Anyway to get around the transparent proxy?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Anyway to get around the transparent proxy?

Hibino

166 posts

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#151099 14-Aug-2014 00:43

Now it is 2 weeks that I am seeing a forum that I go to everyday showing the content at 31-07-2014. I have to use VPN to see the updated content of that forum(funny, the VPN is also telecom network but on a business plan).

I've reported the problem to telecom(before they renamed) on 31-07-2014. I've also told them that when I go to whatismyip.com I see my IP address as 210.55.212.* where the * changes to a different number every time I refresh the page. They say they will investigate it.

After another call to them a day later, another representative told me that the problem will be solved if they assign a static IP to me. So.... after a few calls every 2 or 3 days, I finally got my static IP last Friday, but I still seeing the website at old content and whatsimyip.com still shows the 210.55.212 IP. Since it is already night so I waited till this Monday to call them. I am not too sure what happened to their support phone system, every time I get through the waiting talked to a real people, they always say they need to transfer me to the fiber support team, and after wait half hour for the transfer, the call suddenly dropped. I tried 3 times and have to gave up, guess their fiber team is having too much problems to handle and not able to answer my call.

I waited another 3 days, now, I suddenly found that whatismyip.com shows my real IP address, but I still seeing the forum at the content of 31-07-2014. So I guess they whitelisted whatismyip.com? I then took few proxy tests and proved that I am still behind the transparent proxy, http://www.lagado.com/tools/cache-test, this page is showing the old content every time, even with different browsers, it shows same number and generate time(different number and generate time each time I refresh the page if I connected to VPN).

I really had enough for the transparent proxy it is giving me too much trouble and I am wondering if anyone got any idea how to get around with it?

I am using the 150gb fiber plan at the moment...(I am paying the data I use why put me behind the facking proxy????????????????)

matisyahu

1623 posts

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#1108044 14-Aug-2014 04:02

If it is any consolation I'm on VDSL and I ran that page test (the link you provided) and I received a fresh page each time - I doubt they would be using a different proxy although that is entirely possible. If you don't mind me asking, what forum is it?

"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'"

timmmay

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#1108093 14-Aug-2014 08:27

I think using a VPN is probably the easiest plan. Astrill can install a module in DD-WRT which VPNs your whole houses internet connection. Some routers may have VPN capabilities built in too.

Hibino

166 posts

Master Geek

#1108207 14-Aug-2014 10:50

kawaii: If it is any consolation I'm on VDSL and I ran that page test (the link you provided) and I received a fresh page each time - I doubt they would be using a different proxy although that is entirely possible. If you don't mind me asking, what forum is it?

I do not have these problems when I was on VDSL too. This might be something different they implemented just for the fiber connection, so the page opens 'instantly' make you think the fiber speed is really great. I am having quite few websites that is not hosted in NZ also does not have a NZ mirror that opens instantly, I believed they are all cached by the transparent proxy and god knows how old the content is that I am seeing.

My neighbor just upgraded to fiber last week, I'll try their connection after work see if same problem happens. But I am not sure whether they are with telecom or not.

The website I want to see new content is a Chinese online game forum. http://qn2.netease.com/ now it is even worse, I am not just seeing the content of 31-07-2014, I am actually seeing a totally different game forum run by the same company that hosted on the same server and dated 31-07-2014. I guess telecom's transparent proxy is just caching with server IP address and ignoring the HTTP host header?

timmmay: I think using a VPN is probably the easiest plan. Astrill can install a module in DD-WRT which VPNs your whole houses internet connection. Some routers may have VPN capabilities built in too.

Thanks, but I hope there will be other better solutions since going everything through VPN adds more latency also I have to pay another service for a normal internet service?

I am not against the transparent proxy if they can do a good job, like what they should really cache is some common download programs, or maybe the windows update stuff, it took me some time to get all the windows update fixes published yesterday, sure it will be faster if they are cached. But web pages? No!

timmmay

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#1108216 14-Aug-2014 11:10

https isn't proxied, can you use that for what's not working?

Hibino

166 posts

Master Geek

#1108357 14-Aug-2014 13:09

timmmay: https isn't proxied, can you use that for what's not working?

