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Re: Stopping loss of transparency...

2005-08-17 05:27:14
Roland Bless wrote:
Hi,

just yesterday a larger german DSL/Internet provider activated
- without a real notice - a feature as "field trial" in my city,
so that HTTP(S) requests of customers are redirected to their own
web portal (apparently using some soft state timeout).
I'm also aware of several other dial-up providers who do that.
This breaks IMHO a lot of applications, e.g., DynDNS
registrations of DSL routers (which would not be necessary
with IPv6 but that is another issue), automated Windows/Linux
updates, anti-virus database updates, RSS and presumably many
more. Though they sell it as a "service to
customers" (luckily you still can turn this feature off
if you know how to do it...), I see it as very dangerous
since automated security updates etc. will fail, i.e. they
even decrease the security of their cutomers! Is there
anything newer than RFC 2775 that one could give as
strong technical advice to abandon that feature and to
not turn it on for all other users?


Hi Roland,
I have seen the Heise forum is shaking up because of that. Today
it is GMX or United Internet but tomorrow it could be DTAG.DE and
in fact it is DTAG.DE who does offer this "service" to its clients
like United Internet. Obviously they (DTAG.DE) offered this
"service" as a trojan horse to get some of their T-online desserteurs
back. They did not only break software but they did break hardware too,
routers. Some of the end users are locked out. Switching off that
"service" means changing user id's. After that some routers did
not login again, neither using the old nor using the new user id.
I guess marketing is not amused.

Regards,
 Roland

P.S.: please don't comment that I should just switch
the provider in this case. I like to raise the awareness of
the provider that this feature is _technically_ dangerous,
though it may make a lot of sense for the marketing people...

In fact things like that did stop me from changing. My isp is
not the cheapest nor do they offer the best service but they are
so predictable. Normally you dont need to be afraid of changes
from burocrates. :)

Oh, yes there have been changes too with DTAG.DE they changed
"my" DSLAM to 84.xxx.xxx.xxx and 84.xxx.xxx.xxx is still very new.
A lot of routers treat it as bogon. Of course United Internet
got that very same address range. They too do worry why some
ip addresses can no longer ftp, scp or VoIP.

Introducing a new "service" was just a means of throwing sand
into their customers eyes and keeping them from seeing the
big picture.


Regards,
Peter and Karin Dambier
--
Peter and Karin Dambier
Public-Root
Graeffstrasse 14
D-64646 Heppenheim
+49-6252-671788 (Telekom)
+49-179-108-3978 (O2 Genion)
+49-6252-750308 (VoIP: sipgate.de)
+1-360-448-1275 (VoIP: freeworldialup.com)
mail: peter(_at_)peter-dambier(_dot_)de
http://iason.site.voila.fr
http://www.kokoom.com/iason


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