Comcast has remote control of all of their equipment so they will just turn it on for you if they get a court order or a big enough check from an adtech company.
Wifi imaging is a bit like a silhouette and generally accurate enough to work out gait and height which could give a good indication of which people are in what locations in a home. That is some very scary power in the hands of a corpo.
More scary in the hands of the government. Whether you didn’t trust the prior US government or this one - which pretty much covers the entire population - that’s the folks that shouldn’t have this technology at their disposal. I struggle to see a use a corporation will have for this even extending ad tech to the maximum potential. The most useful application is surveillance for political purposes - in the current government, how better to cross reference with the uber database of people they are building to enact political policy to know when people they want to disappear to a foreign prison? This provision doesn’t even seem to require a warrant.
they only have some level of control over DOCSIS modem.
if you install the cheapest/simplest DOCSIS modem, and connect it to your own wireless access point that is NOT controlled by Comcast - they wont know anything.
They will only see traffic coming from 1 local IP - of your wireless AP
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 ground the antenna, or put the thing in a cage. The cables (which must escape the cage) will make the cage less effective but I imagine it would be enough.
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.
> It's not as easy to set up one's own modem as it is their own router, IME.
I mean, I suppose it's got the additional step of calling Comcast and giving them the MAC of your modem, but IIRC that's all I had to do after buying one on their approved list. Been at least 7-8 years since I had them, though.
You can plug-and-play with a consumer "router", but even then you need to know the difference between WAN and LAN sides. So the extra effort seems minimal.
Most people don't know how to set up either one. I know when the fiber techs came to my house to set me up they were greatly impressed at my (fairly basic; I don't do this for a living) networking knowledge.
You don't usually have to call any more, there's a captive portal provisioning process. It's not totally reliable and sometimes you might give up after a few tries and call instead.
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.
I'd definitely appreciate if you know any resources on this. I don't recall the details, since it's been seven years since I last tried, but I remember hitting friction I couldn't get past.
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.
No longer true last time I went in to renegotiate my service plan, I got a better monthly rate and higher bandwidth using their gear. I had previously used my own modem and router.
Similarly, never seen limitations on speed or allotment if using owned equipment. The ISP will give a big scary message about how support will be unable to help you if things go wrong, but that’s the extent of it.
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?
Idk what you’re even defending with that article, but that’s your cross to bear.
Mimicking my speech pattern then trying to say I’m being the ass is not going to hold up, however.
Elsewhere I posted that I used to work in this space and have first-hand knowledge that the majority of people do not use third party modems. That is a fact.
Just because people can go out and purchase a new modem and then additional wifi gear, doesn’t mean that they do or even should to shield themselves from the potential privacy violations happening here.
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.
…and most people don’t. it’s an additional expense, additional work, and frankly not worth the headache for like 80%+ of users.
I used to work in this space, and have first-hand knowledge about the prevalence of third party modems with a sample set of over 100k people. What’s your experience?
Not sure about Comcast, but I have no issues with Cox. I'm getting 2.5Gbps with my own equipment (Ubiquiti UCI, which is $$$, but other cheaper modems also work).
Historically the surfboard has been the go to option for Comcast. I can’t say what the current best option is, but if you purchased your own modem in the previous decade chances are you bought a surfboard. IIRC Comcast has a page of third party modems that are compatible.
Back when I used Comcast ten years ago, that was the one that I had that I used with them. I mentioned it because I'm 100% certain it can be used. There are a million others too.
Wifi imaging is a bit like a silhouette and generally accurate enough to work out gait and height which could give a good indication of which people are in what locations in a home. That is some very scary power in the hands of a corpo.