Same old same old: TelstraClear cable proxy broken again

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › Same old same old: TelstraClear cable proxy broken again

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Ultimate Geek

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#903381 26-Sep-2013 21:44

I am trying to return a bad HDD to HGST.com the website and tracert fails on my cable internet and it loads straight away on my telecom cellphone. So frustrating.

insomniacNZ

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Wannabe Geek

#903404 26-Sep-2013 22:29

My connection is back to full speed now, no more timeouts. Thanks to whoever fixed it

sbiddle

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Biddle Corp

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#904396 29-Sep-2013 08:51

Still broken here...

chiefie

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#904401 29-Sep-2013 09:17

Broken InHome Cable in Christchurch.

Internet is my backyard...

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Oliver

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Master Geek

#904404 29-Sep-2013 09:22

sbiddle: Still broken here...

Same here. I know I should be ringing Vodafone to lodge a ticket but feel like I need to find a spare few hours to do it. And a lot of patience.

jpollock

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#904411 29-Sep-2013 10:16

Still broken here. To anyone asking that people raise tickets, I've tried that in the past.

When I tried to explain, in detail, the problem with TCL's network and how it wasn't "in my house", I had to:

1) Strip out my firewall and gateway
2) Hook my laptop up to the internet connection directly.
3) Change all my settings to ensure that it was connected straight through.
4) Power cycle my laptop, and the cable modem. multiple times.

The individual still refused to acknowledge the fault in the network, and scheduled someone to come out to the house. That person had to come out on a Saturday, well over a week after the problem was reported.

Of course, since it was a problem inside of TCL, it was fixed about 2 hours after my initial call.

---
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mattbush

784 posts

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#904451 29-Sep-2013 12:18

Seems to be 2 threads on the same issue here.

Can someone explain this issue please eg. why does it continue to recur and is it an expensive issue for Vodafone to fix and why cant Vodafone track this issue themselves as it does seem to affect the masses??

cheers in advance

Sharesies

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jpollock

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#904465 29-Sep-2013 13:06

mattbush: Seems to be 2 threads on the same issue here.

Can someone explain this issue please eg. why does it continue to recur and is it an expensive issue for Vodafone to fix and why cant Vodafone track this issue themselves as it does seem to affect the masses??

cheers in advance

Well, from the discussion, it sounds like it's the transparent proxy that sits in front of web traffic.

[intentionally alarmist, bit ranty?]
The proxy records and tracks all non-encrypted web (http) traffic from all of their customers. They also modify the traffic as it moves through the machine, and masquerade as customer devices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server#Transparent_proxy

The device is famous for misbehaving, but VF sees it as core to their business. They undoubtedly use it for both monitoring customers and saving on traffic charges. Most NZ ISPs use transparent proxies, with SNAP being one (from what I've heard) that doesn't.

The easiest fix would be to turn it off, and allow traffic through unchanged and unmonitored. However, that will increase the amount of international traffic that VF would need to purchase. However, with Facebook, Google and other social networks going to HTTPS, the amount of traffic hitting the cache will be dropping. Since SPDY use is ramping up (simplistically - an early version of HTTP 2.0) the value of the proxy is even more short-lived - SPDY/HTTP 2.0 encrypts connections by default.

As for why it fails, it is a complicated machine sitting in front of the most highly used portion of their service, any change to it is likely to be both visible and result in failures. Web sites are weird and wonderful creatures, and web servers are like snowflakes, each one precious and special. They all rely on their own little corner cases, so anything that fudges with the contract can break them.

Transparent proxies are a key driver behind SPDY, Google was fed up with being blamed for poor performing web sites, when it was really the transparent proxies causing the problems. Same thing happened to Microsoft with 3rd party drivers and BSDs.

---
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Ryrager

25 posts

Geek

#904485 29-Sep-2013 14:05

Also having issues here in Chch too.

freitasm

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Geekzone

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#904554 29-Sep-2013 15:32

I see I can't access Geekzone Jobs or Geekzone Live from my cable connection, although Geekzone works fine - for now.

Shoes2468

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Ultimate Geek

#904743 29-Sep-2013 20:22

freitasm: I see I can't access Geekzone Jobs or Geekzone Live from my cable connection, although Geekzone works fine - for now.

Things will most likely go down hill from here unless Vodafone do something. Amazon.com and Wikipedia are two which are notoriously bd for us that we visit frequently

jpollock

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#904783 29-Sep-2013 21:21

wikipedia.org and other sites can use HTTPS. Since the proxy cannot get in the middle of the HTTPS connection, forcing your browser to use HTTPS might improve results...

Googling turned this up:

https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

For Firefox and Chrome. The EFF is pretty reputable. :)

EDIT: I've just installed it for Chrome, and _man_ it's made a difference!

---
http://blog.jason.pollock.ca

sleemanj

1490 posts

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#905719 1-Oct-2013 13:46

Having a lot of problems across various international sites and cdn today, connection timeouts.

Cable, Christchurch

(edit to add: https where available works fine... so, transparent proxy is the likely culprit, as usual)

---
James Sleeman
I sell lots of stuff for electronic enthusiasts...

timmmay

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#905726 1-Oct-2013 13:53

My solutions:
- Use a VPN (someone had a go at me for suggesting this, but it works)
- Change ISPs (in progress, Snap UFB)

sleemanj

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#905738 1-Oct-2013 14:16

Tracing the path to www.barnstormers.com (216.227.208.69) on TCP port 80 (http), 30 hops max
1 192.168.10.1 0.382 ms 0.229 ms 0.239 ms
2 * * *
3 218.101.61.114 23.742 ms 13.984 ms 26.993 ms
4 203.98.50.2 42.676 ms 34.023 ms 24.337 ms
5 * * *
6 * * *
...
^C

Tracing the path to www.barnstormers.com (216.227.208.69) on TCP port 443 (https), 30 hops max
1 192.168.10.1 0.380 ms 0.252 ms 0.223 ms
2 * * *
3 218.101.61.114 30.746 ms 14.856 ms 16.071 ms
4 203.98.50.2 27.688 ms 44.683 ms 49.871 ms
5 203.98.50.251 49.634 ms 27.287 ms 31.052 ms
6 134.159.174.41 29.104 ms 47.428 ms 33.057 ms
7 202.84.142.118 157.100 ms 163.869 ms 155.052 ms
8 202.40.149.178 151.332 ms 148.352 ms 154.064 ms
9 4.68.62.9 157.730 ms 192.086 ms 161.351 ms
10 4.69.144.126 154.353 ms 156.433 ms 158.632 ms
11 4.69.137.5 155.149 ms 178.083 ms 160.916 ms
12 4.69.153.222 152.312 ms 158.546 ms 155.067 ms
13 4.69.158.98 155.721 ms 185.538 ms 157.795 ms
14 4.53.182.18 172.832 ms 161.966 ms 159.827 ms
15 207.38.15.62 154.936 ms 168.537 ms 153.831 ms
16 207.38.15.86 157.386 ms 169.537 ms 153.680 ms
17 207.38.15.34 163.308 ms 182.969 ms 169.939 ms
18 207.38.44.82 153.394 ms 159.333 ms 165.694 ms
19 216.227.208.69 [open] 167.943 ms 164.261 ms 154.747 ms

dig +short -x 203.98.50.2
ie2-g-0-0-0.telstraclear.net.

---
James Sleeman
I sell lots of stuff for electronic enthusiasts...

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