Live data from Hacker News

UK network o2 send your number to every site you visit

lew.io

91–100 of 180 posts

Re: UK network o2 send your number to every site you visit

#92

Confirmed on a Google Nexus. In his webpage he also says "They downgrade all images and insert a javascript link into the HTML of each page." The image downgrading has been know about for ages, the JS I have not heard about before. I have asked for more info on Twitter but will investigate myself if I can find time today.

We got aware of that problem in October 2011 during relaunch of our website and we faced it also with t-mobile in germany. After digging around helpful sources have been http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4113268/how-to-stop-javas... Besides injecting the bmi.js they also do their own javascript compression. At that time we had our own minified version of jquery, which got corrupted by their compression. They assume…

Yes- we were stung by this one.

Our boss saw errors loading the site on his iPad, but whenever we brought him into the office to try and replicate it, the problems disappeared.

We finally figured out it only happened when he was out the office, so on 3G not WiFi, and then managed to find the stackoverflow post you mention.

Re: UK network o2 send your number to every site you visit

#94
post #31

Using Opera Mini seems to disable this "feature". Of course, doing so means all of my web traffic goes via Oslo. And of course, any apps using an http API are presumably affected too. I'm rather disappointed to hear about this.

> Of course, doing so means all of my web traffic goes via Oslo.

Which probably means that your phone number is going to Oslo instead. At least it's not being proxied onwards from there.

Re: UK network o2 send your number to every site you visit

#95
post #54

I'm filing a Data Protection complaint now. I'd encourage other UK HNers to do the same: http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/data_protection.aspx

That page suggests you can only complain if you've been personally affected.

Although I've been on O2 in the past, I don't have any evidence that the problem occurred during that time. I'm on Orange now, which appears to be unaffected.

It's a pain, because I'd been thinking about switching back to O2 to get Visual Voicemail, which no other UK provider appears to be able to support.

Re: UK network o2 send your number to every site you visit

#97

As bad as this may seem, SMS spoofing is way, way worse. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2010/04/mobile_spoofing.... Nothing has been done about it.

When using Skype messaging to a mobile number, you can enter your real mobile number as the 'from' address (In Skype settings). To do this Skype first sends you a confirmation message to the number you want to send from. I'm going to assume the confirmation message is Skype being curious, and that the same technology could be used without confirmation. Or is this an agreement with the mobile operators?

Re: UK network o2 send your number to every site you visit

#98
post #54

I'm filing a Data Protection complaint now. I'd encourage other UK HNers to do the same: http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/data_protection.aspx

Fired them an email, don't really expect or care for a response, just want to make some noise about it.

You should absolutely expect a response. The ICO was set up exactly for cases like these and is funded by the taxes you are paying.

Make sure you have filled in the correct complaint forms and provided your personal details. Sending an email with a link to the lew.io site or this HN thread is useless to them.

Re: UK network o2 send your number to every site you visit

#99
Wow, just tried this and my number is right there in plain text within the HTTP header.

I would never have signed the contract if I was aware that this would be happening.

Does anybody know if this is a new development or been happening forever?

Hopefully they fix this pronto, if not I'm not quite sure what to do since I'm really not comfortable using the service if this is happening and it's something I'm already signed up to pay for monthly for the next year at least!

Re: UK network o2 send your number to every site you visit

#100

Wow, just tried this and my number is right there in plain text within the HTTP header. I would never have signed the contract if I was aware that this would be happening. Does anybody know if this is a new development or been happening forever? Hopefully they fix this pronto, if not I'm not quite sure what to do since I'm really not comfortable using the service if this is happening and it's something I'm already si…

> I'm not quite sure what to do

File a Data Protection complaint, see below: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3509096

Post reply on HN