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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

#111

Post by aspenmayer »

maxerickson wrote: post #99
aspenmayer wrote: post #71

Earlier 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…

You seem to think that it would be impossible to instruct Comcast to implement on/off for the feature? That's the sort of thing that the legal system is for.

I don’t think that this would be likely to pass Congress. Even if it were, if Comcast failed to uphold its obligations due to receiving a National Security Letter (NSL) then they would be hamstrung, unable to comply and unable to protest publically.

It’s almost a legal impossibility and would be a bad move geopolitically to give up this full take capability and it is not happening. It’s wishful thinking to believe otherwise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

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

#112

Post by vel0city »

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]

This technology doesn't rely on you actually having a WiFi device on you. It can detect presence/motion by changes to the standing waves of the EM propagation throughout the room.

As the salty water meatbags move from room to room we change how the reflections and scattering patterns of 2.4 and 5GHz waves move. Studying these changes and some calibration, you can even determine small changes (like is the person on the left side of the room breathing, are they standing or prone, etc).

In their docs, they show using the WiFi connection from a printer to determine motion sensing and have the option to exclude pets.

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

#113

Post by AStonesThrow »

[deleted] wrote: post #108
snarf21 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

[dead]

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

#114

Post by notepad0x90 »

Worth mentioning that unlike some ISPS Xfinity does let you use your own DOCSIS modems, which is the ideal way of using an ISP. ISP provided gateway's WIFI is not ideal for privacy, security and performance.

Comcast in general has a long history of snooping around and messing with users' traffic. Not that the alternatives are much better. Regular folks are screwed on this matter.

But perhaps for HNers setting up your own trusted WIFI AP and routing it (and all other traffic) through an internet gateway that routes your traffic over a secure channel (whatever that is for you, Tor, VPN services, VPN over your own cloud/vps,etc..) is ideal. It goes without saying, your DNS traffic should also not be visible to the ISPs.

Keep in mind that they sell all this data (including the motion data) not just to law enforcement but to arbitrary well-paying data brokers and other clients.

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

#115

Post by hamhock666 »

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…

> ... I can't imagine a world where Congress could actually achieve something that widely helpful for regular citizens.

The solution is to not use the internet if you care about your privacy.

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

#116

Post by harles »

zeta0134 wrote: post #109
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.

AT&T is pretty bad in its own way. They snoop DNS and to sell your info (including physical address) to advertisers - even if you switch your DNS providers. They used to had a paid opt out (~$20/mo IIRC) but I don’t see that option anymore.

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

#117

Post by transpute »

smallerize wrote: post #89

This 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...

https://staceyoniot.com/the-next-big-wi-fi-standard-is-for-s...

> The IEEE plans to take the concepts for Wi-Fi sensing from the proprietary system built by Cognitive (which has been licensed to Qualcomm and also Plume) and create a standard interface for how the chips calculate interference that determines where in space an object is.

Other firmware sensing capability: https://www.cognitivesystems.com/caregiver/

  - Activity Tracking: Detects movement patterns to identify changes in daily routines to spot health concerns 
  - Sleep Monitoring: Tracks sleep duration, wake times and nighttime interruptions to assess sleep quality
  - Anomaly Detection: Establishes household baseline to proactively identify unusual patterns & changes in activity

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

#118

Post by transpute »

Squeeeez wrote: post #106

People here claiming "stick the ISP modem in a microwave oven, put on a tin foil hat and use your own device" -- do you truly, 100% trust that nobody but you has access to said "own" device?

Start by implementing AP per-client authentication for Wi-Fi client devices.

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

#119

Post by Yeri »

timewizard wrote: post #40
josho wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It doesn't require IPv6. The modem is just as aware of all the private IPv4 addresses on your network as well as all the public IPv6 ones. Unless you put your own gateway (layer 3 switch, wifi ap, linux router) in front of it.

From my understanding it tracks signal strength between two points (gateway and printer for example).

Putting your phone in airplane mode doesn't make it think you have left the house.

> If you’d like to prevent your pet’s movement from causing motion notifications, you can exclude pet motion in your WiFi Motion settings by turning on the Exclude Small Pets feature. > Motion is detected based on the amount of signal disruption taking place between the Xfinity Gateway and your selected WiFi-connected devices, so motion from small pets (around 40 pounds or less) can be filtered out while keeping you notified of large movements more likely to be caused by humans.

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

#120

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

Saris wrote: post #101
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Those vendor modems are rentals and expected to be returned in working order. Would you likely get away with it? Sure, nobody is paying techs to diagnose why the WiFi is failing for unit #367326, but cutting traces is definitely crossing some lines.
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