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Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

> The device, which is housed in a chip smaller than a grain of rice, enables Internet of Things (IoT) devices to communicate with existing Wi-Fi networks using 5,000 times less power than today’s Wi-Fi radios. It consumes just 28 microwatts of power. And it does so while transmitting data at a rate of 2 megabits per second (a connection fast enough to stream music and most YouTube videos) over a range of up to 21 meters.

Seems like ideally suited to surreptitious surveillance

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It's backscatter tech, which was literally invented for surveillance (see Great Seal Bug [0]) -- modern(ish) versions of which are prominently featured in the NSA's ANT Catalog [1].

This is the same technology as UHF RFID (now Rain RFID). Using dedicated RF carriers rather than ambient WiFi signals, we've demonstrated 100Mbps at 10uW using QAM Backscatter signalling [2]. Similar tech was used to read neural data off of dragonflies in flight [3] or self-contained implantable devices [4].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog

[2] http://people.ee.duke.edu/~sjt/publications/pdf/2013_Thomas_...

[3] https://www.wired.com/2013/06/dragonfly-backpack-neuron/

[4] http://www.travisdeyle.com/publications/pdf/2017_rfic_implan...

> The Wi-Fi radio runs on extremely low power by transmitting data via a technique called backscattering. It takes incoming Wi-Fi signals from a nearby device (like a smartphone) or Wi-Fi access point, modifies the signals and encodes its own data onto them, and then reflects the new signals onto a different Wi-Fi channel to another device or access point.

Seems like this chip is purpose built for surreptitious surveillance.

It looks like it completely depends on there being other types of radio waves and modifying them. If you were security conscious you could either check if radio signals were being modified somehow or just shield off certain rooms (faraday cage).

They already said IoT

Or IoS: Internet of Surveillance

As the saying goes "the S in IoT stands for security."

As for surveillance. Well, it is a transceiver, hence it can be localized and tracked.

And, IoPO: Internet of Planned Obsolescence.

And, TaaS: Things as a Service.

Because those three are the real reasons companies put radios in consumer widgets. Getting a data stream that can be resold to marketers, getting people to buy more garbage more often, and getting people to pay a regular subscription fee to avoid having to care about buying and disposing of garbage products.

There is no way to escape this. By advancing IoT we also advance IoS, it is as simple as that.

The way to fight IoS is not by restricting advancement of technology. Even if we wanted, it is already way past it. We can assume governments are years if not decades ahead.

Would separate (v)LANs and super strict firewall rules not help somewhat? With the addition of things like DoH it's going to be trickier to "secure", or rather, isolate IoT devices for sure, but _impossible_?

whose to say that your devices can't communicate to the outside world via it's power supply?

True that.

2Mits will be the signaling rate. You won't get 2Mbits of throughput, more like 1.

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