yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[G2 and Desire Z General] minotauri:
a megabit is not a megabyte.
[G2 and Desire Z General] swags:
There's really nothing you can legitimately complain about to blocking tethering. T-Mobile has not officially supported or even authorized tethering on any Android data plan before now. All that T-Mobile is doing now is enforcing this policy while offering an officially supported means of tethering. If you're a longstanding customer and do not have an account history of extremely heavy data usage, you might be able to get a break on tethering through retentions, but I doubt it since no other provider has a good tethering option.
[G2 and Desire Z General] Kazan22:
Ok so it was about 5:30am pst when I wrote this so I pretty much crashed afterwards. But to clarify: I was streaming music from my server while I was fixing my friend's laptop who has no internet right now so I was tethering. I just got home to my own computer so I may run some tests. I really don't care if T-mobile doesn't "Authorize" or "Support" tethering. I pay $30 a month for UNLIMITED data. Meaning I can do as I please with it. Blackberry users have always been able to tether no problem.
[G2 and Desire Z General] dietotherhythm:
Never got a message about tether charges but internet goes out randomly so I tether for maybe a few straight days every few months. Even with my unlimited data they send me a text about slowed speeds after so much data has been sent/recvd for the remainder of my "billing cycle" but if they roll this bs tether charge out, I have faith that the devs will work around it.
[G2 and Desire Z General] mckayrytting:
So you've been able to get the Wired Tether for root app working? I have no problems with Wireless Tether for root but I haven't been able to get Wired Tether for root working. Any suggestions for me to try to get it working?
[G2 and Desire Z General] havikx:
tmobiles unlimited data has NEVER been unlimited. i blew threw my 5gig cap a few times on my g1. that was many a month ago.

has any1 gotten the message using wifi/wired teether for root? at this point, these may be the failsafes. as mentioned above... these arent market apps. tmobile is helpless, so far, about these. Remember when all the teethering apps got pulled in one quick swift one day cuz the carriers complained? root users were still teethering.

my mistake. a megabit is not the same as a megabyte. that just internet type. my apologizies. thanks for catching that.
[G2 and Desire Z General] carlsbad0331:
I have been using alot of wifi tethering over the past few weeks and have not had any text messages of notices from T-Mo.

I sure hope that I do not...
[G2 and Desire Z General] fgjruiz:
still tethering here...

I'm on a Behold II, tethered, using Barnacle on Tzones and have been running just fine. Occasional hiccups when my phone drops down to Edge and back, but all good so far. :D
[G2 and Desire Z General] swags:
Assuming you are on Windows, search for the HTC Sync software. It's not for the G2, but it doesn't matter. Download it and install it. Then, with the G2 connected and USB tethering turned on, go into device manager and select update driver for the G2 (should be easy to find, it'll be the one showing a problem). Select browse for a driver on my computer, and the select the folder HTC Sync installed to. Windows should then find the driver, and you're good to go. This will also make the built in USB tethering enabled by the OTA work.
[G2 and Desire Z General] 93pgt:
i noticed someone said that after the ota that they were using the tethering option on the phone. well after my ota the only thing that showed up was wifi calling. and i will never use it. im in a strong hspa+ zone. anywhere i go i have the nice big H
[G2 and Desire Z General] gteye:
Does browsing on your phone stop working once you get the "banned" message?

I may have missed the answer but I did read over the threads a few times.
[G2 and Desire Z General] smirkis:
on tzones? how dreadful is that?
[G2 and Desire Z General] smirkis:
that nice big H doesn't always mean hspa speeds. it also shows when on 3g or umts. if u had a lil widget tho, u would always know what ur on
[G2 and Desire Z General] starnostar:
Would a vpn via the phone prevent this? I know cyanogen supports openvpn, might actually learn how to set it up now.....
[G2 and Desire Z General] mikeatron:
So only 1 g2 owner has gotten this msg?
[G2 and Desire Z General] mckayrytting:
I'll try this later when I get home, but is the driver different than the one I have installed to use adb?
[G2 and Desire Z General] swags:
Yes. Unless I'm missing something (entirely possible), adb doesn't work at all when usb tethering is enabled (either built in froyo or wired tether for root).
[G2 and Desire Z General] haensgn:
sorry for the rant.

meh, what do i care anyway. i just read an article in the wall street journal that stated that the only way for our economy not to completely collapse was if hackers brought the american dept down to zero.

