I seriously doubt they're actually doing analysis at the level necessary to tell traffic generated by an iPhone apart from traffic generated by tethered computer. While it's theoretically possible to do this sort of thing, it's not trivial to do it for tens of millions of customers. And why bother? It's far more effective to just monitor total data usage and only pay closer attention to the real abusers.
i highly doubt at&t is going to that extreme, and that's hardly what one would call a 'dead giveaway.'
I have no idea if or how AT&T is sniffing traffic. However, I can speculate a little. It's fairly easy to distinguish traffic from a tethered and non-tethered iPhone. The iPhone apps will all be registered apps obtained via the Apple Apps Store. The tethered phone will be using apps not found on the iPhone. JailBroken iPhones may be a problem, but even those can be seperately characterized. For example, you're not going to see Bitorrent type traffic from a native iPhone application, but will see if from a tethered laptop.
Methinks it's highly probable that AT&T is sniffing and cataloging traffic by type. That's because data bandwidth is a precious and limited commodity. AT&T's ability to pack in more customers is limited by its access to bandwidth, towers, frequencies, and such. Tracking their use is important. Considerable research and much software has been written on traffic analysis over the years. High end routers include features to make monitoring possible and easier. Such things are normally not ignored by management.
It's common for wired ISP's to collect data on the traffic type, usually using Cisco Netflow monitoring software. For example: "Put the Brakes on Bandwidth Hogs with NetFlow Traffic Analyzer"
There are plenty others. Search Google for "Netflow Analyzer".
Whether AT&T has written routines to identify tethered users is speculative but probable. In the distant past, the Pre-AT&T Comcast was sniffing traffic to identify users that had multiple computahs hidden behind NAT routers, and was sending them a bill for those additional computers since the TOS only allowed one machine at a time. I wouldn't put it past AT&T to do the same with tethering.
Whether they do it correctly is another bad guess. Probably not. Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame got an $11,000 bill from AT&T for allegedly downloading 9GBytes while in Canada. The bill was immediately "settled" by AT&T, which really means that they would look like idiots if they tried to collect. You may not be as famous or fortunate: "Mythbusters' Savage The Latest Socked With Huge 3G Bill"
More on tethering. Looks like AT&T is trying to answer some of the rumors while waiting for the Verizon iPhone to be announced:
Lots of opinions and guesses, but the consensus seems to be that AT&T can detect tethering.
Drivel: What I think of mandatory data plans with smart phones: "48% of Americans Would Drop Mobile Data Service Completely"
Of course, they're all lying as watching YouTube over the iPhone is approaching saturation:
yeah, but apple has never had much of a corporate attitude, they mainly focus on disrupting established markets so power "to the people" can take place. nobody is loyal to "apple" per say, they are just enamored by how their products make their lives more interesting, more powerful.
Windoze Mobile based PDA phones, such as my Verizon XV6700, have an Internet Exporer based browser. There are also 3rd party browsers available for Windoze Mobile, such as Opera, Skyfire, Thunderhawk, and Mach5.
"Cheap shit"? I've had more crashes with Safari on my iPod Touch than any of the others on my XV6700. Things got better with firmware
2.2.1. I just got 3.0 so I can't tell if there's been any changes.David Moyer wrote in news:4a46531c$0$89877$815e3792 @news.qwest.net:
How does purposely limiting application selection give power "to the people"? Doesn't this demonstrate more of an attitude of "the people" being too stupid to knwo what they want?
I would also argue that many people are loyal to Apple. Simply witness the blind fanaticism we are inundated with in the cellular groups. People defending all Apple products to the death, no matter how good or bad the product is (Apple TV comes to mind).
In the same way that many are loyal to Honda.
In other words, I had one, it worked out very well, I got another, it was easy to switch over to the second one and *it* worked very well, I have a bunch of tools and a great support mechanism that makes it very easy to own--what's not to like? So I keep doing it.
I've been doing that for 21 years now with Macintosh computers, and see no reason to change. My entire family owns Macintosh computers. There are five Macs in my house alone.
