Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 11.12.14 21:22 , Randy Bush wrote: note that free.fr does this in france. we both provide and use it there. works out quite well. Another data point: several cable broadband providers do this in NL. My personal experience is with Ziggo. Imho they do it right: - opt-in, at least when I joined as an early adopter - you do get roaming privileges yourself if you opt-in - full WPA authentication - each customer has their individual authentication info - back-haul is via a separate DOCSIS connection - no leakage - no bandwidth loss on your subscription - no liability for what roamers do This to me is acceptable. In practice I have turned it off by default on my phone and I rarely roam as 3G/4G charges are also reasonable. I found it to be annoying when quality varies as it roams from 3G to Wifi and Wifi to Wifi. But I do manually turn it on occasionally when stationary and doing a lot of data. Daniel
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/12/14, 1:33 AM, Javier J jav...@advancedmachines.usmailto:jav...@advancedmachines.us wrote: Also, don't you think there is something just morally wrong with the fact that your customers don't know they are providing a public access point out of their homes by just being comcast HSI customers? I am all for wifi everywhere, but this isn't the way to do it. What I think is that no matter what, someone will find something wrong with anything we choose to do. I also think this thread has become a bit absurd. Jason
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 04:33:03PM -0800, Owen DeLong wrote: This thread is out of control... I will attempt to summarize the salient points in hopes we can stop arguing about inaccurate minutiae. I concur with this summary and will add this: It's a pity that the resources which went into this rollout were not instead applied to deal with a problem that's now a decade old: large-scale spamming sourced from botted systems on Comcast's network. Despite Comcast's we take the spam problem seriously statements circa 2004, spam continues to flow from Comcast-operated networks at a high rate... as it has for ten years. See, for reference: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1034_3-5218178.html I wonder how this change will affect that problem. ---rsk
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/12/14, 1:33 AM, Javier J jav...@advancedmachines.us wrote: What stops someone from going down to the center of town, launching a little wifi SSID named xfinitywifi and collecting your customers usernames and passwords? WG] nothing. But then again, the same argument can be made for *any* wireless network that does authentication via a portal, because it becomes a standard phishing spoof problem that is dependent on how well you imitate the portal in question. Not really a comcast-specific problem, though this blog demonstrates exactly what you suggest: https://blog.logrhythm.com/security/xfinity-pineapple/ Hotspot 2.0 is intended to help with this problem to some extent. http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/service- provider-wi-fi/white_paper_c11-649337.html Wes George This E-mail and any of its attachments may contain Time Warner Cable proprietary information, which is privileged, confidential, or subject to copyright belonging to Time Warner Cable. This E-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient of this E-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, or action taken in relation to the contents of and attachments to this E-mail is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this E-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately and permanently delete the original and any copy of this E-mail and any printout.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On Dec 11, 2014, at 17:39 , Ricky Beam jfb...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 19:33:03 -0500, Owen DeLong o...@delong.com wrote: In short, the only thing really truly wrong with this scenario is that Comcast is using equipment that the subscriber should have exclusive control over (they are renting it, so while Comcast retains ownership, they have relinquished most rights of control to the tenant) how the device is used. Except every ISP (pretty much universally) thinks the modem/router is theirs and they can, therefore, do whatever they flippin' please with it. In some markets (not necessarily comcast), they lock down the router to the point the customer can't even access it; every single change has to go through them. The fact that a mythology is widely believed does not make it true. (ATT Uverse... you can change anything you want, with sufficient access (i.e. telnet), but the mothership can (and will) undo your changes pretty much instantly -- apply triggers a CWMP event.) I have no doubt that ATT is equally slimey to Comcast, especially in this regard. I stand by my statement that if you are paying monthly for rental of the modem, then you have the right to exclusive use of the modem, just as when you rent an apartment, the landlord cannot use it for storage or put other people in there at his whim. Owen
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Also, don't you think there is something just morally wrong if folk wish to indulge in hyperbole, could they at least not confuse morals with ethics? randy
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Arguing over semantics are we now? http://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 6:41 PM, Randy Bush ra...@psg.com wrote: Also, don't you think there is something just morally wrong if folk wish to indulge in hyperbole, could they at least not confuse morals with ethics? randy
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 11/12/14 07:08, Jeroen Massar wrote: in the LG case though it is opt-out which means that you go to the MyUPC or similar page on their website and turn it off. Turning it off does mean one cannot use that service elsewhere though. AFAIK, British Telecom do something similar here in the UK. Contribute or no access for you. -- Tom
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Or, ya know you could just buy your own cable modem and separate AP. Cheaper then renting from Comcast and gives you the control :-) Cheers, Harry On Dec 10, 2014 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart jer...@mompl.net wrote: Why am I not surprised? Whose fault would it be if your comcast installed public wifi would be abused to download illegal material or launch a botnet, to name some random fun one could have on your behalf. :-/ (apologies if this was posted already, couldn't find an email about it on the list) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/10/disgruntled_customers_lob_sueball_at_comcast_over_public_wifi/ A mother and daughter are suing Comcast claiming the cable giant's router in their home was offering public Wi-Fi without their permission. Comcast-supplied routers broadcast an encrypted, private wireless network for people at home, plus a non-encrypted network called XfinityWiFi that can be used by nearby subscribers. So if you're passing by a fellow user's home, you can lock onto their public Wi-Fi, log in using your Comcast username and password, and use that home's bandwidth. However, Toyer Grear, 39, and daughter Joycelyn Harris – who live together in Alameda County, California – say they never gave Comcast permission to run a public network from their home cable connection. In a lawsuit [PDF] filed in the northern district of the golden state, the pair accuse the ISP of breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and two other laws. Grear – a paralegal – and her daughter claim the Xfinity hotspot is an unauthorized intrusion into their private home, places a vast burden on electricity bills, opens them up to attacks by hackers, and degrades their bandwidth. Comcast does not, however, obtain the customer's authorization prior to engaging in this use of the customer's equipment and internet service for public, non-household use, the suit claims. Indeed, without obtaining its customers' authorization for this additional use of their equipment and resources, over which the customer has no control, Comcast has externalized the costs of its national Wi-Fi network onto its customers. The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages for themselves and on behalf of all Comcast customers nation-wide in their class-action case – the service was rolled out to 20 million customers this year. -- Earthquake Magnitude: 4.8 Date: 2014-12-10 22:10:36.800 UTC Date Local: 2014-12-10 13:10:36 PST Location: 120km W of Panguna, Papua New Guinea Latitude: -6.265; Longitude: 154.4004 Depth: 35 km | e-quake.org
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart jer...@mompl.net wrote: Whose fault would it be if your comcast installed public wifi would be abused to download illegal material or launch a botnet, to name some random fun one could have on your behalf. :-/ Doesn't work that way. Separate authenticated channel. Presents differently from you with a different IP address out on the Internet. What Comcast is stealing is electricity. Pennies per customer times a boatload of customers. theft n. the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use (including potential sale). In many states, if the value of the property taken is low (for example, less than $500) the crime is petty theft, Unless of course the knucklehead jurisdiction passed a law to allow it. I'm betting they didn't. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems . Web: http://www.dirtside.com/ May I solve your unusual networking challenges?
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Not a law, it's in their updated terms and conditions that no one reads. On Dec 11, 2014 8:12 AM, William Herrin b...@herrin.us wrote: On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart jer...@mompl.net wrote: Whose fault would it be if your comcast installed public wifi would be abused to download illegal material or launch a botnet, to name some random fun one could have on your behalf. :-/ Doesn't work that way. Separate authenticated channel. Presents differently from you with a different IP address out on the Internet. What Comcast is stealing is electricity. Pennies per customer times a boatload of customers. theft n. the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use (including potential sale). In many states, if the value of the property taken is low (for example, less than $500) the crime is petty theft, Unless of course the knucklehead jurisdiction passed a law to allow it. I'm betting they didn't. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems . Web: http://www.dirtside.com/ May I solve your unusual networking challenges?
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
http://bgr.com/2014/05/12/cablevision-optimum-modem-wifi-hotspots/ I thought cablevision has been doing this for years. I had a higher level tech at mi casa within the last two years and he suggested their goal was to get enough coverage to start offering CV voip cell phones. pay a little less, for not guaranteed coverage' Ryan Pavely Net Access http://www.nac.net/ On 12/10/2014 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart wrote: Why am I not surprised? Whose fault would it be if your comcast installed public wifi would be abused to download illegal material or launch a botnet, to name some random fun one could have on your behalf. :-/ (apologies if this was posted already, couldn't find an email about it on the list) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/10/disgruntled_customers_lob_sueball_at_comcast_over_public_wifi/ A mother and daughter are suing Comcast claiming the cable giant's router in their home was offering public Wi-Fi without their permission. Comcast-supplied routers broadcast an encrypted, private wireless network for people at home, plus a non-encrypted network called XfinityWiFi that can be used by nearby subscribers. So if you're passing by a fellow user's home, you can lock onto their public Wi-Fi, log in using your Comcast username and password, and use that home's bandwidth. However, Toyer Grear, 39, and daughter Joycelyn Harris – who live together in Alameda County, California – say they never gave Comcast permission to run a public network from their home cable connection. In a lawsuit [PDF] filed in the northern district of the golden state, the pair accuse the ISP of breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and two other laws. Grear – a paralegal – and her daughter claim the Xfinity hotspot is an unauthorized intrusion into their private home, places a vast burden on electricity bills, opens them up to attacks by hackers, and degrades their bandwidth. Comcast does not, however, obtain the customer's authorization prior to engaging in this use of the customer's equipment and internet service for public, non-household use, the suit claims. Indeed, without obtaining its customers' authorization for this additional use of their equipment and resources, over which the customer has no control, Comcast has externalized the costs of its national Wi-Fi network onto its customers. The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages for themselves and on behalf of all Comcast customers nation-wide in their class-action case – the service was rolled out to 20 million customers this year.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
All of the members of the CableWiFi consortium have been. Bright House Networks, Cox Communications, Optimum, Time Warner Cable and Comcast. http://www.cablewifi.com/ Liberty Global, the largest MSO, also does it and this year announced an agreement with Comcast to allow roaming on each other's WiFi networks, though that is not extended to the other members of CableWiFi at this time. http://corporate.comcast.com/news-information/news-feed/comcast-and-liberty-global-announce-agreement-to-connect-u-s-and-european-wi-fi-networks Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 http://twitter.com/kscotthelms On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 8:53 AM, Ryan Pavely para...@nac.net wrote: http://bgr.com/2014/05/12/cablevision-optimum-modem-wifi-hotspots/ I thought cablevision has been doing this for years. I had a higher level tech at mi casa within the last two years and he suggested their goal was to get enough coverage to start offering CV voip cell phones. pay a little less, for not guaranteed coverage' Ryan Pavely Net Access http://www.nac.net/ On 12/10/2014 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart wrote: Why am I not surprised? Whose fault would it be if your comcast installed public wifi would be abused to download illegal material or launch a botnet, to name some random fun one could have on your behalf. :-/ (apologies if this was posted already, couldn't find an email about it on the list) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/10/disgruntled_ customers_lob_sueball_at_comcast_over_public_wifi/ A mother and daughter are suing Comcast claiming the cable giant's router in their home was offering public Wi-Fi without their permission. Comcast-supplied routers broadcast an encrypted, private wireless network for people at home, plus a non-encrypted network called XfinityWiFi that can be used by nearby subscribers. So if you're passing by a fellow user's home, you can lock onto their public Wi-Fi, log in using your Comcast username and password, and use that home's bandwidth. However, Toyer Grear, 39, and daughter Joycelyn Harris – who live together in Alameda County, California – say they never gave Comcast permission to run a public network from their home cable connection. In a lawsuit [PDF] filed in the northern district of the golden state, the pair accuse the ISP of breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and two other laws. Grear – a paralegal – and her daughter claim the Xfinity hotspot is an unauthorized intrusion into their private home, places a vast burden on electricity bills, opens them up to attacks by hackers, and degrades their bandwidth. Comcast does not, however, obtain the customer's authorization prior to engaging in this use of the customer's equipment and internet service for public, non-household use, the suit claims. Indeed, without obtaining its customers' authorization for this additional use of their equipment and resources, over which the customer has no control, Comcast has externalized the costs of its national Wi-Fi network onto its customers. The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages for themselves and on behalf of all Comcast customers nation-wide in their class-action case – the service was rolled out to 20 million customers this year.