I have more confidence in now? Time to bring back Aluminum siding!
Not just for CSGO anymore...
We'll make great pets
If it is passively getting signals out at the street, it is like looking into an open window.
The police can then see how many people are in the house and what they are doing.
It will also be useful at border crossings.
It will be sold as "Think of the Children and the Elderly". They always get a pass.
I love how it's always some far fetched "healthcare" or whatever.
Yeah that's what they made this for, health and safety.
hopes to use this wifi tracking to help passively monitor the elderly and automate any emergency alerts to EMTs and medical professionals
Emergency response: this is what researchers put on their grant proposals when the actual end-game is an unpalatable one.
Actual emergency responders would be technology-enabled supermen if the had even 1% of the tech that's supposedly developed for them.
like poverty, environmental detoxification, corruption, etc ... you know, real problems that affect real people. A lot of so-called science is just rich kids playing with public dollars. It's a crime really.
That tech would no doubt be used for dystopian purposes. It should not be pursued and all existing work should be shredded and erased from hard drives.
Watch the black mirror episode Metalhead and imagine the robot dogs to have this technology. No point in hiding in a house then. May as well just surrender to the inevitable and present ones neck. Something like this can make most forms of cover irrelevant. This will also be helpful to American chickenhawk cops who want to kill without any risk to themselves.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Jazus Crisco, now we gotta lead-line the WALLS for basic privacy anymore??
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== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
You better tell the Supreme Court. Even using IR cameras requires a warrant. (At least to peer in people's houses)
Your ad here. Ask me how!
"GET DOWN! GET DOWN, NOW!!!" https://youtu.be/HCeCVZqcpnE?t...
Thanks to the Supreme Court, especially Scalia, passive scanners cannot be used without a warrant to see through walls. This was an infrared case.
And sniffing dogs on a porch.
Of course other countries without a 4th Amendment migjt struggle a bit, and dictatorships roar ahead with a complete panopticon, while our side is limited to merely monitoring everything you do on the Internet or buy or call, i.e. all your papers, 4th Amendment-wise.
Sigh.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I don't think "passively" means what you think it means. If it were a passive system it wouldn't be emitting radio signals at all.
Just use the proper machine learning terminology. They used a GAN.