Methinks
its a small wonder that Crown Corp's such as NB Power wish to attach Smart Meters with Wi-Fi
to our homes Apparently our right to privacy is irrelevant these days
N'esy Pas?
Your Wi-Fi router could be used to watch you breathe and monitor your heartbeat
55 Comments
David R. Amos Methinks
its a small wonder that Crown Corp's such as NB Power wish to spend a
great deal of money we don't have attaching Smart Meters with a Wi-Fi
to our homes. Apparently our right to privacy is irrelevant these days
N'esy Pas?
Mike Bel and yet implementation of 5g just rolls along with no apparent objections or studies.
David R. Amos
Reply to @mike bel:
Methinks the awful truth is nobody cares to learn anything about it. At
least I know its time for me to quit posting on this topic in light of
the fact that my friend who is much concerned about such things didn't
bother to read my words N'esy Pas?
Nate Hura This
represents further hurtling towards a society of constant surveillance,
and that is not only a violation of the Charter but also against
hundreds of thousands of years of human nature.
David R. Amos
Reply to @Nate Hural:
Methinks that Ghosts of our Ancestors would agree that the Charter is a
very questionable document N'esy Pas?
Nate Hura Reply to @David R. Amos:
"Questionable?"
The Charter theoretically ameliorates the worst consequences of inequity and inequality.
No, I believe those ancestors would probably wonder how it came to be
that so many humans were persuaded to abandon community collaboration in
favour of competitive (at least for the many) hierarchical rankism.
David R. Amos
Content disabled
Reply to @Nate Hural:
Methinks you employ fancy words for your own entertainment Perhaps you
may enjoy the words of other people who do the same while ignoring the
rights of all others N'esy Pas?
David R. Amos Reply to @Nate Hural: Ask yourself why my reply was blocked
Ben Smyth
The
one I like is the software that can amplify miniscule visible
vibrations in objects in videos, and convert them to audio signals. For
instance when someone is talking, the bag of chips on the table in front
of them will react to the varying pressure of the soundwaves. Video the
bag of chips from outside, use the software, and you will have a
recording about the quality of Edison's first phonograph recording of
"Mary had a little lamb".
That's a scary one. The software is open source.
David R. Amos
Reply to @Ben Smyth: Interesting
John White All
that information has monetary value. People will devise ways to get
information with or without your permission and they'll take anything.
They would happily gather information about how often you are intimate
with your spouse because they could sell it. The ability to monitor
something so private is coming soon unless of course they can already do
that. How often you brush your teeth, whether you floss, the brand of
soap you use etc ad infinitum. They want every scrap of information so
they can sell you stuff you don't need more effectively.
David R. Amos
Reply to @John White: YUP
Shelley
Phillips It
is very good to keep in touch with your heart rate with the Wi-Fi
router, my dad, when we were children holds our wrist to feel our heart
rates and even now when I feel the heart rate while pressing on the vein
in the wrist I am able to detect fever if I have it. It is like going
to the lap top to write on ms word when one can write with a humble
pencil on paper which is reasonable than a heavy bulky computer with its
proud keyboard.
David R. Amos
Reply to @Shelley
Phillips: Methinks the humble pencil on paper is far more reliable and
does provide hard copy of your private thoughts that are much harder to
steal N'esy Pas?
John Lema Okay, let's move on. We all know every bit of our lives are being monitored and tracked.
David R. Amos
Reply to @John Lema: Methinks apathy rules the day N'esy Pas?
Scott Cameron Should be illegal. What a scary direction technology is going
Gorden Feist
Reply to @Scott Cameron:
Do you know what the general public would do if you tried to take away their wifi and cell phones?
That's the whole circuses part of bread and circuses.
David R. Amos Reply to @Gorden Feist: Methinks everybody loves a circus N'esy Pas?
Jason DeBack "But I got nothing to hide"
says all those complicit in the erosion of rights
Ben Smyth
Reply to @Jason
DeBack: "erosion of rights" Inventors of new technologies do not give or
take away rights, that's up to governments and courts. It's nice that
this is in the public sphere so that others can work on technologies to
protect people from this kind of intrusion. The real question is once
they do, will governments seek to ban the technology as they did with
radar detectors.
Of course banning radar detectors has been really effective, and no one
ever uses them anymore. Mind you I could be being sarcastic about that.
David R. Amos
Reply to @Jason DeBack: Oh So True
David R. Amos
Reply to @Ben Smyth:
Methinks you jest just enough because if you can't find some fun in this
madness you will go crazy too N'esy Pas?
Joel Rufiange Meh this is old tech from 20 year ago they are more advanced than what they pretend they are
David R. Amos
Reply to @Joel Rufiange: True
Chris Halford Cool but sounds like trouble. Probably already exploited by the bad guys.
David R. Amos
Reply to @Chris Halford: YUP
Todd Michaels This is the same as being subjected to a constant X-RAY. NON|E of it is good for life..
Wait till 5G ..and see what life does under extreme conditions.
You all can "pish tosh" all you want...it won't change reality.
Rick Smith Reply to @Todd Michaels: I guess you missed Physics 101; X-rays are a whole different animal than radio waves.
