Sorry, should have written: the telecom network uses the IMSI.
The telecom network interfaces with the public internet where an IP is used.
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O2 Privacy Flaw Sends Users' Mobile Numbers to Visited Websites
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Sorry, should have written: the telecom network uses the IMSI.
The telecom network interfaces with the public internet where an IP is used.
One is Bango, the company that runs O2's adult verification software and thought sending credit card numbers in plaintext over http was a good idea.
O2 might "trust" them. I don't.
Phazer
I think this is based on some huge misunderstanding. If you have my name and address, then the phone number may not be protected, because there are things like phonebooks. (However, some people are ex directory, usually for good reasons, and blabbing out their phone number _may_ be a privacy violation).
However, when I go to a website, the website should only have my IP address. To find out who I am, they should have to go to a court, and get a subpoena for my ISP to give out my identity, and that should be the only way. Here, they are given a huge part of my identity in form of the mobile phone number.
+1 for responsiveness, no doubt they didn't know about it until this morning either.
Shouldn't have happened in the first place though if o2 had a decent QA/Security process in place.
Same here in Bath. 02 need to improve their 3G signal - 1 minute i have it full, and if i move about a foot, it drops to Edge and 2 bars. Urgh.
That would be because O2 fixed it before MacRumors posted this. Please read.
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The handset wouldn't make a scrap of difference.
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I'd be interested to know if O2's virtual operators (aka MVNO's) were affected...especially GiffGaff which is owned by O2.
MVNO's on O2 are:
- Tesco Mobile
- giffgaff
- LycaMobile
- Kcom Mobile
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Same happened for me in West Hertfordshire. Moved to T-Mobile which was so-so until they merged their network with Orange to create Everything Everywhere. Since then I've pretty much always got a great signal....even when I went up to tip of Scotland for a holiday, and was at the bottom of a mountain, we were able to tether my phone up and get a decent 3G signal
Only O2 could do something as stupid as this
Glad I moved away from their crummy services after my first iPhone contract was up. Works out MUCH cheaper to just buy an unlocked iPhone from Apple, otherwise you end up spending around £900 for the contract over a 2 year period.
Cant beat T-Mobile/Orange for coverage now that they have merged into EverythingEverywhere
Orange & T-Mobile are laughable where I live which is 30 miles north of London. And Orange has the worst customer services in my experience of all the networks.
I don't want to beat around the bush, but all the UK networks are crap. How many dropped phone calls do we still get? How about the crappy patchy 3G coverage?
All they are interested in is getting more subscribers. The infrastructure is never upgraded to cope with the increased number of users. They are all a joke.
Interesting, I'm 25 Miles north of Central London
Have you signed up to enable Everything Everywhere? Because if you haven't you'll still be getting slow/low coverage.The coverage map for EE shows 100% coverage within a 40 mile radius of london, so its not the network thats causing you problems there. But I do agree that all networks can be poor. The UK networks aren't THAT bad compared to places like the US where they are very unreliable.
A lot of the time its down to your individual handset and what's around you interfering with the signal (you cant avoid this - wherever you are you WILL get signal interference).
Interesting, I'm 25 Miles north of Central London
The coverage map for EE shows 100% coverage within a 40 mile radius of london, so its not the network thats causing you problems there. But I do agree that all networks can be poor. The UK networks aren't THAT bad compared to places like the US where they are very unreliable.
A lot of the time its down to your individual handset and what's around you interfering with the signal (you cant avoid this - wherever you are you WILL get signal interference).
I left Orange after they decided to charge me for data use when I was in Tenerife, despite me purchasing a pre-paid EU data bundle. It was disgraceful but I eventually managed to get them to drop the charges by 50%.
I used to get 2 bars of 2G coverege at home with Orange/T-Mob, every other network (O2, 3, Vodafone) is a full 3G signal. But there treatment of me as a customer was so abysmal, I'd never ever use them again.
I'm now with Vodafone, 3000 texts/600 mins/500mb+750mb wifi all for £17.50 a month. Happy customer...
A similar thing happened to my dad actually...he was with Orange, and turned his phone on when in a NYC airport. It connected up and checked his emails. It used 0.1 mb of data. They tried charging him around £100 for it.
Thankfully because it was his work paying for the contract, and the contract was around £150 a month he was able to get it waved...took about 4 months tho!
I've been with T-Mobile since 2006 and haven't really had any issues at all. I nearly left about 6 months ago as I was on a contract that was 1000 mins, 1000 texts + (truly) unlimited data. 'Three' were doing the same deal but with 1GB data for £14 a month. I phoned to cancel, and T-Mobile changed my plan to unlimited texts, 5000 minutes and (truly) unlimited data for £8 a month on a rolling contract...I've yet to see a contract that beats it, and the data speeds are perfect in my area.
The only thing I hate is that they send me around 3 texts a month with promotional crap. I can live with it tho.