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LAN Party Forums => FITES News => Started by: MahoneyRed on June 11, 2014, 09:57:42 AM

Title: Xfinity customers may be sharing their bandwidth with mooching hipsters
Post by: MahoneyRed on June 11, 2014, 09:57:42 AM

Totally at random I came across this today. It may be old news to some, but it's new to me. And I don't like it.

http://www.comcast.com/wifi/hotspots.html?SCRedirect=true (http://www.comcast.com/wifi/hotspots.html?SCRedirect=true)

If you have an Xfinity modem with built in Wifi, it may be offering a free hotspot to anyone who comes along. In theory, this is great for when you have company over and don't want to hand out your password 50 times, give access to your local network, or you believe in sharing everything.

Not me. I can be a greedy prick some times.

Now, granted, people who want to use the hotspot need to already be Xfinity customers and have a special app. But that's beside the point. My pipes are mine damn it!

To disable it you can either call customer support, or follow the steps listed here: http://forums.comcast.com/t5/Home-Networking-Router-WiFi/How-to-disable-XFINITY-WiFi-hotspot-on-your-modem/td-p/2144958 (http://forums.comcast.com/t5/Home-Networking-Router-WiFi/How-to-disable-XFINITY-WiFi-hotspot-on-your-modem/td-p/2144958)

Be aware that if you have to reset your Xfinity modem for any reason, you may have re-enabled the hotspot, and need to turn it off again.

Get your own internet you hipster moochers!

Title: Re: Xfinity customers may be sharing their bandwidth with mooching hipsters
Post by: Czar on June 15, 2014, 09:24:20 PM

My neighbor across the street has this going on and as far as I know you don't need a special app, you just log in like you would using a public wifi hotspot at the library or mcdonalds. But yes, you need a current comcast login.

Title: Re: Xfinity customers may be sharing their bandwidth with mooching hipsters
Post by: _!Rathe!_ on June 16, 2014, 08:26:23 AM

One more reason to hate comcast a little more.  lol

Title: Re: Xfinity customers may be sharing their bandwidth with mooching hipsters
Post by: decepticon on June 17, 2014, 09:52:52 AM

Thankfully, I don't have their triple play service which includes this special modem that has the phone and wifi functionality built in.

Title: Re: Xfinity customers may be sharing their bandwidth with mooching hipsters
Post by: MahoneyRed on June 17, 2014, 10:01:50 AM

I don't either, but when I had a modem problem, they upgraded it to the Xfinity modem for me. So if you ever need to replace your modem, that's the one you get.

Title: Re: Xfinity customers may be sharing their bandwidth with mooching hipsters
Post by: zx2slow on June 17, 2014, 12:47:54 PM

Ive seen Xfinity hotspots everwwhere and knew their gateway/wireless box was to blame.  This seems exploitable as hell.

Title: Re: Xfinity customers may be sharing their bandwidth with mooching hipsters
Post by: The Shoctor on July 09, 2014, 04:59:10 PM

I JUST got one of the new CDVs... Just called and was like, "BRIDGE MODE!" and they actually had it done in 5 minutes! The wifi is totally disabled on the device now.

Title: Re: Xfinity customers may be sharing their bandwidth with mooching hipsters
Post by: MahoneyRed on July 09, 2014, 07:35:14 PM

I need to do that. I don't use the wifi built into it at all so I might as well disable it.

Title: Re: Xfinity customers may be sharing their bandwidth with mooching hipsters
Post by: zx2slow on July 09, 2014, 08:29:19 PM

Bought my modem, wont let them bill me $8 for the privilege of running their public WiFi.

Title: Re: Xfinity customers may be sharing their bandwidth with mooching hipsters
Post by: vincegun on July 16, 2014, 02:51:09 PM

Had service cut out the other day due to late payment. I knew there was a xfinity signal around me, so I tried to log in with my tablet so I could pay the bill. It wouldn't let me and said something about needing a certain tier of performance, which was weird.

Title: Re: Xfinity customers may be sharing their bandwidth with mooching hipsters
Post by: Czar on July 17, 2014, 01:01:31 PM

Well...if you had your service cut i bet they disabled your log in credentials for that, right?

Title: Re: Xfinity customers may be sharing their bandwidth with mooching hipsters
Post by: vincegun on July 17, 2014, 05:06:09 PM

That's what I figured, but what I intended to do was log on and then pay the bill. Since I'm not technically using my line I figured it might've worked.

In the end I just used my phone.