The race is on to find the cheapest/easiest decoy that can simulate such motion (because if everything is moving, then nothing is moving). A tube man in every corner?
Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion
81–90 of 517 posts
Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion
#82I 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?
Just get cameras and local storage/processing for them. No need for elaborate Wi-Fi presence detection hacks.
Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion
#83Sensing is (sadly) part of Wi-Fi 7. If you have a recent Intel, AMD or Qualcomm device from the past few years, it's likely physically capable of detecting human presence and/or activity (e.g. breathing rate). It can also be done with $20 ESP32 devices + OSS firmware and _possibly_ with compromised radio basebands.
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Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 some…
Nuts. Less interesting than the claims of monitoring heart rate, but still potentially some applications “for free” if it just needs to analyze signal strength from devices I already have. Theoretically could put it directly onto my OpenWRT router and make it available from there.
Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion
#85Does wrapping their modem in foil work at defeating this thing in any meaningful way? I have my own router.
Probably. Even better would be opening it up and grounding the antenna.
Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion
#86One takeaway from this is that there's a strong privacy case for disabling the built-in wireless network from your ISP-provided modem/router and using your own, to reduce the number of ways that your ISP can surveil you.
That’s always a good idea, but they’ll still be able to tell when someone is home because the outbound internet traffic will increase. And don’t forget to set your DNS to a non-ISP resolver.
SNI is not encrypted.
You need a box downstream of your ISP devices that encrypts all traffic out over a VPN. This is what I do.
Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
All these already existing dragnets make oldies like the Clipper Chip seem like a weekend hackathon project.
The irony is that all of these metadata leaks and correlation attacks etc were theoretical at the time these technologies were created and developed, unless you’re NSA level compute power, both human and silicon. Now, any script kid has enough info to try to build an array of SDRs to do the same thing, and no one will care when they do besides the feds who cry foul about their turf being stepped on by plebeians. The public will never care because their eyes will already have glazed over once you mention MAC addresses and SSIDs.
Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion
#88I'm sure people will want to make it seem like Comcast is doing something evil here, but they're not: > Comcast does not monitor the motion and/or notifications generated by the service. > This feature is currently only available for select Xfinity Internet customers as part of an early access preview. > WiFi Motion is off by default. Features like this at Comcast are typically one or two engineers on a random team c…
It's all well and good until the MBAs get a hold of it... Technology doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion
#89This is actually a feature of the Plume wifi mesh devices. https://support.plume.com/s/article/Sense-Live-View?language... It's also available from any other ISP that uses them, or if you buy your own Plume device and a subscription. It's been there for years. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/03/from-wi-fi-to-spy-fi...
Re: Xfinity using WiFi signals in your house to detect motion
#90...and promising to give it to cops.
Turn that thing off.