Saturday, May 19, 2018

What My Internet Service Provider Knows About Me



By Robert Wenzel

I consider myself moderately security conscious but I don't take any excessive measures to protect my privacy. Though in general, I thought I had a firm grasp of what most major corporations know about me---- until a call I received on Friday at my office floored me.

It was a gentleman who identified himself as Bernard and said he was calling to introduce himself as my Comcast account manager.

He then told me that he would like to discuss upgrading my internet package since he said having eight devices hooked up to my current package was a lot.

I told him he was mistaken. I had a dedicated line to my computer and that was it.

He then said, "No, I show you have one dedicated line in use and 7 wifi devices connected."

I told him that was impossible. He then said a bit gleefully,
"I can tell you the devices."

Me: You can tell me the devices?

Bernard: Yes

Me: Okay tell me the devices.

Bernard: You have a Samsung S9 cell phone hooked up.

Me. Oh yeah, right. But you know it is a Samsung S9?

Bernard: Yup.

Me: What else do you show I have hooked up?

Bernard: You have a Hewlett Packard laptop.

I thought the laptop was off but he was right it was on when I checked.

He then told me I had two Dell desktop computers, one connected with a dedicated line and one by wifi.

I told him I only had one. He insisted there were two Dells. Then, I remembered I have a television in the office connected to a Dell but I rarely, rarely watch, just when there is some Congressional testimony I want to see.

I then told him I had the second one attached to the television but that it was likely in snooze mode. He told me they could detect devices even in snooze mode.

He then correctly identified my wifi connected VOIP phone, my connected Canon PIXMA TR8520  printer and my connected mini-google.

He had a little trouble identifying the final device. He said he didn't recognize the device address. I quickly figured out it was my Ring doorbell/camera hooked up by wifi.

He offered to switch me from my current VOIP service to a Comcast phone line at a much cheaper monthly rate ( a 75% discount) and he waved the installation fee.

I took the deal---and probably its additional Comcast monitoring of me.

Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher of  EconomicPolicyJournal.com and Target Liberty. He also writes EPJ Daily Alert and is author of The Fed Flunks: My Speech at the New York Federal Reserve Ban .and most recently Foundations of Private Property Society Theory: Anarchism for the Civilized Person Follow him on twitter:@wenzeleconomics and on LinkedIn. His youtube series is here: Robert Wenzel Talks Economics. The Robert Wenzel podcast is on  iphone and stitcher.

11 comments:

  1. Each device or network card has a MAC address which identifies it. It is assigned by the manufacturer. Some routers and other devices you can enter a MAC address and the device will pretend to be the one you entered.

    I am guessing you are using a comcast device as a wifi router. If you are then this unsurprising they know your machines. If you're using your own router then and they can see past it then that's something. The router uses the MAC addresses to assign private network IP addresses. It has to know the MAC addresses to function. If it's comcast's router its going to send that info along.

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  2. Just wait until these corporations decide that you're propagating hate speech by allowing people who aren't anti-white to post in the comments section. Hopefully they won't deplatform you and shut down your payment processors.

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    1. Paul makes a good point. RW might want to consider taking out the trash to make sure he’s not exposed to this possibly.

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    2. Thanks for confirming that you're anti-white Evan, although we already knew that.

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    3. Evan and Torres and both anti-white.

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    4. @Evan, how can you be libertarian and anti-white?

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    5. @The Butthurt Brigade

      Would it be too much to ask to stop obsessing over muh white race for 5 minutes and actually discuss libertarianism?

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    6. The problem with arguing with a fool is that it's hard to tell who's who.

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    7. I would like a libertardian who truly believes race, culture, and IQ don't matter to show me a functioning black/African country/city on par with us 'da rasis' YT's. That's all you have to do. Amazing that many black cities live in filth and squalor but somehow their 'natural libertarian' instincts don't take over and allow them pick up their trash and filth and have a functioning first world society.

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  3. Get your own router and that won't be a issue

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