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Seems to me that they (Bright House Networks, Cox Communications, Optimum, Time Warner Cable and Comcast) are effectively operating a business out of your house and without a business license. I am sure that this is illegal in many towns and many towns would like the revenue. In fact does this put the homeowner at risk since they are effectively supporting a business running out of their house? Tom On Dec 11, 2014, at 9:02 AM, Scott Helms khe...@zcorum.com wrote: All of the members of the CableWiFi consortium have been. Bright House Networks, Cox Communications, Optimum, Time Warner Cable and Comcast. http://www.cablewifi.com/ Liberty Global, the largest MSO, also does it and this year announced an agreement with Comcast to allow roaming on each other's WiFi networks, though that is not extended to the other members of CableWiFi at this time. http://corporate.comcast.com/news-information/news-feed/comcast-and-liberty-global-announce-agreement-to-connect-u-s-and-european-wi-fi-networks Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 http://twitter.com/kscotthelms On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 8:53 AM, Ryan Pavely para...@nac.net wrote: http://bgr.com/2014/05/12/cablevision-optimum-modem-wifi-hotspots/ I thought cablevision has been doing this for years. I had a higher level tech at mi casa within the last two years and he suggested their goal was to get enough coverage to start offering CV voip cell phones. pay a little less, for not guaranteed coverage' Ryan Pavely Net Access http://www.nac.net/ On 12/10/2014 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart wrote: Why am I not surprised? Whose fault would it be if your comcast installed public wifi would be abused to download illegal material or launch a botnet, to name some random fun one could have on your behalf. :-/ (apologies if this was posted already, couldn't find an email about it on the list) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/10/disgruntled_ customers_lob_sueball_at_comcast_over_public_wifi/ A mother and daughter are suing Comcast claiming the cable giant's router in their home was offering public Wi-Fi without their permission. Comcast-supplied routers broadcast an encrypted, private wireless network for people at home, plus a non-encrypted network called XfinityWiFi that can be used by nearby subscribers. So if you're passing by a fellow user's home, you can lock onto their public Wi-Fi, log in using your Comcast username and password, and use that home's bandwidth. However, Toyer Grear, 39, and daughter Joycelyn Harris – who live together in Alameda County, California – say they never gave Comcast permission to run a public network from their home cable connection. In a lawsuit [PDF] filed in the northern district of the golden state, the pair accuse the ISP of breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and two other laws. Grear – a paralegal – and her daughter claim the Xfinity hotspot is an unauthorized intrusion into their private home, places a vast burden on electricity bills, opens them up to attacks by hackers, and degrades their bandwidth. Comcast does not, however, obtain the customer's authorization prior to engaging in this use of the customer's equipment and internet service for public, non-household use, the suit claims. Indeed, without obtaining its customers' authorization for this additional use of their equipment and resources, over which the customer has no control, Comcast has externalized the costs of its national Wi-Fi network onto its customers. The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages for themselves and on behalf of all Comcast customers nation-wide in their class-action case – the service was rolled out to 20 million customers this year.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Not really, this is much more like the mesh networks that have been put in place by lots of WISPs where every customer is also a relay. It's also comparable to pico cells that many of the LTE operators use to extend coverage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_networking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picocell https://wirelesstelecom.wordpress.com/tag/picocell/ Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 http://twitter.com/kscotthelms On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 9:23 AM, TR Shaw ts...@oitc.com wrote: Seems to me that they (Bright House Networks, Cox Communications, Optimum, Time Warner Cable and Comcast) are effectively operating a business out of your house and without a business license. I am sure that this is illegal in many towns and many towns would like the revenue. In fact does this put the homeowner at risk since they are effectively supporting a business running out of their house? Tom On Dec 11, 2014, at 9:02 AM, Scott Helms khe...@zcorum.com wrote: All of the members of the CableWiFi consortium have been. Bright House Networks, Cox Communications, Optimum, Time Warner Cable and Comcast. http://www.cablewifi.com/ Liberty Global, the largest MSO, also does it and this year announced an agreement with Comcast to allow roaming on each other's WiFi networks, though that is not extended to the other members of CableWiFi at this time. http://corporate.comcast.com/news-information/news-feed/comcast-and-liberty-global-announce-agreement-to-connect-u-s-and-european-wi-fi-networks Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 http://twitter.com/kscotthelms On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 8:53 AM, Ryan Pavely para...@nac.net wrote: http://bgr.com/2014/05/12/cablevision-optimum-modem-wifi-hotspots/ I thought cablevision has been doing this for years. I had a higher level tech at mi casa within the last two years and he suggested their goal was to get enough coverage to start offering CV voip cell phones. pay a little less, for not guaranteed coverage' Ryan Pavely Net Access http://www.nac.net/ On 12/10/2014 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart wrote: Why am I not surprised? Whose fault would it be if your comcast installed public wifi would be abused to download illegal material or launch a botnet, to name some random fun one could have on your behalf. :-/ (apologies if this was posted already, couldn't find an email about it on the list) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/10/disgruntled_ customers_lob_sueball_at_comcast_over_public_wifi/ A mother and daughter are suing Comcast claiming the cable giant's router in their home was offering public Wi-Fi without their permission. Comcast-supplied routers broadcast an encrypted, private wireless network for people at home, plus a non-encrypted network called XfinityWiFi that can be used by nearby subscribers. So if you're passing by a fellow user's home, you can lock onto their public Wi-Fi, log in using your Comcast username and password, and use that home's bandwidth. However, Toyer Grear, 39, and daughter Joycelyn Harris – who live together in Alameda County, California – say they never gave Comcast permission to run a public network from their home cable connection. In a lawsuit [PDF] filed in the northern district of the golden state, the pair accuse the ISP of breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and two other laws. Grear – a paralegal – and her daughter claim the Xfinity hotspot is an unauthorized intrusion into their private home, places a vast burden on electricity bills, opens them up to attacks by hackers, and degrades their bandwidth. Comcast does not, however, obtain the customer's authorization prior to engaging in this use of the customer's equipment and internet service for public, non-household use, the suit claims. Indeed, without obtaining its customers' authorization for this additional use of their equipment and resources, over which the customer has no control, Comcast has externalized the costs of its national Wi-Fi network onto its customers. The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages for themselves and on behalf of all Comcast customers nation-wide in their class-action case – the service was rolled out to 20 million customers this year.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
It's very scary, and something I'm doing a paper on. It _is_ just MAC recognition, at least until you try and use a MAC address that's already active somewhere else. Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 http://twitter.com/kscotthelms On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 9:24 AM, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 00:11:07 -0500, Jay Ashworth said: I will give them their props: I only had to sign in *once*, last year; their auth controller has recognized my MAC address at every spot I've used since. Actually, that's sort of scary if you think about it too hard. Shared-secret authentication has its flaws, but it still beats shared-nonsecret auth. I really hope it's something on your laptop other than the mac address
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
It is, you only have to log in once and then it remembers your MAC address. Harvesting usable MAC addresses is as trivial as putting up an open access point with the SSIDs xfinitywifi and CableWifi and recording the MAC addresses that connect to it. Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 http://twitter.com/kscotthelms On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 9:30 AM, John Peach john-na...@peachfamily.net wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:24:10 -0500 valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 00:11:07 -0500, Jay Ashworth said: I will give them their props: I only had to sign in *once*, last year; their auth controller has recognized my MAC address at every spot I've used since. Actually, that's sort of scary if you think about it too hard. Shared-secret authentication has its flaws, but it still beats shared-nonsecret auth. I really hope it's something on your laptop other than the mac address It's not - Cablevision allow you to register devices via their website by mac address.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:37:22 -0500 Scott Helms khe...@zcorum.com wrote: It is, you only have to log in once and then it remembers your MAC address. Harvesting usable MAC addresses is as trivial as putting up an open access point with the SSIDs xfinitywifi and CableWifi and recording the MAC addresses that connect to it. I was just pointing out that you don't even need to login with the device. Cablevision allow you to register a MAC address on their website. Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 http://twitter.com/kscotthelms On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 9:30 AM, John Peach john-na...@peachfamily.net wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:24:10 -0500 valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 00:11:07 -0500, Jay Ashworth said: I will give them their props: I only had to sign in *once*, last year; their auth controller has recognized my MAC address at every spot I've used since. Actually, that's sort of scary if you think about it too hard. Shared-secret authentication has its flaws, but it still beats shared-nonsecret auth. I really hope it's something on your laptop other than the mac address It's not - Cablevision allow you to register devices via their website by mac address. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
John, My apologies, I misread your email :) Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 http://twitter.com/kscotthelms On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 9:46 AM, John Peach john-na...@peachfamily.net wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:37:22 -0500 Scott Helms khe...@zcorum.com wrote: It is, you only have to log in once and then it remembers your MAC address. Harvesting usable MAC addresses is as trivial as putting up an open access point with the SSIDs xfinitywifi and CableWifi and recording the MAC addresses that connect to it. I was just pointing out that you don't even need to login with the device. Cablevision allow you to register a MAC address on their website. Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 http://twitter.com/kscotthelms On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 9:30 AM, John Peach john-na...@peachfamily.net wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:24:10 -0500 valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 00:11:07 -0500, Jay Ashworth said: I will give them their props: I only had to sign in *once*, last year; their auth controller has recognized my MAC address at every spot I've used since. Actually, that's sort of scary if you think about it too hard. Shared-secret authentication has its flaws, but it still beats shared-nonsecret auth. I really hope it's something on your laptop other than the mac address It's not - Cablevision allow you to register devices via their website by mac address.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
I think it's more than AC power issuewho knows what strength level they program that SSID to work at ? More wifi signal you are exposed to without your knowledge and more...read on. I have Comcast ATT internet at home...and I have noticed an xfinitywifi ssid at full strength. This tread brought it to my attention. It was not there when installed. Over the last few months, I have noticed on many occasions my attached storage device flashing as it's accessed but never found anything on my LAN using it. So I removed it from my LAN. In addition, I have the blast service 100 meg/sec.. Sites slow down often. The modem's cpu processor and cache is not used just for me as part of my service ! Gee, before bandwidth considerations, that's a bottle neck, isn't it ? Docsis is limited to bandwidth in neighborhoods based on headend and street plant configurations. Why would I, while paying for service want to encourage others to drop in my neighborhood or house to use the wifi - the cpu bandwidth of the wireless device and it's cache ? If you tell me these Docsis modems can do 200 meg/sec I would be surprised. This would explain why I see poor downloads of on-demand movies on directTV. BTW, I founded ISP channel ...the cable modem company before ATT created @Home to compete. So I am very aware of the network devices limitations, cable plant wiring structures and headend physical limitations. However, I have not studied these new Docsis modems. So how do I shut the xfinitywifi SSID? Thank You Bob Evans CTO On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:24:10 -0500 valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 00:11:07 -0500, Jay Ashworth said: I will give them their props: I only had to sign in *once*, last year; their auth controller has recognized my MAC address at every spot I've used since. Actually, that's sort of scary if you think about it too hard. Shared-secret authentication has its flaws, but it still beats shared-nonsecret auth. I really hope it's something on your laptop other than the mac address It's not - Cablevision allow you to register devices via their website by mac address.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
