Comcast wifi free for the masses on your dime

[Oh Shoot]

strange our old modem had a battery but when the power goes out we loose everything

 

What does battery level show inside modem? Even though indicator is supposed to blink when it's charging, mine only shows 78% at full charge, they do lose their moxie over time like most any rechargeable. And if yours is like mine, it wasn't new when they gave it to me 9 months ago.  And the phone number certainly wasn't, as I got my first telemarketing call within 5 minutes of hooking it up, and soon got some looking for previous owner who seemed to owe somebody some money.

 

That's when I turned off ringer. Noboby I know has the number.

 

- OS

[Oh Shoot]

police will go after you cause it happend on your network and there is no way to prove it was not you, untill they dont find anything

 

Oh, I dunno. Not sure how the MAC address and IP and whatnot shows with the public thing. Only know I can't see it. Probably pretty clear cut it's totally separate from your private network that's actually under your control.

 

- OS

Edited June 9, 2014 by Oh Shoot

[Oh Shoot]

Oh, I dunno. Not sure how the MAC address and IP and whatnot shows with the public thing. Only know I can't see it. Probably pretty clear cut it's totally separate from your private network that's actually under your control.

 

- OS

 

Here's a clue, of course I can see public IPs, duh.

 

My public IP right now on the public WIFI is: 50.153.xxx.x

 

My public IP on private WIFI or Ethernet connection is: 71.236.xxx.x

 

Big range difference.

 

- OS

Edited June 9, 2014 by Oh Shoot

[Sam1]

OS, it takes about 10 seconds to spoof a MAC address.  IP addresses are irrelevant on a private network because there is no substantial logging mechanism involved on those modem/routers (I hate to use the term modem with cable service because it's not actually a modem, it is a translational bridge).

 

As for external IP's, even if they are in a different range, they still are associated with the same router so having an IP for your network and one for the "public" side doesn't really do anything except provide two points of ID for a device on the network.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Sam1

[Oh Shoot]

.....

 

As for external IP's, even if they are in a different range, they still are associated with the same router so having an IP for your network and one for the "public" side doesn't really do anything except provide two points of ID for a device on the network.

 

So you're saying both IPs would point to same MAC address of the device, right?  Well, that's okay, I mean  the whole point of the legal thing is, that the traffic is indeed separate whether it's coming through same gateway or not, and provable that whatever access might be in question was NOT under YOUR control, right?

 

I mean if you are going to do something illegal online, the evidence is there in various ways whichever network you use whether it's kiddie porn or something that would grab the attention of Homeland Security, yes?

 

One way that I can see  that the public network could possibly be seen as "under your control", though, is to tell someone who's not a Comcast customer your un/ps so they can log in with it and then they do something illegal, maybe, just maybe you could be seen as abetting a crime, but that seems rather a stretch to me.

 

Actually, that last part is something I'd be likely to do for a guest, just because that's a super easy way to give them access but without them being able to get into my shared network of computers, either on purpose or accidentally to do anything bad. 'Course they could read your Comcast email for that identity on line I guess, if that were important to ya.

 

- OS

Edited June 9, 2014 by Oh Shoot

[JayC]

Depends on the type of account...  The Feds don't normally come in and snag everything when all they want is a log file...  unless they think the business in question is part of the criminal conspiracy....

 

I've worked with both federal, state and local authorities regarding computer evidence, I've never had them at anything that wasn't completely necessary that would cause any sort of business outage.

 

Of course, if the cops decide your router might have useful logs on it... I wouldn't expect them to be picky about what they take with them either.

 

[Sam1]

So you're saying both IPs would point to same MAC address of the device, right?  Well, that's okay, I mean  the whole point of the legal thing is, that the traffic is indeed separate whether it's coming through same gateway or not, and provable that whatever access might be in question was NOT under YOUR control, right?

 

I mean if you are going to do something illegal online, the evidence is there in various ways whichever network you use whether it's kiddie porn or something that would grab the attention of Homeland Security, yes?

