Vincent Sisounong and Blessing Gainey were charged with attempted murder.

A Kirkland, Wash. family nearly lost their son in a brutal home invasion that Comcast’s home security system failed to deter and now the family is taking the cable company to court.

Leena Rawat and her family depended on Comcast’s home security system to keep their home intruder-proof, and that is precisely what the company and its contractor, Pioneer Cable, promised.

But the night two teenage neighbors went looking for blood, they had no trouble bypassing Comcast’s unarmed basement sensor and entering the family’s home.

Within minutes, the two men grabbed 18-year old Deep and began torturing him while his family slept.

“They were going to play a game with him tonight – and the game would be that he would be fighting for his life,” Rawat told KING-TV in Seattle. “He was full of blood from head to toe, with gashes. He was in the worst situation possible that a mother wants to see her child in.”

The intruders’ impromptu mission: to chop off one of Deep’s arms and legs with various cutting tools while robbing the family home.

Police say Vincent Sisounong and Blessing Gainey began the attack in Deep’s bedroom, then dragged him to the basement, where Sisounong instructed Gainey to hack at Rawat’s leg down to the bone, and then stabbed Rawat himself. Court documents said Sisounong told detectives that he wanted the victim to “fight for his life,” and when asked if the experience was enjoyable, he said, “yeah.”

Rawat eventually managed to break free, prompting Gainey to leave the scene. But Sisounong chased after Rawat as he ran to the bathroom, further slashing him with a knife. Rawat mustered enough strength to punch the intruder in the face and escape, but not before the men stole keys, electronics, and money before walking out the door.

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KIRO-TV in Seattle reported on the home invasion back in early November 2013 and learned horrified neighbors were arming themselves to protect against another random attack. (2:27)

During the incident, the only alert that something might be wrong came from the family’s car alarm that accidentally went off during a struggle for the keys. At no time did Comcast’s alarm system activate or signal police an intrusion was underway. Authorities were summoned only after Deep arrived, bleeding and badly injured, on a neighbor’s doorstep.

Vincent Sisounong, 21, and Blessing Gainey, 19, were located by authorities after matching fingerprints were found inside the Rawat home and both were charged with first-degree attempted murder and first-degree burglary.

When interviewed by police, Sisounong said he “really wanted” to kill the teenager, court documents said, noting that neither man knew the Rawat family.

“I just say God was there that night,” said an incensed Leena. “God, but not Comcast security. It’s been very tough. It was not a one night thing. It’s changed our life.”

That night and every night, the one thing Comcast’s security system manages to protect more than anything else is the cable company itself.

The traumatized family quickly learned Comcast was disavowing any and all responsibility for the failure of their alarm system, and Comcast’s contracts include clauses that require customers to waive all liability, even if Comcast is later found negligent. In fact, customers who sign Comcast’s contract must also side with the cable company and against their own insurance company during any claims process.

Comcast’s security contract lets the company walk away from responsibility for almost everything.

The first duty of every Comcast home security customer is to protect Comcast, as made clear in particularly bold, all-capital letter print:

YOUR DUTY TO PROTECT/INDEMNIFY THE COMPANY APPLIES EVEN IN THE CASE OF THE COMPANY’S OWN NEGLIGENCE.

“If their argument is to be accepted, they could put in empty black boxes throughout the house and say, ‘That’s your system.’ And then something goes wrong, and they say, ‘We never promised you it would work,'” said Ken Friedman, attorney.

Comcast’s response:

“We want to take this opportunity to extend our sympathies to the Rawat family. However, after a review of our records, we are confident that our home security system functioned properly.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KING Seattle Comcast Sued Over Home Security System Failures 10-1-14.flv[/flv]

KING-TV in Seattle talked with Leena Rawat about how Comcast let her and her family down on the worst night of their lives. (2:29)

Comcast’s XFINITY Home won’t help if the thieves are already inside your house.

Gary O’Reilly and his family moved into their new Libertyville, Ill. home last year and took advantage of a Comcast promotion offering the family a deluxe package of Internet, cable television, and XFINITY Home, Comcast’s home security and automation system. It was a costly mistake that would eventually threaten to leave the family out $1,000, their credit rating destroyed, and hours wasted fighting to get Comcast to live up to its service commitments.