BT in the UK did the same thing a few years ago with a silent firmware upgrade. On 11 Dec 2014 15:51, Scott Helms khe...@zcorum.com wrote: John, My apologies, I misread your email :) Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 http://twitter.com/kscotthelms On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 9:46 AM, John Peach john-na...@peachfamily.net wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:37:22 -0500 Scott Helms khe...@zcorum.com wrote: It is, you only have to log in once and then it remembers your MAC address. Harvesting usable MAC addresses is as trivial as putting up an open access point with the SSIDs xfinitywifi and CableWifi and recording the MAC addresses that connect to it. I was just pointing out that you don't even need to login with the device. Cablevision allow you to register a MAC address on their website. Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 http://twitter.com/kscotthelms On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 9:30 AM, John Peach john-na...@peachfamily.net wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:24:10 -0500 valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 00:11:07 -0500, Jay Ashworth said: I will give them their props: I only had to sign in *once*, last year; their auth controller has recognized my MAC address at every spot I've used since. Actually, that's sort of scary if you think about it too hard. Shared-secret authentication has its flaws, but it still beats shared-nonsecret auth. I really hope it's something on your laptop other than the mac address It's not - Cablevision allow you to register devices via their website by mac address.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 07:30:00 -0800, Bob Evans said: However, I have not studied these new Docsis modems. So how do I shut the xfinitywifi SSID? Motorola Surfboard, Netgear WNDR3800, reflash the 3800 with cerowrt. Done. And you get less bufferbloat in the bargain. (Though the 3800 runs into CPU limits around 60mbits/sec - doesn't bother me, as my 20/5 plan is plenty for me except when my cats decide to start binging on funny people videos. But if you've got leads on gear that will still have CPU headroom in the 100-200mbit range, contact Dave Taht. :) pgpjQTXuOz8jT.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Or you can just call Comcast and ask them to turn it off. Or you could in the past. My in-laws did that when they got their new equipment. I don't know exactly how they found out it was going to be done - possibly inside info due to a relative working for Comcast. On 12/11/2014 8:05 AM, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 07:30:00 -0800, Bob Evans said: However, I have not studied these new Docsis modems. So how do I shut the xfinitywifi SSID? Motorola Surfboard, Netgear WNDR3800, reflash the 3800 with cerowrt. Done. And you get less bufferbloat in the bargain. (Though the 3800 runs into CPU limits around 60mbits/sec - doesn't bother me, as my 20/5 plan is plenty for me except when my cats decide to start binging on funny people videos. But if you've got leads on gear that will still have CPU headroom in the 100-200mbit range, contact Dave Taht. :) -- Jeff Shultz
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/10/14, 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart jer...@mompl.net wrote: Why am I not surprised? You¹re a smart guy - don¹t believe everything you read. ;-) Whose fault would it be if your comcast installed public wifi would be abused to download illegal material or launch a botnet, to name some random fun one could have on your behalf. :-/ It would not be your fault. The public SSID has a separate IP address, so the abuse would trace to that. In addition, all access is authenticated on a per user / per device basis. So there is good abuse traceback. A mother and daughter are suing Comcast claiming the cable giant¹s router in their home was offering public Wi-Fi without their permission. Prior to rolling this out in a given market, generally speaking, each customer is notified and provided with detailed opt-out instructions. So if you're passing by a fellow user's home, you can lock onto their public Wi-Fi, log in using your Comcast username and password, and use that home's bandwidth. Not really; separate bandwidth in the DOCSIS network is provisioned for this. places a vast² burden on electricity bills The citation refers to a highly unscientific study by a company that looked at a commercial cable modem, in combination with a separate commercial-grade WiFi access point. Putting aside the accuracy of that study, the two pieces of commercial equipment are very different from the single residential WiFi gateway at question here. - Jason Livingood Comcast
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
- Original Message - From: Scott Helms khe...@zcorum.com On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 9:24 AM, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 00:11:07 -0500, Jay Ashworth said: I will give them their props: I only had to sign in *once*, last year; their auth controller has recognized my MAC address at every spot I've used since. Actually, that's sort of scary if you think about it too hard. Shared-secret authentication has its flaws, but it still beats shared-nonsecret auth. I really hope it's something on your laptop other than the mac address It's very scary, and something I'm doing a paper on. It _is_ just MAC recognition, at least until you try and use a MAC address that's already active somewhere else. MAC cloning isn't all *that* common, at least not for that usage. The fact that it is *possible* provides some nice cover in certain circumstances, I would guess. As for something else on my laptop, I'm not sure what else they could see; I'd be surprised if they could get anything to run on SuSE 12.2. :-) Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink j...@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/10/14, 9:41 PM, Charles Mills w3y...@gmail.commailto:w3y...@gmail.com wrote: In the US at least you have to authenticate with your Comcast credentials and not like a traditional open wifi where you can just make up an email and accept the terms of service. I also understand that it is a different IP than the subscriber. Based on this the subscriber should be protected from anyone doing anything illegal and causing the SWAT team to pay a visit. You are absolutely correct. Now..they are doing this on your electric bill and taking up space (albeit a small amount of it) in your home. The blog cited is at http://speedify.com/%20blog/comcast-public-hotspot-cost/. As you can see it uses two separate devices; it is not similar to our residential service. Jason
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/10/14, 10:55 PM, Phil Bedard bedard.p...@gmail.com wrote: Really it is just the power they seem to be complaining about. And per my other post, the citation was for two separate commercial devices and the commercial WiFi AP being used 24x7. The one customers get is a very, very different residential integrated gateway (and at that I think it unlikely someone would be on the Xfinity WiFi SSID 24x7 at full Tx/Rx rate). Jason
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/14, 9:37 AM, Scott Helms khe...@zcorum.com wrote: It is, you only have to log in once and then it remembers your MAC address. Right, so user name password + MAC address. As more devices support things like Passpoint, this will get more sophisticated. Jason
RE: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
No one who has Comcast, who I've forward this to, knew about this (all US customers). Maybe you can send here the notification Comcast sent out, to your customers. -Original Message- From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org] On Behalf Of Livingood, Jason Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2014 12:55 PM To: Charles Mills; Jeroen van Aart Cc: NANOG list Subject: Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house On 12/10/14, 9:41 PM, Charles Mills w3y...@gmail.commailto:w3y...@gmail.com wrote: In the US at least you have to authenticate with your Comcast credentials and not like a traditional open wifi where you can just make up an email and accept the terms of service. I also understand that it is a different IP than the subscriber. Based on this the subscriber should be protected from anyone doing anything illegal and causing the SWAT team to pay a visit. You are absolutely correct. Now..they are doing this on your electric bill and taking up space (albeit a small amount of it) in your home. The blog cited is at http://speedify.com/%20blog/comcast-public-hotspot-cost/. As you can see it uses two separate devices; it is not similar to our residential service. Jason
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Here is how you disable it. 1 – Login to the customer portal https://customer.comcast.com/ 2 – Click the “Users Preferences” tab (see pic @ http://media.bestofmicro.com/4/Z/442115/original/xfinity-how-to-disable-3.jpg) 3 – Click “Manage XFINITY WiFi” (see pic @ http://media.bestofmicro.com/5/0/442116/original/xfinity-how-to-disable-4.jpg) 4 – Select “Disable XFINITY WiFi” and then click “Save (see pic @ http://media.bestofmicro.com/T/0/442980/gallery/The-Money-SHot_w_600.jpg) Jason On 12/11/14, 11:30 AM, Jeff Shultz jeffshu...@sctcweb.commailto:jeffshu...@sctcweb.com wrote: Or you can just call Comcast and ask them to turn it off. Or you could in the past. My in-laws did that when they got their new equipment. I don't know exactly how they found out it was going to be done - possibly inside info due to a relative working for Comcast. On 12/11/2014 8:05 AM, valdis.kletni...@vt.edumailto:valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 07:30:00 -0800, Bob Evans said: However, I have not studied these new Docsis modems. So how do I shut the xfinitywifi SSID? Motorola Surfboard, Netgear WNDR3800, reflash the 3800 with cerowrt. Done. And you get less bufferbloat in the bargain. (Though the 3800 runs into CPU limits around 60mbits/sec - doesn't bother me, as my 20/5 plan is plenty for me except when my cats decide to start binging on funny people videos. But if you've got leads on gear that will still have CPU headroom in the 100-200mbit range, contact Dave Taht. :) -- Jeff Shultz
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 18:04:20 +, Livingood, Jason said: Right, so user name password + MAC address. As more devices support things like Passpoint, this will get more sophisticated. OK, so it *does* do .1x authentication with the name/password, not just mac address. That's a lot less scary.. :) pgpxnY7VZld0K.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Or you can just call Comcast and ask them to turn it off. Or you could in the past. I can see where the pointy-haired types came up with the opt-out idea hoping nobody would notice or care, but at least they make it (fairly) easy : http://wifi.comcast.com/faqs.html 1. Log into your Comcast account page at customer.comcast.com. 2. Click on Users Preferences. 3. Look for a heading on the page for “Service Address.” Below your address, click the link that reads “Manage Xfinity WiFi.” 4. Click the button for “Disable Xfinity Wifi Home Hotspot.” 5. Click Save Michael Holstein Cleveland State University
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Have you ever met an intelligent, informed consumer? - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Rebecca Kain (.) bka...@ford.com To: Jason Livingood jason_living...@cable.comcast.com, Charles Mills w3y...@gmail.com, Jeroen van Aart jer...@mompl.net Cc: NANOG list nanog@nanog.org Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2014 12:06:33 PM Subject: RE: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house No one who has Comcast, who I've forward this to, knew about this (all US customers). Maybe you can send here the notification Comcast sent out, to your customers. -Original Message- From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org] On Behalf Of Livingood, Jason Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2014 12:55 PM To: Charles Mills; Jeroen van Aart Cc: NANOG list Subject: Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house On 12/10/14, 9:41 PM, Charles Mills w3y...@gmail.commailto:w3y...@gmail.com wrote: In the US at least you have to authenticate with your Comcast credentials and not like a traditional open wifi where you can just make up an email and accept the terms of service. I also understand that it is a different IP than the subscriber. Based on this the subscriber should be protected from anyone doing anything illegal and causing the SWAT team to pay a visit. You are absolutely correct. Now..they are doing this on your electric bill and taking up space (albeit a small amount of it) in your home. The blog cited is at http://speedify.com/%20blog/comcast-public-hotspot-cost/. As you can see it uses two separate devices; it is not similar to our residential service. Jason
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/14, 1:06 PM, Kain, Rebecca (.) bka...@ford.com wrote: No one who has Comcast, who I've forward this to, knew about this (all US customers). Maybe you can send here the notification Comcast sent out, to your customers. I emailed you off-list. I am happy to investigate individual cases. The rollout has been happening since probably 2009 or 2010. Jason
RE: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
K, thanks -Original Message- From: Livingood, Jason [mailto:jason_living...@cable.comcast.com] Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2014 1:16 PM To: Kain, Rebecca (.) Cc: NANOG list Subject: Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house On 12/11/14, 1:06 PM, Kain, Rebecca (.) bka...@ford.com wrote: No one who has Comcast, who I've forward this to, knew about this (all US customers). Maybe you can send here the notification Comcast sent out, to your customers. I emailed you off-list. I am happy to investigate individual cases. The rollout has been happening since probably 2009 or 2010. Jason
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/14, 1:43 PM, Jean-Francois Mezei jfmezei_na...@vaxination.ca wrote: How is this done ? 2 separate modems in same box ? or a single modem which gets 2 separate IPs and applies rate limiting independently on each IP ? The latter. JL
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
darn. i shoulda used a comcast cable modem instead of my own so i could provide this service to neighbors. ah well. i do put up a non-wpa ssid, but don't like the non-wpa. randy
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/14, 1:43 PM, Jean-Francois Mezei jfmezei_na...@vaxination.ca wrote: BTW, it isn't just the electricity, but also climate control and location which the subscriber provides for free. Comcast need not rent space on poles and need not buy more expensive weatherized equipment that goes outdoors. WG] In most cases your second assertion is not accurate, because the one doesn't eliminate the need for the other. The pole/strand/vault mounted and weatherized equipment is also quite a bit more powerful and has external antennas so that it has better range, and likely has had some RF engineering done to provide some reasonable envelope of contiguous coverage between APs. The majority of these home GWs are unlikely to be a real alternative to that sort of deployment for folks walking/driving past your house even in the best case scenario where the AP is optimally located and nearly every home on the block is participating and the houses are very close to one another and to the street. This is still fundamentally the same AP that may or may not have enough signal strength to provide consistent performance in all areas of the inside of a home (dependent on things like the location of the AP, the size construction of the home, other interference, etc etc). Their intended use is to give access to visitors in your house and/or yard without you needing to set up a dedicated guest network or giving them your wifi password. Wes George Anything below this line has been added by my company’s mail server, I have no control over it. --- This E-mail and any of its attachments may contain Time Warner Cable proprietary information, which is privileged, confidential, or subject to copyright belonging to Time Warner Cable. This E-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient of this E-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, or action taken in relation to the contents of and attachments to this E-mail is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this E-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately and permanently delete the original and any copy of this E-mail and any printout.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 2:11 PM, George, Wes wesley.geo...@twcable.com wrote: Their intended use is to give access to visitors in your house and/or yard without you needing to set up a dedicated guest network or giving them your wifi password. this seems like the key point here... comcast isn't actually benefiting (except perhaps in less calls about: Someone reconfigured my AP ... now it's all screwy folk need to relax just a tad, and consider the technical implications here, outside of the conspiracy theories. -chris (where is my tin foil hat? I just know i left it around here somewhere)
