How to Work Around Broken Port-80 Routing?

Dr. Zowie writes "My ISP places an opaque (intended to be transparent) web proxy between me and the rest of the world. It is causing me problems due to misconfiguration or misdesign. My question is twofold. On the micro level, what can I do in the short term to work around the broken routing (in the long term, I switch ISPs if it's not fixed)? On the macro level, what can we as a community do to prevent breakage of the net on a global scale by poorly designed routing hacks?"

Dr. Zowie continues: "I use a regional ISP with otherwise-very-good policies. However, they seem to be intercepting anything that comes from my home net on port 80, so that they can ``transparently'' cache web requests based on the payload of those packets. The proxy seems to work rather well in most cases: I never noticed it until I started using OpenNIC. Then I found that some web pages that should have resolved OK through the OpenNIC system failed even though routing on different ports worked OK.

"I did some experimentation using ``telnet'' on port 80 directly, and found that packets are being routed based only on the payload regardless of the original destination address: I can (for example) retrieve the Slashdot front page by using ``telnet www.google.com 80'' and asking for "http://www.slashdot.org http/1.1". The tech support folks seem to be stonewalling me: the main contact tells me that the behavior is "not broken" even though it clearly violates RFC 1812, the standard set of rules for IP routing.

"The practice of ``transparent'' proxy routing seems to be growing more widespread. It appears to break the internet standard in a way that works for most folks for now, but that breaks port 80 usage in general. Looking ahead, this breakage seems like a growing nightmare waiting to happen. At the very least, I expect more instances of my particular problem to appear as folks give up on the corporate hegemony of ICANN. More insidiously, transparent proxy routers break the layered nature of the internet protocol and restrict the flexibility that made it work in the first place. One would hope that such proxies would at least act like routers when the fancier proxying fails, but at least my ISP's doesn't. What about your ISP's?"

Comments

Kaputt = kaputt

[Pussy Is Money]

First of all, this has nothing to do with "Port-80 routing", whatever that means. Second, if you ISP won't allow you to bypass their proxy, then your ISP is screwed, and any workaround you choose to implement will be so fragile and/or cumbersome as to be unusable. There is no third.

Completely bogus for them to do that...

[Alien Being]

When I pick up my phone and order a pizza, i don't expect the telco to redirect me to a "closer" pizza shop.

99% of ISP's customers have no idea what goes on when they click a link, so the ISP gets away with this bogus routing (proxying, whatever).

I'd like to see a good definition of what an "ISP" is. I have a feeling a lot of so called ISPs would fail the test.

Transparent? No way. There are two sides to a tcp connection, and the server side is completely blind to what's going on.

Call their tech support, waste their time til they figure out that you expect them to send your packets to their intended destination. It sucks that clueful helpdesk people get stuck in the middle of this, but it's the most effective thing a customer can do about it.

I forgot the subject

[Bill Ashley]

THIS IS JUST A BUNCH OF UNCONNECTED IDEAS THAT POPED UP WHILE ReADING THE LONG CHAIN OF POSTS FOR THIS THREADING two ideas for secure net. 1. sugar 2. secur lines "They hired a dozen level 1's and expect the level 3's to teach them how to use unix/etc/scripts. Its a fucking joke. You wonder why it takes forever to get tech support to fix something! The top tier of people staffed are mostly UNSKILLED... ..competent admins will soon become only slightly more respected than the guy who unclogs the toilet." uhm... I don't get why would you get a human to teach a human how to use a computer.. why not get a human to teach a computer how to teach a human how to use a computer.. there is something called training software and the manual... also you can form buisness rings.. well what buisness doesn't and pool that one training file made in corel every couple weeks by one persona instead of having 10 or 15 tecs to instruction.. those tecs can then work on infrastucture building etc... playing pingpong whatever... really also that proxies idea.. having a online buffer between you know proxy server instead of proxy port having it work as an airlock simple stuff... only one end can be active at one time an you would just have to cut of encoded datasnatches not that I would have the slightest clue how they work .. I'm sure you could set up a software virtual airlock too some type of drive read partition partition wouldn't be difficult for all the smart people to make. or even two systems running on the same hardware one is virtual one is less virtual.. works in my mind. I already solved all the net hacking issues unfortunately I think people like it to be insecure... sorta. What I'm wondering is how the hell does everyone one know my join4free password?? for me when my connection doesnt work right I go through this checklist 1. shut down all viruses 2. disconnect and reconnect if it still doesn't really connect 3, decide how bad I want to use the net and if I really do restart other wise wait 4. if I still cant connect go through check list 4 times minus step 4+ 5. check various lines and hardware make sure I have connectivity with it 6. call my provider 7. problem get fixed other wise I add messed up interconnection to my list of things to get ultimate revenge for... uhm I mean just forget and take up water polo. Like isn't this thing suppose to hold up to nuclear winter and stuff I think the system should be able to handle a bunch of kids with windows xp :)a joke ahh(don't mind me its been a while)... What about an external modem connected to a cell phone and a oh nevermind.... (since @Home is dead). huh? "My very lame ISP, AT&T Broadband, blocks my incoming port 80. What can I do to get around this? Thanks!" couldn't you just change your http:port? to port 81? or maybe there is a computer out there that acts a a genie type thingy you know like ask jeeves but nothing like it you know a server with software running that gets the files for you throught another protocol and sends them through another port theres a name for it I just cna't think of it right now anyway I think that the dutch should have atleast one.. .I think they have one of everything...... if people only listened hopefully they make a MAINN (multiuser artificial intellegence nueral network) for telephony response already its not like voice to text and text if processing doesn't exist... there's plently of motivated smart poeple out there what gives. "RIAA and MPAA people most likely have no idea how to get there, if they even know it exists. Do you?" .. sure use sugar its all run by the riaa anyway isn't it since it is them that cause the underground trading.. just like the justice system makes murderers... but really what you do is trade a mp3 with someone who wants a mp3... hard concept eh? piracy doesn't make sense when there is more free music out there than people can listen to in a lifetime. It's funny you keep the artist that charge you for their music in buisness but people got to eat. It's gets messed up when you either know or are the people that are effected by piracy.. once again why capitalism sucks!!! bigtime .. one it creates lots of senseless laws.. oh I'll get off topic so I'll just stop there. hold on I can't be biased. nevermind I'm always going to be bi-as-ed. "roughly $.10 to $1.25 MB depending on the number of staff and quality of equipment. One user downloading several GB a month can really hurt" had no idea the cost I thought it was much less... hmm seems expensive for a ray of light. don't they have fish systems yet.. oh two. "....never even heard of a real ISP that supported OpenNIC zones." I don't like the name "OpenNIC" I'm trying to quit smoking and everytime there is any reference to damn...double damn(after reading buffy post) great anyway everything will be mine one day anyway so what people build can only help me lead a happier life final judgment and understanding will reveal all. now I just wish everyone else thought this too. this might be off topic too if a company is rich does that mean it is overcharging its customers? I'm still wondering when people found out my join4free password "You have effectively DOS'd the server, and the ISP has every right to consider your actions hostile" they have rights to consider my actions hostile when I connect but in reality they shoudn't be worrying until the icbms from central tiawan are headed for their nodes. its not like they can't build the technologies right into the modems without a need for a server by isp or anything... all it would be is a latis of factory assigned serials each modem using .. oooh thats too naughty nevermind.,, wow I'm impressed I just reinvented the internet in my mind to make it even better .. I still think non represented police state of all people as police as the way to go. anyway