O’Reilly was attracted to Comcast’s security system to protect his family — his wife was pregnant with their second child and they were moving to a new address. In March 2013, two Comcast technicians spent more than eight hours installing four exterior door alarm sensors and two digital thermostats.

Within hours, the family realized something had gone wrong. In the middle of the night, one of the thermostats began beeping relentlessly, indicating a problem.

“It was defective, and because the thermostat was digital, I could not control the temperature in that half of my house,” O’Reilly told the Chicago Tribune’s problem solver. “My pregnant wife and 2-year-old son were freezing in their own home.”

Comcast decided scheduling a service call several days in the future was acceptable under the circumstances, but O’Reilly learned patience isn’t a virtue at Comcast.

Comcast assumes any service call is a potentially billable event, regardless of who is at fault, and O’Reilly discovered they not only charged him for the service call, they also billed him for the replacement thermostat, requiring 8-10 hours of live chats and phone calls to eventually find someone willing to remove the charges from his bill.

The replacement thermostat managed to work for less than a month before it also failed, requiring yet another service call and replacement. Yes, Comcast billed him again for both, requiring another telethon-length session arguing with Comcast’s overseas call centers and live chat employees to remove the charges from his bill yet again.

As you might have guessed, the third replacement began acting up almost immediately, completely draining its AA batteries every 24-36 hours.

That’s your problem, responded Comcast, who would not schedule a return visit to explore the issue further. O’Reilly bought “a ton of batteries over the next few weeks.” The unappreciative third thermostat died anyway.

In mid-June, Comcast returned with thermostat number four, which lasted just a few weeks before it joined the earlier three in thermostat heaven.

Comcast’s idea of compromise is a shotgun wedding: Agree to resume your service and we won’t take you to court.

Shockingly, O’Reilly decided against a fifth replacement and called to cancel his XFINITY Home service. The Comcast representative literally chuckled to O’Reilly after processing his cancellation to “keep an eye out for the termination charges.”

Comcast’s penalty for early cancellation of service: $1,000, conveniently billed on his next invoice.

After literally months of chats and phone calls, Comcast steadfastly refused to waive the charges, reserving the right to charge interest and impose other penalties if O’Reilly didn’t pay.

O’Reilly argues he owed Comcast nothing because the company never lived up to its end of the agreement by supplying reliable service. Nonsense, responds Comcast. After all, they were willing to replace his broken equipment each and every time, all five times.

Comcast wielded everything at its disposal to get paid. The cable company trashed O’Reilly’s over 800 credit score to below 650, preventing him from refinancing his mortgage. The collection calls have also been relentless, and increasingly threatening. On his last call with a Comcast collection agent he was told to pay them in full or they will see him in court.

Even with the venerable Chicago Tribune intervening and willing to serve as a referee, Comcast stubbornly refused to relent, although it offered O’Reilly its definition of a fair compromise.

Comcast spokesman Joe Trost claimed they had reached a settlement with the O’Reilly family.

“Together, [we] talked about the possibility of restarting services with Comcast with the agreement to waive the installation fees and (early termination fees) from the previous account, as well as clearing him from collections and the credit bureaus,” Trost said in an email. “We’re providing Mr. O’Reilly with different package options and composing a letter to overnight to Mr. O’Reilly with the information we discussed over the phone.”

Trost said O’Reilly and Comcast will “move forward together.”

In reality it was a 21st century digital version of a shotgun wedding.

Comcast first offered to remove him from collections, erase the $1,000 early termination fee and clear up his credit history, but only if he agreed to re-establish all of his previous services, including XFNITY Home.

O’Reilly held fast, saying he had no desire to have XFINITY Home back.

With a follow-up story looming in the newspaper, Comcast finally agreed to waive the fees and clean up his credit if he reconnected his Internet service with a higher-speed, more costly Internet tier. O’Reilly said yes.

