[AusNOG] Interception?

[Skeeve Stevens]

Hey all,

Given the discussions happening on the list at the moment and what happened
with Telstra, and a particular project I am working on at the moment, I
thought I would seek the community's comments.

In simple terms, the project is a wireless hotspot for a particular
purpose.  The hotspot provides content (all legal) and after a product
purchase, internet access for a period of time.  All that is simple and
nothing many people aren't already doing.

The issue that I've recently come up against is HTTPS.  Many sites are
moving to HTTPS as default.  Facebook, Google, etc etc are starting to use
it more and more.  Now this is not a problem at all, and fully supported as
normal web traffic should be.

The problem we're facing is that as per normal hotspot solutions, when a
user connects to the hotspot, they get an IP.  Then they start a browser,
and if it goes to a home-page, it gets redirected to a captive portal page
where they click some terms and we move on.

Now that many people are having a HTTPS address as their
'home/startpage/etc', the HTTPS not able to get anywhere and breaking.  So
to solve this issue, we now also intercept 443 - HTTPD and redirect it back
to the portal.

Due to the user trying to go to https://blah.com/ being re-directed, the
browser is freaking out with an interception or man-in-the-middle attack
potential alert and so on.

Now, I think its possible to work our way around this, but the question
remains - "Is intercepting HTTPS for redirection purposes - an interception
issue" ?

I am sure there are lots of people who have had this problem and may (or
may not) have a way around it... but the question is - is there any legal
issues here we have to worry about?

Comments welcome.
*

*
*Skeeve Stevens, CEO - *eintellego Pty Ltd
skeeve at eintellego.net ; www.eintellego.net

Phone: 1300 753 383; Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 ; skype://skeeve

facebook.com/eintellego ;  <http://twitter.com/networkceoau>
linkedin.com/in/skeeve

twitter.com/networkceoau ; blog: www.network-ceo.net

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