Make no mistake, this is 100% going to be Comcast’s alternative to more expensive surveillance options a la Flock, or workplace presence sensor arrays.
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- Skyrmir@lemmy.worldEnglish2 hours
Regardless of the basic privacy invasion that we all know Comcast is doing. Buy your own cable modem and router. Comcast charges you to use theirs, so they pay for themselves in a couple years.
- 17 minutes
I tried… Comcast would “forget” the modem 3 times a month and would have to call and read them the MAC address again etc… fuck Comcast
- 4 hours
PSA: If you can afford your own a retail router, it’s always a better idea than using the one provided by your ISP. Make no mistake, Xfinity is absolutely collecting (and probably selling) data on the traffic of every device on your network.
9 minutesCan you recommend some trustworthy hardware?
I know gl.inet is probably best for routers, but are any of the mainstream brands more trustworthy than others? TP-Link, Ubiquiti, etc.? I recently got a Zyxel, are those okay?
- W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish5 minutes
Ubiquiti. It’s like networking gear when you grow up past a combo router/access point but don’t want to spend time fixing every last little thing (potentially in a command line) - though you can if you want to (this is A long winded way of saying that these hardware just works).
Ubiquiti isn’t perfect but they make a really good product and you don’t have to connect it with a cloud
You could also see if that cheapo TP-Link can run OPNSense or ddwrt, that way at least the software on the device has no chance of being compromised.
- Warl0k3@lemmy.worldEnglish2 hours
Everyone is really readily accepting of china potentially spying on them whenever this topic comes up, and I’m just kinda curious why you think chinese companies don’t sell that user data to western companies just as western countries do for china?
- cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish1 hour
I could give 2 shits if China is spying on me.
Someone will figure out how to use the backdoor on the Chinese router. Then they can bypass your firewall. Now your router and all of your insecure IoT devices will be part of their botnet. They will sell your internet connection as a residential proxy or use it to DDoS websites.
- 4 hours
Xfinity is absolutely collecting (and probably selling) data on the traffic of every device on your network.
They’re doing that anyway via the modem. Unless you are tunnelling everything your ISP sees every byte you send.
- BlackVenom@lemmy.worldEnglish4 hours
Yeah but to clarify, encrypted traffic is still encrypted. They can’t see specifics beyond the sites you went to, urls, dns queries, etc… to hide that you’d need a VPN.
- inmate_p01135809@lemmy.worldEnglish3 hours
Wouldn’t companies also be able to do it on any WiFi device, like a phone or a smart watch?
- unitedwithme@lemmy.todayEnglish2 hours
Fun fact: I have my device in airplane mode 90% of the time and only use WiFi. My device ID/name is “Unknown device” specifically so it looks like random or no good. I also use randomized Mac addresses.
I’m free of xfinity/Comcast, but for anyone else I know who uses it, I freely offer my professional IT tips to change DNS, recommend modem/gateway, etc.
- saltesc@lemmy.worldEnglish3 hours
If anyone didn’t already know, this isn’t anything new. It’s basically just WiGLE but not public level, and is using that to track devices coming and going.
You don’t need Xfinity WiFi to do this. Everything you have with a BT or WiFi antenna is already out there and everyone can see it. It’s logged and recorded. Can literally see my neighbour’s got two iPhones moving around right now and I didn’t even get out of bed. Oh, they also have a JBL Encore Essential… That explains something that happened last week.
- 2 minutes
Nope: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/wi-fi-routers-used-to-detect-human-locations-poses-within-a-room
It’s gotten even more capable where it can basically act as a presence sensor through walls as well. It’s not simple device tracking at all.
- Tynan@lemmy.mlEnglish4 hours
I remember the scientific article of this technology as a proof of concept. Honestly it didn’t take an ISP very long to
weaponize itoffer it as a service. - RoidingOldMan@lemmy.worldEnglish5 hours
The Dark Knight surveillance tech is real life now. We’re screwed.
- BCsven@lemmy.caEnglish5 hours
Yep it will get used by advertisers to know how many times you get up while watching netflix, or by police to know when to conduct a raid.
- SillyDude@lemmy.zipEnglish4 hours
Last time I had to use their services I wrapped their modem/router that they forced me to use in a roll of aluminum foil and ran one short ethernet cable out to use my own router with whatever I want. Blocked all their public WiFi you can’t turn off and roasted that thing. I was genuinely surprised that it still worked when I gave it back.
