nanog mailing list archives
Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall
From: Joel Jaeggli <joelja () bogus com>
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2015 18:18:50 -0800
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 14, 2015, at 18:00, Sean Hunter <jamesb2147 () gmail com> wrote: Hello everyone, I come to you to humbly request your assistance, on or off list. This not an urgent technical matter, but something I'm rather fascinated by at the moment. While in China recently, I noticed that my Project Fi phone was accessing Google. Not only Google, but Facebook, YouTube, Gmail, Twitter, and many other normally perma-blocked websites. It's taken me a few days of sleep deprived thinking to realize this, but I'm seeing the same or similar 26.x.x.x addresses across countries I've visited, including China, Spain, Malaysia, and Hong Kong.
26/8 is T-Mobile using DOD space for their internal addressing. Irrespective of where you are your connected to the Same APN and traffic from your UE is indeed tunneled through the PGW https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Architecture_Evolution#
I'm not a cellular guy and I know even less about MVNO's, but I'm curious if I'm inferring the technical operations of the network correctly. It sounds like the local cellular companies are provisioning access upon arrival, then packing up the packets and shipping them off at layer 2 or below to Google, who's then handling the IP stack and up internet access. I'm also assuming the Great Firewall then acts above these layers since it's not blocking access on my phone. If my inference is correct, I'd be curious to see if those responsible for the Great Firewall are aware of this deal Google has with a Chinese cellular provider and the technical specifics of how it works. Might we be seeing a softening of Great Firewall policies for foreigners, or just another soon to be inspected or blocked flow of traffic? Anyway, I'd just love to hear from a knowledgeable engineer about how this works. If you've read this far, thanks for your time and have a great day!
Current thread:
- Project Fi and the Great Firewall Sean Hunter (Nov 14)
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Roland Dobbins (Nov 14)
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Jake Mertel (Nov 14)
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Jared Geiger (Nov 15)
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Carlos Alcantar (Nov 15)
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Yury Shefer (Nov 16)
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Mark Tinka (Nov 20)
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Jake Mertel (Nov 14)
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Roland Dobbins (Nov 14)
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Roland Dobbins (Nov 14)
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Yucong Sun (Nov 14)
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Jean-Francois Mezei (Nov 15)
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Mark Tinka (Nov 20)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Brandon Butterworth (Nov 15)
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Todd Underwood (Nov 15)
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Christopher Morrow (Nov 15)
- Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall Todd Underwood (Nov 15)