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StR
join:2009-11-10
College Station, TX

StR

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Informing via HTML injection - Upgrades in Bryan-College Station

Very interesting...

I just got this in my browser (at the top of one of the loaded pages):

" Important Notice
As we complete upgrades in your area, there may be a brief service outage at 12:00 AM, November 14th. Thank you for your patience."

And here is the info-page from one of the links in that notice:
»208.180.213.225/bg/About ··· e&linked

I am not sure if I like this or not. On one hand, I appreciate the effort of informing me about the outage.

On another hand, I have some problems on how it is done:
1. They don't have this information known through other channels:
a) Why there is no information about the upcoming outages on "My services" page?
b) They send a bunch of trash (aka advertisement/information) to the default SL-provided e-mail, but nothing about this.
c) To be fair, they had provided an automated phone information call previously, but ... whenever I tried to call the customer service to verify the time of the outage (as the answering machine cut out a portion of the message), - the CSRs were telling me that no outage were scheduled.

2. I don't have time now (and much of desire) to figure out exactly how they injected this information into the webpage/browser. I suspect they might have broken some of the RFC's (Internet community's accepted standards) as this has been done before. Previously they (as well as a few other ISPs) have done (and most likely still doing) redirection of the nonexistent pages to their own page with advertisements/links. It was done by essentially hijacking DNS records, and injecting their own IP number for the hostnames that didn't exist. That clearly broke the corresponding RFC's.
They allowed people to opt out of that horrendous behavior.

I was unable to find any information on Suddenlink website (except for the link above), - so if you "blinked" and opted out or closed that page, - you can never find it again.
(Why? Why such a secrecy?!)

I actually just found an earlier thread on this, but it didn't contain information on how this is done and what it potentially breaks (security/privacy/functionality).

So far, my feeling is that the summary for this behavior: "good intention, bad implementation, no information".
StR

StR

Member

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It's interesting that clicking on the "Take our .. survey" link opened a page with the same notification but showing a different time, see the attached screenshot.

And while I am attaching the screenshots, - two more, indicting absence of notifications on "My services" page and showing the number of "useful information" e-mails without the notification in question.

PS. BTW, I wonder if the subject of this thread is technically incorrect and it is not HTML injection.

gatorkram
Need for Speed
Premium Member
join:2002-07-22
Winterville, NC

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I think we talked about this awhile back. I see them often now.

Not sure how I feel about it either, both pro and con I guess.
GeorgetownTX
join:2006-11-28
Georgetown, TX

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Yes, I saw this too.

I don't like HTML injection, and I think it is "wrong". In the address bar you see "cnn.com" but contains content from Suddenlink? I would much prefer an email, but there is no option for that, only to "opt out" of HTML injection notifications.

If anyone from SL reads this, PLEASE give us option for email notification of scheduled outages, impending overages, etc. Please don't hijack my web pages.

Chubbzie
join:2014-02-11
Greenville, NC
Hitron CDA3
(Software) OpenBSD + pf

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Like gatorkram See Profile stated, this has been discussed previously. I posted the name of the system used by SL that creates these injections. Can't remember the name at the moment but its used by many different companies for real-time "notification".

gatorkram
Need for Speed
Premium Member
join:2002-07-22
Winterville, NC

gatorkram

Premium Member

Its funny, I come to this website so often, it tends to be the site I am viewing when I get the injections. I was starting to think they only came up when I hit this site...
StR
join:2009-11-10
College Station, TX

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to Chubbzie
said by Chubbzie:

Like gatorkram See Profile stated, this has been discussed previously. I posted the name of the system used by SL that creates these injections. Can't remember the name at the moment but its used by many different companies for real-time "notification".

As I wrote in the original message,
said by StR:

I actually just found an earlier thread on this, but it didn't contain information on how this is done and what it potentially breaks (security/privacy/functionality).


(That thread was indeed posted by gatokram.)
You may had posted some useful information before, but I couldn't find it. So, unfortunately, mentioning that you had the information without sharing the actual information is not much helpful.
Thanks for trying anyway.
StR

StR

Member

Well, this morning, after the downtime during the night (I didn't watch it in all its length, but the automated phone call warning last night said it'd be until 6am), - I am getting yet another alert about the next downtime:

" Important Notice
As we complete upgrades in your area, there may be a brief service outage at 12:00 AM, November 21st."
I guess something didn't quite work out for SL.

In the mean time, the speedtest shows 17.3 Mbps down 1.7 Mbps up (for the nominal 15/1.5 Mbps service.

Chubbzie
join:2014-02-11
Greenville, NC
Hitron CDA3
(Software) OpenBSD + pf

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»Suddenlink notification system

Perftech

PerfTech, Inc., The Industry Leader for In-Browser Notifications

Have a great day!
StR
join:2009-11-10
College Station, TX

StR

Member

Thank you, Chubbzie, that helps!