[Linux-aus] bigpond now uses proxy servers to spy on 'us'

Thu Jul 6 00:42:04 UTC 2006

Hi Brendan,

>   $ traceroute 198.142.23.15
>   traceroute to 198.142.23.15 (198.142.23.15), 30 hops max, 40 byte
> packets
>    1  10.23.0.1 (10.23.0.1)  6.979 ms  9.839 ms  5.547 ms
>    2  sbr2-pos3-1.gw.optusnet.com.au (198.142.192.61)  7.203 ms  8.142 ms
> 8.163 ms
>    3  mas2-pos5-2.gw.optusnet.com.au (198.142.7.25)  9.812 ms  18.430 ms
> 8.910 ms
>    4  mas4-ge1-1.gw.optusnet.com.au (211.29.129.134)  7.093 ms  9.242 ms
> 11.498 ms
>    5  a198-142-23-15.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com (198.142.23.15)  7.981
> ms  7.069 ms  7.718 ms
>
> my download of the image is fast.
>

I'm curious to know what happens if you were to traceroute to
optusnet.com.au, do you hop over an akamai server as well like I do?

eg:

traceroute to www.bigpond.com (144.135.18.32), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
 1  172.18.113.5 (172.18.113.5)  43.937 ms  44.211 ms  44.067 ms
 2  172.18.72.10 (172.18.72.10)  43.987 ms  43.014 ms  43.080 ms
 3  a-61-9-225-200.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com (61.9.225.200)  43.319 ms
 43.981 ms  43.084 ms
 4  GigabitEthernet3-4.way21.Adelaide.telstra.net (165.228.106.13)  44.547
ms  43.503 ms  44.802 ms
 5  GigabitEthernet3-0.way-core4.Adelaide.telstra.net (203.50.120.4) 
44.575 ms  43.758 ms  42.826 ms
 6  Pos0-4-1-0.exi-core1.Melbourne.telstra.net (203.50.6.189)  58.604 ms 
59.545 ms  59.326 ms
 7  bundle-POS1.chw-core2.Sydney.telstra.net (203.50.6.13)  77.093 ms 
157.351 ms  92.605 ms
 8  TenGigabitEthernet8-1.pit2.Sydney.telstra.net (203.50.20.184)  72.395
ms  72.590 ms  72.895 ms
 9  pitt-tcom-r02 (139.130.41.70)  72.644 ms  73.078 ms  73.143 ms
10  * * *

or...

traceroute to www.optusnet.com.au (211.29.132.105), 30 hops max, 38 byte
packets
 1  172.18.113.5 (172.18.113.5)  43.729 ms  43.722 ms  44.806 ms
 2  172.18.72.22 (172.18.72.22)  44.248 ms  43.270 ms  43.324 ms
 3  a-61-9-225-200.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com (61.9.225.200)  43.248 ms
 43.989 ms  43.072 ms
 4  GigabitEthernet3-4.way21.Adelaide.telstra.net (165.228.106.13)  43.320
ms  43.504 ms  42.761 ms
 5  GigabitEthernet3-0.way-core4.Adelaide.telstra.net (203.50.120.4) 
62.631 ms  43.947 ms  44.125 ms
 6  Pos0-4-1-0.exi-core1.Melbourne.telstra.net (203.50.6.189)  58.844 ms 
59.785 ms  59.580 ms
 7  bundle-POS1.chw-core2.Sydney.telstra.net (203.50.6.13)  75.596 ms 
73.315 ms  73.623 ms
 8  TenGigabitEthernet9-2.ken12.Sydney.telstra.net (203.50.19.22)  73.394
ms  72.341 ms  72.384 ms
 9  optvis2.lnk.telstra.net (139.130.2.66)  73.146 ms  73.597 ms  72.610 ms
10  203.202.86.246 (203.202.86.246)  73.393 ms  72.588 ms  72.393 ms
11  www.optusnet.com.au (211.29.132.105)  73.893 ms  74.049 ms  73.377 ms

I found out a bit more about akamai in a press release from 1999:

"About Akamai
Akamai Technologies is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has
offices in San Mateo, California. Akamai provides a global Internet
content delivery service that improves Web site speed and reliability and
enables richer, more engaging Web site content. Currently, Akamai has
deployed 1700 servers in 30 countries across 100 different
telecommunications networks. Akamai (pronounced AH kuh my) is Hawaiian for
intelligent, clever and cool."

and from what I've read about their content delivery systems they seem
pretty cool. It's just that constant akamai node after my gateway that is
always there, im not sure if thats part of the content delivery system, or
their "web trends" system.

BTW, that 1999 press release
(http://www.akamai.com/en/html/about/press/press53.html) mentions Telstra
as a service provider/partner way back then.

Some more food for thought is "Akamai adds digital rights management", can
be found here:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/101705-akamai-drm.html which states:

"Content delivery specialist Akamai Technologies is integrating digital
rights management into its media delivery services, meaning that users now
can not only use the Akamai network to speed the download of audio and
video files, but also to protect those files from misuse and track who
accesses them."

Also Microsoft have been using akamai to make available their office 2007
beta (and im sure they are tracking too), and an internode customer also
seems to have akamai nodes a couple of hops away from him (i presume its a
permanent route too). Both of these above bits of info can be found here:
http://bleedingedge.com.au/forum/viewtopic.php?p=14753&sid=705bb74e5df554e842392f00f0fe50c7

So its some sort of magic black box node at the moment, co-located so it
and its data are still owned by an american company not even present on
our soil.

Regards,

Rohan.