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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

#241

Post by transpute »

nopenopenope88 wrote: post #169

Myself and my buddies worked on it. This might sound ripe with "conspiracy". I know how it's going to sound. Take it for what you will. Initially wanting to know things like, whose in what room, how many people, and what your actively doing, who you socialize with most etc. Been working on this since they bought Skydog/Powercloud. Purposely "helped" design the spec for wifi since Wifi 5 or earlier. How do we get more…

In a future Visible Social Network movie, through-wall sensing creators could livestream their own activity telemetry as a global public demo.

Everyone would follow suit, or would they? See the movie and find out!

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

#242

Post by hiddencost »

bdcravens wrote: post #163
johnklos wrote: post #70

I've been telling people for ages to not trust ISP provided hardware. Notice the vague language here which means they reserve the right to share private information for anything that might be called an investigation, or for any dispute which includes them (didn't pay your bill?), or a subpoena. Subject to applicable law, Comcast may disclose information generated by your WiFi Motion to third parties without further n…

Scary, but is it any scarier than the status quo before this feature was implemented? The fidelity of the data, perhaps, but it's more or less been the standard that our footprint where we intersect with a third-party is no longer ours to control.

And that's a reason to give up privacy?

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

#243

Post by transpute »

al_borland wrote: post #190
transpute wrote: post #31

Sensing 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.

Was anyone asking for their network to be able to sense their breathing rate? What does this enable that actually improves people’s lives? This is the kind of stuff that pushes me to pull a Ron Swanson and throw my technology in the dumpster.

Similar technology has been quietly in use for a while, with falling cost, e.g. "Inside a $1 radar motion sensor", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40834349 (100 comments).

Commercialization gives consumers and regulators the opportunity to express their opinions on the sudden and unsolicited transparency of the walls, floors and ceilings of their homes and businesses.

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

#246

Post by cortesoft »

margalabargala wrote: post #160
boston_clone wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. Not much of this is true. They provide a modem / router combination device at even their cheapest tier. That device can leverage this technology, and the technology isn’t reliant on traffic. They can gather plenty, and can provide it to third parties without our knowledge or consent.

Hmm. That misses the broader reality. What you're missing, is that you are allowed to use your own modem. You can purchase an Arris Surfboard, and use that. They still have control of that modem, but can gather no downstream data. That the devices are not distributed by Comcast personally is not relevant to you being able to do this.

I did that, and then a few years later they no longer supported that version. I gave up and used the provided modem.... guess I could put it in a faraday cage to prevent the WiFi from being enabled...

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

#247

Post by AzzyHN »

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.

If you want to remove the 1.2TB data cap, you can either pay $25/mo and get Xfinity's gateway router "included" OR pay $30/mo to use your own modem/router.

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

#249

Post by AzzyHN »

bix6 wrote: post #234

Can anyone recommend a worthwhile setup for me? I am interested in switching my setup on Cox. It seems the Arris S33 plus Unifi Dream Router is one of my best options for good speed and features like ad blocking and VLAN? Best to buy direct from the manufacture or is Amazon ok?

People really like the Arris S33 and the motorola... god I think it's the SB8200? something like that.

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

#250

Post by AzzyHN »

transpute wrote: post #31

Sensing 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.

What's the commercial use of having this data though? Or even law enforcement use? We all have our phones on us most of the time anyways, knowing where in my house I'm at doesn't really... change anything...
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