date:20141211

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

> On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart  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: 
> May I solve your unusual networking challenges?
>

Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house

2014-12-11 Thread Ryan Pavely


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  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

2014-12-11 Thread TR Shaw

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  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  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

2014-12-11 Thread Valdis . Kletnieks

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


pgpt1IfwPiUAc.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house

2014-12-11 Thread John Peach

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

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  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  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  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,  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 
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

2014-12-11 Thread John Peach

On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:37:22 -0500
Scott Helms  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
>  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 
wrote:

> On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:37:22 -0500
> Scott Helms  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
> >  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

2014-12-11 Thread Bob Evans

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

2014-12-11 Thread Bacon Zombie

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"  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 
> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:37:22 -0500
> > Scott Helms  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
> > >  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

2014-12-11 Thread Valdis . Kletnieks

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: Got a call at 4am - RAID Gurus Please Read

2014-12-11 Thread Bacon Zombie

Are you running ZFS and RAIDZ on Linux or BSD?
On 10 Dec 2014 23:21, "Javier J"  wrote:

> I'm just going to chime in here since I recently had to deal with bit-rot
> affecting a 6TB linux raid5 setup using mdadm (6x 1TB disks)
>
> We couldn't rebuild because of 5 URE sectors on one of the other disks in
> the array after a power / ups issue rebooted our storage box.
>
> We are now using ZFS RAIDZ and the question I ask myself is, why wasn't I
> using ZFS years ago?
>
> +1 for ZFS and RAIDZ
>
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 8:40 AM, Rob Seastrom  wrote:
>
> >
> > The subject is drifting a bit but I'm going with the flow here:
> >
> > Seth Mos  writes:
> >
> > > Raid10 is the only valid raid format these days. With the disks as big
> > > as they get these days it's possible for silent corruption.
> >
> > How do you detect it?  A man with two watches is never sure what time it
> > is.
> >
> > Unless you have a filesystem that detects and corrects silent
> > corruption, you're still hosed, you just don't know it yet.  RAID10
> > between the disks in and of itself doesn't help.
> >
> > > And with 4TB+ disks that is a real thing.  Raid 6 is ok, if you accept
> > > rebuilds that take a week, literally. Although the rebuild rate on our
> > > 11 disk raid 6 SSD array (2TB) is less then a day.
> >
> > I did a rebuild on a RAIDZ2 vdev recently (made out of 4tb WD reds).
> > It took nowhere near a day let alone a week.  Theoretically takes 8-11
> > hours if the vdev is completely full, proportionately less if it's
> > not, and I was at about 2/3 in use.
> >
> > -r
> >
> >
>

Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house

2014-12-11 Thread Jeff Shultz

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: Got a call at 4am - RAID Gurus Please Read

2014-12-11 Thread Ryan Brooks

Zfs on BSD or a Solaris like OS


> On Dec 11, 2014, at 10:06 AM, Bacon Zombie  wrote:
> 
> Are you running ZFS and RAIDZ on Linux or BSD?
>> On 10 Dec 2014 23:21, "Javier J"  wrote:
>> 
>> I'm just going to chime in here since I recently had to deal with bit-rot
>> affecting a 6TB linux raid5 setup using mdadm (6x 1TB disks)
>> 
>> We couldn't rebuild because of 5 URE sectors on one of the other disks in
>> the array after a power / ups issue rebooted our storage box.
>> 
>> We are now using ZFS RAIDZ and the question I ask myself is, why wasn't I
>> using ZFS years ago?
>> 
>> +1 for ZFS and RAIDZ
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 8:40 AM, Rob Seastrom  wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> The subject is drifting a bit but I'm going with the flow here:
>>> 
>>> Seth Mos  writes:
>>> 
 Raid10 is the only valid raid format these days. With the disks as big
 as they get these days it's possible for silent corruption.
>>> 
>>> How do you detect it?  A man with two watches is never sure what time it
>>> is.
>>> 
>>> Unless you have a filesystem that detects and corrects silent
>>> corruption, you're still hosed, you just don't know it yet.  RAID10
>>> between the disks in and of itself doesn't help.
>>> 
 And with 4TB+ disks that is a real thing.  Raid 6 is ok, if you accept
 rebuilds that take a week, literally. Although the rebuild rate on our
 11 disk raid 6 SSD array (2TB) is less then a day.
>>> 
>>> I did a rebuild on a RAIDZ2 vdev recently (made out of 4tb WD reds).
>>> It took nowhere near a day let alone a week.  Theoretically takes 8-11
>>> hours if the vdev is completely full, proportionately less if it's
>>> not, and I was at about 2/3 in use.
>>> 
>>> -r
>>

Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house

On 12/10/14, 9:35 PM, "Jeroen van Aart"  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" 

> On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 9:24 AM,  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" 
mailto: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"  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"  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

2014-12-11 Thread Kain, Rebecca (.)

