[Q] how does aT&t know your tethering??

mac1845427 · Sep 18, 2012

[Q] tethering caught with fox fi- with proxy
i have been a big fan of tethering since my old iPhone days.
the switch to android has been a big step and i am not telling anyone to tether so please don't abuse this.
i used foxfi with proxy for about 4 months until last night. got a email from AT&t stating that i would be moved to a tethering plan for 65 dollars more a month and one less gig than i had before. so for all those that use foxfi with proxy, it doesn't work. i know pda net dosent work from friend who also got a letter, before me.
so i am stuck .. no more tethering for me.. i am actually retiring from it. but i still keep the option on my phone if such an emergency arises.

hears where i am asking for the opinions of the xda members. i am not sure how at&t knows, but they did, and it doesn't make sense that they scan all every packet of data. any ideas how they know?

i did do one thing that i found hidden on my samsung notei717. under network settings it only shows ONE apn. but... if you download a apn-manager it shows a hidden APN-att-entitlement. is this how they know? i thought it was only used for people who pay for tethering? is it also used to track tethering?
i ended up using a sql editor and removed the line for this APN from the(/data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/telephony.db) rebooted phone and now its gone, phone works well and i havent seen any problems yet. ( i did make a copy if anyone wants to see the original)
might anyone in here have any ideas of how at&t knew ?
i am more curious if anything.. even my wife told me, that i have a big enough screen, just use it as a computer from now on.
was it this APN that gave it away? (i tethered a android tablet for internet and games)

jh0 · Sep 18, 2012

I'm on T-Mobile and have been caught tethering, I use chrome extension user-agent switcher. Choose the Android user-agent. If some pages require IE then just precede with HTTPS.

Try it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium

Theoriginalgiga · Sep 18, 2012

Another thought you could use the tether, establish a VPN tunnel to a home machine and then use the internet that way. it'll encapsulate your traffic from your laptop to your home PC so AT&T could see is traffic but not what and where. From what I've read it's either 1 of 2 ways how AT&T detect if you're tethering:

1) by detecting what type of response headers and ports your connecting on. A VPN tunnel would protect you.
2) the other rumor is that by using a tethering program (or one that's built in for that matter) uses a tethering specific APN which AT&T tracks that way. So in theory if you could specify which APN you use for tethering that would protect you.

I haven't wanted to test out these theories because I have unlimited plan and don't want to risk it.

mac1845427 · Sep 18, 2012

Theoriginalgiga said:
Another thought you could use the tether, establish a VPN tunnel to a home machine and then use the internet that way. it'll encapsulate your traffic from your laptop to your home PC so AT&T could see is traffic but not what and where. From what I've read it's either 1 of 2 ways how AT&T detect if you're tethering:

1) by detecting what type of response headers and ports your connecting on. A VPN tunnel would protect you.
2) the other rumor is that by using a tethering program (or one that's built in for that matter) uses a tethering specific APN which AT&T tracks that way. So in theory if you could specify which APN you use for tethering that would protect you.

I haven't wanted to test out these theories because I have unlimited plan and don't want to risk it.

i have deleted the alternate APN ( which is hidden even from root users) so i am not sure if that is it.
is it possible to alter the TTL ? and if so how?
- also how would i tweak my note to use a VPN?

Theoriginalgiga · Sep 18, 2012

mac1845427 said:
i have deleted the alternate APN ( which is hidden even from root users) so i am not sure if that is it.
is it possible to alter the TTL ? and if so how?
- also how would i tweak my note to use a VPN?

Personally I'd handle the VPN on the laptop/computer instead of the phone itself. Inherently there's an overhead for a VPN and requires processing power which would slow down your throughput on your phone if the phone was handling that.

Here's a link that has a decent walk through if you want to use the phone for the VPN.
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/smartphones/securely-connect-your-android-smartphone-via-vpn/3321

What APN did you delete? can you post the values of it? Also why do you want to change your TTL?

xblosa · Sep 18, 2012

I do not know how at &t does it, but a friend was one of the first owner of a 10" tablet with internal 3g years ago. His provider accused him doing tethering.

We assumed that they check the screen resolution of the browser which some web sites use to optimise the layout.

After short discussion, he could convince them and they droped the case.

gregsarg · Sep 18, 2012

Not that I'm in any way knowledgeable in the context of this topic, but when you mentioned the alteration and/or deletion of hidden APN data...
Bear in mind that a stock GB build for the ATT note, contains 1352 separate APN's....
And I'm not sure if the hidden file will capture the additional data or not to prevent detection, but I thought I'd post anyway just in case it helps at all ...g

Edit : I can't say for sure where these APN logs are stored or how/when they are accessed, but I know they exist as they can be seen when backing or restoring the GB or ICS UCLF6 Builds when tracking the line by line process.

