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iPhone PDANet updated with "hide usage" feature

H

HPLouis

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 12, 2010
219
39
I just got an update through Cydia for PDANet and it now has a new feature called "Hide Usage." Supposedly it's supposed to hide the usage from your carrier. When you it the toggle, it'll ask you if you want Level I or Level II. Level I should be good enough but if you feel that Level I doesn't cover you enough, then you could opt for Level II.

That's the information that I got from it. Does anyone know how PDANet is hiding the usage from the carrier?

Thanks,
Heny
 
I might have to switch from Mywi to this if it does indeed work as advertised.
 
super interested in this as well!!

just went to install this and it requires mywi to be removed.. is there anyway to keep both? i dont want to miss a mywi update if they add this feature as well
 
I got the update too, and yes it allows you to have "level I" or "level II" hiding.

But trying to find more info online is just a bust. If anybody has any details as to how they are doing this that would be greatly appreciated because I don't want a tethering letter from AT&T.
 
I don't know how they are doing the hiding, so I chose Level II just to be safest. I can tell you that when I go to certain websites on my laptop when operating under Level II, the hosts see me as an iPhone and present me with the mobile version of their pages instead of the normal full version. So it would appear that, at least, PDAnet is spoofing the browser ident to make it look as though it's mobile Safari. Don't know what else it may be doing.
 
I'll wait to hear if it works. If it does, I wouldn't be surprised if MyWi updates with something like this too.
 
I just noticed this update too... Doesn't seem necessary to use if I only ever tether to an iPad though, since iOS usage all looks the same...
 
Here is a post from cldipad over at ModMyI:

I've taken some time to look at PDANet and their claim that it hides tethering. Here's what I know.

When you use level one hiding it shows only Mozilla 5.0 on the http header and nothing else. When you use level two, it shows the same information on the headers as the iPhone. I tried this on a laptop and it did the same thing. The downside to level two is that you are restricted to mobile sites. Still not too bad because flash still works. Using the laptop, not tethered, the IP and header information tell you exactly what you are using. Microsoft, Windows 7, Media Center, etc. This would be a dead giveaway to ATT. PDANet is hiding all that information. Again, we still don't know what ATT is looking at, but it's easy to look at the user agent without much effort and they could simply be doing that. PDANet might be a solution.
Click to expand...
 
HPLouis said:
Here is a post from cldipad over at ModMyI:
Click to expand...

If this is true, this is a very poor method for AT&T to detect tethering. Anybody that uses an alternative browser such as Atomic would be at risk of being accused of tethering. And this only seemingly affects HTTP traffic, which is just silly.
 
kuebby said:
I just noticed this update too... Doesn't seem necessary to use if I only ever tether to an iPad though, since iOS usage all looks the same...
Click to expand...

wrong.. tethering ipad shows differently because thats what i did at first and i still got the warnings.

is it me or is PDANet SLOWWWWW with the level1/2 stuff on? mywi seems way faster to me.
 
ihonda said:
wrong.. tethering ipad shows differently because thats what i did at first and i still got the warnings.

is it me or is PDANet SLOWWWWW with the level1/2 stuff on? mywi seems way faster to me.
Click to expand...

Yes PDANet is slower than MyWi.
 
Am I understanding this right, the supposition is that if Apple sees non-iOS traffic, i.e. Internet Explorer generated, it assumes you are tethering? Likewise, if all one does is tether an iPad, can we assume that because it's iOS based content Apple will not detect it, or at least care at this point?

So for those of us that tether iPads, are we safe? Just curious. I'll keep tethering until I get a text from ATT. Nothing yet from them.
 
scirica said:
Am I understanding this right, the supposition is that if Apple sees non-iOS traffic, i.e. Internet Explorer generated, it assumes you are tethering? Likewise, if all one does is tether an iPad, can we assume that because it's iOS based content Apple will not detect it, or at least care at this point?
Click to expand...
ATT

scirica said:
So for those of us that tether iPads, are we safe? .
Click to expand...
Since no one knows what ATT is looking at, it's impossible to say.
 
scirica said:
Am I understanding this right, the supposition is that if Apple sees non-iOS traffic, i.e. Internet Explorer generated, it assumes you are tethering? Likewise, if all one does is tether an iPad, can we assume that because it's iOS based content Apple will not detect it, or at least care at this point?

So for those of us that tether iPads, are we safe? Just curious. I'll keep tethering until I get a text from ATT. Nothing yet from them.
Click to expand...

As I mentioned above, I think that assuming that this is the method AT&T is using to detect and PDANet is using to deter is a little absurd.

For example, if I run Yahoo messenger on my phone, the traffic looks the exact same as it does were I running the desktop app on my Macbook and tethering. Similarly, on both my iPad and my iPad, I run Atomic Browser and tell it to report my browser as Firefox 3, because I HATE mobile sites. Under this supposition, AT&T would say I am tethering.

Given the fact that AT&T is confident enough to send letters AND promise to add tethering plans, one can pretty much guarantee that they are doing MUCH more technical detection than simply inspecting HTTP headers, which is just silly.
 
I guess this isn't the best place to ask, but does anyone know if non-iphone users are getting the notices? I know there are *plenty* of people with android and blackberry phones that tether without the appropriate plan.
 
I really doubt AT&T's methods have anything to do with the useragent string. That would be a pretty ridiculous way to detect tethering, and would risk fingering anyone who uses an alternative browser that hides the useragent. It would also only work for http traffic.

I had always assumed they were checking the TTL on the data packets or something like that.
 
Possible hide tether trick?

Has anyone thought of using an iPhone to broadcast a pdanet wifi signal to a iPod or iPad and then use that device to link to your pc with pdanet?

Would this maybe show AT&T that only your mobile device is being used?

If not why?
 
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