You cannot just buy any SFP module and have it work. Most ISPs deploy a “special” (at least compared to normal point to point fiber links) that lets them serve multiple customers out of one port in their office. This is called a Passive Optical Network and requires specialized modules on both ends. There are ways to make a specific SFP work as an ONT and by cloning certain identifiers from the ONT to make the ISP think their box is still there.

This is a lot of effort and from my research, could stop working randomly in some cases.

Yeah, by virtue of not owning the entire connection (which is impossible unless you own the ISP, intermediary providers, and the service you’re connecting to) somebody somewhere is going to see something that may be identifiable to you. There are services that are offered by many companies for huge enterprises that give you basically a direct connection to a data center and a lot of times that traffic can be totally encrypted, but it’s usually for very big enterprises and isn’t cheap to get.

And you’re definitely helping the privacy part running a VPN on the router level, but still, there’s always a chance of something getting leaked. It’s pretty low and gets better all the time, but that chance always exists. It’s the reason why air gapping is still a thing for things that ABSOLUTELY cannot be attacked/compromised/viewed by some random person.

Again, if you’re going off of a privacy stance, you’ve made things hard enough that unless a huge ISP has some kind of agreement to sell data to advertising companies and spending the time to implement services to get you and the 2 percent (which is probably a huge overestimate) of customers taking similar steps, it’s just not worth them making the effort.

For whatever it’s worth, that’s not a huge privacy violation. Most routers auto-identify devices. Most IP scan tools just identify the device by default too.

If it’s a good enough public/hotspot network, they will have “client isolation” turned on and it’ll keep you from seeing any other devices but the actual network equipment.

Some of that is built in (mostly if it’s an ONT/router combination unit). And a lot of what they can see is just because you’re sending all of your traffic through them no matter what VPN you’re running. Knowing MAC addresses is pretty much a requirement for “the internet” to work correctly and, while you can obfuscate a MAC address on some devices, there is a (small) chance that can cause problems too.

I know hearing from someone that actually works for one may not be super convincing, but if your ISP is a smaller provider than like AT&T/Spectrum/Cox, they are almost certainly not going to spy on you just because they want to. I’m a customer of the ISP I work at. If I was told tomorrow I had to turn on some kind of deep packet inspection/intercept/spying service, I’d resist it as much as possible simply because I don’t want to see that and I don’t want someone to see what I’m doing. I can only assume that other companies have similar positions on the matter.

I work for an ISP. There’s a number of ways that that they could have figured it out and probably 98 percent of them are genuinely there as a troubleshooting method and nothing more.

As another user said, if it’s a fiber connected ONT, there’s some remote management tools we can use to see what’s there. Some ONTs have a router built in as well and in some cases, we’ve actually done a site scan of WiFi networks for customers set up like you. We can see all the WiFi devices nearby and pretty quickly tell you “yeah, your speed/connectivity issues are because you have about 80 2.4ghz networks being broadcast around you.”

If they offer their own routers, someone could even do a site scan off of your neighbors routers and get an idea what’s around. If most of your other neighbors are using their own routers ISP provided router and you’re the odd one out, odds are that non-ISP device they’re seeing is you. This one is the least likely though, there’s a number of easier methods to see what’s the device is besides using other devices in neighboring houses.

Additionally, there’s a chance they did document something like “customer is using their own Asus router, not ours” and they just checked ticket/service order history. They could have got this from you telling them in the past, a technician being onsite and seeing this, or as the other comment mentioned, you’re connected to their network, they’re going to see the MAC address of the device plugged into their equipment in a few places pretty easily.

Because you weren’t going to pay. The people that don’t know any better/have the money to spend on a subscription would just as soon pay for the convenience of not doing everything above.

So everyone else has good points but there’s one other part I don’t think was mentioned.

Most ISPs use a PON based network. This lets them connect one fiber in their network and “split” that to up to 128 (or more, depends on the OEM) customers. You need a either GPON (Gigabit passive optical network) or XGS-PON (10 gigabit symmetrical passive optical network) SFP module and usually the ISP has to get a serial number off of that module to provision the proper data service.

This is contingent upon the ISP being willing to do that. The one I currently work for, we really don’t do that except for businesses.

Replying to this before OP asks.

Usenet is distributed across hundreds (thousands maybe?) of servers. It’s centralized in that setting up your own server and getting the same access as joining an existing Usenet server is going to be very difficult (and with Usenet being used for privacy more and more, could be impossible due to admins not trusting a random new person), but in theory one could.

I’ll be the first to admit to not paying much attention to Linux vulnerabilities, but I agree, I feel like a vulnerability in a package like sudo would have been huge news.

I’ve used it about 2 years now. I have both Jellyfin and even had Invidious for a while. I don’t even know it was against any terms until right now.

I’m on your side dude, I was saying chucklenuts up above was confused.

Dudes not worth my time to look this up for sure, but I’m fairly certain the statement was they’d support any Linux distro.

I don’t think buddy knows the difference between a Linux version and a Linux distro.

Well luckily for us all it’s not :-)

Most ISPs (especially smaller ones it seems) just run a basic DHCP server with leases expiring at a set interval. As long as your stuff is on and working when the lease renews, you’ll pull the same IP forever.

Dang. Not the company I was hoping.

If they’re using an eero router, I’m going to assume you’ll just have an ethernet cable from an ONT then into the router. Ask the installer if you need to use the eero or can you install your own router. That may alleviate some of your concerns.

I work for an ISP and self host. I have more things in place to track my usage than any ISP would put just because I make myself the guinea pig for new equipment and want to know exactly what is happening. You will never use a full 8 gig (at least as of now, obviously in the future that will change). If the extra money isn’t an issue do it, but if you can “girl math” the $30 price difference, stick with that for a year and spend the extra $360 you saved on multi-gig networking equipment, that’s what I’d do.

Yes please. What is QRD? Don’t need much details, just a quick intro.

Going from 100 Mbps to even a gigabit, if you’re self hosting, is going to be a huge difference. If you want my opinion, save yourself some money, go with the lowest speed over a gigabit and gradually buy equipment with the money you’d save compared to the 8 gigabit plan.

As for the router, can you either send a picture of it from the ISPs website or name the ISP? With 8 gig being the maximum, you’re going to be on XGS PON and I have a hunch I know what equipment you’re getting, but want to make sure I’m right.

Agreed. Targeting handhelds with good controller support and also no DRM (or at the least, Proton friendly) is more important to me as a consumer than a native Linux version.

Any company that doesn’t make everything free is terrible obviously. Never mind the fact that a major company is making an effort to not just use, but improve and support Linux for consumers in a huge way.

Screw them for not doing more for FOSS software I guess.