Another satisfied Comcast customer. It only took 13 months, days of calling and chatting, and a last desperate plea to the Tribune to clear things up.

These unidentified rogue cell towers were identified operating in and around Washington, D.C. and a number of cell phone customers are unknowingly connected to them even now. (Image: ESD America)

Security engineers have discovered more than a dozen rogue cell towers across the United States silently intercepting cell phone calls and wireless data traffic and potentially passing them on to unknown individuals, law enforcement and national security agencies, or even foreign governments.

ESD America, the makers of the highly secure CryptoPhone, has discovered a growing number of unauthorized interceptors operating as cell towers, and warn the problem is probably much worse than its first survey shows, and does not account for an even larger number of privately owned mobile repeaters and base stations operating across the country.

Network World reports these unauthorized cell towers represent an enormous security risk if they are run by a malicious actor. Connecting to a rogue tower allows its operator to eavesdrop on your calls and text messages, as well as deliver malicious data payloads such as spyware or tracking software direct to an unsuspecting user’s smartphone.

In fact, with consumer-grade wireless devices programmed to automatically and quietly connect to any technically compatible cell tower, federal law at 47 U.S.C. 302a prohibits the use of interceptors except by the government of the United States and authorized law enforcement agencies.

While legitimate manufacturers of interceptors insist on proper credentials before selling the equipment, manufacturers in the Far East that have run a brisk business selling cell phone jammers on eBay illegal to use in the United States have found new revenue selling unsecure cell tower extenders and interceptor devices that could allow even a non-technical person to run his own rogue cell tower operation.

Les Goldsmith, the CEO of ESD America, told Popular Science he was surprised to find many of the identified interceptors “on top of U.S. military bases.”

“So we begin to wonder – are some of them U.S. government interceptors,” pondered Goldsmith. “Or are some of them Chinese interceptors? Whose interceptor is it? Who are they, that’s listening to calls around military bases? Is it just the U.S. military, or are they foreign governments doing it? The point is: we don’t really know whose they are.”

Those are questions members of Congress now want answers to, and they want those answers from the Federal Communications Commission, which promises a task force will combat the unauthorized interceptor devices.

The FCC may want to step it up, because this week, Goldsmith and Aaron Turner, president of IntegriCell took a road tour around Washington, D.C. and quickly identified 15 rogue cell towers up and running in the nation’s capital, including three on Pennsylvania Avenue alone. They used the very costly CryptoPhone as their guide.

Security experts believe the FCC is poorly equipped to deal with the rogue tower issue and have warned businesses that cell phone conversations are subject to eavesdropping and are not a secure form of communications. They also don’t believe cell phone companies are in a hurry to lock down their networks either.

“Unfortunately, right now, the carriers are focused on revenue and availability,” said Turner. “With all technology decisions, you always have to balance between integrity, availability, and confidentiality, and in this case the carriers have defaulted to availability. The solution is, people are going to have to protect themselves, the government’s not going to come and protect you. They may, in some strange, crazy and massive breach situation, but the everyday enterprise, for the everyday high-value individual, this is something where they’re going to have to be self-sufficient and protect themselves.”

Marco S. was so frustrated by the line running outside his local Comcast store, he snapped this photo. At least the weather was nice.

Comcast customer Timothy Lee made a grave error in judgment. He decided to return his Comcast-owned cable modem to a Comcast customer service center… on a Saturday!

Long-time Comcast customers know only too well a Saturday visit to Comcast represents a major outing, with long lines that often extend outside and up to an hour or more waiting time.

Lee compared his visit to waiting in line at the post office, but that’s not really true except during the holidays — the post office is better organized and usually lacks the heavy-duty bulletproof glass and surly attitudes that separate Comcast’s “customer service agents” from their unhappy customers.

Predictably, Lee waited more than 30 minutes before his number was up.

Lee’s predicament is all too familiar. His only choice for high-speed Internet access is Comcast, and the cable company knows it. So just like your local Department of Motor Vehicles, there is no harm done if Comcast opens a customer service center with 10 available windows staffed by only two employees, one happily munching on pretzels ignoring the concert-length line during his 20-minute break.

