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.
And you thought having to use Comcast was bad enough!
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.
I work for a different large ISP who provides modems and routers to our customers, but not this specific feature (being a bit vague because I know at one point mentioning the company’s name on social media would result in the post being reviewed by the social media team/referred to security for anything discussing internal processes, and while Lemmy probably isn’t on their radar I’d rather not risk it).
The amount of data we can see if you’re using our routers is pretty crazy, and most people have no idea. We can see exactly what you have on your network and what it’s doing. If you’re just using the modem and not the router, we have much more limited visibility. We don’t have the capacity to monitor everything everyone is doing all the time, so if you’re using your own equipment (and you’re not using our DNS service), it’s unlikely we have much data on your activity. Storage in the scale needed to store what everyone is doing gets expensive.
I’ve always used my own equipment, and I make sure everyone in my family has their own equipment as well. I would absolutely advise against using your ISP’s equipment if your goal is privacy.
I encourage everyone with the ability to do so to at least try to run their own networking, or even just periodically examine the logs. The weird things I’ve discovered about random devices on my network have made me seriously question what the fuck companies are doing.
Ubiquiti isn’t perfect but they make a really good product and you don’t have to connect it with a cloud
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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.
Everybody hacks everybody
Man, the Snowden leaks had examples of 5th to 6th party docs retrieved from hacking intelligence agencies who had hacked intelligence agencies who… You get the point
5 eyes countries literally spy on their own citizens by proxy, retrieving information from each others’ agencies directly (authorized or not)
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?
https://spycloud.com/blog/state-secrets-for-sale-chinese-hacking/
China’s state-sanctioned data collection and intelligence apparatus is leaky. We have observed a vast ecosystem of corrupt insiders siphoning data from China’s state-sponsored data collections apparatus and selling it on the black market. This threat activity most acutely affects Chinese citizens, whose personal data is readily available to any paying customer.
Cybercriminals from the Sinosphere appear to be increasingly present in Western digital crime spaces. This trend seems to be somewhat driven by Chinese scam and smishing actors aggressively and successfully targeting overseas victims. We frequently observe Chinese-language actors re-sharing (or sometimes taking and attempting to re-sell) data breaches from English-language forums in Chinese-speaking communities.
Countries like China rely a lot of independent local groups doing the dirty job so they can shield their national reputation by “taking care of” individual groups as they become a liability. Russia and others do it too. Everybody hacks everybody. Some of these groups target both foreigners and their own. Sometimes for domestic spying, sometimes just for plain scams.
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.
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.
You can also get your own modem, but that doesn’t change the fact that yes, you need to use a VPN for any external traffic you don’t want your ISP seeing.
However, ISP controlled routers provide them direct visibility into your LAN, which they otherwise wouldn’t see. This gives WAY more detailed information about you and your behavior, i.e. the original article.
By tunnelling, you mean using a VPN?
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.
You can hide DNS through DoT/DoH as well at least
Domains, not URLs. https://www.baeldung.com/cs/https-urls-encrypted
Wouldn’t companies also be able to do it on any WiFi device, like a phone or a smart watch?
Can 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?
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).
I picked up the OpenWRT one, seems fine for my setup
Mikrotik.com is another. Often the kind of router developed to work for small businesses and also suitable for homes are decent (note the direction).
If your router supports it, consider flashing openWRT (replacing the OS entirely)
I would start with your ISP’s list of supported modems.
I had (still have) my own modem, but switched to their cheep “prepaid” Xfinity NOW service. Fast enough for my needs but I’m annoyed to learn I can only use the refurbished modem they have given me. No idea if its capable of presence monitoring but Its one of their old ones and I’m sure it already leaks metrics I’d rather not share.
Wrap it in copper and run a hard line to a second router.
OPs article links to another article at TechCrunch . That article states:
As first reported by The Verge, the new Wi-Fi Motion feature works for advanced Xfinity gateways XB7 and newer models and is opt-in, which means users can choose whether to switch on the feature in the Xfinity app.
So it seems like for now it’s only this one model that can do it, if you believe them. Frankly, I wouldn’t sniff that opt-in claim either because I’m fairly certain I know which orifice they pulled it out of.
If it’s just a modem with no WiFi, then it’s not capable of this specific thing.
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.
They’ve changed it since covid so now if you use their modem/router combo, you get unlimited data for free. If you don’t use their modem and router, you have to pay $30/mo to remove the data caps or keep yourself under 1.2TB for the month.
They used to charge you more for unlimited data if you didn’t use their modem. Renting their modem plus getting unlimited data was $30/month, but just getting unlimited data with your own modem was $50/month.
Not relevant any more though, as (at least in my area) they completely removed the data caps.
I’m so glad I have a local ISP that provides 10Gbps for cheaper than Comcast’s 1Gbps.
Did they change that really recently? That was still a thing two years ago with Comcast. It is the only reason I still have their modem.
The clue is the last line of their comment where they say they have a competitor offering 10Gbps which is why Comcast removed the data cap in their area. AFAIK it’s still in place where I’m at because the only other option is CenturyLink 100mbps DSL.
