AT&T detects tethering!

[hadzo]

OK my 10-day probation expired. I’ve managed to rack up another 6.5GB. All streaming Netflix movies. At the moment I don’t have TV so I watch quite a bit of Netflix. No text or email from AT&T. My data plan is also unchanged.

So far it looks like as if they are indeed sniffing out tethering. I’m going to try with another month… will keep on update.

[MuteThis]

I doubt that AT&T is detecting tethering by looking at IP addresses from WiFi. I would assume the WiFi is NAT'ing and by definition AT&T wouldn't know a thing about what's going on behind the NAT.

There are however many ways to detect tethering. Packets from the iPhone can be inspected looking for Time to live (TTL), user agent, browser capabilities, etc, etc. There are many things that can betray your tethered usage that do not include utilization.

Secure traffic is probably harder to inspect. Things like user agent would be encrypted, but TTL values would still be in play. IMO the best chance to avoid detection is to bring up a secure tunnel between your tethered machine and a proxy, only sending traffic through the tunnel.

This would foil a lot of deep packet inspection techniques.

Good luck!

[Battlecat714]

Just got my letter today =(( data usage per month: 2GB.

[Jmurdah]

Guys I use 30 to 50g a month I got the email and then I called and played the dumb role and so far I haven't heard anything else and I still have unlimited data

[markito979]

I just got an email today for two of my lines, on one I used 14gb to 21gb a month, and the other 24gb

[rivalsrage156]

I just got off the phone with att and they said connecting your iphone to your tv using netflix is tethering

[i.Annie]

For goodness sake they say connecting your phone to your car to play music through your car speakers is tethering. I'm surprised charging your phone in your laptop isn't tethering.

[Stray]

Lol annie

[i.Annie]

Well it's true isn't it!

[MotoChristo]

@ MuteThis - Sounds like the best idea I've heard so far to deal with this. Much Thanks.

Would you mind linking us to a how to guide or video that explains how we might do this?

Personally I'm a medium - advanced user, but this seems relatively complex, although I'd love to give it a try.

Or perhaps just let us know what terms we should search for in google to figure it out?

Thanks again!

I doubt that AT&T is detecting tethering by looking at IP addresses from WiFi. I would assume the WiFi is NAT'ing and by definition AT&T wouldn't know a thing about what's going on behind the NAT.

There are however many ways to detect tethering. Packets from the iPhone can be inspected looking for Time to live (TTL), user agent, browser capabilities, etc, etc. There are many things that can betray your tethered usage that do not include utilization.

Secure traffic is probably harder to inspect. Things like user agent would be encrypted, but TTL values would still be in play. IMO the best chance to avoid detection is to bring up a secure tunnel between your tethered machine and a proxy, only sending traffic through the tunnel.

This would foil a lot of deep packet inspection techniques.

Good luck!

[Stray]

Well it's true isn't it!

It is

[SuperVee3]

I haven't tethered my iPhone 4 ever since AT&T started notifying people. I watch a lot if movies tho and I finally got this message.

AT&T Free Msg: Did you know tethering your Smartphone to a computer requires a tethering plan? Pls call 877-446-5250 for details or visit att.com/dataplans.

[MotoChristo]

I haven't tethered my iPhone 4 ever since AT&T started notifying people. I watch a lot if movies tho and I finally got this message.

AT&T Free Msg: Did you know tethering your Smartphone to a computer requires a tethering plan? Pls call 877-446-5250 for details or visit att.com/dataplans.

What's your monthly usage look like in their UI? Over 5 GB?

[SuperVee3]

Yea it's over 5 GB

[MuteThis]

@ MuteThis - Sounds like the best idea I've heard so far to deal with this. Much Thanks.

Would you mind linking us to a how to guide or video that explains how we might do this?

Personally I'm a medium - advanced user, but this seems relatively complex, although I'd love to give it a try.

Or perhaps just let us know what terms we should search for in google to figure it out?

Thanks again!

The process takes a few steps and sounds hard, but its really pretty straight forward for someone that's technically inclined...

Boiling it down, all you need is a computer that accepts SSH and has some sort of proxy running on it. This is easily achievable with Ubuntu (and probably any linux flavor).

Besides hiding traffic from prying eyes, its great for surfing through work traffic filters that would otherwise block access. It's rare to see SSH blocked and once the tunnel is up you do what you want.

My home internet is setup like this:
Internet -> ISP Router -> Ubuntu -> Internal network

My Ubuntu machine acts as a transparent proxy to the internet for my internal network.
I am using IP tables as a firewall with the webmin front end.
I have IP tables allow external SSH.
I have a squid ACL that says allow local access (ssh forwarding will be considered local).
I run a dyndns client update script so I have friendly name to get home.
When I'm outside my network and I want to tunnel my traffic back to the house, I ssh to the friendly name and tell the ssh connection to forward the local port 8080 to the remote port 3128 (squid default listening port).
Now I point my browsers proxy setting to localhost:8080 and BAM! My traffic flies over the ssh tunnel.

Eat it AT&T and suck a chode office proxy.

The nitty-gritty install steps and fine tuning are beyond the scope of this forum, but here are some examples from the internet that look like they're heading in the right direction...

My search terms were: SSH Tunnel Squid

Articles - Setting up Squid. Then Using It. :: nickselby.com
Using SSH tunnel & Squid to create a private encrypted proxy for true private browsing (mostly) Evan Hoffman's Silly Writings
http://goo.gl/vVAb
Secure and Private Browsing with Squid | HowtoForge - Linux Howtos and Tutorials

Funny shiz here's my thread from 2002 when I was first looking into this, LMAO... Re: [squid-users] Squid and ssh tunneling from Henrik Nordstrom on 2002-06-08 (squid-users)

I hope you're able to get it up and running, its a pretty sweet setup to have at your disposal :-)

[TheLastEXile]

hi, I hate ATT, just JB my phone recently, and got a text from them about tethering. I called them, they said they have "lab tech" that is apparently monitoring, and I got flagged somehow. I only used 3.2 GB so far?????wtf?? On hindsight, I played WoW one day for couple hours, and the text came in the next day. So they must have known somehow. Last month I used 7.1 GB but didn't play WoW I never got any text. BTW, I use MyWi, I read other users also got flagged using this app. I'm beginning to think MyWi must have sold its technologies to ATT for it to start to detect ppl using tethering.

[eightydee]

Ha I'm currently tethering this threw MyWi and downloading a torrent. I heard about this but I have an no limit data plan. But still I hear they don't like that. Can they tell if your tethering or if your just downloading something from say the App Store?

[moon#pie]

TTL does not play into this. TTL changes constantly due to the route taken.

[MuteThis]

TTL does not play into this. TTL changes constantly due to the route taken.

I'm not claiming to be an expert, but there is a general consensus that TTL is one of several vectors used to detect tethered usage.

i woke up this morning to this lovely email from at&t... : technology

[moon#pie]

I'm not claiming to be an expert, but there is a general consensus that TTL is one of several vectors used to detect tethered usage.

i woke up this morning to this lovely email from at&t... : technology

It's highly doubtful that AT&T would use such and unreliable method of telling. Like I said, TTL changes depending on routes taken. What if you have the packet go through a range extender? AT&T isn't using TTL.