
FreeSense: Indoor Human Identification with WiFi Signals - brakmic
http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.03430
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noobiemcfoob
This is a type of passive identification I hadn't imagined before. It's pretty
impressive to see 90% identification for a set of 6 users.

I can't imagine it's accurate enough to use for secure verification. I could
see it's application for a shared entertainment system (ps4, netflix, etc)
where identification is primarily for configuration purposes, not security.

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SEJeff
Note that this isn't all that dissimilar to Xandem's tomographic motion
detection. Their "Xandem Home" product makes a Harry Potter Marauder Map style
overlay on a map of your home showing where all moving people are in realtime.
It is really cool stuff that I'm about to have installed in my own home:

[http://www.securityelectronicsandnetworks.com/articles/2014/...](http://www.securityelectronicsandnetworks.com/articles/2014/06/24/xandem-
tmd-tomographic-motion-detection-review)

[http://www.xandem.com/motion-detection](http://www.xandem.com/motion-
detection)

Compared to crappy PIRs from companies like ADT, it is great stuff.

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BetaCygni
Very cool, and somehow very creepy! This is how we will be hunted when the
machines rise up ;)

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droopybuns
The only good application of this work I can come up with is to reduce the
danger that comes from surprised cops in no-knock warrants.

Still kinda evil though.

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lovelearning
Useful for detecting if aged or ailing family members haven't moved in a
while, and check on them.

~~~
yashinm92
A team from MIT has created a product for this specific purpose using a very
similar technology:
[http://www.emeraldforhome.com/](http://www.emeraldforhome.com/)

~~~
jevyjevjevs
Not using WiFi, but their own RF spectrum. Very cool though.

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infodroid
There was a good/creepy article in The Atlantic about FreeSense and WiKey,
which was covered a few days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12353605](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12353605)

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EGreg
How would a person be able to avoid this?

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AlphaWeaver
That's one scary implication: they can't.

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EGreg
No seriously. Maybe wear some kinda suit?

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givinguflac
Run Ethernet throughout your home and hardwire 100% of everything. Disable all
wireless radios in your house. That will stop your own gear from being used
like this, but unless you turn your home into a faraday cage someone could
probably blast your home with 2.4GHz externally to achieve similar results. If
as you mention, perhaps you had some kind of suit that is completely absorbent
to wireless spectrum, though that in itself could be used as an identifier
most likely.

~~~
daurnimator
You can buy coating for your windows that blocks RF.

e.g. [http://www.scottishwindowtinting.com/residential-window-
film...](http://www.scottishwindowtinting.com/residential-window-film/window-
film-blocks-radio-frequency-rf-radiation/)

Can usually get in via custom order from anywhere that does window tinting.

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lwis
Is this much different to FIND?

~~~
qrv3w
FIND author here.

It's not doing internal positioning with Channel State Information (CSI), but
there are folks that are [1]. The approach in FIND is different [2] - FIND
just uses RSSI+MAC information which works great on mobile devices and simple
esp8266 chips and doesn't require code for the specific network interface. As
far as I know you have to write some network card specific code to be able to
use CSI.

[1]
[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1603.07080.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1603.07080.pdf)

[2]
[https://github.com/schollz/find#about](https://github.com/schollz/find#about)

~~~
SEJeff
Still no IOS support yet I take it? I was so excited about that before
realizing it only worked on Android.

~~~
qrv3w
Sorry! Apple is very restrictive. iOS 9+ is supports access to WiFi RSSI, but
requires permission and approval from Apple. We requested permission 3 weeks
ago and no word yet.

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kobayashi
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12353605](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12353605)

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dynofuz
I building a business around this stuff in boston. If anyone's interested send
me an email (in my profile)

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jevyjevjevs
Hi everyone! I'm VP Product at aerial.ai. We are using some of these
techniques for presence, activity and identification. We have 7 patents in
this area.

Happy to answer any questions!

Edit: We're hiring DSP, ML and Growth people

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ahier
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) did this
last year:

[http://rfcapture.csail.mit.edu/](http://rfcapture.csail.mit.edu/)

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notduncansmith
Can this be executed from phones (which can act as WiFi router, for tethering
purposes) by this ubiquitous baseband RCE vulnerability I always hear about on
HN?

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jevyjevjevs
Some of these WiFi statistics used in this paper are typically not exposed at
the user level. You would need to have a modified driver. May or may not be
easy to do for an iOS or Android phone.

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danielmorozoff
Wasn't this what wifi slam worked on at Stanford?