 

Only way that I can see  that the public network could possibly be seen as "under your control", though, is to tell someone who's not a Comcast customer your un/ps so they can log in with it and then they do something illegal, maybe, just maybe you could be seen as abetting a crime, but that seems rather a stretch to me.

 

Actually, that last part is something I'd be likely to do for a guest, just because that's a super easy way to give them access but without them being able to get into my shared network of computers, either on purpose or accidentally to do anything bad.

 

- OS

 

The different IP's may point to the same mac or different mac, I'm not sure how those systems are programmed or built.  Either option is possible and both are common to see.  I wouldn't use their stuff anyways, you get a much better connection with those 8x4 modems as compared to their rental 4x4's (think they still use those primarily).  Like here is a test I just ran on our 50/10 connection (we pay for the 25mb plan but they double it to 50 now for everyone I believe) with an 8x4 device.  Sometimes it runs pretty close to 100mb downloads, but is running a bit slower now cause of the congestion

 

Edited June 9, 2014 by Sam1

[tnguy]

But MAYBE if designed correctly, a UPS specifically designed for the low power draw of a router and modem, could run longer. Dunno if that APC model fits the bill, or if it is just a re-branded low-power UPS, trying to get more sales with a specific advertised use. I usually have run my router on a small shoebox sized ups, because it is all by its lonely in another part of the house from the puters. Was tempted to get one of those home-router-specific UPS at best buy, but have so far resisted the temptation. Well, my initial temptation was when I wanted to exploit the NAS feature of my linksys router by attaching a big hard drive to it, and you would definitely want a UPS on the NAS. But then I discovered that the NAS features in my model of linksys router don't work worth a crap, though the router itself works fine for my uses.

 

One thing to consider is all that equipment is low power DC anyway, typically at or under 12V. If you can cut out the inverter stuff, you could doubtless get much more life out of a decent sized car battery.

 

Have you considered checking out DD-WRT or Tomato for your router? Some of those have the NAS stuff built in. Might work better than stock.

Edited June 10, 2014 by tnguy

[ironsniper1]

[URL=http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3554340738][/URL]

[DMark]

Interesting that the OOKLA Speedtest used a NC server for my Middle Tennessee location.

 

 

[JohnC]

The different IP's may point to the same mac or different mac, I'm not sure how those systems are programmed or built.  Either option is possible and both are common to see.  I wouldn't use their stuff anyways, you get a much better connection with those 8x4 modems as compared to their rental 4x4's (think they still use those primarily).  Like here is a test I just ran on our 50/10 connection (we pay for the 25mb plan but they double it to 50 now for everyone I believe) with an 8x4 device.  Sometimes it runs pretty close to 100mb downloads, but is running a bit slower now cause of the congestion
 

We have 3 desktops, 3 laptops and 3 iPhones online right now idling.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

One thing to consider is all that equipment is low power DC anyway, typically at or under 12V. If you can cut out the inverter stuff, you could doubtless get much more life out of a decent sized car battery.

 

Thanks, that is a good point re just using a small always-on smart charger and a deep cycle battery. A possible complication, or alternately I'm overthinking it-- Something on the order of 13.3 V is nominal full-charged car batt. It is doubtful that 13.3 volts (or whatever) would be too high a voltage for typical 12 V computer devices, as they have voltage regulators inside them. However, if the power goes out and the battery has run long enough to sag to 11 volts or lower-- Dunno how low the input voltage could sag and still keep happy a router or a hard drive enclosure? Also perhaps it needs some kind of auto-shutoff feature, because even a tiny constant load can damage a perfectly good battery if you drain it below a certain percentage.

 

What little I used to know is obsolete. Maybe the little gadgets use little active digital DC-DC converter regulators nowadays. By the year 2014 maybe such gadgets can boost-buck the DC power input? Dunno.

 

If the gadgets use old-style analog voltage regulators-- Those old analog regulators can't boost, and the inputs need a few volts "comfort level" above the regulated voltage output, in order to function properly. On the other hand, a decent inverter ought to deliver about the same "equivalent AC voltage" as the battery discharges, until it finally auto-shuts-down to protect the battery. I don't recall reading complaints that inverter output voltage will sag along with battery voltage, but maybe some do sag. Dunno.

