this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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Privacy

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What do you guys think about this?

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[–] freeman@lemmy.pub 36 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There’s actually a lot of crazy shit you can do with EMF.

Look up Van Eck Phreaking. The theory was developed on CRT monitors but can be used on LCD as well where you use the monitor as a listening device.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking

Really interesting I will take a look at it

[–] grue@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Haha theremin go eeeeeeeeeeeeee

[–] chaoticPuppies@lemmy.ml 23 points 1 year ago

Yes. Last summer I sold Residential Fiberoptic Internet access. One of the main selling points was the "wireless mesh system". It was 3-6 pods placed inside of your home and an optional phone app. The system could be set up and enabled to tell you if there was movement when no person living there was home.

The manufacturer was Plume.

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I can't live in peace can I

[–] shalva97@lemmy.sdfeu.org 11 points 1 year ago

There is no privacy anywhere

[–] Simplesyrup@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] worfamerryman 6 points 1 year ago

So, no privacy? Now we need rooms with build in faraday cages which make it even more suspicious.

[–] fiat_lux@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The fact they're able to do this is no surprise to me. The fact they're able to do this on very easily accessible equipment to that degree of accuracy is scary impressive.

While this obviously has huge consequences for privacy, the part that concerns me most is its usage in development of deep fakes. I worry about the consequences of no longer being able to distinguish real video evidence from deliberate manipulation.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Imagine Amazon or Google working out which devices in your home are static, then using them to map out your household with their built in wifi.

[–] randomguy2323@lemmy.kevitprojects.com 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yes I am worried about that too , but what we can do about it? The more I think about this the less I feel the power to do something against surveillance and what it get into my nerve the most is that the big majority of people just dont care that every day we are losing privacy and our freedom. Just look at the UK trying to pass a bill to have backdoor on encrypted communications.

[–] fiat_lux@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Honestly, I'm not sure. Privacy has always been a spectrum, but we're now living in a world where it's near impossible to get close to 100% privacy for any action from the start. I suspect the current possible remedies are "ensuring the people and organisations which use/abuse surveillance are heavily regulated and compliance heavily enforced" which ironically requires transparency.

Realistically there needs to be lengthy legal procedures to grant authorities and companies use of such techniques. Legislation like that is complicated and slow to develop though. It also risks pinning the core privacy concepts to specific versions of specific tech, which complicates its enforcement over time.

Even if it is very illegal to do this to someone though, there will always be people who use it for whatever purposes. Obviously making it illegal under wiretapping laws without explicit opt-in consent to do it is something that would need to happen. I'd also like to see mandatory source attribution laws.

That won't stop everyone though. Which means we maybe need to start looking into comstruction legislation to ensure RF blocking materials are used in external wall construction. If that is an effective remedy to Van Eck phreaking at all. I have no idea what resolution information can be determined from devices that aren't purpose built broadcasting and receiving devices.

And all of that requires good-will and sensible decisions from the existing legal systems and legislators. Which can't be completely achieved, and in many cases is... currently very poor.

Tl;dr A very hard problem which will need work from a bunch of different parts of society and likely cannot be completely solved for all people. The only solution for this specific technique right now I think is to go fully off-grid with no electricity. Even then though you'll still have satellites and drones to intrude.

[–] exu@feditown.com 4 points 1 year ago

I guess you could design every room as its own faraday cage with separate access points against this specific threat.

[–] grey@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Okay FINE I'll guess I'll have to just wire my whole house with Ethernet.

Thats a good idea.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago

Openwrt exists

[–] immibis@social.immibis.com 13 points 1 year ago

@randomguy2323 @privacy It's only a gimmick, for now. Notice they had to use multiple access points and receivers and calibrate the system based on the room it was in.

[–] nothacking@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is a lot of other fun stuff you can do with RF, some people even found a way to spy on keystrokes by sending microwaves at an unmodified PS/2 keyboard cable.

[–] msage@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago

How about USB? I haven't used PS/2 for a long while.

[–] CrayonMaster@midwest.social 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

a) well that's fucking terrifying

b) did they really end that with an ad for baby cameras? Or was that a blank ad fill-in-the-blank thing?

[–] TheButtonJustSpins@infosec.pub 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I got the same ads, so I'm assuming it's related to the content.

[–] CrayonMaster@midwest.social 1 points 1 year ago

Well at least it's not an AI saying it's a boy I guess

[–] f43r05@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

I'm Batman.

[–] guyrocket@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

How long until people are "randomly" shot inside their houses?

[–] Tetra@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago
[–] djquadratic@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Typo in the article - “found inn”