Humans can be tracked with unique 'fingerprint' based on how their bodies block Wi-Fi signals

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

If all you need is presence detection then a motion sensor would be vastly more efficient.

If you actually need identity detection, then maybe, but you'll still have to have a camera or detailed access logs to associate the interference signature with a known entity and at that point you may as well just put an RFID reader under the bowl you throw your keys into or use facial or gait detection.

Why do you need to identify specific cats over merely the presence of movement or cats in general?

Probably not.

This kind of thing relies on the fact that the emitter and environments are static, impacting the propagation of the signals in a predictable way and that each person, having a unique physique, consistently interferes with that propagation in the same way. It's a tool that reports "the interference in this room looks like the same interference observed in these past cases."

Search and rescue is a very dynamic environment, with no opportunity to establish a local baseline, and with a high likelihood that the physiological signal you are looking for has been altered (such as by broken or severed limbs).

There are some other WiFi sniffing technologies that might be more useful for S&R such as movement detection, but I'm not sure if that will work as well when the broadcaster is outside the environment (as the more rubble between the emitter and the target the weaker your signal from reflections against the rubble).

Don't think of this as being able to see through walls like with a futuristic camera, think of this as AI assisted anomaly detection in signal processing (which is exactly what the researchers are doing).

Being able to scan and model a 3D environment using wifi? Sure. Wifi-fingerprinting the people in the scan? Why?

You are correct because something similar has already been used

https://spinoff.nasa.gov/FINDER-Finds-Its-Way-into-Rescuers-Toolkits

Microwaves are the same as wifi waves, these are able to detect bodies and whether the bodies are beating or not

You get poo time? That's socialism!

Tuesday, in 2025.

If it's your home why can't you just have a camera or motion sensor. Rather than trying to adapt something that isn't designed for the purpose.

I doubt it. You'd need to be looking really closely at the waveforms to notice this, so they were likely already doing something similar, like that research that can pinpoint where people are in a house based on their WiFi. They were probably already doing something creepy before they noticed that this was more straightforward than they expected.

We have heard this non-sense before, only to find it's trivially easy to connect to your PID.

How is that a "fingerprint"?

I feel like you’re overthinking this. There are people who buy crystal-infused drinking cups to reset their personal feng shui. (Spoiler: it’s just glitter.)

I really wish I didn’t have morals. It’s so easy to make money if you’re willing to fleece people.

e: autocorrect

Yeah, like, why learn how to split the atom if all we can do is splode stuff. It's not like we can cure cancer or power things without emitting planet killing gasses or anything.

Maybe wearing a different tinfoil hat every day would mess up a person's "fingerprint"

People willingly provide enough tracking of themselves already

While this could have military applications, the need to generate a profile of the person you want to track makes this less of a concern for your average “carries a phone everywhere” person

EDIT: I suppose your comment is written in a way that it's not clear whether you're saying certain frequencies absolutely require meshes of a certain size to be blocked or if you're just adding that extra detail about the design of Faraday cages for the hell of it. But...

Original comment: It doesn't have to have holes to block radiation. A continuous sheet blocks all frequencies. A mesh is just nice so we can see through the cage or allow air to pass etc.

From the page you linked: "A Faraday shield may be formed by a continuous covering of conductive material." "... if the conductor is thick enough and any holes are significantly smaller than the wavelength of the radiation."