Cricket Revealed As Mobile ISP That Was Blocking Encrypted Emails

from the nicely-done dept

A few weeks ago, we wrote about how VPN company Golden Frog had quietly revealed in an FCC filing that an unnamed mobile broadband provider had been (even more) quietly blocking people from sending encrypted emails -- basically blocking users from making use of STARTTLS encryption. The Washington Post has now revealed that the mobile operator in question was Cricket -- a subsidiary of AT&T, and that it stopped blocking such encryption a few days after our post was published.

Cricket did not address repeated questions about the issue and did not alert customers, many of whom rely on Cricket as their sole Internet service, that they would not be able to protect their e-mails from prying eyes. AT&T, which absorbed Cricket when it acquired Leap Wireless last spring, did not respond to a request for comment.

Cricket said in a statement to The Post that it "is continuing to investigate the issue but does not intentionally prevent customers from sending encrypted emails."

The issue appears to be that Cricket started using some Cisco firewall equipment to block sending encrypted emails through Port 25. It's true that many ISPs block Port 25 entirely, as it's often used for spamming. What Cricket did here was to just try to block encrypted emails over Port 25, which in some ways is being more permissive than other providers who block it entirely. Yet, still, the way it did so was somewhat misleading and still concerning. While the intent here may have been reasonable, any time you have an ISP stepping in and quietly making the decision itself to block encrypted traffic while allowing other traffic it should raise questions about the security for end users. Yes, there's a constant battle against spam, but there may be better ways to deal with it than single-handedly blocking email encryption.

Filed Under: blocking, encryption, fcc, net neutrality, open internet, port 25, spam
Companies: cricket, golden frog

Detailed Report Shows How ISPs Are Making 'Business Choice' To Make Your Internet Connection Terrible

from the consumers-lose dept

A couple of years ago, we wrote about an effort by the big broadband players to push the FCC away from using M-Lab to measure basic network diagnostics on the internet. M-Lab is a very interesting project, focused on collecting a huge amount of data about internet performance, and making that data widely available. In the past, for example, we've highlighted an M-Lab project showing which ISPs were throttling BitTorrent.

Now, M-Lab has released a new report, along with all of the data and a very nice tool to analyze it all, called the Internet Observatory, that looks at ISP interconnection and, most importantly, its impact on consumer internet performance. The end result? You guessed it. M-Lab found that the various ISPs have plenty of capacity, but it appears that they make the business decision to let your internet get clogged. No wonder the big telcos wanted the FCC to move away from supporting M-Lab!

The idea that broadband players would leverage interconnection bottlenecks for a business advantage (at the expense of subscriber connections) isn't a new idea. But now there's (lots and lots of) data to confirm that.

The report looks at New York City, where M-Lab was able to collect a ton of data from a variety of different vantage points. What it found was that starting in the spring of 2013, customers on Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon basically choked off content coming from Cogent (one of the major transit providers) every day from the early afternoon until late at night. Those big ISPs would like to try to blame the transit providers for the clogging, but M-Lab's data shows that's not the case. That's because a fourth ISP in the area, Cablevision, showed no similar degradation at all -- showing that Cogent appeared to have plenty of bandwidth available. Rather, as we've suggested in the past, the big broadband players were purposely letting the connection between Cogent (and other transit ISPs) wither on the vine, rather than opening up new ports (a trivially simple process).

Similarly, M-Lab's data shows that the problem wasn't a lack of bandwidth on the part of the ISPs (i.e., no actual technical congestion), because those same ISPs had no problem connecting to a different transit provider, Internap. So the only logical culprit was the interconnection points. There was more than enough bandwidth to go around. There's just the single bottleneck of the interconnection border router (which, again, is trivially simple to get rid of by opening up more ports). Here are the charts showing all of this. First up, you can see the rather notable sluggishness found between Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon on downloading content via Cogent: And here's what happens from Cablevision users get content via Cogent over that same period. Notice anything different? Oops. Looks like the problem isn't with Cogent's capacity: And, finally, here's the connection of all four broadband providers to another transit provider, Internap, showing that it's not a problem of capacity with the broadband providers themselves. They all seem fine: From this, it seems pretty darn clear that the location of the problem is the interconnection with Cogent between Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon.

And the impact of this business decision by those ISPs to let the border router get clogged is massive for end users. Basically, everyone's broadband connections slowed down to a level no sane person would describe as broadband.

