A new tactic from my ISP


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Was on my merry way visiting my usual sites and all of a sudden, I got this embedded above my page I loaded:

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(Of course I hid my name here).

Well, since it was from my ISP, I got a bit curious and called them. It turned out that I had a past due which I didn't notice. Took care of that, but really sort of interesting that they are resorting to this measure now to get attention from their subscribers.

I can see this being used for many different situations later on down the road - notice how generic it is and doesn't say what it is about? This opens up the doors for other reasons that they may come up with - say if any of the SOPA Variants passes and instead of turning off your modem for violations. I knew someone who downloaded pirated movies. Came home from work with his modem turned off remotely. He called them up and was told that the copyright holders requested that he cease and desist and this was an 'Official warning". He had to sign paperwork before they would turn it back on.

Or, if I exceed my bandwidth cap (They don't officially state how much, but I know it is pretty large 250gb or something like that), they could put that notice up.

I know the process is relatively simple for them to do and they have the right to do so (I am after all using their service. :) ) But it was effective to say the least.

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Yeah, it was in my browser. Not a DNS reroute as far as I could tell since the page content was below.

They just went in and placed the notice in there similar to how you could host a hotspot in your area with a router and then embed ads into the browser pages to make revenue. They probably used something like that to embed the 'ad' so to speak.

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When I had Clearwire, they did similar when the account was past due, there was a message that would pop up (DNS redirect also) saying that the account was past due, then in very fine print at the bottom of the page, you could click continue, and be on your merry ol' way!

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When I had Cogeco, if I went over my Bandwidth they would shut off our modem remotely, and we would get a notice on the internet whenever we tried to connect, or even if we rebooted locally, saying to contact Cogeco Support.

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I have Comcast and I've gotten a few FAKE emails to my comcast account claiming I need to log in as there is a problem. Of course the URL is wrong as the mouse over of the hypertext shows a really odd location which is not to Comcast or Xfinity so just be aware of what you click on no matter what. The only major issue is after 4 emails like this and each one I forward to their abuse dept not a single time has anyone from comcast abuse called me about the matter to say they are taking care of it. Monday I'm calling to raise hell and request for allthe trouble I'm dealing with on their behalf that I get a years worth of internet majorly discounted :)

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I guess it's a bit intrusive, no mail or something? Even calling you? That's pretty easy to ignore. And about the situation your friend has been, I'd "Cease and Desist" using that same ISP and switch to another service.

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I have Comcast and I've gotten a few FAKE emails to my comcast account claiming I need to log in as there is a problem. Of course the URL is wrong as the mouse over of the hypertext shows a really odd location which is not to Comcast or Xfinity so just be aware of what you click on no matter what. The only major issue is after 4 emails like this and each one I forward to their abuse dept not a single time has anyone from comcast abuse called me about the matter to say they are taking care of it. Monday I'm calling to raise hell and request for allthe trouble I'm dealing with on their behalf that I get a years worth of internet majorly discounted :)

Normally the abuse departments use one way communications unless they need more information from you or you are law enforcement. As most of the things done in their investigations cannot be made public.

With Verizon they have the magic walled garden, I saw this at a friends house who just got FIOS and there were a few issues with his account.

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I really don't want my browsing being pass-though some network layer proxy. This is lame. I'm sure theirs some page load slowdown also.

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