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" 
mailto: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" 
mailto: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.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

2014-12-11 Thread Valdis . Kletnieks

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

2014-12-11 Thread Michael O Holstein

>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

2014-12-11 Thread Mike Hammett

Have you ever met an intelligent, informed consumer? 




- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 
http://www.ics-il.com 

- Original Message -

From: "Rebecca Kain (.)"  
To: "Jason Livingood" , "Charles Mills" 
, "Jeroen van Aart"  
Cc: "NANOG list"  
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" 
mailto: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 (.)"  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

2014-12-11 Thread Kain, Rebecca (.)

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 (.)"  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 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.

Re: Got a call at 4am - RAID Gurus Please Read

2014-12-11 Thread Rob Seastrom

+1 on both.  Mostly SmartOS, some FreeNAS (which is FreeBSD underneath).

-r

Ryan Brooks  writes:

> Zfs on BSD or a Solaris like OS
>
>
>> On Dec 11, 2014, at 10:06 AM, Bacon Zombie  wrote:
>> 
>> Are you running ZFS and RAIDZ on Linux or BSD?
>>> On 10 Dec 2014 23:21, "Javier J"  wrote:
>>> 
>>> I'm just going to chime in here since I recently had to deal with bit-rot
>>> affecting a 6TB linux raid5 setup using mdadm (6x 1TB disks)
>>> 
>>> We couldn't rebuild because of 5 URE sectors on one of the other disks in
>>> the array after a power / ups issue rebooted our storage box.
>>> 
>>> We are now using ZFS RAIDZ and the question I ask myself is, why wasn't I
>>> using ZFS years ago?
>>> 
>>> +1 for ZFS and RAIDZ
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
 On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 8:40 AM, Rob Seastrom  wrote:

 The subject is drifting a bit but I'm going with the flow here:

 Seth Mos  writes:

> Raid10 is the only valid raid format these days. With the disks as big
> as they get these days it's possible for silent corruption.

 How do you detect it?  A man with two watches is never sure what time it
 is.

 Unless you have a filesystem that detects and corrects silent
 corruption, you're still hosed, you just don't know it yet.  RAID10
 between the disks in and of itself doesn't help.

> And with 4TB+ disks that is a real thing.  Raid 6 is ok, if you accept
> rebuilds that take a week, literally. Although the rebuild rate on our
> 11 disk raid 6 SSD array (2TB) is less then a day.

 I did a rebuild on a RAIDZ2 vdev recently (made out of 4tb WD reds).
 It took nowhere near a day let alone a week.  Theoretically takes 8-11
 hours if the vdev is completely full, proportionately less if it's
 not, and I was at about 2/3 in use.

 -r
>>>

Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house

On 12/11/14, 1:43 PM, "Jean-Francois Mezei" 
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

2014-12-11 Thread Randy Bush

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

2014-12-11 Thread George, Wes

On 12/11/14, 1:43 PM, "Jean-Francois Mezei" 
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

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have no control over it.
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Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house

2014-12-11 Thread Christopher Morrow

On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 2:11 PM, George, Wes  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

2014-12-11 Thread Doug Barton


On 12/11/14 10:16 AM, Livingood, Jason wrote:

On 12/11/14, 1:06 PM, "Kain, Rebecca (.)"  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

2014-12-11 Thread Rodney Joffe

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  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

2014-12-11 Thread Randy Bush

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: Got a call at 4am - RAID Gurus Please Read

2014-12-11 Thread Barry Shein


From: Randy Bush 
>> We are now using ZFS RAIDZ and the question I ask myself is, why
>> wasn't I using ZFS years ago?
>
>because it is not production on linux, which i have to use because
>freebsd does not have kvm/ganeti.  want zfs very very badly.  snif.