I also own a Windows box, and I also run Windows as a VM inside my iMac. Why? Because when I need a tool, I need the tool--I don't bark about how "my dainty hands don't dare touch THAT kind of tool" or any such crap. That thinking is beyond me.
There are 50,000+ publicly available iPhone apps, with updates and new apps showing up all the time. Additionally, companies and individual developers (even not considering jailbreaking) can write their own iPhone apps which they may not decide to distribute to the public; AT&T has no knowledge of such apps at all. Attempting to tell tethered traffic from iPhone traffic by building models of all the types of data sent and received by iPhone apps and red-flagging anything that doesn't match would be ludicrously impractical.
I believe someone has actually ported a BitTorrent client to jailbroken iPhones. In any event, AT&T probably doesn't allow BitTorrent even with tethering plans, so at that point you're just watching for unapproved types of traffic, not for tethered vs. untethered use. Which makes much more sense; with a phone as capable as the iPhone, there's no meaningful distinction between tethered and untethered use. Someone who uses tethering for general web browsing and e-mail could use considerably less bandwidth than someone who watches a lot of movie trailers and YouTube videos on their phone; why should the former cost more?
It all comes down to the wireless carriers' desire to sell specific billable services rather than generic bandwidth, an approach that stifles innovation and results in screwy resource allocation because of the creation of distorted incentives.
[snip]
His twitter username, in addition to being an amusing reference to his show, it hilariously appropriate to this situation.
One really wonders why the wireless carriers insist on pricing some services so high that essentially nobody would willingly use them.
[snip]On Sat, 27 Jun 2009, David Moyer posted:
BWA HA HA HA HA HA!
Apple does "corporate" to levels that Microsoft or IBM couldn't even dream of.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA!
History proves that Apple fanboys will suck on whatever Apple whips out, no matter how ridiculously crappy.
-- Mark --
"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:
And that's the way it should be. You've found products that meet your needs and that you are very happy with. Based on what you just wrote, I would expect you to recommend those products to others by relating your experiences, not by blindly ignoring a product's shortcomings and putting undue emphasis on meaningless or trivial features.
That approach is the opposite of the one employed by the typical Apple fanboi.
Fanbois will, but not every user of Apple equipment will.
I use Macintosh computers. Been doing it for years. But iPhone? Nope. No need for it. AppleTV? WTF, Apple? What did you think your audience was for that, anyway?
Don't confuse the fanbois with people who just happen to have had great experiences with the actual Macintosh computer and operating system itself.
I only have an iPod Touch, not an iPhone. It's my understanding that only apps distributed via the Apps Store can be installed on the iPod Touch and iPhone (without jailbreaking). Even with 50,000+ apps, it's still a small number if their traffic (i.e. check for updates) can be characterized by Apple, blessed by AT&T (allegedly to protect their network), and therefore fairly easy to recognize. I don't have any way to sniff the 3G wireless traffic, but the 802.11g traffic is easy enough. I haven't done it (yet), but my guess is there's plenty there that will identify the application. "Sniff Your iPhone?s Network Traffic"
It only needs to detect if there are applications that were NOT downloaded from the apps store. Everything else is presumed to be traffic from a laptop or PC, which identifies tethering. Even the quantity of traffic need not be logged, only the application signatures. If your traffic shows the characteristic signatures of common Windoze applications, you're certain to be using a tethered iPhone.
Anyway, it wouldn't be necessary to sniff the traffic. AT&T need only offer a reward or financial incentive to anyone turning in a user doing tethering. That would surely end the practice as people turn in their neighbors, enemies, co-workers, boss, etc.
Groan. The surest sign of success is pollution. I guess the iPhone can now be official considered successful.
Not yet. They're currently dealing with mobile video:
Think Slingbox of the iPhone. Sigh...
See section starting with "Prohibited and Permissible Uses". No P2P, no VoIP, etc. Quite a list of prohibited uses. Except for P2P, I think I've broken every one of the itemized strictures with my iPod Touch using Wi-Fi. Sometimes, I'm glad I don't have an iPhone and a data plan.
