Mass data mixed with machine learning pattern identification means what already exists will lead to broken as fuck capabilities for those who own everyone. Ie. Not us.
this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
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Router and WiFi Access Point are different things. There are tons of routers that do not have WiFi.
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This technology has been publicly demonstrated about 3 years ago, but I imagine it has been done years and years back. It's really nothing mind blowing, just the way waves work, workaround believe it or not is the tin foil your walls.
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Any reason this wouldn't work with cell towers?
Yes, it wouldn't really.
Right now the way this works is that a human body absorbs a certain about it wifi signal, so of the signal strength in a room dips and comes back up, someone walked through the room, for example. Couple this with what IPs and MAC addresses the router is connecting to, and Verizon can tell "human with laptop," or "human watching TV." So just "human body" or dog/cat are what it can detect. Verizon does try and sell this as a feature, as in a shit security feature.
So for cell towers, they're too far from people in an already chaotic environment to really be useful. Trees, cars, and a million other things can throw off trying to detect already minute changes in signal density. Not to mention that the signals from cell towers are much stronger, so harder to detect the changes.
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I think the main advantage with the wifi-based approaches is that they are usually used in a relatively static/calm indoor environment with a stable channel response and your motions are disturbing that, compared to a quickly changing outdoor environment (e.g. a city) where it would be much harder to distinguish individuals. Also, you are typically closer to the access points, making the power/SNR higher. Regarding mobile communication though, the trend is towards higher frequencies and smaller cell sizes which also give greater spatial resolution (and higher power) and some funky near-field effects can be used to get beam forming on crack: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.10147 So perhaps it could work even better, wouldn't be surprised
I imagine resolution decreases with range
Edit: resolution not revolution
Revolution should increase the closer you get to a billionaire.
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Hmm. The article appears to conflate multiple things?
One of them is “viewing” the RF spectrum to build up an image. The other is reading the unencrypted beamforming data from a router. That second one depends on people carrying a WiFi-capable piece of electronics with them doesn’t it? There has to be something for the beam to focus on, some sort of beacon signal.
Although I guess all it really needs is for the person to step between the router and a device connected to the router; that should enable analysis of the disruption patterns.
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IIRC, when Meta bought out iRobot, it slipped out that they were using Roombas to collect the square footage and entire layout of your house to add to your data sets. So this doesn't seem surprising at all. Good thing I configure my own router and firewall.
Nothing new for infosec people..
That's it, I'm gonna start violently beating my meat at my router if this is what they're going for.
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"Identify" seems like a very misleading word in this context. Isn't it just detecting and locating? Or am I misunderstanding and they can tell me and my roommate appart?
Height and body mass
There is a project I can't find now which uses an esp32 to create a presence detection system that integrates with home assistant and it uses wifi.
I know of ESPresense, but that only tracks your phone, not your body..
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DOUBT
This information is several years old...
My meta-quest 3s is constantly scanning my home floor plan and I'm sure it's getting shipped off to "Big Surveillance".
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