David R. Amos Reply to @Rick Smith: "I guess you missed Physics 101"
Methinks Mr Tesla taught us far more than government run schools ever did N'esy Pas?
Dom Pantone There are no harmful effects on your body with this technology.
Trust us on this.
What could possibly go wrong?
Don Smith
Reply to @Dom Pantone: "What could possibly go wrong?"
David R. Amos
Reply to @Dom Pantone: Methinks a lot of ghosts would agree that it already went wrong N'esy Pas?
Wei Xue Wow.
David R. Amos
Reply to @Wei Xue: I concur
Gary McGarry My tv is watching me...
David R. Amos Reply to @Gary McGarry: Methinks many a true word is said in jest N'esy Pas?
Gary McGarry
Reply to @Gary McGarry: I was hoping someone would catch my reference to Mojo Nixons song of the same name. But alas
Your Wi-Fi router could be used to watch you breathe and monitor your heartbeat
Radar-like technology can see through walls to track movement
CBC Radio ·
Scientists
from MIT have developed technology that can see through walls to track a
person's movements, their heartbeat and even their emotions. (Fadel Adib/CSAIL)
As a child, Fadel Adib dreamed of having superpowers — like
Superman's X-ray vision. As an adult he made this dream real by
developing a way to use ordinary Wi-Fi signals to look through solid
objects like walls.
"You can see the person's head, chest, arms
and feet," said Adib. "You can measure even people's heartbeats and
emotions using these wireless signals."
Adib thinks this technology could be used in a huge range of applications, from health-care monitoring to behavioural research.
The secret behind this development is something quite familiar — radio waves.
"Radios [waves] are very nice because they allow us to see the invisible," said Adib, an assistant professor at MIT's Media Lab in conversation with Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald.
The
Wi-Fi router in your home sends and receives a constant stream of radio
waves in order to connect to your smartphone, tablet or laptop.
Adib harnessed this in a way that's similar to another technology that
can see things invisible to the naked eye — radar.
A small part of the signal goes through the wall, reflects off the person's body, and then comes back.- Fadel Adib, MIT Media Lab
Discovering how to use Wi-Fi like radar
Several years ago, Adib was trying to understand how to increase the speed of Wi-Fi signals when he noticed something strange.
"Every
once in a while, suddenly the data rate would go down and we would stop
getting a good signal. And when we looked more into the problem we
started realizing that there was someone who was walking on the other
side of the wall," he said.
It didn't take long before he and his
colleagues realized they could take this problem and turn it into a
whole new way to use a technology.
"When Wi-Fi signals travel in
space, a large part of the signal reflects off the wall. A small part of
the signal goes through the wall, reflects off the person's body, and
then comes back. So they carry this information about the environment."
These images of human figures were obtained using radio waves. Each column contains two images of the same person. (Fadel Adib)
Their
first challenge in isolating that information wall was to separate the
weak signal from the person on the other side of the wall from the much
stronger reflections off the wall and other objects in the environment.
"It's
almost like you're looking at the sun and at the same time [that]
you're trying to see an airplane in the sky; the sun will blind you."
Their
solution was to transmit two signals, with opposite features, so that
when these signals reflect off of a stationary objects like a wall, they
cancel each other out. Moving objects, like humans, didn't reflect the
same way.
"That allows us to cancel all the reflections of static
things, but not off humans," said Adib. "This is how we were able to
start tracking people."
Detecting fine-grained movements and emotions
Adib
and his colleagues also started tracking more fine-grained movements,
like the movement of the chest when breathing, or even the beating of a
heart.
You can glean human emotions, like to know if someone's sad, happy, excited or angry.- Fadel Adib, MIT Media Lab
"What
happens is that when your heart pumps blood, it creates a force and
your entire body part starts to vibrate a very small amount with every
heartbeat. And because we're able to capture movements, we're able to
capture these small movements of your body and use them to get your
heartbeats."
It was a small step from this to being able to detect emotions.
"Your
emotions are encoded and the variations between every heartbeat, and
the heartbeat that is after it — so small millisecond variations between
your heartbeats," said Adib.
"If you're able to capture these, then you can glean human emotions, like to know if someone's sad, happy, excited or angry."
A myriad of potential applications — and privacy risks
Adib
said this technology is already in use in major hospitals across the
U.S. to track disease progression in patients with Parkinson's or
multiple sclerosis.
"If you can track human movements and you will be able to detect disease progression over time or
how the person's movements are reacting to certain kinds of drugs to
know whether the drug is actually being effective or not effective."
Other
potential applications they've explored include using the system as a
baby monitor that could provide not just sound or images, but
information about an infant's vital signs. It could also be used to
monitor the elderly so a caretaker could be notified if an elderly
person has taken a fall.
The technology could further be used in behavioural research, to monitor how couples interact or caregiver-patient interaction.
But
this technology also, clearly, comes with significant privacy concerns.
Since it uses relatively conventional Wi-Fi hardware, use of the
technology by bad actors to monitor people without consent is a risk the
team has considered.
Adib said they're working on developing
countermeasures that would work much like anti-virus software to protect
people's privacy. But he says the onus also partly falls on legislators
to be aware of these technological advances in order to put appropriate
privacy-protecting policies in place.
No comments:
Post a Comment