PSA: If you're on AT&T with an iPhone and tethering without the plan

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zerocool84

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
AT&T is telling you to stop or they'll gladly sign you up for the plan without you saying so.

Been using an app like MyWi to enable tethering on your jailbroken iPhone? Then there's a good chance you've already received a message like the one above from AT&T, or perhaps an email like the one after the break. By all accounts, the carrier is now cracking down on all unauthorized tethering, and it's asking folks engaged in such behavior to either pay up for a proper tethering plan or simply stop tethering altogether -- if it doesn't hear anything back for you after sending the message, AT&T says it will automatically enroll you in a DataPro 4GB tethering plan (at a rate of $45 a month). We should note that all the reports we've seen so far are from iPhone users, although that certainly doesn't mean Android users will simply be allowed to slip by unnoticed. Exactly how AT&T is identifying users isn't clear, however, and we could well just be seeing the beginning of a cat and mouse game as folks try to discover workarounds to go undetected. More on this one as we get it.

Update: AT&T reached out to us and, yes, this is pretty much all there is to the tale: the "small number of smartphone customers who use their devices for tethering but aren't on our required tethering plan," are being contacted to either cease and desist or prepare to start paying for the service. No word yet on how many customers have been contacted, but it does seem that they're all using iPhones.
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http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/18/...-using-unauthorized-tethering-methods-to-pay/
 
Red Storm

Red Storm

Lifer
Oct 2, 2005
14,233
234
106
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only way for them to even guess that you're tethering is if you use several GBs in a month right? And even then it's wrong, as you might just be watching a lot of Youtube/Netflix/Hulu/etc.
 
L

Lifted

Diamond Member
Nov 30, 2004
5,748
2
0
Red Storm said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only way for them to even guess that you're tethering is if you use several GBs in a month right? And even then it's wrong, as you might just be watching a lot of Youtube/Netflix/Hulu/etc.
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If they decide to inspect your traffic and see HTTP agent strings for IE, Firefox, Chrome, etc., and also see you hitting Windows Update and whatever update for your AV software, plus other apps that routinely access the internet, I'm sure they'll consider that all the proof they need.
 
vshah

vshah

Lifer
Sep 20, 2003
19,003
24
81
they could inspect packets...if they see headers saying the browser is desktop firefox, they pretty much know you're tethering.
 
A

alent1234

Diamond Member
Dec 15, 2002
3,915
0
0
Red Storm said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only way for them to even guess that you're tethering is if you use several GBs in a month right? And even then it's wrong, as you might just be watching a lot of Youtube/Netflix/Hulu/etc.
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nope

they have all kinds of expensive network monitoring equipment that tells them exactly what the network traffic is and where it's coming from. even NSA buys stuff from private companies.

i bet they can look at the time to live value on packets and compare them to the account features
 
Red Storm

Red Storm

Lifer
Oct 2, 2005
14,233
234
106
Ah okay then. Good thing I'm not on AT&T! :awe:

I know on the iPhone you have Atomic web browser, which has a setting to identify the browser as firefox, desktop safari, etc. Imagine getting screwed over just because you use that app?
 
A

alent1234

Diamond Member
Dec 15, 2002
3,915
0
0
nothing to do with your browser. every IP packet can only be routed 255 times. every time it passes a router a counter decreases the value by 1.

a packet hitting a tower from an iphone should have a value of 255 in the TTL field. if it has say 254 then it means that the iphone routed a packet from another device.

this is an old TCP/IP feature to prevent packets from looping forever. i have very little knowledge in this area, but they could probably use this. and they will have layer 7 switches along with expensive monitoring gear and just inspect the packets in real time. they have been doing it for the NSA for years
 
S

smartpatrol

Senior member
Mar 8, 2006
870
0
0
This is ridiculous. If you already have a 2GB data limit, you should be able to use that 2GB however the hell you want.
 
S

Suspicious-Teach8788

Lifer
Feb 19, 2001
20,155
23
81
smartpatrol said:
This is ridiculous. If you already have a 2GB data limit, you should be able to use that 2GB however the hell you want.
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well ideally they should do that. 2gb is 2gb whether its text based websites off a dumbphone or images or youtube or hulu. AT&T like all other carriers are just in it for the money. Ugh.

Well here's my finger to AT&T because I'm not only on the $15 / month plan, I'm tethering freely...
 
boomhower

boomhower

Diamond Member
Sep 13, 2007
7,228
19
81
It was bound to happen sooner or later. What I find interesting is they are only targeting iPhone users.
 
Bateluer

Bateluer

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
27,730
8
0
As a reminder, our smartphone data plans also include unlimited usage of Wi-Fi at no additional charge. AT&T smartphone customers can use Wi-Fi at home or on-the-go at any one of our more than 23,000 U.S. hotspots already included in your data plan.
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So generous.
 
A

apac

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2003
6,212
0
71
What if you used an ipsec client on the iphone to tunnel your traffic to a proxy? I think that solves both problems mentioned above

- TTL is 255 because the packet has a new L3 header
- App header is encrypted so packet inspection is not possible

Just a thought...
 
SandEagle

SandEagle

Lifer
Aug 4, 2007
16,809
13
0
every country except America allows you to have tethering included as a service. intentionally disable the tethering capability, repackage it, and resell it back to the big dummies so that ATT can make a profit.
 
Qbah

Qbah

Diamond Member
Oct 18, 2005
3,754
10
81
SandEagle said:
every country except America allows you to have tethering included as a service. intentionally disable the tethering capability, repackage it, and resell it back to the big dummies so that ATT can make a profit.
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That's the case in Denmark :thumbsup: I have a measly 100MB/month plan for free with my almost for free monthly contract and can use tethering at will. Hell, using a GB or two of data above the 100MB is also very cheap :D I could switch to a 99DKK/month plan with 2GB data (that's like 2-3 beers) if I needed it without a problem (currently at 59DKK/month with 100MB - 2 beers) :D
 
S

Suspicious-Teach8788

Lifer
Feb 19, 2001
20,155
23
81
zerocool84 said:
I'm sure it does. In the article though at the time they were only targeting iPhones. I'm sure they're going to crack down on everyone.
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The thing is they need to actively monitor your network traffic to tell you're tethering.

I think what they've been doing is cracking down via IMEI. The whole $15 medianet crackdown on N1s was really due to IMEI. I don't see how else they're doing it. So right now there's only the Captivate and recently the Atrix on AT&T. Both of which probably don't comprise of enough of the userbase in AT&T for them to give a crap and to launch an active crackdown. The bigger question is what do you do with the hundreds of other Android handsets that you can bring onto the network? You can't really do anything.

What about the dumb phones that can tether? Shrug.
 
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