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/14 10:16 AM, Livingood, Jason wrote: On 12/11/14, 1:06 PM, Kain, Rebecca (.) bka...@ford.com wrote: No one who has Comcast, who I've forward this to, knew about this (all US customers). Maybe you can send here the notification Comcast sent out, to your customers. I emailed you off-list. I am happy to investigate individual cases. The rollout has been happening since probably 2009 or 2010. Jason, While that offer is noble, and appreciated, as are your other responses on this thread; personally I would be interested to hear more about how customers were notified. Was there a collateral piece included in their bill? Were they e-mailed? And are we correct in assuming that this is strictly opt-out? And is the report that if you opt out with your account that you are not then able to access the service elsewhere correct? Completely aside from the fact that other services have done something similar, I regard all of this as quite troubling, as it seems others here do as well. Doug
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Randy, You're spot on. I don't understand this griping. The flip side is that as a(n) happy xfinity customer I get to roam in lots of places around the US (and maybe even abroad), as do all of the xfinity home customers. This isn't a paid service... It's a byproduct of being a cable customer. I'm happy to pay a few pennies a day. The only challenge I see is the issue around wifi congestion. In my DC condo building there are a couple of hundred xfinity cable modem customers, mostly with wifi. However, with a little bit of work with the comcast techs, our neighborhood is pretty happy. Tip of the hat to Jason and Mike O'. On Dec 11, 2014, at 12:01 PM, Randy Bush ra...@psg.com wrote: darn. i shoulda used a comcast cable modem instead of my own so i could provide this service to neighbors. ah well. i do put up a non-wpa ssid, but don't like the non-wpa. randy
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
From the wired side, since the AP's bandwitdh is separate from the paying customer's, the later really has no complaint to make. Taken to the extreme, yeah, all those APs may end up adding to the load on the coax segment and creating congestion. But somehow I doubt this is a huge issue. One the Wi-Fi side, it all depends on how much capacity on the paying customer's Wi-Fi SSID is reduced by the presence of the Xfinity SSID. I think Comcast should have spun this totally differently. Guests coming home ?, go to your Comcast web site and enable Xfinity, and they can sign in with their credentials to your Wi-Fi, and won't slow you down or consume your monthly usage limits. This would have been seen as a true service given to consumers instead of being seen as Comcast stealing consumer's bandwidth without their consent to serve others. (which is what the perception appears to be) As far as the electricity issue, I have to assume that any alleged additional power consumption would be very minimal compared to a router that has single SSID. The principle may be worth fighting for, but the amounts are not.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
note that free.fr does this in france. we both provide and use it there. works out quite well. i guess i should figure out how to use comcast's stateside version. randy
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
That's interesting, thanks for that info, Mike. Jason has a good point in that a lot of the reporting on this topic so far has been ill-informed, and I think it's important to understand the truth. Re Rodney and Randy's point about this being blown out of proportion, the thing I'm most concerned about is not the service itself, which is interesting, and has the capability to be a good utilization of resources (as in, a cheap way to provide a beneficial service). My concerns are that apparently customers are not informed about the thing before it gets enabled, and the issue of wifi density that was raised by several people here. If you have an apartment building for example, where a significant majority of the tenants are Comcast customers (cuz in 'murica we loves us some monopolies) I see a lot of strong xfinity signals stomping on an already crowded 2.4 G spectrum. So just to be clear, I'm not being critical at this point, I'm simply interested in separating the facts from the hype. Doug On 12/11/14 12:42 PM, Mike wrote: Doug, I use my own router at home, so I opted out, and I can use the service without issue. Mike On Dec 11, 2014, at 2:53 PM, Doug Barton do...@dougbarton.us wrote: On 12/11/14 10:16 AM, Livingood, Jason wrote: On 12/11/14, 1:06 PM, Kain, Rebecca (.) bka...@ford.com wrote: No one who has Comcast, who I've forward this to, knew about this (all US customers). Maybe you can send here the notification Comcast sent out, to your customers. I emailed you off-list. I am happy to investigate individual cases. The rollout has been happening since probably 2009 or 2010. Jason, While that offer is noble, and appreciated, as are your other responses on this thread; personally I would be interested to hear more about how customers were notified. Was there a collateral piece included in their bill? Were they e-mailed? And are we correct in assuming that this is strictly opt-out? And is the report that if you opt out with your account that you are not then able to access the service elsewhere correct? Completely aside from the fact that other services have done something similar, I regard all of this as quite troubling, as it seems others here do as well. Doug
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
- Original Message - From: Valdis Kletnieks valdis.kletni...@vt.edu On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 18:04:20 +, Livingood, Jason said: Right, so user name password + MAC address. As more devices support things like Passpoint, this will get more sophisticated. OK, so it *does* do .1x authentication with the name/password, not just mac address. That's a lot less scary.. :) Well, if we're still talking about Bright House customer wifi, the user/pass auth is only on the first connection, and it's in-band. Any device can associate to any of their APs, you just don't get anywhere until you auth the first time, after which it just looks like open wifi to you. So I don't think it is .1x; that won't even let you associate if you can't authenticate, will it? Or do I misunderstand .1x/.11? Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink j...@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
- Original Message - From: Christopher Morrow morrowc.li...@gmail.com On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 2:11 PM, George, Wes wesley.geo...@twcable.com wrote: Their intended use is to give access to visitors in your house and/or yard without you needing to set up a dedicated guest network or giving them your wifi password. this seems like the key point here... comcast isn't actually benefiting (except perhaps in less calls about: Someone reconfigured my AP ... now it's all screwy folk need to relax just a tad, and consider the technical implications here, outside of the conspiracy theories. Alas, I cannot accept George's assertion (which is quite a different thing from my thinking it's a conspiracy): In residential areas (non-multi-unit), this is only going to help out *Comcast subscribers*. If you have random visitors over, it won't help them, as they can't get authed to the service. Unless you give them your credentials, at which point they can use it everywhere, not just at your house. And it doesn't let you help your neighbors for the same reason: if they have their own creds for it, then they don't need your AP since they have one. No, I'm having a hard time figuring out what the use case *is* for this service as deployed against *residential* hardware, myself... Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink j...@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/14, 2:53 PM, Doug Barton do...@dougbarton.us wrote: While that offer is noble, and appreciated, as are your other responses on this thread; personally I would be interested to hear more about how customers were notified. Was there a collateral piece included in their bill? Were they e-mailed? It is a range of tactics. Depending on where someone lives there were traditional media tactics to raise awareness. For example, where I am in Philadelphia I saw video ads in the new SEPTA regional rail trains, saw it printed on on monthly rail passes, and shown on small billboards in stations. I get an electronic bill personally but I would guess people with printed bills very likely got something inside the bill given the other tactics employed. I do know emails were sent regionally (probably 2009 - 2014) as the network went live. This explained the monthly stories in the press, as the news cycle seemed to rediscover this every time we rolled it out further. If you became a customer after it was rolled out, it was a key aspect of marketing to prospective customers (such as on our website) so probably hard to miss. And are we correct in assuming that this is strictly opt-out? And is the report that if you opt out with your account that you are not then able to access the service elsewhere correct? I¹m not 100% sure. I think it is the case that you can use it even if you disable it on your own AP. Jason
RE: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
-Original Message- From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org] On Behalf Of Bob Evans Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2014 7:30 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house I think it's more than AC power issuewho knows what strength level they program that SSID to work at ? More wifi signal you are exposed to without your knowledge and more...read on. The CPU would be running the idle loop if it wasn't handling these packets, so power consumption outside the RF transmitter is irrelevant. Given it is a part-15 consumer device, you can assume no more than 100mw on the signal level. Assume someone lights that up 24x7x365.25 ... (an unrealistic continuous broadcast from a source on the wired side, but for a worst case back-of-the-envelope calculation it is close enough). The transmitter is not going to be 100% efficient, so let's pick 33% to make the calculation easier to follow. .3 W x 24 hrs = 7.2 Whrs/day 7.2Whrs/day x $.00011/Whr*= $.000792/day $.000792/day x 365.25 days/yr = $.289278/yr *YMMV based on the local rate per kWhr. So for any realistic local kWhr rate in the coverage area, the result is less than $1/yr. This case is arguing a substantial burden has been imposed as the result of consuming vastly more electricity, but any realistic use of that additional signal over an entire year is less than the cost of a stamp used to mail in just one month's bill payment. The lawyers in this case need a substantial fine for abusing the court system. Tony
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/14, 3:04 PM, Rodney Joffe rjo...@centergate.com wrote: The flip side is that as a(n) happy xfinity customer I get to roam in lots of places around the US (and maybe even abroad), as do all of the xfinity home customers. Outside of the U.S., a customer can use the WiFi networks operated by Liberty Global. As of September 2014, Liberty Global had over 2.5 million home spots under the Wi-Free and ³WifiSpots names (SSIDs) in various countries in Europe, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Poland and Switzerland. I expect more international roaming agreements in the future - which can save a lot of money compared to using international data roaming via 4G LTE, etc. The only challenge I see is the issue around wifi congestion. In my DC condo building there are a couple of hundred xfinity cable modem customers, mostly with wifi. Unlicensed WiFi is being taking to interesting new levels of scale around the world. As it does, new technical solutions will certainly be called for, including stuff like Œradio resource management¹ that can make APs aware of neighbors and collectively adjust power levels and channels to operate as an efficient whole. From my standpoint, I want IP everywhere and I much prefer unlicensed spectrum to licensed. :-) Jason
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/14, 3:06 PM, Jean-Francois Mezei jfmezei_na...@vaxination.ca wrote: I think Comcast should have spun this totally differently. Well, I think we probably did. But apparently all it takes is one lawsuit filed in California and an article in The Register to really make an impact. ;-) Then again, the tech press doesn¹t really get clicks by saying ³cool new service could help you connect to the Internet wherever you are, and puppies are cute too². Jason
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/2014 07:10, William Herrin wrote: What Comcast is stealing is electricity. Pennies per customer times a boatload of customers. .and floorspace, physical security, air conditioning, and all sorts of labor overheads. -- The unique Characteristics of System Administrators: The fact that they are infallible; and, The fact that they learn from their mistakes. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/14, 3:50 PM, Doug Barton do...@dougbarton.usmailto:do...@dougbarton.us wrote: That's interesting, thanks for that info, Mike. Jason has a good point in that a lot of the reporting on this topic so far has been ill-informed... What else is new? ;-) It’s frustrating where I sit but sometimes reporters don’t like when facts get in the way of a good story. It comes with the territory, so I’m used to it. I see a lot of strong xfinity signals stomping on an already crowded 2.4 G spectrum. Fair point. But 2.4GHz was a bit of a mess before we came along with this service. 5GHz is a lot better and we were one of many companies in favor of the recent FCC decision to expand unlicensed 5GHz spectrum. See http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/more-wi-fi-is-better-fcc-expands-use-of-5-ghz-spectrum/ So just to be clear, I'm not being critical at this point, I'm simply interested in separating the facts from the hype. No worries! :-) Jason
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/14, 3:58 PM, Jay Ashworth j...@baylink.com wrote: No, I'm having a hard time figuring out what the use case *is* for this service as deployed against *residential* hardware, myself... Well, the great thing about the marketplace is that if it ultimately does not prove useful and of some value then it¹ll eventually go away. :-) Jason
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Mr Livingood: Out of curiosity, had Comcast decided to use an opt-in instead of opt-out method, did your marketing dept have any idea of percentage of customer base who would have opted in ? Secondly, at a more technical level: In a MDU with a whole bunch of Comcast subscribers, could one router be able to detect existence of strong Xfinity signals and not enable its own ? This would reduce crowding of Wi-Fi spectrum. I take it such a feature would require special programming/firmware by modem/router manufacturer ?