I will be the one running down the street with a spoon in my hands yelling "brains!".

Bring a shoot gun
[G2 and Desire Z General] blackknightavalon:
Barnacle is working fine for me at the moment.
[G2 and Desire Z General] dietotherhythm:
My tether seems to be working fine... took about 3 minutes for my pc to actually connect properly but this thread keeps getting more posts and it had me a little paranoid for a minute.

Posted from my pc tethered to my G2
[G2 and Desire Z General] Hotshot205:
If tmobile do package sniffing than they might can trace if your tethering or not.
[G2 and Desire Z General] scottch699:
^^^^^^^^^^^^

LMFAO
[G2 and Desire Z General] androidtoy09:
I hope they DO that, we'll have solid case at the court room.
[G2 and Desire Z General] ransu:
I can confirm that T-mobile is checking the user agent to block tethering. I was on my g2 downloading a 75mb file with the dolphin browser set to desktop agent. I got a text saying "tethering may be blocked", then another saying "tethering has been blocked" after allowing my download to continue for another 30 seconds.

This is absurd as I was not tethering. I use desktop agent because I hate scrolling to the bottom of pages to switch it to the desktop version. What a pain T-mobile is.
[G2 and Desire Z General] mingkee:
I smell some "class action".
[G2 and Desire Z General] g_grey:
but were you able to continue your download after switching back to your mobile user-agent?
[G2 and Desire Z General] ransu:
Yup i sure was! Also when I went back to desktop agent it once again redirected me to a page to sign up for tethering. I can't even browse the net with desktop agent on.
[G2 and Desire Z General] clintz:
Well it's a good thing you can change the user agent in firefox
[G2 and Desire Z General] mikeatron:
does chrome allow user agent switching?
[G2 and Desire Z General] clintz:
depends, on some versions of Chrome u can do this:

chrome.exe --user-agent="Your own user agent string"
[G2 and Desire Z General] kkbarrier:
So this is my user agent on my G2.....

USER_AGENT:Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2.1; en-us; T-Mob FRF91) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile

Your saying mask the browser with this and were good to go!
[G2 and Desire Z General] ddgarcia05:
Knowing what we know now is it safe to use googles wireless tether app on the phone for my laptop. I just do web surfing no videos or heavy downloading. At the most ill download a 5mb file while tethering once a week. Am I safe?
[G2 and Desire Z General] g_grey:
cool, so they are sniffing our packets and filtering out the PC-based UAs, fine by me, you can set the user agent on your browser to android with no issues(you may have to tell most of your sites to view as full site) i have two chrome shortcuts on my desktop, one opens as android UA and one as chrome(normal), i guess when/if i get the message i will have to use the android chrome.
[G2 and Desire Z General] v8pwrdz28:
I am running the desire z rom and the htc hotspot that comes with it is still working.
[G2 and Desire Z General] chewy106:
Hmm, if they're going by user agent, that could possibly explain why after the official OTA my "about:debug" command in the browser stopped working. Don't care now though, but it makes sense.
[G2 and Desire Z General] SeReaction:
Just want to clarify some things a bit.

HTTP protocols are very insecure unless they use the suffix "s" for secure which is simply a security layer wrapped around the data packets sent. For anyone that knows the FireSheep program will know what I'm talking about.

Basically what I'm trying to say is user agent sniffing is definitely the easier and more cost effective way in determining if a person is tethering or not. Data packets sent via HTTP's protocols are pretty much readable by almost anyone which would include your user agent.

I doubt Tmobile has the resources to enforce deep packet scanning for all data traffic that goes through the network though. Meaning VPN connections, HTTPS, SSL (and SSL VPNs) protocols, and the like that adds that extra security layer around the packet will more than likely go straight thru undetected. That is unless Tmobile acquires the resources to do random deep data packet scans.