Any manner of service or product differentiation, that has a revenue stream attached, is certainly meaningful. I'm rather surprised that AT&T (and others) don't charge different rates for incoming and outgoing data.
Bingo. None of the wired or wireless vendors want to simply sell bandwidth. That's too easy and certainly doesn't justify the high salaries of corporate marketeers. It also leaves little opportunity to accidentally cheat the customer. Well, maybe some delayed billing and predatory late payment charges will suffice. So, we have billing by service, which is stupid, but technically possible. Another potential problem is that if cellular data were cheap enough, many would switch over to VoIP via their data plan, and dump the voice part of their contract. That's exactly what's happening to AT&T's wired telco biz with predictable financially detrimental results.
Meanwhile, I suggest you resign yourself to being part of yet another grand experiment in cellular marketing. It won't last very long and will probably follow the path of the wired ISP's, which is flat rate and tiered service levels.
I've been told it's a fairly common problem. Although you can do roaming in Canada with most providers, it's my understanding (possibly wrong or warped) that the promotional and bulk voice and data rates offered in the USofA do not apply when roaming in Canada.
Early adopters will pay anything. Witness the first iPhone buyers, who paid about $150 too much, and then received only a partial refund. Companies use the revenue from these early adopters to expand the infrastructure, so that the great unwashed masses can have the same services at reasonable prices.
One of my former customers, now semi-retired in Florida, has 5 iPhones for family and employees. He claims he likes them because they're "non-technical". After about 6 months of owning the first one, I had to explain to him how to use the Apps Store. A few months later, I had to explain how to use some of the apps. My guess(tm) is that people like the iPhone because it *LOOKS* simple. It's not, but as long as the iPhone is preceived as easy to use, it will continue to be popular.
Apple fanbois that buy anything Apple makes.
True, but P2P itself is a ToS violation, isn't it? Even above and beyond tethering without an appropriate plan.
Besides, I doubt the ToS prevents you from using non-app store apps, so a jailbroken phone might be able to do P2P.
True, but the point is that as smartphones get smarter, they can do the same things computers do. There's a BT client for WinMo, so how might AT&T tell you were doing P2P on your Fuze or Epix vs. from a laptop tethered to a Fuze or Epix?
Perhaps, but again, it's probably more troble than it's worth. Why waste time or CPU cycles crunching and analysing the data used by a millions of customers pulling the "average" 150MB a month, when you can just randomly "audit" some of the top 5% or 10% of the users. I suspect such data is gathered more for statistical trend analysis, rather than individual compliance. AT&T rarely bothers to bust smartphone users using dumbphone data plans, and that just requires an IMEI lookup! If they can't be bothered to verify that, I strongly doubt they're analyzing individual users' data patterns very closely. It'd be like expecting Inspector Cleuseau to run a DNA test after you noticed he didn't know how to hold a magnifying glass!
Apparently he needs to bust the myth that Canada isn't a foreign country... ;)
I'll get in another Customer Service "attaboy" for my friends at T-Mobile: recently they started sending text mesages to customers warning them of high roaming costs each time your phone roams onto a different foreign carrier. They also have a free (even while roaming!) international customer support line that'll talk you through rates and how to disable cellular data.
(They've always texted the int'l support number to foreign roamers, but the data cost warning is new..)
Presumably that's a function of the iPhone tethering app, rather than any sleuthing by AT&T. Apple designed a very carrier-friendly device. I'd be very shocked if the built-in tethering function didn't announce to the carrier its intention. As I said earlier, Sprint replaces the usual tethering app in their HTC phone with one that "squeals" to Sprint that you're tethering, so Sprint can allow the connection or block it depending on your data plan. Users can replace the app with one ripped from a non- Sprint HTC phone, or buy PDANet or WiFiRouter to get around it.
So, at least with Sprint, relying on the phone finking is the primary detection method,which is better than what they used before: a Sprint management buddy of mine admitted to me a few years ago that (at that time) their only detection method was data metering- "too much" indicated tethering, and they fired off a "don't do it again" warning letter.
