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

[Scott Howard]

On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 10:19 PM, Paul Wilkins <paulwilkins369 at gmail.com>wrote:

> What has surprised me is that they need to hit the destination web server
> from the US. If this data had been replicated from the Telstra proxy
> servers and then transferred to the US by some back channel, there'd be
> zero visibility.
>

And if Telstra had written this system for themselves, that might be what
it would do.  However, forwarding the actual content back to another
company has far more serious implications than just sending a URL without
any included cookies/arguments/etc. Using the specifically returned content
means that it's based on the contents of those cookies/login sessions/etc,
and thus can and will contact personal information that will (normally) not
be included if only the bare URL is used.

The simple fact is that what they are doing is common amongst multiple web
security products.  Cisco Ironport, Blue Coat, Websense, Zscaler, and most
likely several others all have similar functionality.  I'm sure countless
ISPs in Australia are already passing similar feedback for email messages,
and I'd be amazed if Telstra were the only ones doing it for web URLs...

  Scott.
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