[AusNOG] Telstra's Texan Teaser - Tin Foil Stetsun anyone?

[Rod Veith]

"Through a 40~ odd minute phone call, I was able to speak to a chap in
`Level 2 Technical Support`, who has confirmed for me that it is a part of
Telstra's core system, where they track the websites you have visited for
bill reporting purposes. "



This seems plausible - keeping histories for billing queries/disputes is
reasonable and is probably a mandatory TIO/ACMA requirement. With very high
charges once a data plan is exceeded, Telstra does need to be able to verify
that the data charges are valid and a history can well help resolve billing
disputes. 

 

Would be good for an independent party to confirm the data is not used for
other purposes.

 

I'm not commenting on the technique used as I do not know enough however I'm
comfortable enough to pack away the foil hat for another day.  J

 

Rod

 

 

From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net
[mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Joseph Goldman
Sent: Monday, 25 June 2012 4:48 PM
To: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Telstra's Texan Teaser - Tin Foil Stetsun anyone?

 

 Through a 40~ odd minute phone call, I was able to speak to a chap in
`Level 2 Technical Support`, who has confirmed for me that it is a part of
Telstra's core system, where they track the websites you have visited for
bill reporting purposes. 

 In other words, I confirmed with the chap (I have a reference for this
call), that he could request billing to show a list of websites I have
visited and how long I was on those websites.

 He informed me that these services hitting the same website is tied in with
that system.

 It doesn't make sense why they would hit the site again as a GET, as they
could pull this from a transparent proxy, and the purpose of scraping the
website to gain extra insight about what i'm browsing, would suggest they
would keep the path/query string instead of just hitting the root of the
site, to actually see what content I am browsing.

 I was also informed that I can not opt-out of this occurring, so I plan to
contact ACCC or TIO in the morning to see what they can tell me about the
practise (who would you think is better?).

Interesting indeed.

On 25/06/12 3:38 PM, James Nicol wrote: 

Eric, you should check this out.

 

http://www.zdnet.com.au/google-maps-coordinate-tracks-employees-339340095.ht
m

 

James

 

From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net
[mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Eric Pinkerton
Sent: Monday, 25 June 2012 3:30 PM
To: Matt Perkins; ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Telstra's Texan Teaser - Tin Foil Stetsun anyone?

 

>Could it be that telstra are passing your browsing history in real time to
a marketing company who are then looking at the site to gather some sort of
marking info on the site you were just looking at.
Would explain why they are not looking at there own cache. 

 

Last night I had a dream.  I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the
Lord.  Across the sky flashed scenes from my life.  For each scene, I
noticed three sets of footprints in the sand: one belonged to me, one to the
Lord, and one to a marketing company in the US who was paying Telstra for my
exact movements in real time.

 

 

Message protected by MailGuard: e-mail anti-virus, anti-spam and content
filtering.
http://www.mailguard.com.au/mg

 
 






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