>do you really need to be rescraping every website constantly
Yes, because if you believe you out-resource your competition, by doing this you deny them training material.
I have a sneaky suspicion this is not something that Xfinity/Comcast just woke up one day and thought they should implement. This has all the hallmarks of the treasonous surveillance state injecting itself to instrumentalize corporations to claim they’re not violating the supreme law called the Constitution if they simply make others commit the treasonous crimes against the people.
Because we all know, of course, the Constitution only applies to the federal government, right? If mega-corporation USA Inc uses its shell company Comcast to violate the Supreme law of the land in a treasonous manner, then you are of course SOL asa mere citizen since they aren’t the federal government and the Constitution does not apply to them.
That’s speculation. In the article, you can see that it’s meant as a pseudo-alarm system. It’s plausible that someone at Comcast thought this is a value-add. (Netgear already offered this as a feature on their routers, it’s not a novel concept.)
Even within tech circles, lots of people aren’t worried about privacy and even have indoor cameras in their homes.
Normally the pathway for this kind of thing would be:
1. theorized
2. proven in a research lab
3. not feasible in real-world use (fizzles and dies)
if you're lucky the path is like
1. theorized
2. proven in a research lab
3. actually somewhat feasible in real-world use!
4. startups / researchers split off to attempt to market it (fizzles and dies)
the fact that this ended up going from research paper to "Comcast can tell if I'm home based on my body's physical interaction with wifi waves" is absolutely wild
It's not too crazy, if you're familiar with comms systems.
The ability to do this is a necessity for a comm system working in a reflective environment: cancel out the reflections with an adaptive filter, residual is now a high-pass result of the motion. It's the same concept that makes your cell location data so profitable, and how 10G ethernet is possible over copper, with the hybrid front end cancelling reflections from kinks in the cable (and why physical wiggling the cable will cause packet CRC errors). It's, quite literally, "already there" for almost every modern MIMO system, just maybe not exposed for use.
> the fact that this ended up going from research paper to "Comcast can tell if I'm home based on my body's physical interaction with wifi waves" is absolutely wild
The 15-year path was roughly:
1. bespoke military use (see+shoot through wall)
2. bespoke law-enforcement use (occupancy, activity)
3. public research papers by MIT and others
4. open firmware for Intel modems
5. 1000+ research papers using open firmware
6. bespoke offensive/criminal/state malware
7. bespoke commercial niche implementations
8. IEEE standardization (802.11bf)
9. (very few) open-source countermeasures
10. ISP routers implementing draft IEEE standard
11. (upcoming) many new WiFi 7+ devices with Sensing features
> There is one area that the IEEE is not working on, at least not directly: privacy and security.. IEEE fellow and member of the Wi-Fi sensing task group.. the goal is to focus on “at least get the sensing measurements done.” He says that the committee did discuss privacy and security: “Some individuals have raised concerns, including myself.” But they decided that while those concerns do need to be addressed, they are not within the committee’s mandate.
I don't where HN gets its information about investment banks, but it is wrong much more than 50% of the time. (Dart throwing monkeys could do better, I fear.) This is no longer true for non-FO (front office) head count after 2008. In markets (not investment banking/M&A/IPOs), front office is sales, trading, structuring, and a miniscule number of quants. In 2025, The vast majority of working stiffs at the world's top 15 investment banks are being paid an annual bonus that is max 25% of base salary, but 10-15% is more likely. Also, for most FO, when laid-off or leaving, they start gardening leave on the same day. Also, anyone worth anything (as FO) will negotiate with their next employer to have a guaranteed first year bonus that meets or exceeds their last bonus. For non-FO, they are required to work for their entire notice period.
The Viking landers were the first attempt by the US to land on Mars. The Soviets actually soft-landed first on their second try but the lander failed after transmitting one corrupted image. There were certainly many failed Mars missions by various countries, but the Vikings at least got it right on the first go.
The income part of SS is more or less subsistence level, which arguably was its intention to keep the elderly from begging in the streets. But in the dystopian US healthcare system, Medicare is arguably the more important part of the social net. Without it, you are not going to afford any healthcare in old age.
If this budget hits the PAYGO limits, which is basically guaranteed, that will trigger automatic cuts to Medicare, so they can backdoor cut the program without anybody voting for that.