Feel free to add or correct me.
[G2 and Desire Z General] s30zgt:
g_grey, would you mind explaining how you change your user agent in chrome to android UA?
[G2 and Desire Z General] androidtoy09:
You are correct. Even if T-mobile has this technology in place it will definitely affect the network's performance greatly so it's pointless not to mention legal hassles
[G2 and Desire Z General] Chuckmoney:
Ok, using wifi tether for root users for the last hour and haven't got any msgs from t-mo.
[G2 and Desire Z General] acis:
Question for those who have been blocked from tethering. How much data did you use in your last billing cycle?
[G2 and Desire Z General] g_grey:
right click the shortcut for chrome and hit properties, then you will see the line that says "target" and the location of your chrome.exe, at the end of that line just put in " --user-agent="Android"" and you should be good. there should be a space between chrome.exe and --user-agent but no where else, and make sure Android is in quotes but not the rest, basically it should look like this

C:\Users\me\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe --user-agent="Android"
[G2 and Desire Z General] amack10:
How about internet explorer on windows 7 I tried what u said for google chrome and it said invalid
[G2 and Desire Z General] Joe USer:
I don't have a G2, but I'm going to guess it does WiFi the same way my Rhodium does. Basically, the phone is a proxy and data looks like it's coming directly from the phone, might be harder for them to detect if they're not doing UA scans.
[G2 and Desire Z General] g_grey:
really? are you sure you typed it correctly? mine works fine(just have to tell all my sites to give me the full page rather than the mobile version

you can make sure it's working by typing "about:" in the url bar(no quotes)

a quick google search says that for ie go here in regedit and change the value to what you wanna be

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
[G2 and Desire Z General] kcfreeze:
Info on Tethering

I just purchased the G2 this evening 6:43pm cst to be exact and was assured that tethering was not blocked/banned..whatever. I was assured that since the MyTouch 4G had a native Tether app it was ok to tether. I know I said I purchased a G2, I did. Two Tmo reps in store were in agreement that the G2 was soon to have the same native tethering app installed. I have to assume this will be part of an OTA update. The same reps assured me that the G2, MyTouch 4G etc. were not phones that are required to have the $15. tether add on to be able to tether. I also see that the Tiered pricing for 4G coverage is as follows: 4G Web-Unlimied $25 4G Web-200 MB (Overage at 0.10MB) $10. The 4G pricing is for the Even More Plus Individual plans. The Sales rep ID # listed on my sales invoice is 2432749 I hope this helps or at least gives the community fuel to fight the cost of the Ignorant Tethering package.
[G2 and Desire Z General] amack10:
So were do I write that. I googled how to change user agent and founf were u found that but it says to use some windows registry program
[G2 and Desire Z General] -RotorDemon-:
Just tried it with tetherwifi and just after 50 meg of down I got the text message.

:mad: $35/month for unlimited web.. Now what... another 15-25/month to tether? FU!!!
[G2 and Desire Z General] Bishybob:
My about:debug for stock browser still works fine. Just did it today to switch it to desktop to change some settings on Facebook. Do none of your extra browser settings show up when you try it?
[G2 and Desire Z General] kenmag7577:
blocked here

i am a tmobile employee running a rooted g2 and all forms of the tethering were blocked for me today! even i have to pay the additional 15 per month to have tethering available to me. i did do the user agent and it worked just fine but just fyi this is for everyone including employees.
[G2 and Desire Z General] Okawa:
hmm, nice email bud...
[G2 and Desire Z General] acis:
Are you on an ANR plan or dealer line or whatever or do you have a standard account?
[G2 and Desire Z General] -RotorDemon-:
If I have to pay an extra $15 a month for tethering I want the 5gb cap dropped.
[G2 and Desire Z General] kkbarrier:
didn't help me. thats what I was using and the data was minimal surfing.
[G2 and Desire Z General] Chuckmoney:
I'm still thinking using the wifi tether for root users apk is working without a problem. tethered for another 4-5 hrs this morning with no kind of warning msg from t-mo
[G2 and Desire Z General] Hotshot205:
Yeah I think if your rooted your safe for now is my understanding from my friend which is a tmo rep. More on the subject as he updates me. He is running a rooted nexus one.
[G2 and Desire Z General] raduque:
Im gonna keep an eye on this topic. Im tethering my G1 atm, running the Tmo 2.2 OTA ported over w/root.
[G2 and Desire Z General] kkbarrier:
Rooted has nothing to do with it. I didn't get noticed until CM6.1 on my G2.