I keep reading zfs vs btrfs articles and...inconclusive.

My problem with both is I need quotas, both file and "inode", and both
are weaker than ext4 on that, zfs is very weak on this, you can only
sort of simulate them.

-- 
-Barry Shein

The World  | b...@theworld.com   | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD| Dial-Up: US, PR, Canada
Software Tool & Die| Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*

Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house

2014-12-11 Thread Doug Barton

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  wrote:


On 12/11/14 10:16 AM, Livingood, Jason wrote:
On 12/11/14, 1:06 PM, "Kain, Rebecca (.)"  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" 

> 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: Cisco AnyConnect speed woes!

2014-12-11 Thread James Michael Keller


On 12/09/2014 02:42 PM, Zachary McGibbon wrote:

I'm looking for some input on a situation that has been plaguing our new
AnyConnect VPN setup.  Any input would be valuable, we are at a loss for
what the problem is.

We recently upgraded our VPN from our old Cisco 3000 VPN concentrators
running PPTP and we are now running a pair of Cisco 5545x ASAs in an HA
active/standby pair.

The big issue we are having is that many of our users are complaining of
low speed when connected to the VPN.  We have done tons of troubleshooting
with Cisco TAC and we still haven't found the root of our problem.

Some tests we have done:

- We have tested changing MTU values
- We have tried all combinations of encryption methods (SSL, TLS, IPSec,
L2TP) with similar results
- We have switched our active/standby boxes
- We have tested on our spare 5545x box
- We connected our spare box directly to our ISP with another IP address
- We have whitelisted our VPN IP on our shaper (Cisco SCE8000) and our
IPS (HP Tipping Point)
- We have bypassed our Shaper and our IPS
- We made sure that traffic from the routers talking to our ASAs is
synchronous, OSPF was configured to load balance but this has been changed
by changing the costs on the links to the ASAs
- We have verified with our two ISPs that they are not doing any kind of
filtering or shaping
- We have noticed that in some instances that if a user is on a low
speed connection that their VPN speed gets cut by about 1/3.  This doesn't
seem normal that the VPN would use this much overhead
- We do not have the issue when connecting to VPN directly on our own
network, only connections from the Internet

If you have any ideas on what we could try net, please let me know!

- Zachary


What OS builds?   At one point the code had an 8 packet hard coded 
window per tcp flow, which capped ssl over tcp window size to about 
5mbps depending on RTT. Recent 8 branches raised this to something 
more reasonable that capped around 20 mbps.DTLS over udp and IPSEC 
tunnels did not have this issue.





--

-James

Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house

- Original Message -
> From: "Christopher Morrow" 

> On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 2:11 PM, George, Wes
>  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"  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

2014-12-11 Thread Tony Hain

> -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: Charging fee for BGP prefix per /24?!

2014-12-11 Thread Owen DeLong

> On Dec 10, 2014, at 23:11 , joel jaeggli  wrote:
> 
> On 12/10/14 7:45 PM, Justin M. Streiner wrote:
>> On Wed, 10 Dec 2014, Yucong Sun wrote:
>> 
>>> It is not the same thing though. In my case, they just say we want
>>> you to
>>> buy our IP, if you don't and want use you own Arin allocated IP blocks
>>> through bgp, then we got to charge you anyway!
>> 
>> Are they charging per /24 (assuming IPv4 here...), or per prefix?
>> 
>> If they are charging per /24, that seems like a great way to encourage
>> customers to find another provider.
>> 
>> If they are charging per prefix, that seems like an interesting way to
>> encourage customers to make sure they aggregate their BGP
>> advertisements as much as possible.
>> 
> ISPs in my experience have a fee schedule supported by a model which
> allows them to recover their expenses plus a nominal profit. If the
> model doesn't work, in the long run that is a problem that solves
> itself. At the right scale I have productive leverage against the profit
> side of that number and also what line items the expenses are lodged
> against. below that I'm a retail customer and I pick from the best
> options available to me.
>> jms
>> 
> 
> 

To me this sounds like they are trying to encourage their customers to accept 
IP addresses from them in order to bolster their utilization for purposes of 
hoarding addresses. I would expect that they will later reverse these 
"incentives" to attempt to reclaim the space in order to avoid having to go to 
the transfer market for more space.

