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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

#301

Post by ddq »

transpute wrote: post #51
andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's bizarre. Normally the pathway for this kind of thing would be: 1. theorized 2. proven in a research lab 3. not feasible in real-world use (fizzles and dies) if you're lucky the path is like 1. theorized 2. proven in a research lab 3. actually somewhat feasible in real-world use! 4. startups / researchers split off to attempt to market it (fizzles and dies) the fact that this ended up going from research pa…

> the fact that this ended up going from research paper to "Comcast can tell if I'm home based on my body's physical interaction with wifi waves" is absolutely wild The 15-year path was roughly: 1. bespoke military use (see+shoot through wall) 2. bespoke law-enforcement use (occupancy, activity) 3. public research papers by MIT and others 4. open firmware for Intel modems 5. 1000+ research papers using open firmware…

Sounds like IEEE is in need of fresh leadership and soon. Complacency at this point is folly.

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

#302

Post by boston_clone »

Mogzol wrote: post #255
boston_clone wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your described option is not the broader reality. Most people use the hardware that is provided with the service by default. Last time I checked, there's not even an additional rental fee.

Sure, but you still can use your own hardware if you choose to. And that's all that the original comment you replied to was saying. If you choose to use your own hardware, then Comcast won't have control over it and cannot do this wifi motion detection. Of course, most people won't do this, but that's besides the point.

> they only have some level of control over DOCSIS modem

they typically issue a modem / router combination unit, and they can control the router and its radios.

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

#303

Post by zzo38computer »

dcow wrote: post #300
idiotsecant wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What law do you think mandates those annoying cookie popups?

It would be nice if you could argue, “well, just be a good site and don’t use marketing cookies”, but the ePrivacy Directive requires consent for performance and preference cookies too. Perhaps a liberal reading arguably allows classification of certain statistics and preferences functions to be strictly necessary, like “I wouldn’t provide this service without crash reporting because I’d go insane so it’s strictly ne…

If cookies are only used for preferences functions, then I should expect that it should only require to mention the cookies in the preferences menu (I hope)? If they have a document to explain each cookie by name, then it would also be helpful, that you can enable/disable them individiaully (or make them read-only) by the browser settings. However, for some things such as languages there are other ways to do without using cookies, such as Accept-Language header for languages, although cookies could be used to override the Accept-Language header in case both are present in the request.

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

#305

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

SoftTalker wrote: post #237
lynndotpy wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who do this will be a vanishingly small minority. It's not as easy to set up one's own modem as it is their own router, IME. And even then, going with your own router is rare.

You also get better rates if you use their equipment.

Surely that is not true? I thought rental fees were common with using the vendor equipment (something like $10/month). It is a frequently listed as a cost cutting measure to buy your own modem rather than rent from The ISP. A modem is $100-200, so you should be net positive after a year on the investment.

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

#306

Post by lrvick »

cortesoft wrote: post #246
margalabargala wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Or just cut the power trace to the wifi chipset.

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

#307

Post by margalabargala »

boston_clone wrote: post #203
margalabargala wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your described option is not the broader reality. Most people use the hardware that is provided with the service by default. Last time I checked, there's not even an additional rental fee.

Maybe not everywhere, sure, only in America.

https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/list-of-approved-ca...

I can't believe I'm defending Comcast on the internet but here I am, I guess between them and you I'm siding with the entity currently being less of an ass to me?

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

#308

Post by dotancohen »

toss1 wrote: post #267
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…

>>We suffer from a problem that engineers want nothing to do with politics. More on point, we suffer from a problem that far too many people of all walks of life want nothing to do with politics. Plato made the most accurate point 2300 years ago: "The penalty for not being involved in politics is you will be ruled by your inferiors." And, even though you may not be interested in politics, politics is ALWAYS intereste…

It should be noted that Mein Kampf's first three chapters are pretty much a call for the common citizen to start becoming more interested - if not involved - in his local politics. I am of the opinion that this is the reason that the book was banned. The antisemitism in the book is far more restrained than I was expecting. But the call to hold politicians accountable to the people - that was a surprise.

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

#309

Post by ethan_smith »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #10

I 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?

Check out ESP32-based projects like ESP32-CSI-Tool or the FreqSense library, which can implement WiFi sensing with minimal hardware and completely under your control.

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

#310

Post by margalabargala »

lynndotpy wrote: post #166
margalabargala wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The people who do this will be a vanishingly small minority. It's not as easy to set up one's own modem as it is their own router, IME. And even then, going with your own router is rare.

What are you talking about? Modems are incredibly simple to set up. You buy it, log into your account on another network or call the ISP, enter your modem's mac address...and that's it. You have to type in the mac or read it off over the phone. There's nothing on device to set up, it's much easier than a router.
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