Good luck to you gentlemen, I have nothing else to offer on the subject ....sorry ....g

Theoriginalgiga · Sep 18, 2012

xblosa said:
I do not know how at &t does it, but a friend was one of the first owner of a 10" tablet with internal 3g years ago. His provider accused him doing tethering.

We assumed that they check the screen resolution of the browser which some web sites use to optimise the layout.

After short discussion, he could convince them and they droped the case.

If that's the case, that sort of data can be masked by a VPN tunnel. But I think it's a little more complex than that because there's quite a few tablets on AT&T now.

xblosa · Sep 18, 2012

Theoriginalgiga said:
If that's the case, that sort of data can be masked by a VPN tunnel. But I think it's a little more complex than that because there's quite a few tablets on AT&T now.

Sure, they will have improved their detection, but it will be based on fingerprinting for the traffic of commonly used desktop applications. VPN will avoid this, but using VPN all the time might be suspiscious per se.

Theoriginalgiga · Sep 18, 2012

xblosa said:
Sure, they will have improved their detection, but it will be based on fingerprinting for the traffic of commonly used desktop applications. VPN will avoid this, but using VPN all the time might be suspiscious per se.

Agreed, it would look suspicious, but suspicion isn't enough to warrant AT&T to switch your account.

porkenhimer · Sep 18, 2012

I got the email from AT&T about a year ago warning me about tethering and I called the number and she said their system looks for many thing and throws up red flags when it can prove you are tethering. She said they have to have proof before they can warn people. I was using my device to tether an iPod touch and she told me the reason I was caught was because I had downloaded apps from the App Store on an I device but my sim card was never shown to be inside an Idevice. It was crazy because I used several devices to tether for at least three years without being caught and within a week of using the iPod I was caught.

johnrippa · Sep 19, 2012

How dare we use the services we pay for! Such arrogance I have never seen to think att shouldn't be able to double dip. Vote Romney 2012 and deregulate more!

lastdeadmouse · Sep 19, 2012

I got a warning once after watching Netflix... on my phone. They're usually bull****.

Sent from my SGH-I717 using xda premium

projectpaki · Oct 2, 2012

Earlier this month, I was on vacay and decided to use my phone to tether to my laptop (wasnt going to pay $12 at the hotel for damn sure), and I forgot and left it on thru one night. I didn't really "tether" per say, I turned my phone to a hotspot actually and it's not like my internet usage was higher than normal neither.

SayWhat10 · Oct 2, 2012

Why does at&t trip when you gotta pay anyway? (if no unlimited plan of course)

Theoriginalgiga · Oct 2, 2012

SayWhat10 said:
Why does at&t trip when you gotta pay anyway? (if no unlimited plan of course)

Well because AT&T wants to get you for every single penny they can. They want to charge you for a data plan, then a tether plan and roaming plan, and idevice plan, a non-idevice plan, a gps plan, a navigation plan, a text to speech plan, your grandma is a dirty girl plan, your connected to more than one tower at a time plan, a video chat plan. I'm sure you get the point, if they can squeeze that extra penny from the people and force them to pay higher prices, even though it alienates their consumers, they know people aren't going to leave. The market isn't who has the best service gets the most customers anymore. It's you will use us because we're all owned by the same company and we just give you the illusion that you have choices, but in reality all your money are belong to us.

/climbs off of soapbox

drnecropolis · Oct 2, 2012

I have a 3 gig plan and use about 8 gigs a month.. I tether my ps3 and play online and stuff like that.. I have never heard from AT&T..

Surely they can see when I'm connected to Playstation Network using massive amounts of data..

Its powered by Jellybeaned AOKP!

Tim M. · Oct 2, 2012

Did you delete the tethering manager program?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium

gregsarg · Oct 2, 2012

johnrippa said:
How dare we use the services we pay for! Such arrogance I have never seen to think att shouldn't be able to double dip. Vote Romney 2012 and deregulate more!

Exactly !!..g

SayWhat10 · Oct 2, 2012

drnecropolis said:
I have a 3 gig plan and use about 8 gigs a month.. I tether my ps3 and play online and stuff like that.. I have never heard from AT&T..

Surely they can see when I'm connected to Playstation Network using massive amounts of data..

Its powered by Jellybeaned AOKP!

aside from charging you for tethering...they dont charge you for the overage from the 3gig to 8gig? that has to be a lot

[Q] how does aT&t know your tethering??

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