While daily median download throughput overall hovered around 4 Mbps, performance degradation was much worse during peak use hours. For much of the time between Spring 2013 and March 2014, download speeds during peak use hours remained well below 4 Mbps. By January 2014, the download throughput rate during peak use hours for Comcast and Verizon traffic over Cogent’s network was less than 0.5 Mbps, the minimum rate necessary for web browsing and email according to the FCC (Figure 4). Note that only between 2:00 AM and 1:00 PM were the three affected Access ISPs (Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon) able to attain speeds above 4 Mbps across the Transit ISP Cogent. During peak use, only Cablevision achieved sustained rates above 4 Mbps across Cogent, while all Access ISPs achieved sustained rates above 4 Mbps across Internap throughout the day.

As you can see, after about nine months -- right as Netflix gave in and started paying broadband providers to unclog their Cogent connections, things miraculously picked up.

The M-Lab report shows nearly identical situations with Cogent and broadband access providers in other areas like Dallas, LA and Seattle. While the issue with Cogent is the most obvious (perhaps because Netflix is using it and that was the target of the clogging), the report also found those same broadband providers clogging the other major transit provider, Level 3, though not quite as much as with Cogent. As the report notes, there are indications that the degradation of Level 3 was also for business reasons, not any technical reasons. The degradation with Level 3 happened in a nearly simultaneous manner across many different sites "irrespective of their relative baselines." In other words, even when there was plenty of capacity on all sides, it didn't matter. Verizon decided to start clogging Level 3, and boom. Suddenly performance drops. The report found similar "simultaneous" downgrades in download speeds with another large transit provider, XO as well.

The report's conclusions lay things out pretty clearly:

In conducting this research we find a consistent theme across multiple Access ISPs and Transit ISPs: the interconnection relationships between network operators matter. The quality of service that millions of consumers experience on a daily basis for periods of multiple months can be directly tied to these relationships. Further, these relationships are not simply technical. We see the same patterns of degradation manifest in disparate locations across the US. Locations that it would be hard to imagine share any significant infrastructure (Los Angeles and New York City, for example). We thus conclude that the business relationships between impacted Access ISP/Transit ISP pairs is a factor in the repeated patterns of performance degradation observed throughout this research.

Now let's see the various broadband providers and their friends try to spin this as well. And lets see if the FCC finally realizes that interconnection points absolutely are a major issue for an open internet, and that the big broadband players appear to be purposely letting those connections clog for the sake of business negotiations.

Filed Under: broadband, business decision, clogging, interconnection, ports clogged
Companies: cablevision, cogent, comcast, level 3, m-lab, time warner cable, verizon

FCC Used Title II To Fine AT&T For SMS Cramming And The World Didn't End: Why Would It For Broadband?

from the questions-to-ponder dept

You may have heard the story a few weeks ago about how the FCC and FTC teamed up to fine AT&T $105 million for mobile cramming (allowing unauthorized mobile charges for premium -- costly -- SMS, of which AT&T kept 35% of all money made). As the FCC noted:

The Enforcement Bureau launched its investigation after receiving consumer complaints alleging that AT&T customers had been billed with months of unauthorized charges for third-party services that they did not request. In some cases, complaints alleged that AT&T Mobility refused to issue refunds or would only refund one or two months' worth of such charges, leaving consumers on the hook for the rest. Until January 2014, AT&T Mobility included charges for third-party services -- such as monthly subscriptions for ringtones, wallpaper, and text messages providing horoscopes, flirting tips, celebrity gossip, and other information -- on its customers' telephone bills. The charge for each of these types of subscriptions was typically $9.99 per month.

This was the largest fine the FCC has ever given out. Some, quite reasonably, pointed out that it took the FCC (and the FTC) quite a long time to catch up on this, as such practices had been called out for years and years.

However, there was a much more interesting element to this fine, as it relates to the current net neutrality "Title II" fight. Remember, the telcos (including AT&T) are pretty adamant that if broadband is classified under Title II it will be the death of all good things. It will be a huge regulatory burden and companies like AT&T are likely to cease all investment and such. Similarly, AT&T and others insist that there's enough competition in the market to prevent anti-consumer practices, and that Title II simply isn't necessary in such a "competitive" market.

So, um, what authority did the FCC use to fine AT&T this time? Well, buried in the official filing, we see that it was done under Section 201(b) of the Communications Act of 1934. You can see 47 USC 201 and read it for yourself, but it's mostly important to know that 47 USC 201 is Title II. In other words, despite an even more "competitive" mobile market than broadband, the FCC had to break out Title II regulations to protect consumers from a years-long scam in which AT&T profited massively, scamming millions from consumers.

And... notice that AT&T accepted the fine and isn't complaining about it. Nor is it challenging the use of the Title II authority, despite SMS being considered something of a service in "limbo" in which it hasn't been definitively classified under Title II or Title I.

