this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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[–] kieron115@startrek.website 24 points 1 day ago

By default, WiFi Motion is set to detect even small amounts of movement in the motion-sensing areas, including motion caused by small pets.

holy shit lol

[–] cymor@midwest.social 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I remember when MIT had a paper on this around 2000

[–] Buske@lemmy.world 3 points 15 hours ago

The show continuum used it too.

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

fucking Batman

[–] Glitterbomb@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oh boy, I can't wait for this new wave of paranoid customers claiming their wifi is watching them. Thanks, comcast.

[–] possumparty@lemmy.blahaj.zone 29 points 1 day ago

Well, it very well can be used for exactly that.

[–] WhereGrapesMayRule@lemmy.world 153 points 2 days ago (22 children)

Get your own gateway. Don't rent theirs.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 46 points 2 days ago (2 children)

You can buy cable modems cheap, too. No reason to use their crap at all.

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 25 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (20 children)

"cheap" is a relative term.

Nobody should be buying a DOCSIS 3.0 modem these days. They are obsolete and for some reason still being sold.

A decent DOCSIS 3.1 modem is at least $200. A Next Gen like S34 is at least $220. At least at the big blue big box store. And then you have to get your own wifi.

(However, that big blue store also will give you a 15% discount on any networking purchase if you recycle an old network device...I traded in an old modem but you should be able to find a switch or router at a thrift store and still come out ahead)

It pays for itself pretty quick (by not paying rental fees), but that doesn't necessarily make it cheap.

I absolutely prefer using my own equipment, and do...but it's also worth mentioning that in many markets, Xfinity removed data caps if you have a rented modem.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 16 points 2 days ago (4 children)

If a DOCSIS 3.0 modem still can't be saturated by the tier of internet someone is paying for, what advantage would 3.1 have?

[–] kieron115@startrek.website 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

If your provider has implemented it (Comcast is the only one i know of in north america) then Active Queue Management is a huge quality of life improvement that you won't know you were missing unless you already had a router that implements queue management. https://www.cablelabs.com/blog/how-docsis-3-1-reduces-latency-with-active-queue-management

[–] unphazed@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah I recently switched from cable to fiber (finally available), and prior I was using an old as fuck modem/router that capped at 500Mbps. My internet at fastest was 380. I rarely transfer files over the network, so figured why bother? (I did have Gen1 Google Mesh though to cover dead spots). I had a bit of a shopping splurge when I got fiber. Nothing crazy, just an upgraded mesh and a switch (Why the fuck does Frontier provide an ONT with 8 ethernet ports but only one is active?)

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 day ago

Not buying another modem when the ISP quietly upgrades the CMTS and makes more speed available in your neighborhood.

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[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 47 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Well yeah. That’s what their tech does. And it’s why I have my ISP’s WiFi offering disabled and the antennas removed and run their router in bridged mode, hooked up to equipment I own that doesn’t call out to the Internet.

[–] possumparty@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Doesn't matter for me, my neighbors use all that shit. There's enough latent rf for them to triangulate literally everything happening nearby.

[–] happydoors@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I live in an apartment building. I wonder if this is useless tech with dozens of WiFi networks from my neighbors going

[–] possumparty@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If anything it's far more dangerous tech due to that. Let's say you live in 304; They know who lives in 303, 305, 203, 204, 205, 403, 404, 405, and the likelihood that your neighbors aren't as tech savvy and use ISP provided routers and modems means that they can use all of those sources to create a 3d image of you and your apartment with the proliferation of 2.4ghz and 5ghz to create a high resolution image that can track your lip movements and even your keystrokes on a computer. That basically just becomes a multi lens 3d camera recording at 5000 fps. The only way to avoid this is to faraday your entire apartment which ironically makes your signal much higher due to the deployment of countermeasures. The ol' "huh, interesting, what are they hiding?" approach.

[–] happydoors@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What the actual Batman fuckery is this. I hope you are wrong or nobody is that motivated to do such things. Either way, scary! Where’s my tin foil hat?

[–] possumparty@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I really fucking hope I'm just being paranoid, but this is absolutely possible given the already existing research. AI isn't going to launch nukes, it's just going to facilitate horrors beyond our wildest comprehension.

Edit: This article is from 9 years ago, before the current ai boom, we're fuckin' cooked. https://www.inc.com/joseph-steinberg/how-wifi-lets-people-read-your-lips-identity-you-and-read-your-writing.html

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 days ago

Faraday cage or bust.

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[–] kieron115@startrek.website 3 points 1 day ago

DOCIS 3.1 involves more than just speed. No point going over the speed limit if all the traffic lights are timed based on a certain speed. https://www.cablelabs.com/blog/how-docsis-3-1-reduces-latency-with-active-queue-management

[–] peteyestee@feddit.org 38 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Didn't read the article, but it's possible to get a 3d map with wifi. They can probably see you.

There is no privacy or security.

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 9 points 1 day ago

They don't need a 3D map, and the researchers who have rendered a 3D map need a lot of specialized software and resources.

Xfinity doesn't need that. They only need to know when people are online, what they're looking at, and who/how many people are watching TV, and if there's indication of pets in the house. That gives them an advertising gold mine of data.

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