this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2025
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Damn. “TikTok would like to access WiFi”
We need new permissions for this shit. WiFi can do presence detection and now heart rate? What next? Eye tracking?
I'm pretty sure applications can only send and receive data, with the finer details being handled by the OS.
But yes, there should be a specific permission to access biometric information.
That makes sense. I assume these exotic ability’s require precise control of the radios. So, for now, until an API made, we should be safe.
"Google enters the chat"
Suddenly your new dishwasher sends your health protocols to your doc. The fancy toilet helped with a consistency analysis and your smart lamps add a sleeping protocol.
Maybe not eye tracking, but probably head tracking.
Apps watch how we move/rotate devices to understand whether we’re walking, resting, lying down, etc., I assume? (The most popular apps I mean with large data teams)
Wish that stuff could be turned off unless it was e.g. a game that made legitimate use of the accelerometer.
GrapheneOS does allow you to turn it off. It has a permission switch for your phone sensors. I don't know if there are other versions of android that allow the same.
Android throttles the hell out of WiFi requests since (I think) Android 9. You need to manually allow WiFi request spamming in developer options to let apps do something like determining location from it.
WiFi can also do pretty precise location. Bluetooth/BLE even more precise (inches or less)
I think they mean without a phone. A 2.4ghz radio can be used as a presence detection radar.
It sounds like they're specifically talking about a phone, making reference to app permissions and TikTok.
I think it can also detect our neural frequencies, aka 'read our minds'. That's why we see ads for things we thought about but never even searched for.
Dog... What?
https://www.neurology.columbia.edu/news/mind-reading-technology-can-turn-brain-scans-language
We already live in a world with existing, functional mind-reading devices. There is even a device designed to help people that are suffering from ALS communicate by reading their thoughts, and has a privacy feature where the user can activate and deactivate the device by thinking a password in their mind, in order to allow them to still have private thoughts.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-brain-device-is-first-to-read-out-inner-speech/
Phones are not fMRIs though.
Also: wifi can read my mind.
Fucking lmfao