Joined Nov 2006
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Forum Thread
Spectrum Router Is Really Intrusive
October 15, 2018 at
10:00 PM
in
Computers
(3)
I recently replaced my own modem and router with ones that Spectrum provided, the modem so I could take full advantage of my 200/10 plan's speeds, the router to hopefully fix some internet issues we'd been having as my router was kind of old. Turned out to not be the router (signal issues upstream), but I kept the router installed. But then I found out some weird capabilities it has.
For one thing, when you change its default browser-based admin pages ID and password, and set your WiFi SSIDs and passwords, turns out that these are all accessible by Spectrum remotely. I found this out when I logged into my Spectrum account and saw them in plain text in my browser!
And almost as bad, when I was on the phone with a tech tonight, she was able to see all the devices on my home network, including type of device, their names, how they were connected to the router, etc. I bet they could also see their MAC addresses. That just seemed weird.
Why should they be able or need to see what's on my network? That's none of their business. They're supposed to connect me to the internet, period. Even worse, why can they see my my WiFi SSIDs and passwords? Why are they even able to see these?
I assume that this is all enabled by their router, so I'm switching back to my own, reliable router, even though it's several years old and not up to the latest standards. Since it turned out that the router wasn't what was causing the outages, I should be ok in going back to it.
Anyone else see this with their Spectrum or other ISP-supplied router, and am I being too paranoid?
For one thing, when you change its default browser-based admin pages ID and password, and set your WiFi SSIDs and passwords, turns out that these are all accessible by Spectrum remotely. I found this out when I logged into my Spectrum account and saw them in plain text in my browser!
And almost as bad, when I was on the phone with a tech tonight, she was able to see all the devices on my home network, including type of device, their names, how they were connected to the router, etc. I bet they could also see their MAC addresses. That just seemed weird.
Why should they be able or need to see what's on my network? That's none of their business. They're supposed to connect me to the internet, period. Even worse, why can they see my my WiFi SSIDs and passwords? Why are they even able to see these?
I assume that this is all enabled by their router, so I'm switching back to my own, reliable router, even though it's several years old and not up to the latest standards. Since it turned out that the router wasn't what was causing the outages, I should be ok in going back to it.
Anyone else see this with their Spectrum or other ISP-supplied router, and am I being too paranoid?
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I solved it by putting my own router between their router and my devices. So it goes:
-----Their Modem - Their Router - My Router - My devices
FYI - They still see your internet traffic unless you set up a VPN.
Also, if they offer you an upgrade to the "combination modem/router" you might want to decline or do some research before accepting. It is technically difficult to stick your own router in since they combine the set top boxes with remote access points. You are also limited to only using their boxes for any cable based services (for example, using a TIVO and a cablecard is not possible).
Btw thanks for reminding me about VPNs. I've been meaning to look into them for some time now but never seem to get around to it. It's not like I have anything terrible to hide, but these days privacy is at a premium and it's nice to be able to protect it somewhat.
Btw thanks for reminding me about VPNs. I've been meaning to look into them for some time now but never seem to get around to it. It's not like I have anything terrible to hide, but these days privacy is at a premium and it's nice to be able to protect it somewhat.
PC VPN setups are dicey IMHO, since they often need to be associated with a particular program.
You can also look look up "Tomato" router firmware (or any of the similar open source firmwares like DD-WRT, etc.) and make sure they will run on the new router you plan to buy. These have a lot of good features that make the router more flexible.
VPN's slow down your connection, so you might want to give up some privacy and skip them. Using DuckDuckGo in place of Google and not signing up for any of the Social Media crap eliminates a lot of privacy issues.
Good Luck!