Time Warner Cable’s service centers are not much better, although they usually have fewer windows to keep customers from getting their hopes up. Comcast’s bulletproof glass is also not in evidence at TWC locations, although the burly bank-like security guard is very apparent at some centers in sketchy neighborhoods. Time Warner Cable also offers seating, but visit wealthier suburban locations when possible, where comfortable couches replace the nasty hard benches or plastic furniture often found downtown.

Comcast was instantly ready to offer up the usual excuses:

Your recent visit to our Washington D.C. service center is certainly not the experience we want anyone to have. We’ve been working on  a multi-year project to revamp the hundreds of service centers we have around the country to better serve customers.  As part of that project, we will be remodeling the Michigan Avenue location and will open another service center in the District in early 2015.  We’re also introducing more options for customers to manage their accounts, including a new program we’re starting to roll out with The UPS Store to make them an authorized Comcast equipment return location.

It’s always better at Comcast sometime in the yet-to-be-determined future. Until then, suffer.

Comcast has strongly denied reports it threatened customers with service termination for using the Tor anonymous web browser, designed to obscure a web user’s identity or location.

Over the weekend, Deep.Dot.Web reported that Comcast agents were contacting customers using the Tor web browser and warned them their Internet access was in peril if they continued using the anonymous browsing software, claiming it was against Comcast’s acceptable use policy.

Allegedly, Comcast representatives “Jeremy” and “Kelly” claimed Tor was “an illegal service” and demanded the customers reveal the web sites they were attempting to reach using the browser.

The representative identified as “Kelly” claimed:

“Users who try to use anonymity, or cover themselves up on the Internet, are usually doing things that aren’t so-to-speak legal. We have the right to terminate, fine, or suspend your account at anytime due to you violating the rules. Do you have any other questions? Thank you for contacting Comcast, have a great day.”

The Tor browser was designed to protect the identity of its privacy-minded users from nosy government agencies and law enforcement elements, but has also been used to hide illegal activities ranging from child pornography and drug dealing to murder-for-hire and espionage-related activities. But the majority of the estimated four million Tor users rely on the browser primarily to help them overcome Internet censorship blocks or geographic restrictions on online video content.

Tor directs each user’s Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer network of more than five thousand relays to hide a user’s location and usage from anyone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis. Technically, users who volunteer to run a relay may be in violation of Comcast’s acceptable use policy, which states (in part):

[Customers may not] use or run dedicated, stand-alone equipment or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises local area network (“PremisesLAN”), also commonly referred to as public services or servers. Examples of prohibited equipment and servers include, but are not limited to, email, web hosting, file sharing, and proxy services and servers.

But whether the messages reported by Deep.Dot.Web were simply the result of an overeager support employee or actual company policy is now in dispute.

Comcast emphatically denied the customer contacts reported by Deep.Dot.Web ever took place and claimed Comcast has no restrictions on customers using the Tor browser.

“The anecdotal chat room evidence provided is not consistent with our agents’ messages and is not accurate,” said Comcast’s Charlie Douglas. “Per our own internal review, we have found no evidence that these conversations took place, nor do we employ a Security Assurance team member named Kelly. Comcast doesn’t monitor users’ browser software or web surfing, and has no program addressing the Tor browser. Customers are free to use their XFINITY Internet service to visit any website or use it however they wish.”

A company blog post this morning broadened the company’s denials:

Comcast is not asking customers to stop using Tor, or any other browser for that matter. We have no policy against Tor, or any other browser or software. Customers are free to use their Xfinity Internet service to visit any website, use any app, and so forth.

Here are the facts:

• Comcast doesn’t monitor our customer’s browser software, web surfing or online history.
• The anecdotal chat room evidence described in these reports is not accurate.
• We respect customer privacy and security and only investigate and disclose certain information about a customer’s account with a valid court order or other appropriate legal process, just like other ISPs. More information about these policies can be found in our Transparency Report here.
• We do not terminate customers for violating the Copyright Alert System (aka “six strikes”), which is a non-punitive, educational and voluntary copyright program. Read more here.