Netsource Transparently proxying HTTP

Spooge

(Tried to post this yesterday, it got eaten).

I'm using netsource's SOHO DSL product, which is pretty damn good, connection-wise. One thing I did notice, though, is that they appear to be transparently proxying HTTP requests. Which is not a very bad thing, but might have implications for people who're doing webdev as part of their business (or, obviously, pr0n kings).

e.g., I make a web request to blah.com, and in the logs, I see:

[Sun Jul 13 02:14:46 2003] [error] [client 212.17.32.17] File does not exist: /home/blah/public_html/dsfdfsdfsdfs

And nslookup shows:

Name: proxy.clubi.ie
Address: 212.17.32.17

Which is a bit not good. I'll be giving Netsource a call on monday, to see if I can be exempted. Since I paid for a net connection, ta very much.

Before you mention, I don't have the proxy configured anywhere. The only reason I noticed is I was having intermittent access problems on machines on the LAN apart from the machine with the modem (using Windows ICS). Which is weird, because I can telnet to external machines on port 80.

Frank Grimes

Originally posted by Spooge
I'll be giving Netsource a call on monday, to see if I can be exempted. Since I paid for a net connection, ta very much.

Just out of interest, if they are using a transparent proxy, why do you think they'll exempt you?

jesus_thats_gre

I know I am missing something here, but whats the big deal?

Emboss

NTL do this aswell, i don't have any 'internal' or 'external problems' jesus_thats_gre i'm with you, i fail to see how this effects you ?

lynchie

Well if they are proxying HTTP requests, then they can monitor every page that you are visiting. Surely there has to be some sort of privacy implications here?

captainpat

I think Clubi.ie is an old name for the company that is now netsource. So it would just be their way of handling their traffic.

STaN

Originally posted by lynchie
Well if they are proxying HTTP requests, then they can monitor every page that you are visiting. Surely there has to be some sort of privacy implications here?

Any ISP is ment to keep a log of their users activity for 3-5 years.

STaN

Also.. would this have anything to do with the fact i can't access boards.ie?

I can get inside the network but that IP seems to be filtered out. Other people on netsource can access boards but some can't access other .ie domains such as quake.ie which i can access.

Could their routing be b0rked?

I can only access this site using a free proxy

Emboss

Originally posted by captainpat
I think Clubi.ie is an old name for the company that is now netsource. So it would just be their way of handling their traffic.

ye it is, hence why www.club.ie points to www.netsource.ie

Emboss

Originally posted by lynchie
Well if they are proxying HTTP requests, then they can monitor every page that you are visiting. Surely there has to be some sort of privacy implications here?

no implications no

jesus_thats_gre

How do you they think they can track kiddy fidlers!!!!!! I think???

Emboss

Originally posted by jesus_thats_gre
How do you they think they can track kiddy fidlers!!!!!! I think???

some of them are stupid enough to do it in public net cafes and get a slap on the hand

Spooge

That was my problem otiginally, stan. Some sites just ain't working, and if it's anything to do with the proxy, then they should allow people to not use it. Some examples were www.komplett.ie, and boards is sometimes not available, either.

flav0rflav

HTTP_VIA is 1.1 netcache (NetCache NetApp/5.2.1)

I would guess at this stage they at least know all our boards aliases! or rather the parent-given ones.

Supercell

http://www.komplett.ie works fine here, your link has a , in it.

Spooge

*buries face in hands*

...I know my link has a , in it. That's not the point.

Anyway, my ICS problems were unrelated to the cache.

The Brigadier

I had a problem from Friday through till Monday..

I couldn't post on boards... I could view but not post... Also anytime I wanted to upload anything over HTTP it would time out.

I rang there support and they got me to change the proxy settings on IE and now it works..

It is only a new development..

fatguy

I believe this is perfectly normal behaviour for an isp.

greys

UTVip guys (dialup) do transparent proxying as well, and that might be a real pain when trying to keep your privacy on a level... Even various anonymyzing programs won't work because of that.

But speaking of the option to avoid transparent proxy, you can connect through any public SOCKS proxy (settings for your browser are usually somewhere on the same tab with other proxy settings), which uses different port and therefore doesn't go through the transparent proxy. That would help you get to some websites which don't work with a regular http connection.

flav0rflav

Originally posted by STaN
Any ISP is ment to keep a log of their users activity for 3-5 years.

I don't see any eircom transparent proxy on my connection here at work. And I don't believe it was on our previous Via leased line connection.

Are businesses differentiated from private users??

STaN

Even if you don't go through the proxy they have a log of the IP you are visiting.

Its the law that they keep the records, not necessarily store every webpage you visited, but the connections you make

bk

Originally posted by STaN
Even if you don't go through the proxy they have a log of the IP you are visiting.

Its the law that they keep the records, not necessarily store every webpage you visited, but the connections you make

Just as well, given the amount of data some Netsource users seem to be using, can you imagine the size of the archives they would need.

SirLemonhead

Stan, I'm having trouble accessing a site on my eircom broadband connection. How exactly are you getting access to boards.ie?

STaN

if your on eircom, ring their tech support. I'm on netsource and they told me to use a proxy while they try figure out whats going on.

SirLemonhead

Will do. Thanks.

Tazzle

Netsource's routing is a bit pants at the moment too.

²°°³webkev²°°³

Originally posted by Spooge

they appear to be transparently proxying HTTP requests. Which is not a very bad thing, but might have implications for people who're doing webdev as part of their business (or, obviously, pr0n kings).

what exactly does this mean?

Spooge

It means all traffic on port 80 (basically, all webpages) is being proxied, and probably cached by netsource. Proxying is when web requests are forwarded to one machine, where that machine makes the request for you, and returns the content. Cacheing is like proxying, except the proxy machine keeps it own copy of the page for a while. Needless to say, it probably means that all requests are logged.

crowbar

a lot of isps transparent proxy to give better response to their users (and to save them on upstream internet access costs but they never tell you that!!!) in a previous life we installed a web proxy at the company i was working in and we saw our internet traffic decrease by around 25%.

as an isp tho i'd be pretty pissed off if they restricted or filtered at the proxy, i mean what if they got it wrong and filtered boards by mistake for a day? quite a few of us (it seems) would have to find something else to do for the day

Martin-UTVi

Transparent proxying is now an industry wide measure that allows companies to save on bandwidth and also adhere to any local legislation regarding data retention for their customers. But it only runs on port 80 and is quite easy to bypass using external caches on different ports. Users should not notice any degradation in web performance (in fact quite the opposite) and transparent cache software has matured enough that we see very little problems with it.

I think over the coming years you'll see it applying to more than just web access. A lot more ISP's are transparently proxying port 25 traffic on their network although this is being done purely for legal reasons ( for logging email sessions ) and to combat SPAM.