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howmanypeoplearearound calculates the number of people in the vicinity using the approximate number of smartphones as a proxy (since ~70% of people have smartphones nowadays). A cellphone is determined to be in proximity to the computer based on sniffing WiFi probe requests. Possible uses of howmanypeoplearearound include, monitoring foot traffic in your house with Raspberry Pis, seeing if your roommates are home, etc. There are a number of possible USB WiFi adapters that support monitor mode. Namely you want to find a USB adapter with one of the following chipsets: Atheros AR9271, Ralink RT3070, Ralink RT3572, or Ralink RT5572. You will be prompted for the WiFi adapter to use for scanning. Make sure to use an adapter that supports "monitor" mode. You can modify the scan time, designate the adapter, or modify the output using some command-line options.
Features
- Tested on Linux (Raspbian and Ubuntu) and Mac OS X
- Python 2.7 or preferably Python 3 must be installed on your machine
- There are a number of possible USB WiFi adapters that support monitor mode
- You need to dissociate from any AP before initiating the scanning
- You can generate an JSON-formatted output to see what kind of phones are around
- You can visualize the output from a looped command via a browser
Project Samples
