So I've posted complaining about comcast. They cannot help resolve my network issues. My gateway reboots on its own. My wifi is slow as a mfer half the day. I drop wifi and it goes out for a few minutes at random when I have maybe 7 devices online or even just my computer and game consoles in sleep mode but still online. I am fed up with these issues! I contact support and they're resolution always is to send me a new gateway, maybe mines defective. I get the same gateway model with no resolution to the problem. I've tried an "upgrade" and still issues! The same ones! I've had technicians come out to test my fiber cabinet outside the house. No issues! They suggest "Maybe your lines to the pole outside are bad because they're 20 years old" I said maybe. I got fed up with the issue I switched to Verizon.
Verizon fios worked flawlessly. No issues at all for a week! The only issue was with cable. Bad wiring made the cable not work. Lots of barrel connectors per line to coax outlets in rooms. 20 year old wires. I fed a new line directly from the splitter outside to the modem. Verizon fios internet worked. Switching back to Comcast xfinity brought back my network issues. Cable worked fine in every room.
What I just discovered today which pisses me right off
This xfinitywifi hotspot appeared one day. I figured a business up the street has some amazing router with a freakish range. Nope. These bastards are broadcasting this wifi from MY gateway I'm giving them money to rent. I pulled up a simple wifi meter to test my theory that they're piggy backing out of my gateway. Amazing. My two wifi bands share the same channel, same ping time about 1ms difference. Signal strength is identical between my two networks and their xfinitywifi hotspot. The only other signals on this channel are from someones Netgear box.
HOW RIDICULOUS. Over the past year I have had computers being hacked. I've had malware, adware, viruses, one after another I couldn't keep up with cleaning them all out on every computer in my house. Albeit we use free antivirus still, infections. Malwarebytes was finding infections weekly. I know I do nothing on my PC that puts me at risk of doing something to get infected. I know nobody else on their PC downloads random crap, pirates anything or downloads porn (unless clearing history after jerking it in the living room). The PC they have is used for looking at work emails or checking lottery numbers. I look to see what they do because I blamed them for clicking ads or bad email links. Nothing. Why in the world do these computers get targeted so much? I don't freaking know. Identity of someone in the house has been stolen. The only place they might be entering info online is the home PC. Maybe some company with their info got hacked. I dont know. Unlikely. They dont use any services they have been hacked and lost peoples information. THATS YOU EXPERIAN WTF.
I'm pretty damn sure all these issues are because people use this xfinitywifi hotspot. I don't know how hackers may infect the router this way to get on my networks but I don't see it impossible. My discovery that my gateway is vulnerable to the Telnet exploits might make sense here. Just recently someone was paying bills on secured store websites and a hacker got them to land on their fake page saying how they're microsoft and this PC is infected...call us etc. I know they were on the legit Walmart website at the time from looking at the history.
I'm calling Comcasts REAL tech support guys and complaining. I want the RF channel they're broadcasting turned off. I want to know how they do this. I wan't their statements on how nobody on the xfinitywifi hotspot could jump over into my networks. I wan't their statement on router exploits and if someone on xfinitywifi can exploit my router to gain remote control of it. I wan't them to explain how for the last year I have had persistent infections to my computers when I know its not user error. I've had a computer that nobody touched ever with a fresh OS install. It did get infected with malware after some time. I want god damn reimbursement for every month I've rented any gateways from them. These issues (especially infections) did NOT happen to any device in my home when we had Verizon and nobody had changed their browsing habits. Thats no coincidence and the issue got seriously horrible since I noticed xfinitywifi hotspot. Crazy. I'm calling when they open.
I want to gather statistics though polls for people with Comcast Xfinity alone and people with Xfinity service with the xfinitywifi hotspot available to them. I am curious if you have it and also have problems. I want to know how many people experienced Identity theft and computer infections with this service since Comcast started their whole "Hotspots everywhere" crap using customers who pay them hundred plus dollars a month for service and give them even more money to rent equipment only to have Comcast broadcast their own wifi off of them. It's disgusting that you pay a hundred and more dollars per month to an ISP that rents you equipment than they turn you into a wifi host for their own open wifi service that people pay them 20-100 dollars or more to have times sessions. I want my freaking cut for hosting their network.
Who wants to read their contracts and agreements with me to find where they legalize through agreeing to the rights to do this. I don't think anyone ever notified me to say "Hey! Were going to use you to broadcast open wifi from your router that has had or currently has vulnerability to being exploited! Since we started xfinitywifi you have had x amount of exploits before we patched them. Thanks for being loyal Comcast customers!"
Disgusting. I know in other countries ISPs do this. It's still disgusting. After I call them and set things straight I'm going to monitor my network and just see how my problems go away. I don't know how or if I can scan this network for connected devices. It only makes sense that my wifi and ethernet connections suck so bad and don't even work at times to the point where the gateway has issues making it reboot or reboot only the wifi module.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm not. These issues combined with the correlation with the start of open xfinitywifi are too coincidental. With all the infections to my computers since this wifi hotspot popped up is too coincidental. If any of my investigations can prove the times of identity theft for those in my house and the time Xfinity had done this stuff that'll be amazing. Actually I think before I call comcast I'll make notes of when my issues occur. Than after calling them I'll take notes of when they occur if at all.
End of my rant. I just am far too intrigued over my theory I wanted to share and get input. I'm researching the topic now. I know nearly nothing about it. But doesn't this sound stupid?
By default the login to their routers is admin as username and password for password. Nobody knows how or why to change this. They broadcast open wifi from a router with default password and bad security.
I'm unsure how "isolated" this hotspot network is from my router. Do they pack in a whole "second router" that isnt using my hardware which runs my network? I know they use a second antenna to broadcast it. Thats the only difference I know of now. I may be very wrong on some of my thoughts here. Which is why I'm posting this to get more knowledge from you all. I just smell fish here. Funny how after getting into this I see my municipality driving cars around the street and undercover cars lol. I bet thats just a real coincident and not related but its just funny paranoia xD
Edited by 100cigarettes, 09 August 2017 - 08:28 AM.