 

Perhaps a long term direct 12 V DC backup for a router, would use a couple of 12 V batts in series or whatever. Deliver 24 (26.6) volts, and then build a little voltage regulator box between the battery and the router? Thataway the router or hard drives would get exactly 12 volts all the way down the battery discharge cycle?

 

In principle such a circuit ought to be simple and cheap to build. In practice, it might require more thought. Analog voltage regulators-- For instance 24 volts in, 12 volts out-- They heat up just like a resistor dropping current. To maximize efficiency and reduce heating, it is best to have the input voltage "just enough" higher than the output voltage to assure proper regulation. Excessive input voltage gets dumped as heat, which would waste battery power and also perhaps require something a little fancier than the simplest cheapest circuit. For instance, 24 volts in, 12 volts out, 100 ma draw-- The difference between 24 volts and 12 volts gets converted to heat like a power resistor dumping current. As best I recall watts = volts * amps, so the 12 volt drop across an analog regulator would generate at least 1.2 watts waste heat.

 

My seagate 4 TB external, the drive enclosure doesn't spec the current draw, but its little transformer is rated at 12 volts, 1.5 amps. If drawing 1.5 amps, the regulation waste heat would be 18 watts!! So a little 24 V to 12 V regulator might need building as a digital regulator of some kind, to avoid the regulator draining battery power as much or more than the gadgets?

 

 

Have you considered checking out DD-WRT or Tomato for your router? Some of those have the NAS stuff built in. Might work better than stock.

 

Maybe some day, but I've got purt stupid in my old age, and barely manage to program part time lately. Batting at geese with a rake!

[Guest Lester Weevils]

On OOKLA Speedtest, EPB Fiber Optics at my house, today about 3 pm--

 

Ping: 14 ms

Download: 94.06 Mbps

Upload: 94.43 Mbps

[Oh Shoot]

Right now I "only" get this with standard consumer Comcast service. Pretty sure I've seen it in the 70mb/s, but I don't ever check unless I think there might be a prob.

 

 

People say Comcast cheats on their test, but they're using Ookla also. I see it chose Nashville instead of Atlanta though, and it is a shorter ping for whatever that's worth:

 

 

- OS

Edited June 10, 2014 by Oh Shoot

[battleop]

"So what's to stop setting up an XFINITY ssid with a fake webpage redirect and harvesting Comcast credentials?"

Nothing. Setting up a honey pot is trivial and it's done often. I was talking to a group of executives not long ago about security and this was a reason to use your own MiFi/Teatheing and a VPN in stead of trusting public WiFi.

[tnguy]

Thanks, that is a good point re just using a small always-on smart charger and a deep cycle battery. A possible complication, or alternately I'm overthinking it-- Something on the order of 13.3 V is nominal full-charged car batt. It is doubtful that 13.3 volts (or whatever) would be too high a voltage for typical 12 V computer devices, as they have voltage regulators inside them. However, if the power goes out and the battery has run long enough to sag to 11 volts or lower-- Dunno how low the input voltage could sag and still keep happy a router or a hard drive enclosure? Also perhaps it needs some kind of auto-shutoff feature, because even a tiny constant load can damage a perfectly good battery if you drain it below a certain percentage.

 

What little I used to know is obsolete. Maybe the little gadgets use little active digital DC-DC converter regulators nowadays. By the year 2014 maybe such gadgets can boost-buck the DC power input? Dunno.

 

If the gadgets use old-style analog voltage regulators-- Those old analog regulators can't boost, and the inputs need a few volts "comfort level" above the regulated voltage output, in order to function properly. On the other hand, a decent inverter ought to deliver about the same "equivalent AC voltage" as the battery discharges, until it finally auto-shuts-down to protect the battery. I don't recall reading complaints that inverter output voltage will sag along with battery voltage, but maybe some do sag. Dunno.

