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When AT&T first did their Fiber rollout in SF, one of the things I remember was they charged you $10 extra if you didn't want them to MITM all your connections
by cbhl 6y ago
When AT&T first did their Fiber rollout in SF, one of the things I remember was they charged you $10 extra if you didn't want them to MITM all your connections to insert JavaScript pointing to their own ads.
They rolled this back when folks complained, but I wonder if the relevant infrastructure is still sitting around and mangling packets.
I would probably expect this to be some network card or cable or connector is failing though...
- floatingatoll 6y agoYes, as of six months ago I had to look up how to opt out of MITMing for a coworker on AT&T Fiber, so that they could use the Internet again when the remote-activated MITM feature inside the modem broke.
- StillBored 6y agoThe tweet indicates it is at a specific bit position. That isn't symptomatic of a bad cable/sfp/etc. Analog problems like that tend to be more random. Random bit flipping in a fixed bit position is symptomatic of bad ram somewhere, or a router asic gone bad, or various software/config issues.
- jasomill 6y agoWhat I always wondered about this is, unless AT&T has permission from the copyright holder of each and every Web page so modified to distribute the resulting derivative work, how is this practice not criminal copyright infringement?
- kmeisthax 6y agoFor the same reason why ISPs are generally immunized from contributory liability that they would otherwise be completely buried in. Now, if you had written JavaScript to detect and remove these ads, and they went around that, then you might be able to construct a DMCA 1201 claim and sue the ISP for circumventing what is legally considered DRM. Yes, JavaScript can be legally protected DRM. The law doesn't say it has to be good DRM, it just has to have the effect of controlling access to a copyrighted work. And the safe harbors the DMCA provides ISPs wouldn't protect them in this case.
- _rs 6y agoAs someone who doesn’t have ATT as an option here, clearly they can’t be that blatant about it?! How did they spin this $10 fee?
- kalleboo 6y agohttps://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/09/att-to-end-targeted-ads-program-give-all-users-lowest-available-price/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/09/att-t...