nanog mailing list archives

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


From: Jay Ashworth <jra () baylink com>
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 15:58:08 -0500 (EST)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Morrow" <morrowc.lists () gmail com>

On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 2:11 PM, George, Wes
<wesley.george () twcable com> 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                       jra () 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


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