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Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

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Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#21

Post by kmeisthax »

nousermane wrote: post #16
_wldu wrote: post #15

They are probably trying to reduce SIP abuse. It's a big problem.

Ah, yes. The classic "all our customers are morons" approach, with no opt-out for those 0.1% who, in fact, are not. Very typical among ISPs/Telcos. Where I am, we used to have a different, "nerdy" ISP [0], where customer was allowed to bring their own modem; they also provided real IPv4/v6 dual-stack since forever, easy to request a /29, tech-support that's realistic to reach, and staffed with people who know what th…

The opt-out is buy business-class service[0].

My guess is that the 2x price increase Xs4all was charging for their plan was a bridge too far for most customers. It's important to keep in mind that the vast majority of people rent their modem, don't know or care what a /29 is, and is calling tech support because the plug is loose or the modem needs a power cycle. Bulk-blocking SMTP happened because open ports are botnet ports, and the average customer does not know how to identify and shut down zombies on their network.

[0] Assuming your provider isn't stupidly committed to "you can't have business class because you're in a residential area, WFH doesn't exist, and the zoning code is gospel, all hail Robert Moses"

Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#22

Post by [deleted] »

kkielhofner wrote: post #20
_wldu wrote: post #15

They are probably trying to reduce SIP abuse. It's a big problem.

Glad this is at the top. The linked Reddit thread demonstrates a common but fundamental misunderstanding of SIP. Port 5060 is used for call control and is very low traffic. At most you may have timed OPTIONS messages but a “standard” SIP deployment is at most a handful of (small) packets per second per call setup and tear down with occasional REGISTER messages on an interval measured in seconds. Very low traffic and…

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#23

Post by peterangular »

zbrozek wrote: post #18
peterangular wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep - best practice is to always tunnel, or reverse proxy out on a random port if you're self-hosting anything . Have had many providers over the years and have anecdotally found that experience to be very true.

Yeah, in the past I tunneled everything through a VPS. These days I no longer bother, but I'm also getting service via a small ISP. It's a co-op and I got voted onto the board, so I have reasonable confidence against shenanigans.

Yep - VPS tunneling usually through nginx is how I get around it for my use cases.

Cheers on the co-op ISP - that's outstanding and I wish more places did that. In so many ways that's living the dream!

Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#24

Post by megous »

_wldu wrote: post #15

They are probably trying to reduce SIP abuse. It's a big problem.

Yeah, running SIP on a standard port without some serious firewall based rate limiting for unknown traffic is almost impossible.

I tried running a PBX on UDP 5060 and got >4GiB of logged register attempts in a few hours after opening the port, while asterisk was running at 100% CPU just rejecting the registration attempts the whole time.

It's insane compared to any other public service I run.

Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#25

Post by [deleted] »

kmeisthax wrote: post #21
nousermane wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, yes. The classic "all our customers are morons" approach, with no opt-out for those 0.1% who, in fact, are not. Very typical among ISPs/Telcos. Where I am, we used to have a different, "nerdy" ISP [0], where customer was allowed to bring their own modem; they also provided real IPv4/v6 dual-stack since forever, easy to request a /29, tech-support that's realistic to reach, and staffed with people who know what th…

The opt-out is buy business-class service[0]. My guess is that the 2x price increase Xs4all was charging for their plan was a bridge too far for most customers. It's important to keep in mind that the vast majority of people rent their modem, don't know or care what a /29 is, and is calling tech support because the plug is loose or the modem needs a power cycle. Bulk-blocking SMTP happened because open ports are botn…

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#27

Post by techsupporter »

nousermane wrote: post #16
_wldu wrote: post #15

They are probably trying to reduce SIP abuse. It's a big problem.

Ah, yes. The classic "all our customers are morons" approach, with no opt-out for those 0.1% who, in fact, are not. Very typical among ISPs/Telcos. Where I am, we used to have a different, "nerdy" ISP [0], where customer was allowed to bring their own modem; they also provided real IPv4/v6 dual-stack since forever, easy to request a /29, tech-support that's realistic to reach, and staffed with people who know what th…

> Where I am, we used to have a different, "nerdy" ISP [Xs4all]

I remember Xs4all, sorry to hear they went under.

I also miss the brief moment when we had line sharing on copper telco networks in the United States. Most people were perfectly happy with the standard offerings from their local telco, but those of us who wanted more could connect with an ISP who offered service via a dry pair DSL connection. I loved my time on Speakeasy, for example.

I remember all of the flaws with the line sharing system, too, but it actually worked for the short time we had it, in spite of the problems. Asking a niche ISP to build its own facilities-based network is an exercise in futility for many deployments. Of course, cities or counties or public utility districts could do it but the incumbent providers don't like that.

Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#29

Post by encryptluks2 »

yummypaint wrote: post #8
jeroenhd wrote: post #3

Is that even legal? Blocking network traffic because it competes with their offering?

From the wikipedia net neutrality page it looks like the FCC's stance has historically depended on the administration in power. There was the much celebrated 2015 change to title II, which was undone in 2017 i.e. the start of the ajit pai era. Now he is finally gone, but not before casting his vote in a 3-2 decision in 2020 to keep net neutrality dismantled. The new chair is pro-nn and working to undo the damage but…

Lol... I laugh everytime I see Republicans undo things in a matter of weeks and then 3 years later Democrats are like.. we wish we could do something but it takes time.

Re: Tell HN: Spectrum is blocking TCP/UDP 5060 at my home

#30

Post by josephcsible »

_wldu wrote: post #15

They are probably trying to reduce SIP abuse. It's a big problem.

That doesn't make what they're doing okay. To see why, imagine that they instead blocked access to all email services except their own, since spam is a big problem.
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