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from the your-android-needs-to-be-more-paranoid dept.
The Register has a story on a new technique which turns commodity devices with microphones and speakers into active sonar systems
The technique, called CovertBand, looks beyond the obvious possibility of using a microphone-equipped device for eavesdropping. It explores how devices with audio inputs and outputs can be turned into echo-location devices capable of calculating the positions and activities of people in a room.
In a paper [PDF] titled "CovertBand: Activity Information Leakage using Music," Rajalakshmi Nandakumar, Alex Takakuwa, Tadayoshi Kohno, and Shyamnath Gollakota describe a way to transmit acoustic pulses in the 18‑20 kHz range, masked by music, from the speaker and tracking sound reflected by the human body using microphones
The project home page includes further details, and the paper details proof of concept implementations on an Android and Smart TV device, which demonstrate both accurate tracking, and the ability to infer information about what the target is doing.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @03:36PM (2 children)
Back in the day, we'd say things like "I'm afraid the government is trying to put us under constant surveillance"; these day we say "Hey surveillance, order me 5 trinkets and turn up the volume"
But they let keep your little guns, so I guess you got that going for you...
(Score: 1) by Virindi on Tuesday August 22 2017, @03:43PM (1 child)
Only with constant protest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @08:42PM
Yes, they'll know what you have and if you happen to be wielding one when they arrive. Isn't technology and freedom great?