In my area, they removed the data caps last year, when they also rolled out the higher upload speeds (eg the gigabit plan now has 350Mbps upload speed instead of 25Mbps). I don’t think they’ve rolled that out everywhere though.
They also have a habit of keeping people on old plans that are either slower or more expensive. If you’re still using Comcast/Xfinity, check their site and see what they offer to new customers at your address. (you may need to use an internet connection other than your Comcast one, otherwise they may detect that you’re an existing customer)
Good call, I will do just that until I have a better option in ISPs. Fiber has been rolling out around here, but it has been annoying build around my specific area.
Haven’t seen that one. Everywhere I’ve been they tack on $5 a month or so to have their router. Last one I bought was $80 2 years ago, so it’s already paid for itself.
Their pricing can differ by region. Not every region got the data caps back when they rolled them out.
It also depends on competition - if there’s a lot of competition in your area, Comcast will have better deals compared to if you live somewhere where Comcast is the only option.
I used to live in an apartment that had an exclusivity deal with Comcast (residents were only allowed to use Comcast for internet service). Now I live somewhere in the same county where there’s three different fiber providers in addition to Comcast, and their prices here are noticeably cheaper vs the old apartment.
It’s always been a ripoff from the start. The modem / router is far cheaper than whatever they charge you to rent it over a year. Additionally they were broadcasting public wifi hotspots from your rented modem for a while (probably still are) and now this. Having said that, walk into any random friend’s house, and what will you see? A big stupid rented Comcast modem.
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
So glad I was able to get an alternate ISP. A good chunk of my life, Comcast was the only high speed ISP in the area.
If alternatives to Comcast were available was something I have been willing to pay higher rent for in my life.
Yeah, I had a company called Wave that was since bought by or rebranded to Astound. I’ve had it about 8 years, and had maybe 2 outages. It’s night and day.
Probably a modem problem honestly. I’ve been on and off comcast a few times and 3 different modems over the years. Only issue I’ve had were when my old ones got too out dated.
Possible that one was too new at the time but they claimed to support it was at the start of docsis 3.1 iirc as I had a similar issue with an older docsis 3.0 first
What if you just use it as a pass through by plugging it into their router and then wrap theirs in foil?
I did have my own router and wifi at the time never wrapped theirs in foil tho… but I suppose why not… fear of overheating I suppose
I like my no BS ISP that allows me to use any retail router matching their specs. One thing I just don’t have to worry about.
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.
The internet is increasingly a weapon
The Dark Knight surveillance tech is real life now. We’re screwed.
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.Guess I’m injecting metal into my exterior walls and lining my blinds with tin foil
Yup. Turns out the tin foil brigade were right the entire fucking time.
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.
This is the way
If Google and Apple start doing this with Bluetooth and WiFi on Location Services, they’re not that far off the The Dark Knight sonar scene:
Except that TDK is fiction, so the billionaire has morals
I did like that old Reddit post where someone did the math on the charges he’d get for this and everything else was a rounding error compared to the hacking charges
That’s what they are deploying. This has been possible for awhile, but has recently gotten much creepier: https://groundy.com/articles/wifi-densepose-full-body-tracking-through-walls-using-your/
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.
Hopefully my personal router isn’t being used by the ISP for this sort of thing. Odds are, they probably just do it, because capitalism is sucktackular by default.
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.
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.
That was not what you should’ve gotten from my point.
But, yes. That is also obviously correct.
Edit: Granted, my bad for really dumbing down the wider scope of it. I re-read the comment now seeing why, when regarding the specifics of signal disruptions of a network for identifying—which is a part of IDing and tracking secondary to the actual top layer identifying—is a thing. Thought that went without saying…
Am learning this is somehow surprisingly new to people. Which is honestly the bigger concern.
Wild amount of confidently incorrect here.
For starters, what you describe tracks other electronic devices. That’s neat, but this new stuff is tracking bodies of interference. Meat bags. The fixed antennas and beam forming have given stereoscopic vision to interference identification on Wi-Fi routers. Before, it just saw an SNR spike between the router and TV, but it couldn’t tell if it was a cat up on the counter or a crowd in your living room. Now it can. Now it’s able to tell when something the size of a human walks past your ring camera without having any access to that camera.
You’re dumbing down old technology with interpersonal wording. Like it’s the first time people figured out how to read frequencies interrupted by bodies of things…
It’s 2026 and you’re reminiscing on SNR being a side effect of general proximity like it’s 2006 and clean direct signal is how comms still work.
The fact that this is now a household product for the masses… Catch up.
Edit; Sorry. Am learning from my inbox that this is a new highlighted thing to people. Was being harsh in hindsight. Thought it was common knowledge so was sharing further common knowledge.
Your first post wasn’t vague at all. You very clearly put the word ‘track’ right in front of the word ‘devices’ because you were discussing tracking devices. You were discussing something entirely different than triangulating interference. I think you might still be confused about what this product is.
