Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Submission + - Wi-Fi Routers Can Scan Your Body to Identify Exactly Who You Are (futurism.com) 1

JoeyRox writes: New research out of Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology found that the types of Wi-Fi routers we all have in our homes come with a major privacy vulnerability that can be used to identify any human body that comes within their range.

The study, flagged by Gizmodo, used machine learning systems to identify individuals with an accuracy rate of 99.5 percent. To do so, the researchers exploited a vulnerability in a process known as beamforming feedback information (BFI), which was introduced to allow routers to focus Wi-Fi signals on connected devices, as opposed to the older approach, which is to blanket an entire area in coverage.

While BFI is great for network connectivity, it has a major downsides for privacy. For starters, devices connected to a router using beamforming need to send constant feedback in order to be found. As routers send out and receive network feedback, the signal is inevitably impacted by real world factors like pets, walls, and people.

Making matters worse is the fact that this data is basically wide open for anyone to grab — not only is that feedback data unencrypted, it can also be accessed without ever connecting directly to the router.

Comment Re:Yes, the ban on police using it is a good thing (Score 1) 86

The ban on private individuals is a bad idea...

Private individuals, PI's, Skip Tracers and reporters SHOULD be able to use such software freely. Police, and the Government NEED to provide reasonable suspicion to a court and get a writ.
This kind of tool can be incredibly useful, or incredibly invasive. The real question is who(m?) do you trust as the gate keeper. I'd nominate the EU data protection people but there is no agency or entity in
the US I'd trust not to monetize the data regardless of law.

Comment My childhood (Score 5, Interesting) 22

I can remember seeing those in the theatre, after standing in line for hours. Star wars made a huge impact on my childhood. One of my best childhood memories is with my now deceased uncle seeing Empire Strikes Back. Like many I was terribly disappointed by the later Star Wars episodes. I've not even seen any of the "new" stuff. Actually Revenge of the Sith is the last movie I saw. She will be missed.

Submission + - I found a second vote.gov -- and it's registered to the White House

As_I_Please writes: The Drey Dossier reports that the National Design Studio, an office created by executive order and which reports only to the White House, has been building copies of federal agency websites like vote.gov, passports.gov, login.gov and others.

What [the National Design Studio] is doing is taking the parts of the federal government that touch you directly, your prescription, your voter registration, your passport, your federal login, out of the agencies that legally own them and rebuilding them on White House infrastructure. Vote.gov belongs to the Election Assistance Commission, and the studio built a copy. Passports belong to the State Department, and the studio is building a replacement this week. Login.gov belonged to GSA, and the studio’s guy runs it now.

Trump has said publicly that this infrastructure is for other presidents, and he is right about that. It is the one thing in this story I take him at his word on. The infrastructure outlasts him. Whoever wins in 2028 inherits the websites, the vendors, the data, and the hardware, sealed and waiting.

NDS Infrastructure Map — my live working github map of every National Design Studio subdomain I have found, filterable by status, registrant, and parent domain. If you want to retrace this investigation or watch new subdomains appear in real time, start here.

Comment Re:What is it with surveillance? (Score 3, Interesting) 95

THANK-YOU. The police have the means to get any info they want and can prove they have a legitimate need for. They just need to go through the proper procedures. I was a DSO long ago, and there are plenty of friendly judges that will listen to your arguments, but lazy a$$ cops don't want to do the paper work, or have shown they weren't trustworthy before. Show a judge you are a dirtbag and you'll never get anything.

Comment Delta Queen (Score 1) 51

I've got a Delta Queen 2 plays for .25 on the patio. Wouldn't it be easier to take an existing machine and redo the playing field to match ? Getting parts for my old machine is not fun. I've made rubber bumpers and swapped light bulbs to low power led's. I had an artistic friend recreate some of the decals and made a whole new playing field base to replace the sagging boards that were there.

Comment Re: No. (Score 0, Troll) 141

I live in AZ. There ARE some issues with not having DST. It gets F'n dark early and the sun rises late in the morning. I walk dogs and for some time I start and finish in the dark. Kids ride the school busses in the dark. The winter Ag workers start in the VERY dark, but it IS cooler. Over all I like not having to change the time.

Setting the time backwards used to be a huge deal in the mainframe world, with duplicate transaction times logged and such, but as I read it now they are using Universal time and incrementing daily.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberrys!" -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Working...