How a 30-year-old technology – WiFi – will turn into our next big privacy problem

 How a 30-year-old technology – WiFi – will turn into our next big privacy problem

WiFi can be traced back to 1991, but it was in the late 1990s that the technology began to be taken up by the general public. Its success back then was by no means guaranteed. Although largely forgotten now, there was a rival approach called Home RF, which only gave up the fight in 2003 when it became clear that WiFi would become the standard for wireless local area networks (WLANs).

Since then, WiFi has become an increasingly important part of modern life, with hotels, restaurants and many other venues providing it for free as an expected part of their services. Over the years, the technology has improved, mostly in terms of speed and range. But there is a new iteration of the WiFi standard being developed that will have massive implications for privacy and surveillance. It goes by the unmemorable name of 802.11bf. Here’s how the IEEE, the organization that is drawing up the new standard, describes it:

“IEEE 802.11bf will enable stations to inform other stations of their WLAN sensing capabilities and request and set up transmissions that allow for WLAN sensing measurements to be performed, among other features. WLAN sensing makes use of received WLAN signals to detect features of an intended target in a given environment. The technology can measure range, velocity, and angular information; detect motion, presence, or proximity; detect objects, people, and animals; and be used in rooms, houses, cars, and enterprise environments.“

The idea is simple. Radio waves are emitted from WiFi units that support the new 802.11bf, but not only to transfer data, as today. Instead, details of how those waves bounce off objects in their vicinity are gathered and analyzed to detect key features. Different uses are made possible by the availability of license-exempt frequency bands between 1 GHz and 7.125 GHz, and also above 45 GHz. The former will allow relatively large-scale motions to be detected – people or animals moving around, for example – and have the useful ability to pass through obstacles such as walls. The high frequencies, on the other hand, will have a shorter range, but be more precise: as well as gestures, it will be possible to track finer movements on a keyboard, for example. The two might be used in tandem, with the lower frequencies deployed to guide the tighter radio beam used with the higher frequencies.

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/how-a-30-year-old-technology-wifi-will-turn-into-our-next-big-privacy-problem/

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