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Comment by ____tom____ | Hacker News Reader

They are likely going to have access. Lots of things have built in cellular modems these days, and your cable provider already uses your cable modem as a hotspot for other people.

You can do things like physically modifying your TV, or seeing if there are undocumented settings to disable things.

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It works both ways though.

The traffic was separated so that anything on the public hotspot was not attributed to the private subscriber network.

Secondly for years I lived somewhere very remote so that meant that hardly anyone ever got to use my broadband connection via such a hotspot, but I got to use hundreds of other peoples hotspots when I was somewhere less isolated.

I was quite happy to opt in to this system as I benefitted hugely from it.

> your cable provider already uses your cable modem as a hotspot for other people.

Is this for real? This does not affect me as I use my own equipment, but I still find it hard to believe.

Yes. Xfinity is the big one. Their devices create two hotspots: one for the customer and one to power their Xfinity WiFi service and for bandwidth offloading for their cellular service.

Instructions for disabling it: https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/disable-xfinity-wif...

I have to say though as a xfinity customer, being able to get wifi basically anywhere urban is pretty nice

Yea this almosts sounds like it could be a great idea with proper execution, nothing like this in the UK. Imagine if they were upfront and said "well knock a tenner (or whatever is reasonable in the US) if you allow your access point to be used as a hotspot"

> nothing like this in the UK.

It turns out there are several similar services offered in the UK by ISP's like O2, Sky, and BT¹ (recently rebranded as EE-WiFi²) who claim to be the UK's largest WiFi Hotspot Network. Perhaps that's due to it being opt-out on their routers since it was first introduced over a decade ago.

[¹]: https://info.btwifi.com/help/

[²]: https://ee-wifi.ee.co.uk/public/ee/index.htm

This is actually hotspot rollouts as far as I know though? You dont see BT/EE wifi networks everywhere, particularly not where you'd expect to see a concentration like residential streets / buildings with this kind of system, mainly see BT / O2 hotspots in public spaces like train stations + event spaces.

Tbf may just be less monopolisation of broadband making it more sparse, but they actually have a map of hotspots on that site which implies they are intentionally placed.

Major ISPs in the US have been doing it for at least a decade. Xfinity Wifi [1] claims over 20 million wifi hotspots provided through customer routers.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfinity#Xfinity_WiFi

Started years ago:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/comcasts-new-neighborh...

Yes. Cox has been doing it for years. They boast citywide hotspot access for all subscribers. I formerly thought that this hotspot network consisted of dedicated APs which they mount and maintain on utility poles in public places. But that’s just the start.

Every Cox customer has a Panoramic WiFi router that advertises as a member of the “CoxWiFi” SSID, and other customers can authenticate there and access the Internet through your connection. This is on a strictly opt-out basis.

I’ve opted-out, and also my router is permanently in Bridge Mode, so there is no technical way for me to provide anyone a WiFi connection. But all my neighbors do, even if they are blissfully unaware.

The best thing about fibre rollout in my region is that the ONT appears to act as the modem so I don't need to set the modem/router into bridge mode any more.

I'm sure that'll end.

Why?

Another reason to use your own Wifi router and modem

Absolutely. Independently of the unauthorized sharing of your bandwidth, ISP gateways are notoriously insecure and underspec'ed. They also have nasty backdoors[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-069

> hotspot for other people.

How does this work legally when you get in trouble for someone else's activity?

If its a hotspot you'll have to login to authenticate, so presumably the traffic is uniquely identifiable. I'd hope when LE contact ISP for details theyd be able to go oh that ip address is here but it was actually this persons traffic.

I'm fairly confident that ISPs do not log all customer traffic, especially for an indeterminate amount of time. There would not be enough storage on the planet available.

It's also usually not that hard to open the case and remove the physical antennas.

Is that why the cable companies are always trying to get me to use their equipment now?? God I hate this.

Plus the DNS spying even after disabling their safety stuff (impossible to change DNS on Comcast Xfinity-provided gateway). Still trying to get as good speeds with my own equipment.

What’s your equipment and what software does it run?

If it’s something on the shelf at Target, Walmart, you may remain disappointed.

Modem: Definitely closed-source junk. (Suppose all the cable modems will be closed.[1]) Ubiquiti UCI just a little spendy for current setup.

[1] thanks CableLabs https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10597927

Router: Something I have to upgrade, though trying for approx a full gig speeds at the modem first. Eying an OpenWrt-compatible one. Looks like the GL.iNet GL-MT6000 (Flint 2) comes with it preinstalled! ( https://www.gl-inet.com/en-us/products/gl-mt6000?country=US )

Edit: I see I'd have to flash the real Open-Wrt on the Flint 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42285923

I’ve heard great things about that model.

Buy with confidence.

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