But might that just be the cart leading the horse? If I'm forced to buy something I didn't want, I'm going to make the best of it. Without a mandatory data plan, those YouTube video uploads might've just waited until the user got home!
I think there's a huge market for a cellular data-less iPod Phone. And frankly so does AT&T or they wouldn't make data mandatory. ;) McDonald's doesn't have to make fries mandatory with a burger purchase- 90% of the customers buy them willingly. If most iPhone customers would willingly choose a dataplan, AT&T wouldn't have to hold a virtual gun to their heads to buy it!
Or unless you're an iPhone developer, which pretty much anyone can be for $99/year. Or unless you're a company that deploys the iPhone internally, and makes internal-use-only applications available to employees.
It's utterly ludicrous to think this would actually be worth the effort for anyone involved. It's like pointing out that cities could trivially prevent all illegal parking by putting appropriate sensors in every parking space. It's true, but not remotely worth the effort. 100% enforcement of anything is often far more trouble than it's worth.
[snip]Application signatures are far more technically challenging to identify than simple bandwidth consumption on this scale, and attempting to spot them is very likely to get you into an arms race with the people who write the software that will inevitably emerge to disguise them.
Right. Because the BSA's practices along these lines have completely eliminated software piracy; people will routinely snitch on individuals they know personally to receive small financial rewards from faceless multinational corporations. And running your network like a police state will lead to such good PR, too!
[snip]
This is the inevitable result, and I'm sometimes confused by the fact that none of the telcos had hit on the notion that it could probably gain *huge* market share by being the first to get there.
[snip]
That isn't what's going on here, though. I paid $600 for an iPhone a couple of years ago. I knew I was paying a substantial early-adopter tax; I did so because I'd been using the same phone for about five years because absolutely nothing new in the market appealed to me, and the iPhone was the first new device that actually did. And -- and this is an important bit -- I paid $600 for an iPhone knowing that it would cost me $600.
In contrast, there is essentially *nobody* who is actually willing to pay $11,000 for downloading some data. Nobody who ends up with a bill like that knew what they would be charged for the services they were using; if they had, they wouldn't have used them.
It's really hard to see what wireless companies get out of this practice; its sole result seems to be the periodic occurrence of bad PR.
Like most Apple products, you either understand the appeal of the iPhone or you don't, and if you don't, there's really no explaining it. And mind you, not everyone who uses an iPhone really gets it either; quite a few people do just buy them as fashion accessories.
But there is more to it than that. I'll point again to the figure mentioned in the subject of this thread. When the iPhone was released, many people insisted it wasn't anything new; that other phones already had all of its features. And this was, by and large, true, and even more true today. Why then, do iPhone users appear to *use* many of those features at a rate much higher than users of other phones?
The answer is that not everything is captured by a spec sheet. There are design decisions which make certain features substantially more useful on the iPhone, particularly as far as non-geek users are concerned, than on most other phones.
Try going to a Flash site. Real browser my ass.
This is no place to brag about your ass.
Imagine. Jimmy Lee Jr turns everything into some sort of gay fetish. Come on out of the closet boy.
On Sat, 27 Jun 2009, Elmo P. Shagnasty posted:
I agree.
My sentiments exactly.
I've used Macintosh for over 20 years; 7 in all, of which I still own 5 and still use 2. I've gone through at least as many Windows machines. I've lost track of the number Linux machines.
I use the tool that is most suitable for the task at hand.
I share your bewilderment over AppleTV. That's a product that should have been put out of its misery years ago.
I don't.
For some purposes, Mac is the most suitable platform. For other purposes, Mac sucks.
-- Mark --
On Sat, 27 Jun 2009, ZnU posted:
If tethering an iPhone becomes a service for which AT&T charges $30/month (which would be consistent with AT&T's other data product pricing), rest assured that it will be worth it to AT&T to ensure that only customers who pay that fee get to tether.
-- Mark --
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