On 12/10/14, 9:41 PM, "Charles Mills" <w3yni1@gmail.com<mailto:w3yni1@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

Have you ever met an intelligent, informed consumer? ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rebecca Kain (.)" <bkain1@ford.com> To: "Jason Livingood" <Jason_Livingood@cable.comcast.com>, "Charles Mills" <w3yni1@gmail.com>, "Jeroen van Aart" <jeroen@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-bounces@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" <w3yni1@gmail.com<mailto:w3yni1@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

K, thanks -----Original Message----- From: Livingood, Jason [mailto:Jason_Livingood@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 (.)" <bkain1@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

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.

On 12/11/14, 2:53 PM, "Doug Barton" <dougb@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

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

Seriously, I mean the availability of WiFi coming from your house clearly trumps trespassing laws. On Dec 11, 2014 8:16 PM, "Matthew Kaufman" <matthew@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 AT&T 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 <owen@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

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

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" <jfbeam@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 19:33:03 -0500, Owen DeLong <owen@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.

(AT&T 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.)

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

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.

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 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-nanog@peachfamily.net> wrote:

On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:24:10 -0500 Valdis.Kletnieks@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.

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-nanog@peachfamily.net> wrote:

On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:37:22 -0500 Scott Helms <khelms@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-nanog@peachfamily.net> wrote:

...

On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:24:10 -0500 Valdis.Kletnieks@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.

On 12/11/14, 9:37 AM, "Scott Helms" <khelms@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

----- Original Message -----

From: "Valdis Kletnieks" <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu>

On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 18:04:20 +0000, "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 jra@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

I think it's more than AC power issue....who 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.Kletnieks@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.

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.Kletnieks@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

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

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

On 12/11/14, 3:04 PM, "Rodney Joffe" <rjoffe@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

-----Original Message----- From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces@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 issue....who 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

----- Original Message -----

From: "Scott Helms" <khelms@zcorum.com>

On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 9:24 AM, <Valdis.Kletnieks@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 jra@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

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

Not a law, it's in their updated terms and conditions that no one reads. On Dec 11, 2014 8:12 AM, "William Herrin" <bill@herrin.us> wrote:

On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart <jeroen@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 ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> May I solve your unusual networking challenges?

In message <ximss-380907@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 <khelms@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" <bill@herrin.us> wrote:

...

On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart <jeroen@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 ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@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: marka@isc.org

In message <548A2240.7090504@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: marka@isc.org

In message <19950282.2897.1418340650252.JavaMail.root@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: marka@isc.org

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-... 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 <paradox@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."

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 <tshaw@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 <khelms@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-...

...

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 <paradox@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

...

...

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

...

...

...

Comcast-supplied routers broadcast an encrypted, private wireless

network

...

for people at home, plus a non-encrypted network called XfinityWiFi

voip permission. 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."

On 14-12-11 12:45, Livingood, Jason wrote:

Not really; separate bandwidth in the DOCSIS network is provisioned for this.

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 ? 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.

On 12/11/14, 1:43 PM, "Jean-Francois Mezei" <jfmezei_nanog@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.

----- Original Message -----

From: "Christopher Morrow" <morrowc.lists@gmail.com>

On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 2:11 PM, George, Wes <wesley.george@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 jra@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

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_Livingood@cable.comcast.com> wrote:

On 12/11/14, 3:58 PM, "Jay Ashworth" <jra@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

On 12/11/14, 3:58 PM, "Jay Ashworth" <jra@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.

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 <owen@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 <jeroen@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...

...

"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