I would consider such behavior highly unethical at best, but my sense of ethics 
may not be shared by all. I'm sure some of the Randians on this list will tell 
me that this is some proper and good way for the economy to work. Free market, 
blah blah.

Owen

Re: Cisco AnyConnect speed woes!

2014-12-11 Thread Roy Hirst


Confidently based on no knowledge at all -

*Roy Hirst* | 425-556-5773 | 425-324-0941 cell
XKL LLC | 12020 113th Ave NE, Suite 100 | Kirkland, WA 98034 | USA



- We have noticed that in some instances that if a user is on a low
speed connection that their VPN speed gets cut by about 1/3.  
This doesn't

seem normal that the VPN would use this much overhead
No, sure, but are you sure that congestion is not dropping a packet 
somewhere in the end-to-end? If you offend TCP it will likely cut the 
sender's packet transmit rate, even if the "possible" VPN rate is much 
higher.
- We do not have the issue when connecting to VPN directly on our 
own

network, only connections from the Internet
Internet would mean maybe a proxy or firewall then, with too-small 
buffers or an old-time TCP/IP stack? Just a thought.


If you have any ideas on what we could try net, please let me know!

- Zachary


What OS builds?   At one point the code had an 8 packet hard coded 
window per tcp flow, which capped ssl over tcp window size to about 
5mbps depending on RTT. Recent 8 branches raised this to something 
more reasonable that capped around 20 mbps.DTLS over udp and IPSEC 
tunnels did not have this issue.

UDP traffic does not have this problem but TCP does? Hmmm...










The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, 
confidential and protected from disclosure.
If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or 
copying is strictly prohibited.
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the sender at the above e-mail address.

Re: Charging fee for BGP prefix per /24?!

2014-12-11 Thread joel jaeggli

On 12/11/14 1:14 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
>> On Dec 10, 2014, at 23:11 , joel jaeggli  wrote:
>>
>> On 12/10/14 7:45 PM, Justin M. Streiner wrote:
>>> On Wed, 10 Dec 2014, Yucong Sun wrote:
>>>
 It is not the same thing though. In my case, they just say we want
 you to
 buy our IP, if you don't and want use you own Arin allocated IP blocks
 through bgp, then we got to charge you anyway!
>>> Are they charging per /24 (assuming IPv4 here...), or per prefix?
>>>
>>> If they are charging per /24, that seems like a great way to encourage
>>> customers to find another provider.
>>>
>>> If they are charging per prefix, that seems like an interesting way to
>>> encourage customers to make sure they aggregate their BGP
>>> advertisements as much as possible.
>>>
>> ISPs in my experience have a fee schedule supported by a model which
>> allows them to recover their expenses plus a nominal profit. If the
>> model doesn't work, in the long run that is a problem that solves
>> itself. At the right scale I have productive leverage against the profit
>> side of that number and also what line items the expenses are lodged
>> against. below that I'm a retail customer and I pick from the best
>> options available to me.
>>> jms
>>>
>>
> To me this sounds like they are trying to encourage their customers to accept 
> IP addresses from them in order to bolster their utilization for purposes of 
> hoarding addresses. I would expect that they will later reverse these 
> "incentives" to attempt to reclaim the space in order to avoid having to go 
> to the transfer market for more space.
>
> I would consider such behavior highly unethical at best, but my sense of 
> ethics may not be shared by all. I'm sure some of the Randians on this list 
> will tell me that this is some proper and good way for the economy to work. 
> Free market, blah blah.

I think it's a really good idea to not engage in business with people
whose behavior strikes you as bad.
>
>
> Owen
>
>




signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house

On 12/11/14, 3:04 PM, "Rodney Joffe"  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" 
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" 
mailto: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"  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

2014-12-11 Thread Grant Ridder

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"  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

2014-12-11 Thread Curtis L. Parish

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

2014-12-11 Thread Owen DeLong

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  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: Got a call at 4am - RAID Gurus Please Read

2014-12-11 Thread Rob Seastrom

Barry Shein  writes:

> From: Randy Bush 
>>> We are now using ZFS RAIDZ and the question I ask myself is, why
>>> wasn't I using ZFS years ago?
>>
>>because it is not production on linux, which i have to use because
>>freebsd does not have kvm/ganeti.  want zfs very very badly.  snif.
>
> I keep reading zfs vs btrfs articles and...inconclusive.
>
> My problem with both is I need quotas, both file and "inode", and both
> are weaker than ext4 on that, zfs is very weak on this, you can only
> sort of simulate them.

