Re:Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac
by toyg on Monday August 03, 2020 @05:02AM
(#24035511)
a lot of phones have this sort of tethering disabled by carriers, who then sell "internet access dongles" as an add-on.
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This sounds like 2012 to me... And even then, with a rooted phone, you could tether as you pleased. I recall using barnacle wifi tether back when my phone didn't offer it natively.
Another way of using it on Android, is to use USB tethering, while your mobile phone is connected to a Wi-Fi access point. That has worked pretty well for me, I sometimes even use that together with a computer to create a wired network from an access point. It could have worked in GP's case.
> And even then, with a rooted phone
Yes, obviously I'm talking about carrier-locked phones (typically sold with contracts). A lot of (most?) never even unlock their phone, let alone jailbreak.
Re:Why I still use an old PowerPC Mac
by KptMarchewa on Monday August 03, 2020 @07:43AM
(#24036473)
How do they do it? How does carrier actually know that traffic is coming from tethered device rather than phone itself?
The carrier can inspect TTL (or hop limit in IPv6) values which decrease with every hop, so TTL at the point your packet reaches the carrier is typically lower when you are tethering.
Of course it is easy to circumvent by changing TTL on the terhered device from 64 to 65 or something like that, but I guess the solution is esoteric enough that carriers still make money doing crap like this.
Thanks for the brilliant analysis.
I didn't know this.
in iOS the whole "mobile hotspot" feature can be disabled in carrier-locked phones.