this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2025
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529
Humans can be tracked with unique 'fingerprint' based on how their bodies block Wi-Fi signals (www.theregister.com)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by bignose@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The Sapienza computer scientists say Wi-Fi signals offer superior surveillance potential compared to cameras because they're not affected by light conditions, can penetrate walls and other obstacles, and they're more privacy-preserving than visual images.

[…] The Rome-based researchers who proposed WhoFi claim their technique makes accurate matches on the public NTU-Fi dataset up to 95.5 percent of the time when the deep neural network uses the transformer encoding architecture.

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[–] besselj@lemmy.ca 155 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Ironically, a tin foil hat would probably work to prevent that kind of surveillance

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 62 points 3 days ago

A faraday hat.

[–] hornedfiend@sopuli.xyz 25 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

wouldn’t that make it worse? basically any signal can bounce off you, making yourself even easier to track.

edit: wording

[–] besselj@lemmy.ca 37 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The tracking happens even with a big reflector/scatterer on your head, but as long as you dont wear it regularly, the system would have difficulty identifying you from wave propagation alone

[–] Flagstaff@programming.dev 30 points 3 days ago (2 children)

So wear many different hats. Got it.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Many different items of tinfoil clothing. Tinfoil shirt today, tinfoil codpiece for the weekend

[–] MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Have you tried turning off the router?

[–] kerntucky 10 points 3 days ago

Yeah, but then I had no excuse to wear a tinfoil codpiece.

[–] DasFaultier@sh.itjust.works 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I mean, wouldn't you anyway? You don't wear your good Sunday tinfoil hat to work. That one's for church and swinger club visits only!

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

Yeah, wouldn't want to have to change hats, when I go to the swinger club after church.

[–] Capricorn_Geriatric@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Since it 'figerprints' you, changing your fingerprint by blocking parts of the signal with pieces of foil doesn't seem like a terrible idea.

Now, the question is: is such a tactic like wearing gloves, or like using super glue?