Comment by ZnZirconium | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ZnZirconium | Hacker News Reader

Hey hey hacker techbros.

I discovered a way to open random UDP ports on xfinitywifi. Then I modified AndIodine to enable raw mode on random ports. So much speedier than DNS mode. Fun times were had.

I know Hacker News is The Number 0x01 Best Place because when I search for "xfinitywifi" and "iodine" Hacker News comes right up.

So to do this the way I did it you would need to build AndIodine which is open source and Android SDK is easy to install right? And you need an iodine server and a cloud account somewhere to host it and a DNS zone you can delegate. Oh and the host running your iodine server needs to redirect all incoming UDP traffic into port 53 with iptables. Whew! Too much preparation?

Or just adapt my changes to your favorite censorship circumventing UDP based VPN app. You know you want to.

There should be like a whole startup dedicated to a "residential neighborhood guest network road warrior" app for no reason.

Sorry I can code.

This is cool, but does stock AndIodine not work out of the box with raw UDP mode where you live?

The local xfinitywifi networks in my area work with raw UDP. That being said, I've been to some areas where the local xfinitywifi networks did not, and it reverted to DNS tunneling.

I'm also curious who you are using for a cloud provider, as many throttle/block inbound traffic on udp/53 to prevent DDoS attacks against improperly-configured DNS servers.

As for commercializing/publicizing this, I wouldn't recommend it. Judging from the effective MTU of xfinitywifi hotspots, it seems as though the gateways broadcasting xfinitywifi are establishing an IPSEC tunnel to a local Comcast-operated server. It would be trivial for them to shut this down in one fell swoop by transparently redirecting all outbound traffic on port 53 to an internal resolver.

Comcast didn't configure xfinitywifi the same way everywhere in Comcast country? Then what's the point of having one big internet service provider if it doesn't provide homogeneity as a service?

There's nothing to monetize here. I think censorship circumvention services like for example Psiphon should try harder than just hoping ports 53 are open. But Comcast country is part of the allegedly uncensored first world where there's no market for censorship circumvention.

Sorry reading your comment made me remember https://youtu.be/BWsAQsydzR4

Think probably though if your solution did become more widely adopted via a startup either Comcast would sue it out of existence or figure out away to block it right ?

It won't be widely adopted and The Simpsons will show you why: https://youtu.be/i-Ce-bYiVBM

None of Bart's classmates adopt Bart's great idea.

Anybody wants to sue me will discover I don't have any money because coding doesn't pay anything.

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