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
I think it may have already been slightly mentioned, but any reason why this is not being rolled out on a separate radio than the private customer facing one? Even if the bandwidth out to the internet is separated with DOCSIS channels, you are still using the same radio and one user streaming a large amount of data could bog down the radio. I have seen 1 or 2 clients destroy speed and cause large amounts (adding 100+ms) of latency for all clients connected to the same radio. -Grant On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 1:44 PM, Livingood, Jason jason_living...@cable.comcast.com wrote: On 12/11/14, 3:58 PM, Jay Ashworth j...@baylink.com wrote: No, I'm having a hard time figuring out what the use case *is* for this service as deployed against *residential* hardware, myself... Well, the great thing about the marketplace is that if it ultimately does not prove useful and of some value then it¹ll eventually go away. :-) Jason
RE: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On the converse side I live in a neighborhood that has quite a bit of distance between houses yet I can still a couple of neighborhood SSIDs.If one of their guests hops on to my Xfinity Wifi it is going to be with a weak signal. Their weak signal is going to drag down the performance of the wireless network for all the users on the access point. Comcast enabled the Xfinity Wifi on my modem and I had a five month battle with them to trying to get it turned off. Comcast kept telling me I did not have a wireless gateway and I must be seeing my neighbors signal. They never could fix their records so they sent me a new modem. A month later I got a letter saying they were turning on the Xfinity Wifi. This time I was able to log in and turn it off. curtis Curtis Parish Senior Network Engineer Middle Tennessee State University In analyzing my neighbors who use comcast (I live in a townhouse and can see many access points) my biggest complaint is the the wifi pollution these comcast router/access-points cause.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/2014 11:54, Livingood, Jason wrote: Now..they are doing this on your electric bill and taking up space (albeit a small amount of it) in your home. Tell me I need a tin-foil hat if you like, but in the current news there is reason to believe that the risk is real and actual that the police with their hot-shot-super-sniffer determine that your house is the source of a pedophile database operation supplying the neighborhood weirdos, and come around at 3 SM and shoot your dogs, lob a grenade into the baby's crib and eventually burn your house and wife down. -- The unique Characteristics of System Administrators: The fact that they are infallible; and, The fact that they learn from their mistakes. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
While I generally support the lawsuit, I have to question a vast burden on their electric bill. Does an 802.11 transmitter that was already being used to support their own WiFi network that they are paying for really consume vastly more electricity to support a second SSID? In my experience, that claim is hard to fathom. Owen On Dec 10, 2014, at 18:35 , Jeroen van Aart jer...@mompl.net wrote: Why am I not surprised? Whose fault would it be if your comcast installed public wifi would be abused to download illegal material or launch a botnet, to name some random fun one could have on your behalf. :-/ (apologies if this was posted already, couldn't find an email about it on the list) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/10/disgruntled_customers_lob_sueball_at_comcast_over_public_wifi/ A mother and daughter are suing Comcast claiming the cable giant's router in their home was offering public Wi-Fi without their permission. Comcast-supplied routers broadcast an encrypted, private wireless network for people at home, plus a non-encrypted network called XfinityWiFi that can be used by nearby subscribers. So if you're passing by a fellow user's home, you can lock onto their public Wi-Fi, log in using your Comcast username and password, and use that home's bandwidth. However, Toyer Grear, 39, and daughter Joycelyn Harris – who live together in Alameda County, California – say they never gave Comcast permission to run a public network from their home cable connection. In a lawsuit [PDF] filed in the northern district of the golden state, the pair accuse the ISP of breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and two other laws. Grear – a paralegal – and her daughter claim the Xfinity hotspot is an unauthorized intrusion into their private home, places a vast burden on electricity bills, opens them up to attacks by hackers, and degrades their bandwidth. Comcast does not, however, obtain the customer's authorization prior to engaging in this use of the customer's equipment and internet service for public, non-household use, the suit claims. Indeed, without obtaining its customers' authorization for this additional use of their equipment and resources, over which the customer has no control, Comcast has externalized the costs of its national Wi-Fi network onto its customers. The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages for themselves and on behalf of all Comcast customers nation-wide in their class-action case – the service was rolled out to 20 million customers this year. -- Earthquake Magnitude: 4.8 Date: 2014-12-10 22:10:36.800 UTC Date Local: 2014-12-10 13:10:36 PST Location: 120km W of Panguna, Papua New Guinea Latitude: -6.265; Longitude: 154.4004 Depth: 35 km | e-quake.org
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
I would have to expect they're doing a virtual SSID which means 0 additional wattage. Worst case scenario it adds another radio of less than 5 watts of which is absolutely negligible if you're able to afford cable Internet service. Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 4:54 PM, Owen DeLong o...@delong.com wrote: While I generally support the lawsuit, I have to question a vast burden on their electric bill. Does an 802.11 transmitter that was already being used to support their own WiFi network that they are paying for really consume vastly more electricity to support a second SSID? In my experience, that claim is hard to fathom. Owen On Dec 10, 2014, at 18:35 , Jeroen van Aart jer...@mompl.net wrote: Why am I not surprised? Whose fault would it be if your comcast installed public wifi would be abused to download illegal material or launch a botnet, to name some random fun one could have on your behalf. :-/ (apologies if this was posted already, couldn't find an email about it on the list) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/10/disgruntled_customers_lob_sueball_at_comcast_over_public_wifi/ A mother and daughter are suing Comcast claiming the cable giant's router in their home was offering public Wi-Fi without their permission. Comcast-supplied routers broadcast an encrypted, private wireless network for people at home, plus a non-encrypted network called XfinityWiFi that can be used by nearby subscribers. So if you're passing by a fellow user's home, you can lock onto their public Wi-Fi, log in using your Comcast username and password, and use that home's bandwidth. However, Toyer Grear, 39, and daughter Joycelyn Harris – who live together in Alameda County, California – say they never gave Comcast permission to run a public network from their home cable connection. In a lawsuit [PDF] filed in the northern district of the golden state, the pair accuse the ISP of breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and two other laws. Grear – a paralegal – and her daughter claim the Xfinity hotspot is an unauthorized intrusion into their private home, places a vast burden on electricity bills, opens them up to attacks by hackers, and degrades their bandwidth. Comcast does not, however, obtain the customer's authorization prior to engaging in this use of the customer's equipment and internet service for public, non-household use, the suit claims. Indeed, without obtaining its customers' authorization for this additional use of their equipment and resources, over which the customer has no control, Comcast has externalized the costs of its national Wi-Fi network onto its customers. The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages for themselves and on behalf of all Comcast customers nation-wide in their class-action case – the service was rolled out to 20 million customers this year. -- Earthquake Magnitude: 4.8 Date: 2014-12-10 22:10:36.800 UTC Date Local: 2014-12-10 13:10:36 PST Location: 120km W of Panguna, Papua New Guinea Latitude: -6.265; Longitude: 154.4004 Depth: 35 km | e-quake.org
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/14, 4:47 PM, Grant Ridder shortdudey...@gmail.commailto:shortdudey...@gmail.com wrote: I think it may have already been slightly mentioned, but any reason why this is not being rolled out on a separate radio than the private customer facing one? Even if the bandwidth out to the internet is separated with DOCSIS channels, you are still using the same radio and one user streaming a large amount of data could bog down the radio. I have seen 1 or 2 clients destroy speed and cause large amounts (adding 100+ms) of latency for all clients connected to the same radio. The latest device (called an XB3, see http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/the-technology-behind-the-industrys-fastest-wireless-gateway) does have multiple radios. I’m not sure what the pros and cons are of dedicating individual radios to different SSIDs rather than letting some logic in the WiFi chipset and radios determine that stuff more dynamically. That’s probably best asked of a WiFi chipset engineer at Cisco or Qualcomm. Jason From the URL above: By Jill Formichellahttp://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices?author=337, Director, Home Network Product Development, Comcast Cable in Internethttp://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices?category=internet Comcast’s new Xfinity Wireless Gateway, the DPC3941T, features the latest industry technology to provide superior performance and make it the fastest on the market. The DCP3941T features cutting edge 802.11achttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ac Wi-Fi technology, a high power 3x3MIMOhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIMO design with 3 spatial streams that can provide up to 1.3 Gbps of raw throughput, 80 MHz wide Wi-Fi channel support, and 256-QAM modulationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrature_amplitude_modulation. All of this means that the Comcast Gateway can provide increased range and wireless throughput. Third party lab tests demonstrated more than 700 Mbps of actual throughput, providing the fastest speeds for our customers and beating our competitors and many high-end retail products. Antenna Design After numerous design evaluations, the high power Wi-Fi antennas in the DPC3941T were positioned optimally to produce the most efficient gain patterns to offer the best performance. Fine-tuned calibration of EIRPhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalent_isotropically_radiated_power helps to provide better range and throughput compared to other Wireless Gateways. Performance Tuning Our gateways are tested at Allion Engineering Serviceshttp://www.allion.com/, a 3rd party Wi-Fi certification facility, as well as in our partners’ labs to constantly evaluate and improve the Gateway’s performance. Anechoic chamberhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anechoic_chamber based tests provide good insight into the Gateway’s maximum capabilities; controlled interference is injected on to Wi-Fi channels to evaluate gateway performance in congested and interference prone environments. Tests are also conducted in various test houses to measure performance in a real-world environment. Test results include RSSI Heatmaps showing coverage of the Wi-Fi signal, average throughput across multiple locations and rate vs. range (chamber tests). Finally the gateway is tested against our formalAcceptance Test Planhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_testing, which includes interoperability testing with popular consumer electronics, and then our devices are tested with real Comcast customers to ensure excellent performance in a variety of different conditions. Close collaboration with Cisco Qualcomm Atheros Comcast collaborated closely with Ciscohttp://www.cisco.com/ and Qualcomm Atheroshttp://www.qualcomm.com/about/businesses/qca from the early design stages to ensure the DPC3941T has the best Wi-Fi and antenna design and solid performance. The DPC3941T is the first Comcast device to support an 802.11ac high power amplifier solution boosting power by 3dB at the higher MCS rateshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n-2009#Data_rates. Also featured in the 3941T, which the previous Wireless Gateway 2 did not have, is a higher power Atom based CPUhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Atom_(CPU) from Intel and an additional 512MB RAM to help future proof the device.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 2014-12-11 19:12, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 18:04:20 +, Livingood, Jason said: Right, so user name password + MAC address. As more devices support things like Passpoint, this will get more sophisticated. OK, so it *does* do .1x authentication with the name/password, not just mac address. That's a lot less scary.. :) It is WPA2-Enterprise (AES) even. Which is a reasonably ok Settings for Windows 8 for Windows are at: http://www.upc-cablecom.ch/content/dam/www-upc-cablecom-ch/Support/wifi-spots/steps/windows8/Anleitung%20Wi-Free_Windows%208_0714_e.pdf or platforms can be found at: http://www.upc-cablecom.ch/en/internet/wi-free/ As it is a thing crossing both Comcast + LibertyGlobal (and one can thus use Comcast logins on LG Wi-Free and vice versa...), I can only guess it is the exact same thing. Still, from a radio perspective and the spectrum being pretty full already, I don't like it a bit. Greets, Jeroen
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/14, 4:45 PM, Jean-Francois Mezei jfmezei_na...@vaxination.camailto:jfmezei_na...@vaxination.ca wrote: Mr Livingood: Out of curiosity, had Comcast decided to use an opt-in instead of opt-out method, did your marketing dept have any idea of percentage of customer base who would have opted in ? No idea - I was just on the technical execution side of the project in the early phases. Behavioral economics would suggest that opt-in rates are almost always lower than opt-out. http://ozankocak.com/2011/01/18/dan-ariely-and-behavioral-economics-part–i/ . I suspect many tech companies have adopted similar views on opting in or out. Secondly, at a more technical level: In a MDU with a whole bunch of Comcast subscribers, could one router be able to detect existence of strong Xfinity signals and not enable its own ? This would reduce crowding of Wi-Fi spectrum. I take it such a feature would require special rogramming/firmware by modem/router manufacturer ? This is definitely specialized software logic and on the frontier of work called radio resource management. I am sure most WiFi chipsets have simple aspects of this built in but some companies are working on new technology tools in this area for unlicensed spectrum like WiFi. Jason
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Many read, but what choice do they have. In many cases Comcast is the only game in town and it is either agree, or have no real internet access at all. I am one that has opposed the auto opt-in of this setup. The main reason is that Comcast wants up to foot the bill for power and space for their benefit. While, yes, it is very minimal, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. By that I mean why shouldn't we be able to nickel and dime them like they do to us. We pay for internet access and they want to charge us for access AND to lease equipment. Yeah, sure, if you are a residential user or a business class user without a static ip, then you can go out and purchase your own device. But if you have BCI with static IP's then you are screwed. I have the 50/10 BCI with 5 static IP's and then I have to pay an additional $12.95 per month just for the crappy SMC device. If I remember correctly, residential pays $8.95 per month. Equipment should be included in the cost of the service, and always was in the past. But yet, Comcast has decided to nickel and dime us to death for everything, not just modem rentals. Robert On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 08:17:19 -0500 Scott Helms khe...@zcorum.com wrote: Not a law, it's in their updated terms and conditions that no one reads. On Dec 11, 2014 8:12 AM, William Herrin b...@herrin.us wrote: On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart jer...@mompl.net wrote: Whose fault would it be if your comcast installed public wifi would be abused to download illegal material or launch a botnet, to name some random fun one could have on your behalf. :-/ Doesn't work that way. Separate authenticated channel. Presents differently from you with a different IP address out on the Internet. What Comcast is stealing is electricity. Pennies per customer times a boatload of customers. theft n. the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use (including potential sale). In many states, if the value of the property taken is low (for example, less than $500) the crime is petty theft, Unless of course the knucklehead jurisdiction passed a law to allow it. I'm betting they didn't. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems . Web: http://www.dirtside.com/ May I solve your unusual networking challenges?
