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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

#101

Post by Saris »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #52
afruitpie wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I’m aware, Xfinity fiber customers have to use the provided “Xfinity Wi-Fi Gateway” and cannot enable bridge mode. If anyone knows a way around this, please share! I want to connect my Xfinity ONT directly to my UniFi router.

In that situation, I would put the vendor modem in a microwave or other impromptu faraday cage to prevent the leakage. Remove/isolate the antennas as best as possible.

Can also open it up and disconnect the wifi antennas, or cut the traces if they're on the PCB.

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

#102

Post by oliwarner »

josho wrote: post #29
jacobgkau wrote: post #2

> Subject to applicable law, Comcast may disclose information generated by your WiFi Motion to third parties without further notice to you in connection with any law enforcement investigation or proceeding, any dispute to which Comcast is a party, or pursuant to a court order or subpoena. Sounds like, at least in some limited circumstances (using the provided WiFi AP, having this feature turned on, etc), ISPs are goi…

The solution here shouldn't be technical; it should be legal. If we rely on the technical path, Comcast can achieve the same by how many active IPv6 addresses are in use. Even if you aren't using your phone, the device is going to be constantly pinging services like email, and your ISP can use that to piece together how many people are at home. If we rely on legal protection, then not only Comcast, but all ISPs will…

> The solution here shouldn't be technical; it should be legal

Technical solutions tend to last longer. Legal solutions have a habit of being ignored when they become inconvenient.

The legal default should be that collecting this sort of data should always be illegal without informed consent and never used beyond the remit of that consent. As inconvenient as it sometimes is, the world needs GDPR.

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

#103

Post by armchairhacker »

josho wrote: post #29
jacobgkau wrote: post #2

> Subject to applicable law, Comcast may disclose information generated by your WiFi Motion to third parties without further notice to you in connection with any law enforcement investigation or proceeding, any dispute to which Comcast is a party, or pursuant to a court order or subpoena. Sounds like, at least in some limited circumstances (using the provided WiFi AP, having this feature turned on, etc), ISPs are goi…

The solution here shouldn't be technical; it should be legal. If we rely on the technical path, Comcast can achieve the same by how many active IPv6 addresses are in use. Even if you aren't using your phone, the device is going to be constantly pinging services like email, and your ISP can use that to piece together how many people are at home. If we rely on legal protection, then not only Comcast, but all ISPs will…

> The solution here shouldn't be technical; it should be legal.

I disagree. Solutions should be technical whenever possible, because in practice, laws tend to be abused and/or not enforced. Laws also need resources and cooperation to be enforced, and some laws are hard to enforce without creating backdoors or compromising other rights.

"ISPs will be prohibited from spying on their customers" doesn't mean ISPs won't spy on their customers.

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

#104

Post by timewizard »

frollogaston wrote: post #98
timewizard wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people their Comcast modem _is_ their router.

The point of the comment about ipv6 is that if you don't use a Comcast modem/router or they're prohibited by law from snooping on that, Comcast can still sorta understand the number of users from the outside by looking at your ipv6 addresses.

I understand they can do traffic analytics but with privacy extensions and the proliferation of IoT devices I don't think that level of analysis is going to be very fine. Probably just enough to bin houses into different size groups.

There are a multitude of pre-existing ways of achieving the same result. One would be simply looking at the ft^2 listed on the public tax documents for the given address.

So I was really assuming any useful analysis would require them to be the actual man in the middle by owning and controlling your router. In which case address family does not matter.

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

#105

Post by m463 »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #15

Xfinity won't give folks in certain locales (maybe everywhere in the US?) unlimited bandwidth unless they use their modem/router. This seems like a good reason that practice should be illegal.

I was thinking about this with respect to the new uncomplicated no-contract service with no caps they started offering:

https://www.slashdot.org/story/25/06/26/2124252/comcasts-new...

Apparently you can get 1/2gbit ethernet only modems without wifi. You don't save any money over using their equipment.

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

#107

Post by mixdup »

afruitpie wrote: post #37
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #15

Xfinity won't give folks in certain locales (maybe everywhere in the US?) unlimited bandwidth unless they use their modem/router. This seems like a good reason that practice should be illegal.

As far as I’m aware, Xfinity fiber customers have to use the provided “Xfinity Wi-Fi Gateway” and cannot enable bridge mode. If anyone knows a way around this, please share! I want to connect my Xfinity ONT directly to my UniFi router.

They have changed this policy with their new plans released last week. You no longer have to use their equipment to get unlimited data

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

#108

Post by [deleted] »

snarf21 wrote: post #47
jacobgkau wrote: post #2

> Subject to applicable law, Comcast may disclose information generated by your WiFi Motion to third parties without further notice to you in connection with any law enforcement investigation or proceeding, any dispute to which Comcast is a party, or pursuant to a court order or subpoena. Sounds like, at least in some limited circumstances (using the provided WiFi AP, having this feature turned on, etc), ISPs are goi…

Curious: What about adding a small battery powered WiFi device to your dogs collar? Would that look like a person moving around the house? What about a WiFi controlled mini drone that flew around you house? [Note: this should be illegal]

[deleted]

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

#109

Post by zeta0134 »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #15

Xfinity won't give folks in certain locales (maybe everywhere in the US?) unlimited bandwidth unless they use their modem/router. This seems like a good reason that practice should be illegal.

This practice, and fear of the exact sort of nonsense in this article, plus wanting to keep my wifi bandwidth free for the network I actually connect to, is why I'm still on AT&T DSL in my area, at 50 mbps. Comcast is available at up to gigabit, and they can keep it.

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

#110

Post by HeavenFox »

Aurornis wrote: post #73
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #66

Earlier 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…

For home / away purposes it's easier to just detect if your phone is connected to the network. I built something like that before by shipping the log from my UniFi controller to a RPi and listen for events where my phone's MAC address connect or disconnnect.
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