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Aurornis • last Monday at 9:28 PM • 4 replies • view on HN

> The solution here shouldn't be technical; it should be legal.

The parent commenter was highlighting that law enforcement can compel them to provide the data.

The customer has to opt-in to WiFi motion sensing to have the data tracked. If you see something appear in an app, you should assume law enforcement can compel the company to provide that data. It's not really a surprise.

> If we rely on legal protection, then not only Comcast, but all ISPs will be prohibited from spying on their customers.

To be clear, the headline on HN is editorialized. The linked article is instructions for opting in to WiFi motion sensing and going through the setup and calibration. It's a feature they provide for customers to enable and use for themselves.

Replies

godelski • yesterday at 1:55 AM

  > The customer has to opt-in to WiFi motion sensing to have the data tracked.

  - Is this true if Law Enforcement gets a subpoena? 
  - Is this true if Law Enforcement asks "nicely"?
  - Can Xfinity activate it without the user knowing?
    - Does it explicitly notify the user when the setting has been changed? (e.g. done by LE, hacker, or an abusive partner)
  - Is this a promise and a promise that by default it will stay off?
  - Is the code to perform this feature pre-installed and able to be trivially (or even non-trivially) activated by hackers?
Idk, there's a lot of questionable things here and Xfinity doesn't have the best track record that gives me a lot of confidence that we should trust them. This seems like an easily abused system that can do a lot of harm while provides very little utility to the vast majority of people.
jonhohle • yesterday at 1:18 AM

“Please accept our new terms of service to continue using your internet connection”

Your honor, they clearly opted in to us spying on absolutely everything they do or think.

tehwebguy • last Monday at 10:42 PM

> The customer has to opt-in to WiFi motion sensing to have the data tracked.

Not for long, there’s money to be made by adding this to the cops’ customer lookup portal.

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pixl97 • yesterday at 2:26 AM

>opting in to

Yea, at least in the US you have almost zero consumer rights around this.

Once they find some marketing firm to sell the data to suddenly it will be come opt-out in a new update and most people will blindly hit agree without having a clue what it's about.