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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

#351

Post by raxxorraxor »

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…

Why would you need a user identifier to block a consent banner? You don't technically. The website requires it because it is a shitty website.

It would be enough to have your browser store a cookie without personal information with { cookieconsent: "STFU" } or some variable in local storage. If the website respected that, we would be fine.

Personal identifiers are not needed and foul compromises aren't acceptable.

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

#352

Post by gloosx »

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…

Law enforcement could tell whether you're home at certain time or not for decades before WiFI Motion. However with WiFi motion, if you're in some kind of a big building, like a hotel or huge office building, they will be able to tell exactly the room number and spot you're occupying.

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

#355

Post by aspenmayer »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #343
aspenmayer wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will classify the data as necessary for business purposes and collect it under a different name. They will be obligated to pass full take information if necessary, and it will be tapped at any point by employees who are given NSLs and asked/told to do things under penalty of law where applicable, and on threat of arrest or dismissal if not, or by federal agents themselves or their deputies or other approved thir…

> They will classify the data as necessary for business purposes and collect it under a different name. Laws are powerful enough to stop that. > wiretaps I said 99%, not 100%. > any third party in range of the WiFi network can likely do the same thing passively But they won't do it in bulk without a lot of motivation (like profit).

When they are compelled to do it, they will not even know it is happening. Only the people doing it would know. That’s the reality of why it is done now. That there is a market for it should never have been allowed but the capability is necessary to troubleshoot the network. I guess it seems silly to say this is even a legal issue. They shouldn’t do a lot of things, but they are going to be legally compelled to do them, so the network structure’s form follows that function. If there is no market for that data, they will get the data by proxy by leasing access to the network or the customer or the metadata for security or other legal purposes via intermediaries or separate internal units. This is just how ISPs have to handle this kind of data request or other legal request. They have formal means to ask for what they need, and they will usually get enough data to find out anything they will need to find out that the CPE is emitting or doing.

I guess if you’re truly concerned you shouldn’t have WiFi at home or a mobile phone. Too bad 5G signals have similar capabilities, but at least the signals don’t propagate as well.

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

#356

Post by DaSHacka »

antonvs wrote: post #283
pixl97 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an opt-in feature , for now. If they find some way to sell the data you'll quickly find it difficult to opt-out of.

Luckily it is still possible to opt out of Comcast.

Not always, depending on where you live

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

#357

Post by DaSHacka »

timewizard wrote: post #35
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…

You can turn the customer AP off; however, the Comcast Customer Shared WiFi is always on. This is true even for Comcast Business accounts. You're expected to be a hotspot for their other customers. Which is one of the main reasons I bought my own modem.

Is this true if the modem/router/AP is in bridge mode (so acting as just a modem)? They would have to essentially provision 2 IPs per customer in that case, I wonder if they just don't bother.

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

#358

Post by pickledoyster »

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.

The only use case I've heard of is elderly care, where no movement might mean a person has fallen and needs help. An edge, strictly opt-in scenario that would be addressed more effectively (movement+HR+body temp) by relatively cheap wearables.

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

#359

Post by jraph »

munksbeer wrote: post #344
jraph wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Do yourself a favor and enable the Cookie lists in uBlock Origin. I'm personally grateful that a law requires my consent before tracking me. That means I should not be tracked without me saying OK without monet…

> Do yourself a favor and enable the Cookie lists in uBlock Origin. Could you elaborate on this please? I'm sifting through the options and not sure what I'm looking for (disclaimer: I have never once opened the uBlock Origin settings menu in all the years I've used it).

You can enable lists that block various things, you'll find this in the settings :-)

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

#360

Post by jraph »

dcow wrote: post #326
jraph wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Do yourself a favor and enable the Cookie lists in uBlock Origin. I'm personally grateful that a law requires my consent before tracking me. That means I should not be tracked without me saying OK without monet…

Setting a language preference cookie is not tracking and I will die on that hill. The law requires consent before using a cookie to store even a mundane option that was just directly modified by a user. Collecting a crash report is not tracking a user. Even first party product analytics is not tracking a user. Tracking a user across domains using a 3rd party aggregator to serve add and do attribution is the evil. And…

> The law requires consent before using a cookie to store even a mundane option that was just directly modified by a user

Nope.

That's exactly why the evil cookie modals are not on the GDPR but only on the sites that want to track you and now need to ask you for your consent before doing so. That's usually exactly where good faith GDPR detractors are wrong, and that's what needs to be repeated again and again in those discussions.

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