Useful to note that the UIDH changes every 7 days.
Verizon Wireless injecting tracking UIDs into HTTP requests
91–100 of 151 posts
Re: Verizon Wireless injecting tracking UIDs into HTTP requests
#92Let's say I want to send some TCP. That TCP happens to kind of look like HTTP, but it's not. It's just some protocol I made up which looks HTTPish enough to trigger this injection. Doesn't that mean that Verizon isn't actually offering TCP/IP (Internet) access, since they corrupt my protocol stream in transit? Shoudln't that mean they should be charged with fraud if they continue to advertise the fact that they provi…
When most mobile providers get you on the internet, it's through NAT. They're already terminating and re-creating your connections for you, and not providing your "real" tcp/ip packets to the internet, and thus neither the world's "real" internet packets to you. All you get is a translation. You've never gotten "the real internet" on a mobile device. The idea that they may change one more part of your fake connection…
NAT doesn't terminate and recreate connections. It modifies packet headers and forwards them.
Modifying headers in order to facilitate transit over a network is one thing, modifying the L7 payload is another.
Re: Verizon Wireless injecting tracking UIDs into HTTP requests
#93Here's a scary thought: How do we know every ISP isn't doing this, it would be undetectable if they only injected these on certain domains e.g. facebook, google. However I don't see how much more tracking ability that would grant over IP tracking.
Re: Verizon Wireless injecting tracking UIDs into HTTP requests
#94Just checked my Verizon 4G LTE MiFi and the headers are not there, I've not done anything special to my account settings. On ATT I see the X-Acr thing but not clear if it's UID like or not in nature, would need to see more of them.
I just checked my AT&T phone and I have an X-Acr header too.
Re: Verizon Wireless injecting tracking UIDs into HTTP requests
#95Note, the ID rotates every week. However they do allow select companies to retrieve a history of IDs
Re: Verizon Wireless injecting tracking UIDs into HTTP requests
#96As this requires reassembling the HTTP request to add the additional header, this probably introduces extra latency too.
Fortunately https is becoming more pervasive which bypasses this and any other transparent proxies.
Re: Verizon Wireless injecting tracking UIDs into HTTP requests
#97On my Verizon Moto X (Android), the header is not visible if I use the Chrome feature "Reduce data usage", but it is visible if I disable that feature or, ironically, use Incognito mode. This feature causes non-SSL, non-Incognito traffic to be proxied through Google's servers, using the SPDY protocol. Some info on how this works: https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/data-compression
Re: Verizon Wireless injecting tracking UIDs into HTTP requests
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not clear why you think it would be illegal. There may be rules against not allowing people to opt out, I don't know. But when you ask "How can they discriminate like that?", there's nothing illegal about discriminating on the basis of credit or willingness to pay for a more expensive product.
I can understand discriminating on quality or something like that, but we're talking about not being able to opt out of having your personal information sold. It seems like there should be some kind of a law where that has to be made absolutely clear. It doesn't even seem to be buried anywhere in the Terms of Service, which say: "Verizon Wireline consumers and certain business customers may opt-out by calling 1-866-4…
I'm attracting a lot of downvotes, and I feel like people think I'm supporting Verizon. I agree with you in that I think they're being scummy, but I guess I was just saying that when you ask "How can they discriminate like that?" the answer is that lots of scummy things aren't illegal. I agree it might be nice to see much stronger privacy laws in this area, but they don't exist yet and that's most of what I was trying to say. I think I thought you were saying that you thought it was illegal ("isn't there a law...") whereas you were really just saying you thought it should be illegal.
Re: Verizon Wireless injecting tracking UIDs into HTTP requests
#99VZW does all sorts of weird traffic management. They proxy everything and will throttle applications deemed to chatty as well.
Re: Verizon Wireless injecting tracking UIDs into HTTP requests
#100They don't appear to be doing this if you've opted out of "Relevant Mobile Advertising", which is another option [separate from CPNI] on http://verizonwireless.com/myprivacy . Here's the setting you're looking for: http://i.imgur.com/QFJJNV5.png Mods may also want to update the title to include "Wireless" after Verizon; Verizon landline is not doing this anywhere AFAIK.
My phone's VWZ http requests are sending the header, where I have been opted out of "Relevant Mobile Advertising" since they sent me information about it in the mail earlier this year.