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 16:41:24 -0500, Livingood, Jason jason_living...@cable.comcast.com wrote: ...But 2.4GHz was a bit of a mess before we came along with this service. So, knowing the house is on fire, you bring a can of gas to put it out. You aren't f'ing helping. Of course, since Comcast didn't spring for separate radios, it'll be riding what ever channel the customer's WiFi is using. Thus, interfering with *their* use of WiFi.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Not correct. If it's on one radio it's using the same RF space it was before, just with a virtual SSID. Just like the atheros or Ruckus stuff - it's the same RF space with an additional BSSID bridged to a different software bridge or pseudo interface. Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 5:19 PM, Ricky Beam jfb...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 16:41:24 -0500, Livingood, Jason jason_living...@cable.comcast.com wrote: ...But 2.4GHz was a bit of a mess before we came along with this service. So, knowing the house is on fire, you bring a can of gas to put it out. You aren't f'ing helping. Of course, since Comcast didn't spring for separate radios, it'll be riding what ever channel the customer's WiFi is using. Thus, interfering with *their* use of WiFi.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
- Original Message - From: Larry Sheldon larryshel...@cox.net On 12/11/2014 07:10, William Herrin wrote: What Comcast is stealing is electricity. Pennies per customer times a boatload of customers. .and floorspace, physical security, air conditioning, and all sorts of labor overheads. Nope; at that stage, Larry, you're makin it up. In the particular case we're talking about here, Comcast -- who are not my favorite people by any means -- have *enabled a feature built into the terminal device they're provisioning*. It *might* increase the overall power consumption of that device by as much as 5-10 Wh/*month*. The increase in A/C won't register on the chart. Physical security is no different than it was otherwise: none. And floorspace and labor? It is, as they say, to laugh. If we want to diss Comcast, let us not descend to things they *are not* doing; there are plenty of dissable things they *are* doing. Cheers, -- jr 'credibility: it matters' a -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink j...@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Your reading comprehension could use some work: The latest device (called an XB3, see http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/the-technology-behind-the-industrys-fastest-wireless-gateway) does have multiple radios Regards, SG On 12/11/2014 3:19 PM, Ricky Beam wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 16:41:24 -0500, Livingood, Jason jason_living...@cable.comcast.com wrote: ...But 2.4GHz was a bit of a mess before we came along with this service. So, knowing the house is on fire, you bring a can of gas to put it out. You aren't f'ing helping. Of course, since Comcast didn't spring for separate radios, it'll be riding what ever channel the customer's WiFi is using. Thus, interfering with *their* use of WiFi.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
- Original Message - From: Owen DeLong o...@delong.com Does an 802.11 transmitter that was already being used to support their own WiFi network that they are paying for really consume vastly more electricity to support a second SSID? In my experience, that claim is hard to fathom. If popular, the radio might have a higher transmit duty cycle, but as I suggest in another post, maybe watthours per month. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink j...@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 3:50 PM, Doug Barton do...@dougbarton.us wrote: My concerns are that apparently customers are not informed about the thing before it gets enabled, and the issue of wifi density that was raised by several people here. If you have an apartment building for example, where a significant majority of the tenants are Comcast customers (cuz in 'murica we loves us some monopolies) I see a lot of strong xfinity signals stomping on an already crowded 2.4 G spectrum. So just to be clear, I'm not being critical at this point, I'm simply interested in separating the facts from the hype. Here is an additional data point that can hopefully satisfy your curiosity. TL;DR: In my experience, Comcast appeared to hide the fact that they are running this new wifi service by using my device, and they pushed the idea of upgrading my router by saying it would improve uplink speeds (which may be true). IF you find out that the XFINITY wifi service will be running on your device, then it is not hard to disable it. I received an email from Comcast that they were offering a free upgraded wifi router for my home. Here is a snippet from the email: At Comcast, we're constantly improving our Internet network. For you, that means access to faster in-home WiFi speeds, more bandwidth, and more coverage for your whole home. With all of these technology advancements, devices need to be upgraded in order to fully maximize our service offerings. Recently, we increased the speeds of some of our popular Internet tiers at no additional cost to you. Our records indicate that your cable modem needs to be upgraded in order to ensure you're getting the most out of your XFINITY® Internet service. To ensure you're receiving the full benefits included with your service, we want to replace your existing modem with a Wireless Gateway free of charge. The rest of the email is instructions and contact information for customer service. I didn't really pay attention to much else (e.g. separate emails or marketing campaigns), but why not mention that by installing this new device, I would be enabling the XFINITY wifi service in this email? At the time, I kept wondering what the real incentive was for Comcast to send me anything for free. The first step of the provided instructions in the email was a link, which I assumed would walk me through some steps to sign up. I think that brought be to a login screen, so I logged in. As soon as I did that, I was notified that my new device was on its way. All I really wanted was more information, so this annoyed me quite a bit. After I received the device, I decided to give it a try. Before I did, I researched a bit online and figured out that they were planning on offering the XFINITY wifi service from my device. The management interface for the device is a bit limited. It was annoying enough that I *wanted* to go back to my old setup, but it was not annoying enough for me to actually jump through the hoops I'd have to go through to actually carry that out. I agree that the XFINITY wifi service in it of itself is not a bad thing, but I personally didn't want to run it on my device. I agree with folks saying it is easy to opt out. Instructions for disabling the public connection were easy to find and simple to perform. I am comfortable with my current situation, but the whole process left me with a distrust of clicking any link that Comcast provides me in the future when the email says ACTION REQUIRED in the subject. As a consumer, I personally felt that I had been misled, but I was glad that the opt-out process was simple. -- Tim Upthegrove
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
In message ximss-380...@mail.ropeguru.com, Robert Webb writes: Many read, but what choice do they have. In many cases Comcast is the only game in town and it is either agree, or have no real internet access at all. I am one that has opposed the auto opt-in of this setup. The main reason is that Comcast wants up to foot the bill for power A couple of cents a year on top of what you are paying to run the WiFi modem for yourself. and space for their benefit. What space? It is the WiFi modem you are already using. Unless it requires a seperate external aerial I don't see any extra space. Even if it does require a seperate external aerial it is highly unlikely that you would be using the space the aerial occupies anyway. While, yes, it is very minimal, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. By that I mean why shouldn't we be able to nickel and dime them like they do to us. We pay for internet access and they want to charge us for access AND to lease equipment. Yeah, sure, if you are a residential user or a business class user without a static ip, then you can go out and purchase your own device. But if you have BCI with static IP's then you are screwed. I have the 50/10 BCI with 5 static IP's and then I have to pay an additional $12.95 per month just for the crappy SMC device. If I remember correctly, residential pays $8.95 per month. Equipment should be included in the cost of the service, and always was in the past. But yet, Comcast has decided to nickel and dime us to death for everything, not just modem rentals. Robert On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 08:17:19 -0500 Scott Helms khe...@zcorum.com wrote: Not a law, it's in their updated terms and conditions that no one reads. On Dec 11, 2014 8:12 AM, William Herrin b...@herrin.us wrote: On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart jer...@mompl.net wrote: Whose fault would it be if your comcast installed public wifi would be abused to download illegal material or launch a botnet, to name some random fun one could have on your behalf. :-/ Doesn't work that way. Separate authenticated channel. Presents differently from you with a different IP address out on the Internet. What Comcast is stealing is electricity. Pennies per customer times a boatload of customers. theft n. the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use (including potential sale). In many states, if the value of the property taken is low (for example, less than $500) the crime is petty theft, Unless of course the knucklehead jurisdiction passed a law to allow it. I'm betting they didn't. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems . Web: http://www.dirtside.com/ May I solve your unusual networking challenges? -- Mark Andrews, ISC 1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742 INTERNET: ma...@isc.org
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/14, 5:19 PM, Ricky Beam jfb...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 16:41:24 -0500, Livingood, Jason jason_living...@cable.comcast.com wrote: ...But 2.4GHz was a bit of a mess before we came along with this service. So, knowing the house is on fire, you bring a can of gas to put it out. You aren't f'ing helping. I think that¹s a bit overblown but respect your opinion. But as you know a massive amount of consumer electronics and whatnot if WiFi-enabled. By this logic they are all dumping gas on the fire as well. Jason
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 14-12-11 16:37, Tim Upthegrove wrote: At the time, I kept wondering what the real incentive was for Comcast to send me anything for free. It pays to move customer with old DOCSIS-2 modems to DOCSIS 3 ones as they will even out usage on multiple channels instead of congesting the one channel used by DOCSIS-2 modems. Similarly, **if** a cableco has moved to 8 channel DOCSIS on the coax, it may cost less to send new 8 channel capable modems to customers compared to all the node splits they would need due to congestion on the 4 channels. OR It may have just been marketing to deploy that Xfinity wi-fi thing, thinking it would be seen as a marketing advantage for Comcast instead of the marketing liability it has become.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 17:26:37 -0500, Josh Luthman j...@imaginenetworksllc.com wrote: Not correct. If it's on one radio it's using the same RF space it was before, just with a virtual SSID. Just like the atheros or Ruckus stuff it's the same RF space with an additional BSSID bridged to a different software bridge or pseudo interface. It's an either/or... they have their own radio, thus adding to an already congested RF arena, or they ride the same channel as the customer, thus consuming (degrading) their wifi bandwidth. (bring an 802.11b device to the part if you want to see just how ugly that can get.)
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 14-12-11 17:44, Mark Andrews wrote: What space? It is the WiFi modem you are already using. Unless it requires a seperate external aerial I don't see any extra space. Matter of principle. Comcast are using space/power/shelter in your home to create a service which they market for their own benefit. ATM companies have to pay rent to place a standalone ATM in a convenience store or shopping mall. Now, had Comcast pitched it as the Wi-Fi benefiting YOU because your freinds you use their Comcast credentials to access your Wi-Fi, then customers would not see this as Comcast using your hardware for its own benefit. But pitching the service as allowing strangers on the street to use your router has huge perception problem, even if the hardware implementation doesn't really impact you. Consider how differently the service would be perceived if: Comcast had announced you get $3.00 rebate per month to enable Xfinity on your account. An opt-in with financial incentive would have had far greater success and positive media than what they are getting now.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/2014 2:46 PM, Livingood, Jason wrote: On 12/11/14, 5:19 PM, Ricky Beam jfb...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 16:41:24 -0500, Livingood, Jason jason_living...@cable.comcast.com wrote: ...But 2.4GHz was a bit of a mess before we came along with this service. So, knowing the house is on fire, you bring a can of gas to put it out. You aren't f'ing helping. I think that¹s a bit overblown but respect your opinion. But as you know a massive amount of consumer electronics and whatnot if WiFi-enabled. By this logic they are all dumping gas on the fire as well. Jason I think it's pretty obvious that 2.4Ghz is becoming the new 900Mhz - a place you don't want to be. 5Ghz, here we come! -- Jeff Shultz
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 17:08:51 -0500, Livingood, Jason jason_living...@cable.comcast.com wrote: ... Behavioral economics would suggest that opt-in rates are almost always lower than opt-out. There's two ways to look at it: a) Everyone knows about it. Few would bother to opt-in, many would bother to opt-out. b) Few (no one) knows about it. Few will (can) opt-in to service they aren't aware of. Likewise, how does one opt-out if they don't know about it. (FTR, the last one is what's going on here. It's relatively unknown, and many are apparently opting out as soon as they a) hear about it, and b) learn *how* to opt-out. But, yes, there are those too lazy to bother.) This is definitely specialized software logic and on the frontier of work called radio resource management. Not really. It's just a simple scan of the channels looking for any xfinity wifi *BEFORE* blindly enabling the service. Yes, it's more work than the built-into-the-chipset automatic channel selection. But if the service has it's own radio, it's lame not to do this.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 17:32:06 -0500, Spencer Gaw spenc...@frii.net wrote: Your reading comprehension could use some work: That was post *AFTER* my comment. And it doesn't say the xfinity service is running on its own dedicated radio, just that it has more than one radio in it -- which it would having ac (5ghz only) and b/g/n capability.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
In message 548a2240.7090...@vaxination.ca, Jean-Francois Mezei writes: On 14-12-11 17:44, Mark Andrews wrote: What space? It is the WiFi modem you are already using. Unless it requires a seperate external aerial I don't see any extra space. Matter of principle. Comcast are using space/power/shelter in your home to create a service which they market for their own benefit. ATM companies have to pay rent to place a standalone ATM in a convenience store or shopping mall. This is not a standalone device. This is a virtual device which you control whether it is on or off. Now, had Comcast pitched it as the Wi-Fi benefiting YOU because your freinds you use their Comcast credentials to access your Wi-Fi, then customers would not see this as Comcast using your hardware for its own benefit. They do. Your friends don't even need to be Comcast customers. That said allowing the home owner to remove the time limits for their guests would make this similar to the home owner having a Guest SSID. But pitching the service as allowing strangers on the street to use your router has huge perception problem, even if the hardware implementation doesn't really impact you. Consider how differently the service would be perceived if: Comcast had announced you get $3.00 rebate per month to enable Xfinity on your account. An opt-in with financial incentive would have had far greater success and positive media than what they are getting now. -- Mark Andrews, ISC 1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742 INTERNET: ma...@isc.org
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 17:46:24 -0500, Livingood, Jason jason_living...@cable.comcast.com wrote: By this logic they are all dumping gas on the fire as well. I'm not denying it's a big fire. But adding additional 2.4Ghz radios Is. Not. Helping. Because everything else is is not a reason for one of the largest companies in the country to be so self-serving. (Of course, *everyone* expects this sort of behavior from cableco's -- and telcos.)