I was running wireless tether app from

wireless_tether_2_0_2.apk

not the rom wifi thether.
[G2 and Desire Z General] g_grey:
[RANT]

let's think about this, t-mo pushes the fact that if you buy a smart phone you get FULL web not this mobile web crap, but the phone(and webpages) still give you a mobile version if available unless you change your UA. BUT(!) if you change your UA to Desktop to get full web(like tmo said we could have on these phones) then you are not able to get any web(after you get the text) and so you will have to go back to your crippled web on the phone. how does this make sense? i have yet to get my text telling me that tethering is blocked, but as soon as i do i am going to call care and call bull**** on their block here for the exact reasons i just mentioned. i think everyone needs to call tmo and call bull**** on this because we were told we could have FULL WEB not crippled mobile sh!t

[/RANT]
[G2 and Desire Z General] anth75:
Right behind you grey! As soon as I get the message, they will get a call. If I want crappy mobile view I will get tzones. I pay for the WEB not tzones. This is BS. Like having a ferrari with a pinto engine!
[G2 and Desire Z General] neidlinger:
Well after reading all 9 pages of this thread i can say this.

I have a PV32B Magic and i use Google's Wi-Fi.apk and tethered to my W7 desktop, my Ubuntu netbook, and my ipod all the same exact time and i didn't get any Text messages nor any phone calls. The Linux netbook i was using Firefox (default) the windows unit i was using Opera, and my iPod i was using Skyfire set to desktop mode.....

dunno seems like they would of picked that up for sure.
[G2 and Desire Z General] swags:
Anyone who gets the tethering blocked message while using a legitimate android app (like Doplphin browser) and not actually tethering should immediately call customer service. You should also probably follow that up with a letter (yes, on an actual piece of paper and sent through USPS). It's a pain, but companies are much less likely to ignore people who take the time to write out a complaint.

The address to send letters to is:

T-Mobile Customer Relations

P.O. Box 37380

Albuquerque, NM 87176-7380

Even if you haven't received the tethering blocked message, you may want to consider sending a letter anyway. T-Mobile needs to know that user agent is not a proper way of detecting tethering.

Read the T-Mobile terms and conditions. By agreeing to pay for service you waive your rights to a class action for any issue arising from the service contract.
[G2 and Desire Z General] androidtoy09:
So we're screwed? What else can we do beside complaining and sueing? Report to Better Bussiness Buera?
[G2 and Desire Z General] swags:
Complain to anyone and everyone in a position of authority who will listen, but the BBB and any government agencies will probably only listen to people who are actually getting blocked for legitimate usage. It's probably a good idea to submit a tip to The Consumerist about it too. If they make a post about it the issue will get some attention and someone may have a better idea of how to get the higher ups at T-Mobile to understand the issue.

It is really important that we do not complain about the tethering plans themselves. The unjustified sense of entitlement to tethering will not win many supporters. Focus the complaints on the fact that T-Mobile is blocking legitimate non-tethering Android apps.
[G2 and Desire Z General] Hosermage:
Actually, I would rather let them think that user agent is a good enough filter so we'll know how to get around it easily, than to alert of the fact and forces them to implement something that's harder to get around of. I doubt that you will be able to convince them that "it can't be done", so all you'll be doing is to force them to think more about it to come up with a better way. And that, is worse for all of us.
[G2 and Desire Z General] swags:
I suppose it's a matter of perspective. While I may not agree with T-Mobile's decision to block and charge for tethering, I acknowledge their legal right to do so based on the terms and conditions. If people choose to circumvent it, they might have to work at it.

I do have a major problem with apparent means T-Mobile has chosen to block tethering. The user agent method is bad because it has false positives and may catch up normal consumers who are not tethering but are also not savy enough to know how to get around it. For that matter, people should not have to work around anything to use applications that do not violate the terms and conditions.
[G2 and Desire Z General] dadewy:
Has the user agent sniffing been confirmed? There's other ways to detect NAT routers after all...

Frankly I'm not sure which I'd prefer. If they are simply sniffing for user agent strings, then it's dead-easy to bypass (and no bypass needed for non port 80 traffic)

OTOH, if they're sniffing for user agents they are looking at my traffic which is a whole other level of BS.

I never remember giving tmo or anyone permission to look at my traffic in any way shape or form and frankly I don't give a damn if it's an automated process that only looks for those few unique strings (which it almost surely is).

