No subject

Tracerouting to 61.9.228.254 using TCP packets...

 1  L300.VFTTP-04.DLLSTX.verizon-gni.net (72.64.77.1)  10.012 ms  9.480 ms
 9.902 ms
 2  P1-3.LCR-03.DLLSTX.verizon-gni.net (130.81.37.32)  9.854 ms  9.240 ms 
9.912 ms
 3  so-6-0-0-0.PEER-RTR1.DFW80.verizon-gni.net (130.81.17.173)  9.878 ms 
10.080 ms  9.982 ms
 4  POS2-0.GW10.DFW9.ALTER.NET (152.63.97.57)  9.906 ms  9.189 ms  9.940 ms
 5  0.so-3-1-0.XT2.DFW9.ALTER.NET (152.63.101.134)  9.921 ms  9.157 ms 
9.919 ms
 6  0.so-5-0-0.CL2.LAX15.ALTER.NET (152.63.115.201)  42.412 ms  41.768 ms 
42.388 ms
 7  POS7-0.GW2.LAX15.ALTER.NET (152.63.117.85)  42.470 ms  41.835 ms 
42.398 ms
 8  reach-gw12.customer.alter.net (157.130.247.158)  42.415 ms  41.698 ms 
42.430 ms
 9  unknown.net.reach.com (202.84.251.165)  42.412 ms  41.830 ms  42.339 ms
10  i-9-1.syd-core03.net.reach.com (202.84.144.62)  239.909 ms  236.929 ms
 239.910 ms
11  10GigabitEthernet2-0.oxf-core1.Sydney.telstra.net (203.50.13.29) 
337.405 ms  381.560 ms  379.920 ms
12  Bundle-Ether2.chw-core2.Sydney.telstra.net (203.50.6.1)  242.474 ms 
241.937 ms  242.325 ms
13  Bundle-POS1.exi-core1.Melbourne.telstra.net (203.50.6.14)  254.924 ms 
254.419 ms  254.936 ms
14  Pos7-0.way-core4.Adelaide.telstra.net (203.50.6.190)  267.443 ms 
266.887 ms  267.449 ms
15  TenGigabitEthernet9-1.way18.Adelaide.telstra.net (203.50.120.28) 
267.383 ms  266.762 ms  267.440 ms
16  telstr419.lnk.telstra.net (165.228.106.78)  267.355 ms  266.792 ms 
267.247 ms
17  a-61-9-225-196.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com (61.9.225.196)  267.453
ms  266.873 ms  267.444 ms
18  * * *
19  CPE-61-9-228-254.sa.bigpond.net.au (61.9.228.254) [open]  317.591 ms 
329.461 ms  362.344 ms


Both of the above reverse traceroutes show these akamai tech servers are
at the closest point to bigpond customers, not bigpond sites!

This, in my mind, proves that this system (web trends live) is installed
and used solely for collecting traffic stats on Bigpond customers, which
means bigpond now know every single site you visit and the way they are
forcing all www traffic through these systems means there is no way around
it.


Due to the extreme breach of privacy, I am making this email public domain
for all to see. Not only has this email been forwarded to
abuse at bigpond.com and abuse at telstra.com, but I will also forward this to
my local LUG and LA, as well as the local and national newspapers and
media sources, the NT information commissioner, the DCITA and the TIO.

This is completely unacceptable and someone's head should roll for this!!

Within the next 12 to 24 hours I will have all available documentation and
evidence uploaded to www.purplesock.net.au/bigpond/ and hopefully some of
the other techies in Darwin can check to see if they too are being
forwarded to these akamai servers.

This calls for a class action in my opinion, so much for freedom eh?!


To further support my claim that these systems have only recently been
introduced, please see the following:

On the 20th of June this year, my speedstream 4200 adsl modem rebooted 6
or 7 times from 7:30am till 11:33am that day. I contacted Bigpond and on
the next day (21st) techs came out and replaced the modem with another
ss4200. The new ss4200 had the latest firmware (less than 4 weeks old) and
this firmware had a nasty bug that blocked data-port access while FTP'ing.
I almost couldn't believe it myself until I was able to replicate the bug
and then told a rep from bigpond how to replicate it so they knew it was a
bug.

The rep from bigpond emailed me some different versions of firmware for
the ss4200 and I was able to FTP again. Eventually, on Monday the 26th,
techies came out once again and replaced the ss4200 with a speedtouch 530,
a much better modem, and all overheating/rebooting/drop-out issues are
gone.

Anyway, the point of telling you all this, is that between the 20th and
the 26th of June I was doing some extensive debugging of my network and
ISP connection, and have all the traceroute logs etc that I sent to
bigpond back then. This is only a week or so ago, and there were NO akamai
servers showing in any traceroutes back then, but now they are
everywhere!!!

Maybe this has something to do with the 'major infrastructure' upgrade
that took place between 6am and 11:30 am on the 22nd of June, which gave
all of Darwin REAL dsl speeds for the first time ever (previous to that
all GameArena servers were minimum of 250ms away, with my gateway being
180ms away located in Adelaide. Now GameArena servers are 70ms away, and
my gateway is just 40ms away - a big difference).

So was this upgrade due to the adsl2+ roll out in 2 months, or are there
other reasons?

Is this a nation wide 'customer spying' thing? ...just what the hell are
bigpond up to?


Obviously I'm passionate about mine and others privacy on the net. As a IT
professional who commonly works with network and Internet security issues,
I must say that I am disgusted with Bigponds actions in regards to this
matter, and I have not seen an ISP lower themselves to these standards
since Eisa (now non existing ISP) spy-ed on their customers back in 1999
before they were brought out by ozemail.

The next question is what do we (the people) do now?

Firstly, these "Akamai Technologies" servers MUST be disabled INSTANTLY. I
refuse to use my ADSL connection while I know Bigpond are spying on me,
that being said I will be seeking compensation from Bigpond for loss of
income until my ADSL connection has been returned to its original
non-intrusive setup.

I strongly suggest all other bigpond customers in Darwin (or anywhere else
this is happening!) to do the same. At the moment we have no idea what
Telstra are doing with the information they collect - or even if they own
it! After all Akamai is based in MI, USA, and are not an Australian
company at all.

Secondly, ...who knows, but i think its time for the community to act as a
whole and put a end to this once and for all, we have rights but if we
don't fight for them they will slowly take them from us.

Please forward this email on to as many bigpond customers that you can,
and if you know a good lawyer forward to them too please :)


Regards,

Rohan Murch.

--
Manager
~PurpleSock~
Email: rohbags at purplesock.net.au
Ph: (08) 8945 7705
Fax: (08) 8945 7710
Mob: 0407 277 775


PS: I spent the last 2.5 hours researching the above facts and figures to
make sure I am 110% correct before going pubic with this claim. I urge all
other techies out there to check their own connection for these proxies
and let me know if you see akamai servers on your route.