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Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

xfinity.com

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Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#71

Post by aspenmayer »

landl0rd wrote: post #61
aspenmayer wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With enough signals, gait recognition for example is possible, and those same signals could be corroborated with presence or absence of concomitant device signals to determine if your device is moving with your person, and if not, to then flag this for enhanced monitoring if evasion is suspected.

The point is every single thing I own should be "on my side". My car should not store my location history. My wifi router should not track presence and movement. My printer should not add any watermarks or telltale dots. My stuff should actively make it difficult or impossible for hackers, advertisers, or law enforcement to recover any useful information. This means, respectively: ensure personal info is stored secur…

This is magical thinking, because it’s using the legal system to solve a technical and social problem. It’s probably possible to create standards that don’t leak PII and other forms of metadata that are unique. That is probably the only solution going forward to reduce possible interdiction by extralegal third parties. However, Comcast can only be enjoined from doing this legally, and will likely not do anything that isn’t implemented by standards bodies, such as WiFi standards. The fact that these capabilities are available to Comcast corporate is because OEMs that make set top cable receivers and combination cable modem WiFi routers provide these capabilities. I’m not sure if these features are standard or require a special order. Once Comcast has the data, it is available to law enforcement via the Third Party Doctrine, which isn’t going away anytime soon.

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#72

Post by dylan604 »

nandomrumber wrote: post #59
dylan604 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't broadcast your SSID, then how can device manufactures have hyper accurate location services available when GPS is not? You're not participating in the system! Hell, as much money as theGoogs gives to be the default search to various companies, would they not be willing to pay ISPs to keep that option on? I'm just throwing ideas out that I know nothing about, but I don't see why they would be opposed to t…

Doesn’t turning off SSID broadcast result in devices that have the wifi network saved repeatedly broadcast a request for the AP to identify itself in an effort to establish a connection?

I'm not sure I follow. Why would a network known to the device not be connected to the network? If you never connected your device to their wifi and only connected to your wifi connected via ethernet, why would it even know to make a request? If you're not actively connecting to the WiFi in your house, why not just "forget network"? Seems like a strange hypothetical, but aren't they all?

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#73

Post by Aurornis »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #66
EvanAnderson wrote: post #10

I don't want my ISP doing this to me, but it sounds like something pretty cool to do myself. Does anybody know what the current state of "self-hosting" this kind of functionality is?

I am also super interested for the personal use case. What is the resolution? Can I track my cat through the house? See when they go to the feeder? Count my own bathroom visits?

> What is the resolution? Can I track my cat through the house? See when they go to the feeder? Count my own bathroom visits?

None of the above.

The setup process has you select 3 reference devices. You should pick the devices so that your normal motion areas are between the device and the router.

The router then watches the WiFi signals from those devices. If they fluctuate more than baseline, it's assumed that something is moving around in the area.

It's a threshold detection that can serve as a crude motion sensor for home/away purposes.

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#74

Post by jrockway »

This is a neat feature when it's your own device that you control, but not so great when they "disclose information generated by WiFi Motion to third parties without further notice to you."

I wanted to talk about how responsible WiFi router software authors can make things local-only (and I've done that in the past; no way to get this information even if I wanted it). But this is always temporary when "they" can push an update to your router at any time. One day the software is trustworthy, they next day it's not, via intentional removal of privacy features or by virtue of a dumb bug that you probably should have written a unit test for. Comcast is getting attention for saying they're doing this, but anyone who pushes firmware updates to your WiFi router can do this tomorrow if they feel like it. A strong argument in favor of "maybe I'll just run NixOS on an Orange Pi as my router", because at least you get the final say in what code runs.

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#75

Post by dylan604 »

aspenmayer wrote: post #71
landl0rd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is every single thing I own should be "on my side". My car should not store my location history. My wifi router should not track presence and movement. My printer should not add any watermarks or telltale dots. My stuff should actively make it difficult or impossible for hackers, advertisers, or law enforcement to recover any useful information. This means, respectively: ensure personal info is stored secur…

This is magical thinking, because it’s using the legal system to solve a technical and social problem. It’s probably possible to create standards that don’t leak PII and other forms of metadata that are unique. That is probably the only solution going forward to reduce possible interdiction by extralegal third parties. However, Comcast can only be enjoined from doing this legally, and will likely not do anything that…

These companies are so big now, and more importantly their lobbyists are, that it is unlikely any regulations would ever come that would limit their abilities to make money off of your PII.

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#76

Post by dylan604 »

aspenmayer wrote: post #54
dylan604 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I left my device at home?

With enough signals, gait recognition for example is possible, and those same signals could be corroborated with presence or absence of concomitant device signals to determine if your device is moving with your person, and if not, to then flag this for enhanced monitoring if evasion is suspected.

when I'm at home, my device is just sitting on the desk. rarely is it in my actual hand being carried with me. also i'm old, so i don't have it in my hand while sitting on the couch or in bed either. that's why my laptop is for. something with a real keyboard and screen and not something that's going to give me scoliosis for hunching over to read all the damn time

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#77

Post by kube-system »

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #33
BarryMilo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time to make your apartment a faraday cage!

RF-blocking paint exists.

And contrary to popular belief, neither it nor a faraday cage blocks RF. They attenuate it, to varying degrees.

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#78

Post by meepmorp »

jklinger410 wrote: post #26

I had a conspiracy theorist tell me one time this is why they removed all the lead paint. It never quite made sense that kids were actually eating lead chips. I know lead is bad for you, maybe a coincidence.

Apart from what the sibling poster said about lead (II acetate) having a sweet taste, little kids will put literally anything in their mouths. You ain't lived till you had to get dog shit out of a baby's mouth.

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#79

Post by sneak »

What is the escalation path for replacing or removing the corrupt public utility commissions that allow these fraudulent and unethical monopolists to continue operating?

We have endless cases of Comcast and others criminally abusing their granted monopoly and the PUCs simply allowing them to run roughshod over consumers.

How do we fix it?

Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion

#80

Post by Aurornis »

jklinger410 wrote: post #26

I had a conspiracy theorist tell me one time this is why they removed all the lead paint. It never quite made sense that kids were actually eating lead chips. I know lead is bad for you, maybe a coincidence.

Even old lead paint didn't have a lot of lead in it. A thin layer of lead paint with We use lead for shielding ionizing radiation like gamma rays, but even that uses a lot more lead than you'd find in paint.

Not all "radiation" is the same thing.

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