And yet, the mobile world has not collapsed. AT&T and other mobile operators aren't screaming to the heavens about how this use of Title II will chill all investment, create massive problems and lead to the end of all that is beautiful and innovative, as they claim about broadband. Instead, they're basically admitting that they helped out with and profited from this scam for years, and that the FCC needed to make use of this authority to protect the consumers that AT&T did nothing to protect, despite knowing full well what was going on for many, many years.

So, from all this, we sense two things: (1) these big telcos can be nasty scammers, cheating people out of money even when there is competition and (2) Title II is not so horrible after all and can actually be quite helpful (eventually!) in getting the big telcos to eventually stop their scammy practices and pay up...

Filed Under: competition, cramming, fcc, ftc, net neutrality, regulation, scams, title ii
Companies: at&t

Revealed: ISPs Already Violating Net Neutrality To Block Encryption And Make Everyone Less Safe Online

from the scary-news dept

One of the most frequent refrains from the big broadband players and their friends who are fighting against net neutrality rules is that there's no evidence that ISPs have been abusing a lack of net neutrality rules in the past, so why would they start now? That does ignore multiple instances of violations in the past, but in combing through the comments submitted to the FCC concerning net neutrality, we came across one very interesting one that actually makes some rather stunning revelations about the ways in which ISPs are currently violating net neutrality/open internet principles in a way designed to block encryption and thus make everyone a lot less secure. The filing comes from VPN company Golden Frog and discusses "two recent examples that show that users are not receiving the open, neutral, and uninterrupted service to which the Commission says they are entitled."

The first example you may have actually heard about. It got some attention back in July, when entrepreneur Colin Nederkoorn released a video showing how Verizon was throttling his Netflix connection, which was made obvious when he logged into a VPN and suddenly his Netflix wasn't stuttering and the throughput was much higher. That video got a lot of attention (over half a million views) and highlighted the nature of the interconnection fight in which Verizon is purposely allowing Netflix streams coming via Level 3 to clog. As most people recognize, in a normal scenario, using a VPN should actually slow down your connection somewhat thanks to the additional encryption. However, the fact that it massively sped up the Netflix connection shows just how much is being throttled when Verizon knows it's Netflix traffic. Nederkoorn actually was using Golden Frog's VyprVPN in that video, so it actually makes Golden Frog look good -- but the company notes that it really shows one way in which "internet access providers are 'mismanaging' their networks to their own users' detriment."

But the second example Golden Frog provides is much scarier and much more pernicious, and it has received almost no attention.

In the second instance, Golden Frog shows that a wireless broadband Internet access provider is interfering with its users’ ability to encrypt their SMTP email traffic. This broadband provider is overwriting the content of users’ communications and actively blocking STARTTLS encryption. This is a man-in-the-middle attack that prevents customers from using the applications of their choosing and directly prevents users from protecting their privacy.

They demonstrate this with the following graphic: This is scary. If ISPs are actively trying to block the use of encryption, it shows how they might seek to block the use of VPNs and other important security protection measures, leaving all of us less safe. Golden Frog provides more details of what's happening in this case:

Golden Frog performed tests using one mobile wireless company’s data service, by manually typing the SMTP commands and requests, and monitoring the responses from the email server in issue. It appears that this particular mobile wireless provider is intercepting the server’s banner message and modifying it in-transit from something like “220 [servername] ESMTP Postfix” to “200 ********************.” The mobile wireless provider is further modifying the server’s response to a client command that lists the extended features supported by the server. The mobile wireless provider modifies the server’s “250-STARTTLS” response (which informs the client of the server’s capacity to enable encryption). The Internet access provider changes it to “250-XXXXXXXA.” Since the client does not receive the proper acknowledgement that STARTTLS is supported by the server, it does not attempt to turn on encryption. If the client nonetheless attempts to use the STARTTLS command, the mobile wireless provider intercepts the client’s commands to the server and changes it too. When it detects the STARTTLS command being sent from the client to the server, the mobile wireless provider modifies the command to “XXXXXXXX.” The server does not understand this command and therefore sends an error message to the client.

As Golden Frog points out, this is "conceptually similar" to the way in which Comcast was throttling BitTorrent back in 2007 via packet reset headers, which kicked off much of the last round of net neutrality concerns. The differences here are that this isn't about blocking BitTorrent, but encryption, and it's a mobile internet access provider, rather than a wired one. This last point is important, since even the last net neutrality rules did not apply to wireless broadband, and the FCC is still debating if it should apply any new rules to wireless.

