[Chapter-delegates] Canadian ISP Rogers violates net neutrality by hijacking failed DNS lookups

Mon Jul 21 12:15:48 PDT 2008

S.,

have you ascertained fully that your computer has been hacked into by the 
ISP, or is there some other form of interception, on the network, 
occurring?

The scenario of the ISP hacking into all of its users' computers seems 
highly unlikely to me. And, you should have available - as an ISOC 
Chapter! - the services of someone knowledgeable in computer forensics to 
check your computer, as well as to set up a decoy where logs are kept of 
all activity, etc. to prove this hacking beyond any doubt.

What is less unlikely is that they have modified configurations in your 
(ADSL or other technology) modem. That would be a different story, though 
many of us would raise hell and call it "pharming" if it was an egregious 
enough redirection of the DNS calls.

Beyond that: other than in closed networks, like a hotel's, no-one should 
stand between you and the DNS. But then, no-one should stand between you 
and the Internet... unless you have accepted it in the small print of your 
contract with your ISP (Arnoud: this applies to your response as well.)

Yours,

Alejandro Pisanty

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . .  .  .  .  .  .
      Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
UNAM, Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico

Tels. +52-(1)-55-5105-6044, +52-(1)-55-5418-3732

*Mi blog/My blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
*LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
*Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614

---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org
  Participa en ICANN, http://www.icann.org
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008, Sivasubramanian Muthusamy wrote:

> Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:31:11 +0530
> From: Sivasubramanian Muthusamy <isolatedn at gmail.com>
> To: Gilles Massen <gilles at isoc.lu>
> Cc: chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org,
>     Patrick Vande Walle <patrick at vande-walle.eu>
> Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Canadian ISP Rogers violates net neutrality
>     	by hijacking failed DNS lookups
> 
> Hello Alejandro,
>
> 1.  I followed the original link and from there tried to go to
> http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=28 or to page
> http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum. Both pages returned a 403 error.
>
> 2.  My ISP is Bharti AIRTEL,  I have noticed a more serious issue of a
> possible backdoor intrusion by the ISP, which is a possible breach of
> consumer privacy. This ISP - Airtel Broadband  is evidently in a position to
> control the browser in MY COMPUTER to take over my browser to redirect any
> URL to an Airtel page that says you are temporarily disconnected ( The ISP's
> tolerance for late payments even for long standing subscribers is not even a
> day past the due date, which is sometimes missed )
>
> I have asked them in several repeated email messages
>
> a) How did you get into my computer to override my browser home page
> settings ?
> b) What gives you the right to do that ?
> c) If you can do as much of a hack in all customer computers as to
> override the browser settings and ensure that any address typed in the
> address bar takes the browser to
> http://203.145.184.29/cgi-bin/airtel/frontpage.pl, what else couldn't
> you have done ?
>
> This issue was raised in several repeated email messages, routinely
> acknowledged but was conveniently left unanswered. In India Consumer Forums
> are grossly inadequate and largely controlled or influenced by the
> Industrial groups; Consumer legislation, the judicial process are
> inadequate, so these large companies simply brush aside any communication
> that questions their ways of working
>
> Sivasubramanian M.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 7:05 PM, Gilles Massen <gilles at isoc.lu> wrote:
>
>> Alejandro, Patrick, et al,
>>
>> There are more and more ISPs that tweak their DNS servers to return an IP
>> address when they should return that a name does not exist. Rogers is only
>> the last on a growing list.
>>
>> Personally, I'd never accept that behaviour from my ISP, I'd either change
>> or
>> work around it (with services like OpenDNS, where you can at least opt-out
>> from such an 'enhanced user experience').
>>
>> Verisign was the same idea on another level, and you could not easily work
>> around it, so I'm quite happy that that's gone.
>>
>> But let's face it: net neutrality is slowly disappearing...be it by
>> changing
>> the content of DNS replies, or by treating P2P traffic differently. To
>> many 'optimisations' do simply that: manipulate what's on the wire.
>>
>> Best,
>> Gilles
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Monday 21 July 2008 01:54, Alejandro Pisanty wrote:
>>> Patrick,
>>>
>>> reminds me of the spat on wildcards with Verisign some years ago. Quoting
>>> it could be a good precedent Rogers clients may want to use. Rogers may
>>> not want to get into a similar mess.
>>>
>>> Yours,
>>>
>>> Alejandro Pisanty
>>>
>>>
>>> .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . .  .  .  .  .
>>  .
>>>       Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
>>> UNAM, Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico
>>>
>>> Tels. +52-(1)-55-5105-6044, +52-(1)-55-5418-3732
>>>
>>> *Mi blog/My blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
>>> *LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
>>> *Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn,
>>> http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614
>>>
>>> ---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org
>>>   Participa en ICANN, http://www.icann.org
>>> .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
>>> .
>>>
>>> On Sun, 20 Jul 2008, Patrick Vande Walle wrote:
>>>> Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:57:11 +0200
>>>> From: Patrick Vande Walle <patrick at vande-walle.eu>
>>>> To: isoc Chapter Delegates <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>,
>>>>     ISOC Extended Board <isoc-ext-board at elists.isoc.org>
>>>> Subject: [Isoc-ext-board] Canadian ISP Rogers violates net neutrality
>> by
>>>>     hijacking failed DNS lookups
>>>>
>>>> http://www.digitalhome.ca/content/view/2689/206/
>>>>
>>>> In what appears to be a violation of Net Neutrality by Rogers Cable,
>>>> Digital Home readers are reporting that Rogers High Speed Internet
>>>> service has begun redirecting customers "Server not found pages" to
>>>> webpages laden with Rogers advertising.
>>>>
>>>> See original link for more details and screenshots.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Patrick Vande Walle
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/sivasubramanianmuthusamy
>