[LiveBrianD]

I have an unlocked phone (stock Android 4.0.4, not touched by a carrier) on tmobile prepaid, and was wondering if they can catch me if I tether using the built in function. After all, this shouldn't notify the carrier or anything, right? Or should I play it safe and install an actual tethering app? (USB tethering is fine, maybe better since it doesn't waste the battery, and I'd like to avoid the hassle of jailbreaking involved with wifi tethering.)

[smax013]

LiveBrianD, on 30 June 2012 - 01:29 PM, said:

I have an unlocked phone (stock Android 4.0.4, not touched by a carrier) on tmobile prepaid, and was wondering if they can catch me if I tether using the built in function. After all, this shouldn't notify the carrier or anything, right? Or should I play it safe and install an actual tethering app? (USB tethering is fine, maybe better since it doesn't waste the battery, and I'd like to avoid the hassle of jailbreaking involved with wifi tethering.)

I believe that carriers have ways of detecting it (for example, the browser ID from a computer browser will be different than a browser from Android).

Whether or not they will do anything...I have no clue. If you use it rather sparingly, they might let it go. Just be aware that it is possible that they could deem it as a violation of terms of service and terminate your service...I believe that I have read stories about some carriers doing that.

BTW, the bug thing in your signature is annoying...for a moment, I thought I have a little bug crawling on my screen.

[LiveBrianD]

I don't think it's possible at all. The thing is:
-user agent - well, I can use a 3rd party browser on Android and fake it from there. Normally, Chrome reports that I'm running Android 4.0.4. (which I am) If I set it to show desktop sites, it says Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_84) (in comparison, my desktop says Windows NT 6.1; WOW64 in parenthesis, using Chrome) Basically, I doubt they look at it.
-TTL - I set it to 65 on the PC, so 64 coming out of the phone, same as all the other packets sent from it
-The phone's firmware ratting me out - this is an unlocked phone, with firmware untouched by the carrier, so I don't think it's possible.
-Alternate APN - I checked, and it's still using the normal one. (epc.tmobile.com) There's only that, and the IPv6 version I added manually.

I found the bug on another site, and put it there just for fun.

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 02 July 2012 - 04:43 PM

[waldojim]

They can tell because of how the packet is formatted (as your phone will act as a NAT router, and essentially try to hide your PC's IP). They can also tell by the services you are attempting to gain access to. For example, Microsoft update (which is contacted automatically) is not used by Android phones. Nor are Battlenet servers.

Just trust that they know. They also don't care for the most part. What they care about is excessive use.

[LiveBrianD]

Yeah, I was reading about that with Clockworkmod Tether - I wasn't sure if it was worth using that so that the phone acts as a proxy for the PC instead. Also, isn't packet sniffing too expensive to bother with, for the most part? Btw I'm only planning to use this for web browsing anyway.