So did I miss some small print somewhere that says the carrier is allowed to look at my online activity whenever the hell they feel like it?
[G2 and Desire Z General] amack10:
Tell me the point of flash player if I can only go to mobile sites and not ever use it. I to am getting the tethering page on dolphin wtf
[G2 and Desire Z General] kenmag7577:
I am an actual employee in a call center, not a dealer or anything. I am considered a frontline employee since u talk to me if u need a payment arrangement. And I'm still screwed......
[G2 and Desire Z General] amack10:
Ya I called tmo and they were so confused they could not get it thru their head I wasn't tethering and was trying to view non mobile sites on my phone. I'm like dude u guys are sniffing user agents wen I change my user agent ony my phone to desktop u block me. I feel. Bad for the guys who have sense phones with the user agent thing built in the browser were u can switch to desktop.so flash and unlimited internet are pointless now since were stuck to mobile sites. And not every site has a desktop link its just mobile
[G2 and Desire Z General] swags:
Did you ask them to escalate the call so you could speak with someone who could understand your problem? Your situation is the exact sort of complaint they need to be hearing.
[G2 and Desire Z General] amack10:
Well see here's the catch I'm on flexpay and haven't payed my bill yet=( hours got cut at work so I had to choose electric bill or phone. So I chose the more important. So wen I called they're like ur service is suspendid and I'm like I still have internet and proceded to tell them my problem. I did ask for a supervisor but I never got one the lady kept saying ill try to fix it. When I pay my bill in a few days I will be calling back. I have no computer background just learned about the sniffing and stuf thru reading and reaserch. The person I talked to was acting like I was speaking chineese
[G2 and Desire Z General] chewy106:
Nope. Pre-OTA it worked fine. After the OTA "about:debug" did nothing for me. No Java debugging console, no additional settings options. The page I would be on would refresh, but nothing else. I haven't tried reflashing back to stock since perm-root and new ROMs (trying the Desire Z ROM out), but on stock OTA before and after root it was broken for me.
[G2 and Desire Z General] Okawa:
So only a couple people are having this issue? I just tried Dolphen and just normal teathering and still works fine for me.
[G2 and Desire Z General] Circledog:
I always use full desktop settings on my phone browsers and I'm tethering my laptop via PdaNet right now. I have a stock ROM with OTA and bacon bits...no texts or page redirects for me yet.

I plan to tether for a few hours tonight to see if I get anything.
[G2 and Desire Z General] amack10:
From what a guy said a few pages back u won't encounter a problem till u tether and use 200 mb of data then ull expierence the problem. And about debug doesn't work post ota and they restrict the desktop user agent even in dolphin
[G2 and Desire Z General] Circledog:
about:debug worked for me and I'm post OTA.
[G2 and Desire Z General] Orite:
I'm not so sure about this 200mb of data since I'm already up to 500mb and I'm still tethering every night just fine.

11/16/10	09:21 PM	10.9619

11/16/10	08:46 PM	9.6474

11/16/10	08:45 PM	9.7656

11/16/10	08:44 PM	19.5322

11/16/10	08:43 PM	9.7646

11/16/10	08:03 PM	9.7207

11/16/10	07:17 PM	29.2128

11/16/10	05:52 PM	9.6591

That's like a night out with no message or redirecting.
[G2 and Desire Z General] s30zgt:
Same here. Wired tether for root users, Google Chrome with Android User agent, downloaded about 450-500 mb and no warnings from tmo.
[G2 and Desire Z General] amack10:
That's because u set ur user agent to android so t mo thinks ur using ur android phone to look at internet. If u change ur google chrome back to desktop or download dolphin and switch ur agent to desktop ull get the message after 200 mb
[G2 and Desire Z General] amack10:
What's ur user agent wen ur tethering did u change it to android that's why it wouldn't give u the message. Sorry for double post I don't know how to double quote
[G2 and Desire Z General] Orite:
I do nothing fancy when i'm tethering. I don't mess with any settings and I surf the web like I would on any computer. Everything was used through WIFI tethering on my laptop using Chrome.
[G2 and Desire Z General] amack10:
U didn't change the user agent for chrome like someone stated how to a few pages back? Weird cus if not ull prolly get the notice soon
[G2 and Desire Z General] s30zgt:
No, i know why i wouldnt get that message, but isnt the point to circumvent tmobile's user agent sniffing? I know that not all website will work with this setting but for the most part it satisfies most of my web browsing / downloading needs without paying a ridiculous tethering fee.