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Re:WiFi can read through walls by femto on Monday September 11, 2023 @11:33PM (#37476725)
It's deeper than that. You can't have advanced communications without gleaning the information needed to form a 3D image.

To get maximum data throughput, modern communications systems measure how the channel (ie. environment) changes the radio signals and then reverses those changes in the receiver. (search term: channel estimation). So it's inherent that a modern communications system is modelling its environment. A primary way communications systems become better is to increase the sophistication of their environment model.

Once the model becomes sophisticated enough, the only difference between a radar and a communication system is which information you choose to extract: the information the environment imprinted/modulated on the radio signal/carrier (ie. the model of the environment) or the information the transmitter imprinted/modulated on the radio signal/carrier (ie. the message). The first is radar, the second is communications. There is no technical reason why you can't extract both.

Re:WiFi can read through walls by uoaei on Tuesday September 12, 2023 @12:08AM (#37476850)
This is not a technical question but a moral one in the face of such surveillance apparatuses as exist today.

A pen can be both a writing implement and a deadly weapon. But until someone decides to use it as a deadly weapon, it's not one. Luckily we don't typically hear people explaining the anatomy of soft tissues in the human neck when talking about pens.

Re:WiFi can read through walls by femto on Tuesday September 12, 2023 @12:23AM (#37476919)
Agree. Hence the qualification that there is no technical reason why the information can't be extracted. Any barriers are non-technical.

The problem is that this information is inherent to a communications system. It can't be separated. Communications is pervasive, so channel information is pervasive. How does one control something that is pervasive?

It's a Catch-22: Do we implement a surveillance apparatus to prevent people from accessing the channel information that can be used to build a surveillance apparatus?

Re:WiFi can read through walls by ClumsyPilot on Tuesday September 12, 2023 @12:40AM (#37476994)
> Do we implement a surveillance apparatus to prevent people from accessing the channel information

thats the wrong question - simply remove all barriers that prevent consuners from inspecting inner working if their devices, and attach large statutory compensation in case a consumer privacy is violated.

Re:WiFi can read through walls by jack_pp on Tuesday September 12, 2023 @12:25AM (#37476928)
Except you can't mass kill people with pens. Or you can't hijack someone else's pen and kill them. You can mass surveil people with this tech and you can be sure it will be used that way sooner or later.
Re:WiFi can read through walls by deafpolygon on Tuesday September 12, 2023 @01:29AM (#37477195)
Sooner, most likely.
Re:WiFi can read through walls by hoseja on Tuesday September 12, 2023 @05:52AM (#37478779)
Killing people isn't a typical side-effect of normal usage of pen, unless you want to go into comparing might with swords.