After reading the Golden Frog filing, the answer should be that it is absolutely necessary to apply the rules to wireless, because practices like these put us all at risk by undermining the encryption that keeps us all safe. As Golden Frog notes:

Absent enforceable Commission rules, broadband providers can (and at least one already does) block and discriminate against entirely acceptable Internet uses. In this case, users are not just losing their right to use the applications and services of their choosing, but also their privacy. It is not at clear that this type of encryption blocking would be forbidden for fixed broadband Internet access, under the proposed rules’ exception for reasonable network management. This example involves mobile wireless broadband, however, and it is clear that the proposed rules would not prohibit the activity. STARTLLS encryption does not constitute “a lawful website” or “an application[] that compete[s] with the provider’s voice or video telephony services[.]”11 The proposed rules on their face do not prohibit mobile broadband Internet access providers from blocking user efforts to maintain privacy through encryption.

Furthermore, Golden Frog concludes:

The claim that rules banning blocking and unreasonable discrimination are solutions in search of a problem is flatly wrong. There have been problems in the past and there are problems now. The proposed rules do not resolve all of the problems identified in the NPRM. Further broadband Internet access providers are still interfering with beneficial and privacy-enhancing applications users want to employ.

This is incredibly important -- just at a time when we need stronger encryption and privacy online, the FCC may undermine it with weak net neutrality rules that allow this type of behavior to continue.

A few months ago, I got into a conversation with a well-known internet entrepreneur/investor, who asked about possible "compromise" rules on net neutrality, suggesting that maybe it's okay to throttle Netflix traffic because there's so much of it. He argued that, perhaps there could be some threshold, and if your traffic was above that threshold it's okay to throttle it. After some back and forth, I asked the hypothetical about encryption: what if, at a time when more and more encryption is important, such a rule was in place, and overall encrypted traffic passed that threshold, then suddenly access providers could throttle all encrypted traffic, doing tremendous damage to security and privacy. What I didn't realize was that some access providers are effectively already attacking privacy and encryption in this manner.

Filed Under: encryption, fcc, net neutrality, open internet, privacy, security, vpns, vypervpn
Companies: golden frog

President Obama Makes Vague Meaningless Statements About Net Neutrality, Patent Reform And Copyright Reform

from the anything-going-to-happen dept

President Obama was apparently in California on a campaign swing for the fall election (trying to help out some candidates and raise money) yesterday and chose to discuss the various issues that are important to folks around here... by giving generally vague and empty statements that might be important if they were actually backed up by anything.

On net neutrality:

Responding to a question from a woman who said her business is training people in “mindfulness meditation” — something the president joked that he needs — Obama said his administration was going to make sure net neutrality remains untouched.

“It’s what has unleashed the power of the Internet, and we don’t want to lose that or clog up the pipes,” Obama said.

Sounds good, right? But will he actually do anything about it? He's been saying the same basic thing for a while now, but the White House didn't even submit comments to the FCC. Either way, we'll believe it when we see it.

On patent reform:

The president also said his administration is committed to patent reform for the same reasons of encouraging growth.

He noted concerns about “folks filing phony patents, and costing some of our best innovators tons of money in court, or even if they don’t go to court, having to pay them off just because they’re making a bogus claim.”

Right, but he still let the trial lawyers kill patent reform, which had already been massively watered down. With a little more support from the White House, perhaps Harry Reid would not have caved in to the demands from the trial lawyers.

And, then, on copyright law, he tossed out some red meat for folks in Hollywood:

Obama emphasized seeking intellectual property protections and fighting piracy overseas.

“Piracy ends up being a huge problem overseas, and that’s an area where we’ve stepped up enforcement,” he said.

Of course, this contradicts with his statements about patents getting in the way of growth. Same can be true of excessive copyright law, hindering various innovations that could drive growth. Supporting greater enforcement overseas is still based on exaggerated claims of "losses" from an industry that still doesn't want to compete.

In the end, it's no surprise that he didn't have too much to say -- he's not going to break any major news in this manner -- but it's more just saying things to keep various groups happy, rather than actually doing something.

Filed Under: barack obama, copyright, net neutrality, patents, president obama

Cable Astroturfing Effort Comes Off Like When Your Dad Tries To Sound Like A Teenager

from the oh-that's-painful dept

In the past, we've covered attempts by big broadband to astroturf their way into the debate on net neutrality, and it just comes off as so obviously fake that it appears rather pitiful. The latest attempt may be even worse. While consumer advocacy groups have been able to do a great job getting people to speak up and raise their concerns about keeping the internet open, often appealing to younger folks who have always grown up with the internet, it appears that the big broadband lobbyists are now trying to fake their way into getting the same folks on their side -- and it comes off about as well as when your dad tries to act like a teenager, using new slang and trying to dress accordingly, but just making a total fool of himself. ProPublica has the details of a new effort by NCTA, the big broadband lobbying trade group run by former FCC chair Michael Powell (who is a big part of the reason we're in this mess today), called "Onward Internet." (ProPublica calls it a telco lobbying group, but NCTA is much more about cable interests).

