Soon you won’t be able to escape the cameras nor behind the walls, and it is that engineers have created a technology whereby a system is able to see through walls using simply signals WiFi.
Specifically, it has been a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University that has offered a first look at a technology capable of seeing human beings through walls or in the dark and using WiFi signals.
It is not a perfect system, but it is capable of detecting human forms in 3D and interpreting some movements in real time.
To arrive at this technology, they first took advantage of a system created by researchers in artificial intelligence on Facebook called DensePose.
In case you don’t know it, DensePose is an artificial intelligence, basically an algorithm, capable of mapping the surface of the human body from a 2D photo or even a video.
With that gained, the researchers were able to create a neural network that is capable of mapping the phase and amplitude of incoming and outgoing WiFi signals at points on the human body.
This is how the invention works that could threaten privacy
To do this, they installed a sensor in a room capable of detecting bodies in the dark or even hidden behind other objects. The algorithm predicts poses strictly based on WiFi signals.
The researchers clarify that their technology is privacy-friendly since it is not capable of detecting personally identifiable characteristics.
“It protects people’s privacy and the necessary equipment can be purchased at a reasonable price. In fact, most homes in developed countries already have home WiFi, and this technology can be scaled to monitor the well-being of the elderly or simply identify suspicious behavior at home.
However, what they have not pointed out in the report is that if this technology falls into the hands of bad actors, they would be able to spy on the activities of their hypothetical victims and without having to enter their own home, and only with a series of external cameras.