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
- Original Message - From: Mark Andrews ma...@isc.org Now, had Comcast pitched it as the Wi-Fi benefiting YOU because your freinds you use their Comcast credentials to access your Wi-Fi, then customers would not see this as Comcast using your hardware for its own benefit. They do. Your friends don't even need to be Comcast customers. They do? They don't? That's not the assumption that's been being made here... Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink j...@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/2014 16:29, Jay Ashworth wrote: - Original Message - From: Larry Sheldon larryshel...@cox.net On 12/11/2014 07:10, William Herrin wrote: What Comcast is stealing is electricity. Pennies per customer times a boatload of customers. .and floorspace, physical security, air conditioning, and all sorts of labor overheads. Nope; at that stage, Larry, you're makin it up. In the particular case we're talking about here, Comcast -- who are not my favorite people by any means -- have *enabled a feature built into the terminal device they're provisioning*. It *might* increase the overall power consumption of that device by as much as 5-10 Wh/*month*. The increase in A/C won't register on the chart. Physical security is no different than it was otherwise: none. And floorspace and labor? It is, as they say, to laugh. If we want to diss Comcast, let us not descend to things they *are not* doing; there are plenty of dissable things they *are* doing. Do me a favor and re-write your message from the standpoint of what the provider would have to pay for if they were not extorting the customers. You don't need to respond unless that changes your thinking. -- The unique Characteristics of System Administrators: The fact that they are infallible; and, The fact that they learn from their mistakes. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
In message 19950282.2897.1418340650252.javamail.r...@benjamin.baylink.com, Ja y Ashworth writes: Now, had Comcast pitched it as the Wi-Fi benefiting YOU because your freinds you use their Comcast credentials to access your Wi-Fi, then customers would not see this as Comcast using your hardware for its own benefit. They do. Your friends don't even need to be Comcast customers. They do? They don't? That's not the assumption that's been being made here... Read the FAQ link posted earlier. This was also posted on /. where non customers were using the service in the middle of nowhere. -- Mark Andrews, ISC 1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742 INTERNET: ma...@isc.org
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Perhaps we should balance that against what a subscriber might pay for bandwidth while away from home, especially in Europe. On Dec 11, 2014 6:35 PM, Larry Sheldon larryshel...@cox.net wrote: On 12/11/2014 16:29, Jay Ashworth wrote: - Original Message - From: Larry Sheldon larryshel...@cox.net On 12/11/2014 07:10, William Herrin wrote: What Comcast is stealing is electricity. Pennies per customer times a boatload of customers. .and floorspace, physical security, air conditioning, and all sorts of labor overheads. Nope; at that stage, Larry, you're makin it up. In the particular case we're talking about here, Comcast -- who are not my favorite people by any means -- have *enabled a feature built into the terminal device they're provisioning*. It *might* increase the overall power consumption of that device by as much as 5-10 Wh/*month*. The increase in A/C won't register on the chart. Physical security is no different than it was otherwise: none. And floorspace and labor? It is, as they say, to laugh. If we want to diss Comcast, let us not descend to things they *are not* doing; there are plenty of dissable things they *are* doing. Do me a favor and re-write your message from the standpoint of what the provider would have to pay for if they were not extorting the customers. You don't need to respond unless that changes your thinking. -- The unique Characteristics of System Administrators: The fact that they are infallible; and, The fact that they learn from their mistakes. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 10/12/14 18:41, Charles Mills wrote: In the US at least you have to authenticate with your Comcast credentials and not like a traditional open wifi where you can just make up an email and accept the terms of service. I also understand that it is a different IP than the subscriber. Based on this the subscriber should be protected from anyone doing anything illegal and causing the SWAT team to pay a visit. I haven't upgraded my gear though. Now..they are doing this on your electric bill and taking up space (albeit a small amount of it) in your home. Even if that weren't the problem, using third-party premises to host services without authorization is illegal (or should be). Also, using installed devices for purposes other than the receiving the service. Best regards.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/14, 4:37 PM, Tim Upthegrove tim.upthegr...@gmail.com wrote: I received an email from Comcast that they were offering a free upgraded wifi router for my home. Yes, since the main service tier doubled from 25 Mbps to 50 Mbps (some went to 105 Mbps) that means DOCSIS 2.0 devices were no longer up to the task. If you got an email like that you had a D2.0 device and needed a D3.0 device. A side benefit is the device either now or very soon supports native dual stack. Jason
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
This thread is out of control... I will attempt to summarize the salient points in hopes we can stop arguing about inaccurate minutiae. I don't like the way Comcast went about doing what they are doing, but I do like the general idea... Reasonably ubiquitous free WiFi for your subscribers when they are away from their home location is not a bad idea. The way Comcast has gone about it is a bit underhanded and sneaky. The flaws in their plan are not technical, they are ethical and communication-oriented in nature. To wit: There's nothing wrong with Comcast adding a separate SSID with dedicated upstream bandwidth on a WAP I rent from them[1]. There's no theft of power, as the amount of additional power used is imperceptible, if any. There's no theft of space, climate control, or other overhead as this is performed by existing CPE. There's probably no legal liability being transferred by this to the subscriber. In short, the only thing really truly wrong with this scenario is that Comcast is using equipment that the subscriber should have exclusive control over (they are renting it, so while Comcast retains ownership, they have relinquished most rights of control to the tenant) how the device is used. As I see it, there are a couple of ways Comcast could have made this an entirely voluntary (opt-in) program and communicated it to their customers positively and achieved a high compliance rate. Unfortunately, in an action worthy of their title as America's worst company, instead of positively communicating with their customers and seeking cooperation and permission to build out something cool for everyone, they instead simply inflicted this service on chosen subscribers without notice, warning, or permission. In short, Comcast's biggest real failure here is the failure to ask permission from the subscriber before doing this on equipment the subscriber should control. Arguing that some obscure phrase in updated ToS documents that nobody ever reads permits this may keep Comcast from losing a law suit (though I hope not), but it certainly won't improve their standing in the court of public opinion. OTOH, Comcast seems to consider the court of public opinion mostly irrelevant or they would be trying to find ways not to retain their title as America's worst company. I will say that my reaction to this, if Comcast had done it to me would be quite different depending on how it was executed... Scenario A: Positive outcome CC Mr. DeLong, we would like to replace your existing cablemodem with a DOCSIS 3.0 unit and give you faster service for free. However, the catch is that we want to put up an additional 2.4Ghz WiFi SSID on the WAP built into the modem that will use separate cable channels (i.e. won't affect your bandwidth) that our other subscribers can use once they authenticate when they are in range. Would you mind if we did that? ME Well, since I currently own my modem, and it's already DOCSIS 3, I don't want to give up any of my existing functionality and I have no desire to start paying rental fees. If you can provide the new one without monthly fees and it will do everything my current one does (e.g. operating in transparent bridge mode), then I don't see any reason why not. Scenario B: Class Action? CC ME -- Discovers Xfinity WiFi SSID and wonders WTF is this? -- Tracks down source of SSID and discovers CC Modem in my garage is doing this. -- Calls Comcast WTF? CC blah blah blah, updated ToS, you agreed, blah blah ME Starts calling lawyers Unfortunately, it seems to me that Comcast (and apparently other Cable WiFi assn. members) have chosen Scenario B. Very unfortunate, considering how much easier and more productive scenario A could be. Owen
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/2014 17:42, Scott Helms wrote: Perhaps we should balance that against what a subscriber might pay for bandwidth while away from home, especially in Europe. Why would that interest me--I have no interest in traveling anywhere. -- The unique Characteristics of System Administrators: The fact that they are infallible; and, The fact that they learn from their mistakes. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Your chances of traveling somewhere ate probably several orders of magnitude higher than Comcast being interested in paid hosting in your house :) On Dec 11, 2014 6:53 PM, Larry Sheldon larryshel...@cox.net wrote: On 12/11/2014 17:42, Scott Helms wrote: Perhaps we should balance that against what a subscriber might pay for bandwidth while away from home, especially in Europe. Why would that interest me--I have no interest in traveling anywhere. -- The unique Characteristics of System Administrators: The fact that they are infallible; and, The fact that they learn from their mistakes. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 12/11/14, 3:58 PM, Jay Ashworth j...@baylink.com wrote: Alas, I cannot accept George's assertion WG] well, perhaps you can accept Wes's assertion instead. ;-) In residential areas (non-multi-unit), this is only going to help out *Comcast subscribers*. If you have random visitors over, it won't help them, as they can't get authed to the service. WG] Given an average Comcast service area, there is a nonzero chance that visitors are Comcast customers as well. Given that there are multiple such service areas, to the tune of 19M+ subs, this is true even if the visitors aren't local. The chances go up if the AP will accept roaming credentials from customers of other members of the Cable Wifi initiative (though I am not sure that this is the case on the resi APs). And it doesn't let you help your neighbors for the same reason: if they have their own creds for it, then they don't need your AP since they have one. WG] unless they're over visiting you and would like to use WiFi to avoid using metered (or slow, or both) mobile data, or your AP's signal happens to be stronger from that one corner of their house/yard than theirs, or theirs has had its magic smoke released, or... No, I'm having a hard time figuring out what the use case *is* for this service as deployed against *residential* hardware, myself... WG] it's a feature or additional service that can be offered to customers to use if they find it useful (or not if they don't), done with the capabilities of the existing hardware, so the bar for use case is pretty low. Wes (not) George Anything below this line has been added by my company’s mail server, I have no control over it. --- This E-mail and any of its attachments may contain Time Warner Cable proprietary information, which is privileged, confidential, or subject to copyright belonging to Time Warner Cable. This E-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient of this E-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, or action taken in relation to the contents of and attachments to this E-mail is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this E-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately and permanently delete the original and any copy of this E-mail and any printout.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 19:33:03 -0500, Owen DeLong o...@delong.com wrote: In short, the only thing really truly wrong with this scenario is that Comcast is using equipment that the subscriber should have exclusive control over (they are renting it, so while Comcast retains ownership, they have relinquished most rights of control to the tenant) how the device is used. Except every ISP (pretty much universally) thinks the modem/router is theirs and they can, therefore, do whatever they flippin' please with it. In some markets (not necessarily comcast), they lock down the router to the point the customer can't even access it; every single change has to go through them. (ATT Uverse... you can change anything you want, with sufficient access (i.e. telnet), but the mothership can (and will) undo your changes pretty much instantly -- apply triggers a CWMP event.)
