Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Cox Comm. Injects Code Into Web Traffic To Announce Email Outage

Posted by timothy on from the sorta-clever-but-only-sorta dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Cox Communications appears to be injecting JavaScript and HTML into subscribers' traffic, as part of their effort to announce an email service outage. Pictures showing the popup."

14 of 271 comments (clear)

  1. Is this News? by omega6 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Providers have been doing similiar things for a while...If you want security, use https.

    1. Re:Is this News? by Pedrito · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, not like this. At least I've never seen it before. This is intrusive. I've had it show up in my browser at least 3 times in the past couple of hours and it's about a service I don't even use. I don't care if their e-mail is out. I don't use their e-mail. I don't want this stuff and there ought to be a simple way to opt out.

    2. Re:Is this News? by sabri · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, not like this. At least I've never seen it before. This is intrusive. I've had it show up in my browser at least 3 times in the past couple of hours and it's about a service I don't even use. I don't care if their e-mail is out. I don't use their e-mail. I don't want this stuff and there ought to be a simple way to opt out.

      There is, it is called: Vote With Your Money...

      --
      I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
    3. Re:Is this News? by Pedrito · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually, that's exactly what I'm going to do now. I was already pissed because my connection has been going down a lot lately. Then they pull this crap. Bye Cox!

    4. Re:Is this News? by guttentag · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's the modern equivalent of the phone company playing a recorded message while you are talking to someone on the phone. Or the post office opening your mail and gluing a message to the contents, ransom-note-style, about your mail carrier being out sick. It wouldn't happen. But cox wants to condition people to think of the web like cable TV, where thy can cover part of the picture with service announcements. The FCC needs to weigh in on this and stop it.

    5. Re:Is this News? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I just love Cox. That's my favorite part of the internet. I'm on Cox for several hours a day, every day. You might say I'm a Cox addict. If Cox wants to deliver a friendly payload during my regular service, I don't find that hard to swallow. I'm quite pleased when Cox injects this sort of material for me and I'm always eager for more. If you haven't tried Cox, you really should. There's nothing quite so fulfilling or satisfying as Cox.

    6. Re:Is this News? by craigminah · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't want to complain or you might get Cox blocked.

    7. Re:Is this News? by sjames · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That and they need someone to deliver the last leg on unprofitable routs. More privatized profits and socialized losses.

  2. They should have warned us by icebike · · Score: 5, Funny

    Shouldn't they send an email warning us about injecting stuff in our web traffic?

    --
    Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    1. Re:They should have warned us by WWJohnBrowningDo · · Score: 5, Funny

      I just injected a woosh into your HTTP stream.

      You should feel it soon; or maybe it'll just go over your head again.

  3. Nice single point of attack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just compromise Cox's servers, and deliver your payload. Very blackhat friendly.

  4. My ISP does this for far worse reasons. by damnbunni · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I use Millenicom, who resells Sprint, and in my area Sprint started injecting JavaScript into every page that comes over HTTP to recompress all the jpegs to a much lower quality setting.

    That, at least, I could block. Now they just recompress all jpegs that come over http to a horrible level. If I want to keep the internet from looking like ass, I have to use a secure tunnel. Which is obnoxiously slow on 3G.

    (Unfortunately, there's nothing Millenicom can do about it. It's up to Sprint. And there's no opt-out.)

  5. Raise your hand.. by claar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yep, I received this too, right on Netflix. Um, thanks, Cox, but even if I used your email service, I'd really rather watch my movie..

    Keep your hands off my traffic, please. Is it too much to ask for you to simply carry my bits back and forth for the agreed-upon amount?

    --
    I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous...
  6. Bad practice.. by Nezic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So now internet companies are essentially trying to train users to trust whatever information shows up on a web page that claims to be from 'known' sources?

    After all the problems that spoof emails cause for people who don't know better, you'd think an internet provider *would* know better.