It is a system to counter "adversarial wireless sensing" reconnaissance attacks.
> To prevent possible surveillance of the movement profile within one's home, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, the Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the Cologne University of Applied Sciences have developed a novel system ... based on the technology of intelligent reflective surfaces. Although cryptographic techniques are already in use to ensure data confidentiality, passive eavesdroppers ... [through] reflections from walls, objects and people present ... by applying simple statistical methods [can] conclude, for example, that a person is currently moving in the monitored room
> [In] Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces ..., many reflective elements are distributed over a surface and their reflective behavior can be individually and electronically adjusted. ... [D]ynamically manipulat[ing] the incident radio waves ... attackers can no longer read information about movements in the room from the signal. [... T]he solution works independently of the devices, radio waveforms, and standards used; it does not compromise the quality of the wireless link; and it achieves very high channel obfuscation
If you pay for and carry around a spy machine, you should expect it to spy on you. If you run non-free software on a computer (even if someone tricks you into calling it a "telephone") that is constantly online talking to its spymaster, you cannot be surprised that it spies on you. Solution: Stop feeding the beast. Stop giving these fools your money, paying them to hurt you. Stop carrying and using a computer whose only purpose is hurting you. Stallman is right.
The article is about side effects of wireless technologies ("if you make noise I can hear you"). It is not about the misappropriation of information stored in IT systems.
Baseband is separated by the USB and has no control over the system. Also, can be killed by a hardware kill switch. How is ARM CPU Cortex-A53 backdoored?
> To prevent possible surveillance of the movement profile within one's home, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, the Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the Cologne University of Applied Sciences have developed a novel system ... based on the technology of intelligent reflective surfaces. Although cryptographic techniques are already in use to ensure data confidentiality, passive eavesdroppers ... [through] reflections from walls, objects and people present ... by applying simple statistical methods [can] conclude, for example, that a person is currently moving in the monitored room
> [In] Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces ..., many reflective elements are distributed over a surface and their reflective behavior can be individually and electronically adjusted. ... [D]ynamically manipulat[ing] the incident radio waves ... attackers can no longer read information about movements in the room from the signal. [... T]he solution works independently of the devices, radio waveforms, and standards used; it does not compromise the quality of the wireless link; and it achieves very high channel obfuscation
Original conference proceedings: IRShield: A Countermeasure Against Adversarial Physical-Layer Wireless Sensing, https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings-article/sp/2022/13...