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Seriously, I mean the availability of WiFi coming from your house clearly trumps trespassing laws. On Dec 11, 2014 8:16 PM, Matthew Kaufman matt...@matthew.at wrote: Lots of other good reasons to oppose this (Comcast customers parking in your driveway to get the service, etc.) What would you tell ATT if they installed a coin phone at every residential outside demarc? Matthew Kaufman (Sent from my iPhone) On Dec 11, 2014, at 4:33 PM, Owen DeLong o...@delong.com wrote: This thread is out of control... I will attempt to summarize the salient points in hopes we can stop arguing about inaccurate minutiae. I don't like the way Comcast went about doing what they are doing, but I do like the general idea... Reasonably ubiquitous free WiFi for your subscribers when they are away from their home location is not a bad idea. The way Comcast has gone about it is a bit underhanded and sneaky. The flaws in their plan are not technical, they are ethical and communication-oriented in nature. To wit: There's nothing wrong with Comcast adding a separate SSID with dedicated upstream bandwidth on a WAP I rent from them[1]. There's no theft of power, as the amount of additional power used is imperceptible, if any. There's no theft of space, climate control, or other overhead as this is performed by existing CPE. There's probably no legal liability being transferred by this to the subscriber. In short, the only thing really truly wrong with this scenario is that Comcast is using equipment that the subscriber should have exclusive control over (they are renting it, so while Comcast retains ownership, they have relinquished most rights of control to the tenant) how the device is used. As I see it, there are a couple of ways Comcast could have made this an entirely voluntary (opt-in) program and communicated it to their customers positively and achieved a high compliance rate. Unfortunately, in an action worthy of their title as America's worst company, instead of positively communicating with their customers and seeking cooperation and permission to build out something cool for everyone, they instead simply inflicted this service on chosen subscribers without notice, warning, or permission. In short, Comcast's biggest real failure here is the failure to ask permission from the subscriber before doing this on equipment the subscriber should control. Arguing that some obscure phrase in updated ToS documents that nobody ever reads permits this may keep Comcast from losing a law suit (though I hope not), but it certainly won't improve their standing in the court of public opinion. OTOH, Comcast seems to consider the court of public opinion mostly irrelevant or they would be trying to find ways not to retain their title as America's worst company. I will say that my reaction to this, if Comcast had done it to me would be quite different depending on how it was executed... Scenario A: Positive outcome CCMr. DeLong, we would like to replace your existing cablemodem with a DOCSIS 3.0 unit and give you faster service for free. However, the catch is that we want to put up an additional 2.4Ghz WiFi SSID on the WAP built into the modem that will use separate cable channels (i.e. won't affect your bandwidth) that our other subscribers can use once they authenticate when they are in range. Would you mind if we did that? MEWell, since I currently own my modem, and it's already DOCSIS 3, I don't want to give up any of my existing functionality and I have no desire to start paying rental fees. If you can provide the new one without monthly fees and it will do everything my current one does (e.g. operating in transparent bridge mode), then I don't see any reason why not. Scenario B: Class Action? CC ME-- Discovers Xfinity WiFi SSID and wonders WTF is this? -- Tracks down source of SSID and discovers CC Modem in my garage is doing this. -- Calls Comcast WTF? CCblah blah blah, updated ToS, you agreed, blah blah MEStarts calling lawyers Unfortunately, it seems to me that Comcast (and apparently other Cable WiFi assn. members) have chosen Scenario B. Very unfortunate, considering how much easier and more productive scenario A could be. Owen
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
In this case, they do own the modems. I am not aware of any case where they do this to customer owned gear. On Dec 11, 2014 8:41 PM, Ricky Beam jfb...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 19:33:03 -0500, Owen DeLong o...@delong.com wrote: In short, the only thing really truly wrong with this scenario is that Comcast is using equipment that the subscriber should have exclusive control over (they are renting it, so while Comcast retains ownership, they have relinquished most rights of control to the tenant) how the device is used. Except every ISP (pretty much universally) thinks the modem/router is theirs and they can, therefore, do whatever they flippin' please with it. In some markets (not necessarily comcast), they lock down the router to the point the customer can't even access it; every single change has to go through them. (ATT Uverse... you can change anything you want, with sufficient access (i.e. telnet), but the mothership can (and will) undo your changes pretty much instantly -- apply triggers a CWMP event.)
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Jason, I hope you are Livin' Good. On a serious note. What stops someone from going down to the center of town, launching a little wifi SSID named xfinitywifi and collecting your customers usernames and passwords? Also, don't you think there is something just morally wrong with the fact that your customers don't know they are providing a public access point out of their homes by just being comcast HSI customers? I am all for wifi everywhere, but this isn't the way to do it. http://i.imgur.com/R3xCpZO.png Pic is related, one of those access points isn't owned by Comcast. On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 7:32 PM, Livingood, Jason jason_living...@cable.comcast.com wrote: On 12/11/14, 4:37 PM, Tim Upthegrove tim.upthegr...@gmail.com wrote: I received an email from Comcast that they were offering a free upgraded wifi router for my home. Yes, since the main service tier doubled from 25 Mbps to 50 Mbps (some went to 105 Mbps) that means DOCSIS 2.0 devices were no longer up to the task. If you got an email like that you had a D2.0 device and needed a D3.0 device. A side benefit is the device either now or very soon supports native dual stack. Jason
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
In the US at least you have to authenticate with your Comcast credentials and not like a traditional open wifi where you can just make up an email and accept the terms of service. I also understand that it is a different IP than the subscriber. Based on this the subscriber should be protected from anyone doing anything illegal and causing the SWAT team to pay a visit. I haven't upgraded my gear though. Now..they are doing this on your electric bill and taking up space (albeit a small amount of it) in your home. Chuck On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart jer...@mompl.net wrote: Why am I not surprised? Whose fault would it be if your comcast installed public wifi would be abused to download illegal material or launch a botnet, to name some random fun one could have on your behalf. :-/ (apologies if this was posted already, couldn't find an email about it on the list) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/10/disgruntled_ customers_lob_sueball_at_comcast_over_public_wifi/ A mother and daughter are suing Comcast claiming the cable giant's router in their home was offering public Wi-Fi without their permission. Comcast-supplied routers broadcast an encrypted, private wireless network for people at home, plus a non-encrypted network called XfinityWiFi that can be used by nearby subscribers. So if you're passing by a fellow user's home, you can lock onto their public Wi-Fi, log in using your Comcast username and password, and use that home's bandwidth. However, Toyer Grear, 39, and daughter Joycelyn Harris – who live together in Alameda County, California – say they never gave Comcast permission to run a public network from their home cable connection. In a lawsuit [PDF] filed in the northern district of the golden state, the pair accuse the ISP of breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and two other laws. Grear – a paralegal – and her daughter claim the Xfinity hotspot is an unauthorized intrusion into their private home, places a vast burden on electricity bills, opens them up to attacks by hackers, and degrades their bandwidth. Comcast does not, however, obtain the customer's authorization prior to engaging in this use of the customer's equipment and internet service for public, non-household use, the suit claims. Indeed, without obtaining its customers' authorization for this additional use of their equipment and resources, over which the customer has no control, Comcast has externalized the costs of its national Wi-Fi network onto its customers. The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages for themselves and on behalf of all Comcast customers nation-wide in their class-action case – the service was rolled out to 20 million customers this year. -- Earthquake Magnitude: 4.8 Date: 2014-12-10 22:10:36.800 UTC Date Local: 2014-12-10 13:10:36 PST Location: 120km W of Panguna, Papua New Guinea Latitude: -6.265; Longitude: 154.4004 Depth: 35 km | e-quake.org
RE: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Jeroen, Not that I agree with this practice, I specifically got my own modem because of this (and to have it directly attached to a real router) , however they use a separate DOCSIS and 802.11 channel so if would follow that it would be a separate IP tied to comcast corporate and not the subscriber as well as not taking up your bandwidth. The bandwidth issue seems to be the only thing they can imagine people being worried about and when you complain its the only thing they talk about, making sure you know it wont take up any of your speed or quota.
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
On 10 December 2014 at 21:50, Mr Bugs b...@debmi.com wrote: however they use a separate DOCSIS and 802.11 channel so if would follow that it would be a separate IP tied to comcast corporate and not the subscriber as well as not taking up your bandwidth. IIRC there are only three non-overlapping channels on 802.11g and six on 802.11n; I can see more networks than that from my basement. I haven't been keeping up with the technology, but in the ancient of days wasn't the uplink side of DOCSIS also a limited-bandwidth, shared resource? -- Harald
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
Comcast is pushing DOCSIS 3.0 heavily, and the channel allocation and configuration in DOCSIS 3.0 is much more flexible, allowing speed configurations by bonding channels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS But the wifi, this is of course making an already crowded and noisy space much worse. I live in a high density area with people that have wifi, and its nearly useless. My devices that can be wired are, my 4G cell is often faster and more reliable than trying to go 2.4ghz 802.11* on the same cell phone. 5ghz is pretty empty, and I'm about to move to all Asus EA-N66 wifi network on 5ghz. I understand what Comcast is trying to do, but I think it should be an opt-in type of thing instead. On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 10:19 PM, Harald Koch c...@pobox.com wrote: On 10 December 2014 at 21:50, Mr Bugs b...@debmi.com wrote: however they use a separate DOCSIS and 802.11 channel so if would follow that it would be a separate IP tied to comcast corporate and not the subscriber as well as not taking up your bandwidth. IIRC there are only three non-overlapping channels on 802.11g and six on 802.11n; I can see more networks than that from my basement. I haven't been keeping up with the technology, but in the ancient of days wasn't the uplink side of DOCSIS also a limited-bandwidth, shared resource? -- Harald
RE: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
It won't overlap with the one you are using for yourself on the same device. DOCSIS has service flows with different priorities. I don't know if they are allocating specific channels for it or if it's just a different service flow, but either way it is a lower priority and should not cause contention with regular user traffic. Really it is just the power they seem to be complaining about. Phil -Original Message- From: Harald Koch c...@pobox.com Sent: 12/10/2014 10:21 PM To: Mr Bugs b...@debmi.com Cc: NANOG list nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house On 10 December 2014 at 21:50, Mr Bugs b...@debmi.com wrote: however they use a separate DOCSIS and 802.11 channel so if would follow that it would be a separate IP tied to comcast corporate and not the subscriber as well as not taking up your bandwidth. IIRC there are only three non-overlapping channels on 802.11g and six on 802.11n; I can see more networks than that from my basement. I haven't been keeping up with the technology, but in the ancient of days wasn't the uplink side of DOCSIS also a limited-bandwidth, shared resource? -- Harald
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
The technical aside, you could make it opt in and let people who opted in use the public network free, and charge people not signed up or not even Comcast customers for profit. This way it makes it feel more like building a community to the consumer rather than big biz pulling one over on the little guy. On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 10:55 PM, Phil Bedard bedard.p...@gmail.com wrote: It won't overlap with the one you are using for yourself on the same device. DOCSIS has service flows with different priorities. I don't know if they are allocating specific channels for it or if it's just a different service flow, but either way it is a lower priority and should not cause contention with regular user traffic. Really it is just the power they seem to be complaining about. Phil -- From: Harald Koch c...@pobox.com Sent: 12/10/2014 10:21 PM To: Mr Bugs b...@debmi.com Cc: NANOG list nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house On 10 December 2014 at 21:50, Mr Bugs b...@debmi.com wrote: however they use a separate DOCSIS and 802.11 channel so if would follow that it would be a separate IP tied to comcast corporate and not the subscriber as well as not taking up your bandwidth. IIRC there are only three non-overlapping channels on 802.11g and six on 802.11n; I can see more networks than that from my basement. I haven't been keeping up with the technology, but in the ancient of days wasn't the uplink side of DOCSIS also a limited-bandwidth, shared resource? -- Harald
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
In analyzing my neighbors who use comcast (I live in a townhouse and can see many access points) my biggest complaint is the the wifi pollution these comcast router/access-points cause. For each neighbor who has comcast HSI, expect to see 3 SSID with different mac showing up. There is the xfinity one, the customer one, and a blank one broadcasting with similar mac on the same channel. So even if you are just minding your business as a comcast customer watching netflix, someone who hooks into your comcast router can not only kill your wifi throughput but streaming content etc on the same channel, but also piss of your neighbors (me) because of the small channel space in the 2.4GHz range. The 2nd problem I have with this is that I'm pretty sure 99.8% of the people who have comcast and have their new routers have no clue they are paying for essentially running a public hotspot for comcast. Even if you still have to register or pay for it, it's available to the general public without these people knowing about it. On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart jer...@mompl.net wrote: Why am I not surprised? Whose fault would it be if your comcast installed public wifi would be abused to download illegal material or launch a botnet, to name some random fun one could have on your behalf. :-/ (apologies if this was posted already, couldn't find an email about it on the list) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/10/disgruntled_ customers_lob_sueball_at_comcast_over_public_wifi/ A mother and daughter are suing Comcast claiming the cable giant's router in their home was offering public Wi-Fi without their permission. Comcast-supplied routers broadcast an encrypted, private wireless network for people at home, plus a non-encrypted network called XfinityWiFi that can be used by nearby subscribers. So if you're passing by a fellow user's home, you can lock onto their public Wi-Fi, log in using your Comcast username and password, and use that home's bandwidth. However, Toyer Grear, 39, and daughter Joycelyn Harris – who live together in Alameda County, California – say they never gave Comcast permission to run a public network from their home cable connection. In a lawsuit [PDF] filed in the northern district of the golden state, the pair accuse the ISP of breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and two other laws. Grear – a paralegal – and her daughter claim the Xfinity hotspot is an unauthorized intrusion into their private home, places a vast burden on electricity bills, opens them up to attacks by hackers, and degrades their bandwidth. Comcast does not, however, obtain the customer's authorization prior to engaging in this use of the customer's equipment and internet service for public, non-household use, the suit claims. Indeed, without obtaining its customers' authorization for this additional use of their equipment and resources, over which the customer has no control, Comcast has externalized the costs of its national Wi-Fi network onto its customers. The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages for themselves and on behalf of all Comcast customers nation-wide in their class-action case – the service was rolled out to 20 million customers this year. -- Earthquake Magnitude: 4.8 Date: 2014-12-10 22:10:36.800 UTC Date Local: 2014-12-10 13:10:36 PST Location: 120km W of Panguna, Papua New Guinea Latitude: -6.265; Longitude: 154.4004 Depth: 35 km | e-quake.org