One of the representative told me this too, but it doesn't help much since most website does not have https, or just don't let you use https. Like geekzone, if you go https it just redirect you back to http

Hibino

166 posts

Master Geek

#1108388 14-Aug-2014 13:42

Just had a long call with Spark again... And I gave them the cache test page this time, funny thing is, on their computer, they are seeing the page I see yesterday night. So this problem is actually effecting all telecom fiber customers, who ever visit a page first, and all the others will suffer in the same page. This would also explain why I am seeing a totally different forum I mentioned above, since there are other people visited the forum on the same server before me.

Inphinity

2780 posts

Uber Geek

#1108404 14-Aug-2014 14:06

On the forum you linked to, what timestamp do you see in the bottom right? I am on Telecom fibre and it shows me the current time, GMT+8, 2014-8-14 10:05.

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Hibino

166 posts

Master Geek

#1108414 14-Aug-2014 14:20

Inphinity: On the forum you linked to, what timestamp do you see in the bottom right? I am on Telecom fibre and it shows me the current time, GMT+8, 2014-8-14 10:05.

It shows GMT+8, 2014-7-30 02:18 :-P Time machine.

Talkiet

4792 posts

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#1110426 18-Aug-2014 12:45

Advice from the people looking at this issue is that the forum site you refer to is being cached upstream of us, and whatever is caching the site is doing it wrong. The pages are being served with an "age=0" in the header, and there is no "no-cache" directive.

Because of this, any downstream caches will cache the pages and not go looking for newer versions.

The problem is upstream from Spark, however we're going to add that site to a bypass list since someone is clearly breaking it for us.

I don't know exactly when that will happen buyt it should be in the next few days.

regards
Neil G

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Hibino

166 posts

Master Geek

#1110855 18-Aug-2014 21:55

Talkiet: Advice from the people looking at this issue is that the forum site you refer to is being cached upstream of us, and whatever is caching the site is doing it wrong. The pages are being served with an "age=0" in the header, and there is no "no-cache" directive.

Because of this, any downstream caches will cache the pages and not go looking for newer versions.

The problem is upstream from Spark, however we're going to add that site to a bypass list since someone is clearly breaking it for us.

I don't know exactly when that will happen buyt it should be in the next few days.

regards
Neil G

Thanks for the update. Is that means only the sites in the bypass list will not be cached by the transparent proxy, and others having the same HTTP header will still suffer the problem(like the cache-test page in the first post)?

insane

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#1110871 18-Aug-2014 22:09

Talkiet: Advice from the people looking at this issue is that the forum site you refer to is being cached upstream of us, and whatever is caching the site is doing it wrong. The pages are being served with an "age=0" in the header, and there is no "no-cache" directive.

Because of this, any downstream caches will cache the pages and not go looking for newer versions.

The problem is upstream from Spark, however we're going to add that site to a bypass list since someone is clearly breaking it for us.

I don't know exactly when that will happen buyt it should be in the next few days.

regards
Neil G

A transit provider caching websites... that's interesting indeed! Unless you were referring to GGI, in which case that doesn't count :P

Talkiet

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#1110875 18-Aug-2014 22:14

insane:
Talkiet: Advice from the people looking at this issue is that the forum site you refer to is being cached upstream of us, and whatever is caching the site is doing it wrong. The pages are being served with an "age=0" in the header, and there is no "no-cache" directive.

Because of this, any downstream caches will cache the pages and not go looking for newer versions.

The problem is upstream from Spark, however we're going to add that site to a bypass list since someone is clearly breaking it for us.

I don't know exactly when that will happen buyt it should be in the next few days.

regards
Neil G

A transit provider caching websites... that's interesting indeed! Unless you were referring to GGI, in which case that doesn't count :P

I was most certainly NOT referring to GGI, and in fact certain GGI people have asked for details of this to confirm their immediate upstreams aren't responsible either... My gut feel is that it's something wrong, or odd on the original party's servers... Perhaps they have a load balancer, or something funky - I don't know. I've just been looking a few pages from the site with Chrome's developer tools and it's not surprising that this happened...

Try it yourself - compare the threads on the chinese site with threads on here - look at the cache control directives here vs the lack of them on the chinese site.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Ragnor

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#1111344 19-Aug-2014 15:16

The http headers have that weird Age: 0 and Server: ATS which is Apache Traffic Server so yeah caching at the hosting provider probably.