Onward Internet has been setting up public "suggestion boxes" for the internet, complete with people idiotically dressed in "futuristic" costumes (because, you know how much millenials love Jetsons-like futuristic costumes): But, of course, nowhere do they actually admit who's behind the campaign. Instead, they just use a bunch of internet "lingo" that they think makes themselves sound young and cool.

The boxes, sometimes accompanied by young people in futuristic costumes, have been popping up on both coasts for weeks, soliciting messages of support - but their sponsor has been a mystery. The web site for the campaign, Onward Internet, does not say. Their domain registration is private. And the site includes no contact information, only an animated video heavy on millennial lingo: "The internet was made to move data...we got blogs, likes, selfies and memes, OMG, BRB and TTYL."

No one from Onward Internet or the "production agency" (which already suggests astroturfing) behind it would admit to who was involved, but ProPublica tracked it down anyway, by asking the company that rented the space for one of those nutty installations, who came right out and admitted that it was NCTA. Amusingly, when confronted about it, NCTA tried to sidestep the question:

NCTA officials did not respond to questions about Onward Internet and would not confirm they're behind it. "What led you to the conclusion that this is an NCTA effort...?" asked Brian Dietz, a vice president for the organization, before he stopped responding to emails.

And, again, the deeper you dive into the Onward Internet effort, the more awkward and gag-inducing it becomes:

"Sorry we can't come to the phone right now," the call-in greeting says. "We just got wind of the juiciest celebrity rumor and we're working to confirm it. So please leave your suggestion for the future of the internet at the beep and visit Onward Internet dot com next month to see what we've done with it."

No joke. That's really the message you get when you call. Again, it sounds like big powerful cable execs trying to think what a teenager might actually say.

The effort's Twitter feed is chock full of these awkward attempts at sounding young and cool. It apparently sprang up on September 3rd, a couple of weeks before the FCC's comment period closed... and almost no one noticed, despite it pretending to "represent the internet." After a silly "test" post, it claimed to be "the Internet's official Twitter account" (and the only responses were people calling it out for being astroturfing). And then, here's its attempt at being a regular Twitter account. I love that the awkward request for a retweet got... a single retweet. And it, too, got a response from someone asking "Who do you actually work for? Who signs your checks?" The one retweet came from a guy named Christopher Perry who (yes, you guessed it) runs an ad agency that notes he was the "art director" for Onward Internet. Here's a tip: when the only person retweeting your lame, wannabe, pleading attempts to get retweeted by young people is... the guy who created the campaign in the first place, you've failed. Big time.

After a couple of days, the Twitter feed shifts to pushing that insanely lame video, calling it "the #MOST #AMAZING #VIDEO about the Internet #EVER!" because, don't you know, the kids these days, they loves them some hashtags. They keep posting the video with new attempts to sound cool each time. "Check out this sweet video." "People, this is important!" The whole thing is ridiculous and delusional. As mentioned by ProPublica, the video itself is... terrible. It just keeps repeating slang and trying to sound ironic. It repeatedly references lolcats (because that's what kids like, right?) and even has a discussion on how to pronounce "Gif." It's just trying way too hard. And the results seem to match. It doesn't appear like it got very much engagement at all, and from the looks of it, the NCTA spent a fair amount on it, despite Dietz's half-hearted attempt at denying its participation.

Eventually, once the ProPublica story was published, he finally provided a statement, claiming that they kept NCTA's name off of it because they wanted "unbiased feedback." Uh huh.

"We know that network neutrality is important to Internet users and we share the vision that the Internet remains an open and unfettered experience for all to enjoy," he said in his statement. "We've kept NCTA's brand off Onward, Internet because we want to collect unbiased feedback directly from individuals about what they want for the future of the Internet and how it can become even better than it is today. The cable industry is proud of our role as a leading Internet provider in the U.S. but we feel it's important to hear directly from consumers about how they envision the future so we can work hard on delivering it."

By lying to them and trying to pretend to be cool and young and to actually get the internet, when it's so painfully obvious that they don't. Besides, no one believes that. We've all seen how these astroturfing efforts work, and the focus is on getting these people to sign up to later pretend that they support your vision of cable dominance over the internet.

Filed Under: astroturfing, future of the internet, net neutrality, omg, onward internet, open internet
Companies: comcast, ncta