 

Perhaps a long term direct 12 V DC backup for a router, would use a couple of 12 V batts in series or whatever. Deliver 24 (26.6) volts, and then build a little voltage regulator box between the battery and the router? Thataway the router or hard drives would get exactly 12 volts all the way down the battery discharge cycle?

 

In principle such a circuit ought to be simple and cheap to build. In practice, it might require more thought. Analog voltage regulators-- For instance 24 volts in, 12 volts out-- They heat up just like a resistor dropping current. To maximize efficiency and reduce heating, it is best to have the input voltage "just enough" higher than the output voltage to assure proper regulation. Excessive input voltage gets dumped as heat, which would waste battery power and also perhaps require something a little fancier than the simplest cheapest circuit. For instance, 24 volts in, 12 volts out, 100 ma draw-- The difference between 24 volts and 12 volts gets converted to heat like a power resistor dumping current. As best I recall watts = volts * amps, so the 12 volt drop across an analog regulator would generate at least 1.2 watts waste heat.

 

My seagate 4 TB external, the drive enclosure doesn't spec the current draw, but its little transformer is rated at 12 volts, 1.5 amps. If drawing 1.5 amps, the regulation waste heat would be 18 watts!! So a little 24 V to 12 V regulator might need building as a digital regulator of some kind, to avoid the regulator draining battery power as much or more than the gadgets?

 

 

Maybe some day, but I've got purt stupid in my old age, and barely manage to program part time lately. Batting at geese with a rake!

 

I think most stuff has DC regulators in them these days (Though I know my USB hub does not) so I probably wouldn't worry too much about over-voltage. You'd want to check but the common regulators have a very wide input range. Most (not all) stuff is 5V internally anyway even if the power supply is for more than that. The regulators are a bit smarter than just wasting the power to bring the voltage down too so waste heat should not be too much of a problem.

 

Issues as the battery voltage drops could be a concern but I would thing the equipment would just start to become flaky before failing to operate and I would not really expect damage (though it is possible). I wouldn't be too worried about potential damage to the battery as I would consider it to be for emergency use only and it would take a severe outage to bring it down enough to cause permanent damage and I'd just take that as collateral damage. A simple protection circuit would not be hard to construct however. They already have them for cars (I've been looking at them as one of my cars drains the battery over the course of a couple of weeks.)

 

Installing Tomato on my current router was pretty straightforward. It involved installing DD-WRT first but it was all menu driven and pretty straightforward with a little chicken sacrifice thrown in.

Edited June 11, 2014 by tnguy

[tnguy]

"So what's to stop setting up an XFINITY ssid with a fake webpage redirect and harvesting Comcast credentials?"

Nothing. Setting up a honey pot is trivial and it's done often. I was talking to a group of executives not long ago about security and this was a reason to use your own MiFi/Teatheing and a VPN in stead of trusting public WiFi.

 

I had it confirmed today that this uses a guardian webpage and not any kind of authentication on the wifi side of things so it's ripe for abuse.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Most (not all) stuff is 5V internally anyway even if the power supply is for more than that. The regulators are a bit smarter than just wasting the power to bring the voltage down too so waste heat should not be too much of a problem.

 

If all a gadget needs internally happens to be 5 V then probably not a problem with a single battery, even with analog voltage regulators. Ferinstance, the 7805 spec sheet claims that input voltage needs to be >= 7.5 V to maintain regulation. If a 12 volt battery has been drained down that low, then the poor battery might possibly have permanently gone to heaven for its just rewards. :)

 

I'm so out of date, dunno what folks use nowadays. Dunno the capability of cheap off the shelf new components.

 

Was thinking of the situation of building a regulator to knock down dual series batteries to 12 volts. I just recall with old analog regulators such as 78xx it was wise to avoid too much of a voltage drop. For instance, with 78xx, if you need 5 V and all ya got is 30 V, you better not need very many milliamps or that sucka gonna get hot!

[Sam1]

"So what's to stop setting up an XFINITY ssid with a fake webpage redirect and harvesting Comcast credentials?"

