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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

#271

Post by bigbuppo »

tehwebguy wrote: post #123
Aurornis wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution here shouldn't be technical; it should be legal. The parent commenter was highlighting that law enforcement can compel them to provide the data. The customer has to opt-in to WiFi motion sensing to have the data tracked. If you see something appear in an app, you should assume law enforcement can compel the company to provide that data. It's not really a surprise. > If we rely on legal protection, then…

> The customer has to opt-in to WiFi motion sensing to have the data tracked. Not for long, there’s money to be made by adding this to the cops’ customer lookup portal.

There's money to be made by selling this to advertisers.

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

#273

Post by heavyset_go »

dcow wrote: post #211
armchairhacker wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 s…

And how do you technically stop an ISP from using the radio in their hardware to detect small changes in phase angle of signals in your home?

Some ISPs allow you to bring your own modem, so there wouldn't be any hardware other than your own and whatever they install to bring it into your home.

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

#274

Post by idiotsecant »

dcow wrote: post #220
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…

We suffer from a problem that engineers want nothing to do with politics. I 1000% agree we need a digital bill of rights. It pains me every time a “well behaved” website pops up a cookie consent banner for the billionth time after I already consented because the browser wiped all the persistent user identifiers available to it. For my protection -_- I want privacy codified in human law. I didn't vote for standards bo…

What law do you think mandates those annoying cookie popups?

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

#275

Post by chronogram »

nerdsniper wrote: post #259
reissbaker wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What law would you propose? I think the hard part is "Instagram and TikTok remain free-with-ads."

Would ads still be worth enough if they were targeted based on things like what you watch/read/follow/subscribe to on that platform and your general location? Or can instagram only be free if ads are targeted to detailed profiles of individuals built over decades as they are tracked across the whole internet?

The heavily profiled ads cost a lot more money for the advertiser to run compared to traditional ads, if those platforms turn to contextual ads they do not have their special expensive profiled ads product to sell anymore.

So it's not about the perceived effectiveness of advertisements that you feel as a user, it's about the rather more unique product that they sell to advertisers that really raises their revenue.

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

#276

Post by idiotsecant »

newshackr wrote: post #206
giantg2 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There is no technical solution for this" This isn't really true. The easiest technical solution to the problem of ISPs using your wifi data is to simply use your own WiFi router which does not send the data to them.

They can still deduce this from the traffic patterns.

So use a vpn.

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

#277

Post by brookst »

scarface_74 wrote: post #264
dcow wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We suffer from a problem that engineers want nothing to do with politics. I 1000% agree we need a digital bill of rights. It pains me every time a “well behaved” website pops up a cookie consent banner for the billionth time after I already consented because the browser wiped all the persistent user identifiers available to it. For my protection -_- I want privacy codified in human law. I didn't vote for standards bo…

The problem is that the internet is international and laws are national or even by state. There are 24 states that require ID to view porn sites. The laws are being completely ignored by popular websites that are not based in the US.

Yep. And plenty of US sites ignore international laws about slandering Mohammad, and so on.

I’m not sure the lack of a global hegemony is a “problem”.

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

#278

Post by gxs »

dcow wrote: post #220
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…

We suffer from a problem that engineers want nothing to do with politics. I 1000% agree we need a digital bill of rights. It pains me every time a “well behaved” website pops up a cookie consent banner for the billionth time after I already consented because the browser wiped all the persistent user identifiers available to it. For my protection -_- I want privacy codified in human law. I didn't vote for standards bo…

I’ve been asked at work to build less than savory stuff, here are some general observations, none of which are admittedly an excuse:

* you get caught up in the moment, hell bent on solving the problem you don’t really think twice

* you don’t want to get that stink on you, you don’t want to be that guy that brings this type of stuff up

* you are mindful of the fact that you are being very well compensated to build it and you don’t want to lose your job

* you know it’s going to fall on deaf ears - maybe they will pay lip service, maybe they won’t but either way nothing will happen

* in the back of your mind you figure someone else is fighting the good fight

On and on, so many different things can go through your mind, who knows which it’ll be on any given day, on any given project

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

#279

Post by dokyun »

dcow wrote: post #220
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…

We suffer from a problem that engineers want nothing to do with politics. I 1000% agree we need a digital bill of rights. It pains me every time a “well behaved” website pops up a cookie consent banner for the billionth time after I already consented because the browser wiped all the persistent user identifiers available to it. For my protection -_- I want privacy codified in human law. I didn't vote for standards bo…

> It pains me every time a “well behaved” website pops up a cookie consent banner for the billionth time after I already consented because the browser wiped all the persistent user identifiers available to it. For my protection -_-

https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/

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

#280

Post by JoshTriplett »

reissbaker wrote: post #253
dcow wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We suffer from a problem that engineers want nothing to do with politics. I 1000% agree we need a digital bill of rights. It pains me every time a “well behaved” website pops up a cookie consent banner for the billionth time after I already consented because the browser wiped all the persistent user identifiers available to it. For my protection -_- I want privacy codified in human law. I didn't vote for standards bo…

What law would you propose? I think the hard part is "Instagram and TikTok remain free-with-ads."

Good riddance to everything supported by ads.

I genuinely wonder if people would wind up spending less money if they had to pay for services than if they get exposed to ads that lead them to buy more things. But either way, once ads and "free with ads" are gone, there's much more room for other competitors.

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