5G phones have settled into common use and now 6G is on the drawing boards. So, what will be in the 6G feature set?
Read about it here: The 6G vision: Fewer dead zones, smarter networks, and built-in ‘radar’.
This looks to a scary feature:
One of the planned new features in 6G is called Integrated Sensing and Communication, or ISAC.
“It’s the big talking point that’s getting the most attention right now. ISAC means that we will no longer see the mobile network as just a way to transport data. Instead, radio waves will be transformed into a sensor, a kind of radar. The network can ‘see’ and measure distance, speed, and movement with centimeter precision without the devices needing GPS or cameras. This opens doors for everything from traffic monitoring to fall detection in healthcare,” says Mikael Gidlund, professor at Mid Sweden University.
The idea that all mobile phone masts could be able to sense their physical surroundings and detect presence or movement may sound like science fiction — and also like a nightmare from a privacy perspective. This is something Mikael Gidlund is well aware of.
“This is one of the most important technical challenges that must be solved for the technology to gain acceptance. The goal is to design the system according to the principle of ‘privacy by design.’ ISAC works like a radar, not a camera. It works with anonymous point clouds rather than biometric data. We can see that someone has fallen and needs help, but not who it is. By allowing data processing to take place locally in the mast and building technical barriers to identification directly into the standard, we can actually increase privacy by replacing cameras in sensitive environments. Anonymization is not an option — it is a technical prerequisite for trust.
They are saying some of the right words and phrases. But if they have centimeter resolution, it probably means this tech will enable the detection of people who carry guns. If they can tell if someone has fallen, they can tell if two or a group of people are having sex.
I find it telling they enumerate some potential benefits, but then lump all the downside into “privacy.” And just because they don’t know who someone is, if they can detect a person who as fallen, then I’m almost certain they can track an individual person. And if they can be tracked, privacy just disappeared.
As a first step, what needs to be done is to enumerate all the ways this technology could be abused and apply “privacy by design” to those use cases. My intuition tells me there will not be much left in the benefits category once they have eliminated the potential for abuse.
Nope.
Sticking with my old flip-phone. When 6g is required, I’ll go phoneless.
Just like with Win11 going to far with AI and privacy loss, I never “upgraded” to it, and Win10 will be the last Windows system I ever own. It’s got a second SSD with Linux on it, and one day soon I’ll be switching over to that full time.
They are no longer doing what’s good for the product user, they are doing what’s needed for a totalitarian state complete monitoring and control.
Between drones and phones, another revolution will be almost impossible w/o going back a LONG way… perhaps that’s the plan.
You need to read more carefully. In this case your tin-foil hat increases your visibility. It is the cell tower being used as radar.
This tech works without you carrying a cell phone or there even being a cell phone nearby. And with seamless satellite coverage built into the network being “way out in the woods” doesn’t help you. The tin-foil hat just makes you easier to spot.
Would you like a set of well used plans for an underground bunker?
I do not see it possible to anticipate all the ways a nascent technology can be abused.
Correct. The same with anticipating the uses.
We live in interesting times.
Good news (for Joe, at least): That radar function isn’t going to be working inside of a Hobbit hole.
And if they do enhance it with ground-penetrating imaging radar capabilities, while you’re building your earth-berm house, put down a layer of conductive mesh in the dirt that’ll absorb the 1cm to 10cm wavelengths.