By file, you mean "disk space used"?  By whom and where?  Quotas and
reservations on a per-dataset basis are pretty darned well supported
in ZFS.  As for inodes, well, since there isn't really such a thing as
an inode in ZFS...  what exactly are you trying to do here?

-r

Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house

2014-12-11 Thread Josh Luthman

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  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  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"
mailto: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 Formichella,
Director, Home Network Product Development, Comcast Cable in
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
802.11ac Wi-Fi technology, a high
power 3x3MIMO 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
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
EIRP
helps to provide better range and throughput compared to other Wireless
Gateways.

Performance Tuning

Our gateways are tested at Allion Engineering Services,
a 3rd party Wi-Fi certification facility, as well as in our partners’ labs to
constantly evaluate and improve the Gateway’s performance. 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
Plan, 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 Cisco and Qualcomm
Atheros 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
rates. Also featured
in the 3941T, which the previous Wireless Gateway 2 did not have, is a higher
power Atom based 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

2014-12-11 Thread Jeroen Massar

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

Private ASNs in the wild

2014-12-11 Thread Jason Lixfeld

I just fat fingered a regex that was intented to show how many private ASNs 
we’re using on our network for various things.  The results of the fat fingers 
showed that there are an astronomical number of private ASNs in the wild.  I 
checked the CIDR report, and those ASNs are shown there in a specific Bogon ASN 
report, but I’m surprised that as far as I can recall, there haven’t been any 
efforts made by the good netizens around these parts to bring awareness to this 
issue.

Do we feel that it’s not that big of a deal?  Have we not really been paying 
attention?  Some other reason this seems to be a rather muted topic?

Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house

On 12/11/14, 4:45 PM, "Jean-Francois Mezei" 
mailto: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

2014-12-11 Thread Robert Webb

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  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"  wrote:

On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart  
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: 
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  
 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

2014-12-11 Thread Josh Luthman

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  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" 

> 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

2014-12-11 Thread Spencer Gaw


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 
 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" 

> 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

2014-12-11 Thread Tim Upthegrove

On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 3:50 PM, Doug Barton  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

2014-12-11 Thread Mark Andrews


In message , "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  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"  wrote:
> > 
> >> On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:35 PM, Jeroen van Aart  
> >>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: 
> >> 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"  wrote:

>On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 16:41:24 -0500, Livingood, Jason
> 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  
 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: Private ASNs in the wild

2014-12-11 Thread ML

I had resurrected a similar thread last year: 
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/nanog/users/123155


There are sloppy networks out there.  If it was a big enough problem all 
you'd need is a few key networks drop those prefixes and we'd have 
a...slightly less sloppy Internet?



On 12/11/2014 5:08 PM, Jason Lixfeld wrote:

I just fat fingered a regex that was intented to show how many private ASNs 
we’re using on our network for various things.  The results of the fat fingers 
showed that there are an astronomical number of private ASNs in the wild.  I 
checked the CIDR report, and those ASNs are shown there in a specific Bogon ASN 
report, but I’m surprised that as far as I can recall, there haven’t been any 
efforts made by the good netizens around these parts to bring awareness to this 
issue.

Do we feel that it’s not that big of a deal?  Have we not really been paying 
attention?  Some other reason this seems to be a rather muted topic?

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

2014-12-11 Thread Jeff Shultz




On 12/11/2014 2:46 PM, Livingood, Jason wrote:

On 12/11/14, 5:19 PM, "Ricky Beam"  wrote:



On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 16:41:24 -0500, Livingood, Jason
 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  
 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  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

2014-12-11 Thread Mark Andrews


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  
 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" 

> > 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" 



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

2014-12-11 Thread Mark Andrews


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"  wrote:

> On 12/11/2014 16:29, Jay Ashworth wrote:
>
>> - Original Message -
>>
>>> From: "Larry Sheldon" 
>>>
>>
>>  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

2014-12-11 Thread Octavio Alvarez

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"  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

2014-12-11 Thread Owen DeLong

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