Nothing. Setting up a honey pot is trivial and it's done often. I was talking to a group of executives not long ago about security and this was a reason to use your own MiFi/Teatheing and a VPN in stead of trusting public WiFi.

 

what he is talking about is not a honey pot, that and phishing are not even remotely related.

[tnguy]

If all a gadget needs internally happens to be 5 V then probably not a problem with a single battery, even with analog voltage regulators. Ferinstance, the 7805 spec sheet claims that input voltage needs to be >= 7.5 V to maintain regulation. If a 12 volt battery has been drained down that low, then the poor battery might possibly have permanently gone to heaven for its just rewards. :)

 

I'm so out of date, dunno what folks use nowadays. Dunno the capability of cheap off the shelf new components.

 

Was thinking of the situation of building a regulator to knock down dual series batteries to 12 volts. I just recall with old analog regulators such as 78xx it was wise to avoid too much of a voltage drop. For instance, with 78xx, if you need 5 V and all ya got is 30 V, you better not need very many milliamps or that sucka gonna get hot!

 

I'd imagine you'd run across more than a few 7805's sure enough. Or equivalents (Those weird Chinese components with numbers it's impossible to find datasheets or, indeed, any information at all for). DC-DC is likely your best bet. One of these might get you a fair way or at least give you an idea what components to look for.

 

http://www.mini-box.com/DC-DC

 

Some are 6-34V and some are 12V in.

 

Edit: Promising? (Too low current I think)

 

http://www.linear.com/product/LT1173

 

Looks more likely:

 

http://www.dfrobot.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=504#.U5fQ0xVX-uY

 

Also, I half suspect this may be what is in those metal cans on that PSU

 

http://www.meanwell.com/search/dka30/dka30-spec.pdf

Edited June 11, 2014 by tnguy

[Sam1]

Perfect example of why you secure your wifi and don't let anyone use it no matter what - whether it be from that shared comcast network or from you just being nice.  This could've easily ended up in a shoot out if it happened to people on here.

 

& sure they ended up getting the guy thanks to some help from the FBI, but first they ransacked an innocent person's home and put themselves and the residents' lives at risk by doing so.  Oh and then the cops said, well we were "objectively reasonable" and they're not responsible for it.

 

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6e7_1407930108

[maroonandwhite]

[quote name="Sam1" post="1179306" timestamp="1407969634"]Perfect example of why you secure your wifi and don't let anyone use it no matter what - whether it be from that shared comcast network or from you just being nice. This could've easily ended up in a shoot out if it happened to people on here. & sure they ended up getting the guy thanks to some help from the FBI, but first they ransacked an innocent person's home and put themselves and the residents' lives at risk by doing so. Oh and then the cops said, well we were "objectively reasonable" and they're not responsible for it. [url="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6e7_1407930108"]http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6e7_1407930108[/url][/quote] Wow. Never thought of that.

[Fourtyfive]

Not happening here , I'm still using my Apple Time Capsule , get in it and you get a free rifle.

[alphaX]

[quote name="bersaguy" post="1156077" timestamp="1402076156"]My guess would be they are watching every move you make in your home through your own TV if you have one of their boxes even when TV is off. I think they are totally in bed with Feds..................jmho[/quote] This reminds of a time when I told my gf that their remote control had been acting up. A couple days later a tech shows up randomly with a work order for my specific complaint. Brand new control and fresh batteries. I asked him how or who called him and he said I did. My girl never called them cause she didn't know my address then and I didn't either because I was gonna try new batteries first. To this day, I don't know how Charter knew. Wonder if anyone else has experienced something similar to this? Some might be skeptical of this, with reason. If it hadn't happen to me I'm sure I would be too.

[Oh Shoot]

This reminds of a time when I told my gf that their remote control had been acting up. A couple days later a tech shows up randomly with a work order for my specific complaint. .... Some might be skeptical of this, with reason. If it hadn't happen to me I'm sure I would be too.

 

'Fraid you'll still have to count me in with the skeptical contingent.

 

- OS

Edited August 14, 2014 by Oh Shoot