Mobile operators header enrichment assessment: Part 5/6 - UK

And today, the last group of mobile operators assessed. We had a look at the mobile operators in the UK: TMobile, Vodafone, Orange, O2/Telefonica and 3, and these are the results:

=== TMobile UK through WAPGW/Proxy ===
Accept: text/html,text/vnd.wap.wml,application/vnd.wap.html+xml,application/xhtml+xml,application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml,text/x-wap.wml,text/x-hdml,text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor,application/java-archive,application/octet-stream,,image/png,image/gif,image/jpg,image/jpeg,*/*
Accept-Charset: iso-8859-1,utf-8
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
User-Agent: HeaderValidator/1.1
Cache-Control: max-age=43200
Connection: keep-alive

=== TMobile UK direct INTERNET connection ===
Accept: text/html,text/vnd.wap.wml,application/vnd.wap.html+xml,application/xhtml+xml,application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml,text/x-wap.wml,text/x-hdml,text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor,application/java-archive,application/octet-stream,,image/png,image/gif,image/jpg,image/jpeg,*/*
Accept-Charset: iso-8859-1,utf-8
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
User-Agent: HeaderValidator/1.1-dir
Cache-Control: max-age=43200
Connection: keep-alive

We can see that TMobile UK is adding just a couple of proxy related HTTP headers and also that all the request in the Internet connections go trough a transparent proxy.

=== Vodafone UK through WAPGW/Proxy ===
Accept: text/html,text/vnd.wap.wml,application/vnd.wap.html+xml,application/xhtml+xml,application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml,text/x-wap.wml,text/x-hdml,text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor,application/java-archive,application/octet-stream,,image/png,image/gif,image/jpg,image/jpeg,*/*
Accept-Charset: iso-8859-1,utf-8
Accept-Encoding: deflate, gzip, identity
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
User-Agent: HeaderValidator/1.1
Via: HTTP/1.1 begwsl12 (XMS 724Solutions HTG XFW_004_M00_B133 20100521.012244)
Connection: close

=== Vodafone UK direct INTERNET connection ===
Accept: text/html,text/vnd.wap.wml,application/vnd.wap.html+xml,application/xhtml+xml,application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml,text/x-wap.wml,text/x-hdml,text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor,application/java-archive,application/octet-stream,,image/png,image/gif,image/jpg,image/jpeg,*/*
Accept-Charset: iso-8859-1,utf-8
Accept-Encoding:
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
User-Agent: HeaderValidator/1.1-dir
Connection: TE, close

In Vodafone UK we have a similar behavior as in TMobile, all connections go through a proxy, even the Internet ones.  In the WAP connection they add a "Via" HTTP header. Although that is a standard proxy header, seeing that it is not added by most operators I would not add it here either.

=== O2/Telefonica through WAPGW/Proxy ===
Accept: text/html,text/vnd.wap.wml,application/vnd.wap.html+xml,application/xhtml+xml,application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml,text/x-wap.wml,text/x-hdml,text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor,application/java-archive,application/octet-stream,,image/png,image/gif,image/jpg,image/jpeg,*/*
Accept-Charset: iso-8859-1,utf-8
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
User-Agent: HeaderValidator/1.1
X-Forwarded-For: 10.86.161.95
Cache-Control: max-age=43200
Connection: keep-alive

=== O2/Telefonica UK direct INTERNET connection ===
Accept: text/html,text/vnd.wap.wml,application/vnd.wap.html+xml,application/xhtml+xml,application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml,text/x-wap.wml,text/x-hdml,text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor,application/java-archive,application/octet-stream,,image/png,image/gif,image/jpg,image/jpeg,*/*
Accept-Charset: iso-8859-1,utf-8
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
User-Agent: HeaderValidator/1.1-dir
Cache-Control: max-age=43200
Connection: keep-alive

In O2/Telefonica we see a similar behavior as in Vodafone UK or TMobile UK. Everthing goes trough a proxy but in here we see that the WAP connection adds the X-Forwarded-For, which, although it is a standard, nowadays adds little or no value.

=== 3 UK direct INTERNET connection ===
Accept: text/html,text/vnd.wap.wml,application/vnd.wap.html+xml,application/xhtml+xml,application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml,text/x-wap.wml,text/x-hdml,text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor,application/java-archive,application/octet-stream,,image/png,image/gif,image/jpg,image/jpeg,*/*
Accept-Charset: iso-8859-1,utf-8
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
User-Agent: HeaderValidator/1.1-dir
Cache-Control: max-stale=0
Connection: Keep-Alive
X-BlueCoat-Via: 03F39CF1D18B00C3

3 in UK, as 3 in Italy, does not have a WAP connection with a fixed proxy.  Nevertheless we see they use a transparent proxy too as they are adding some extra HTTP headers.

=== Orange UK through WAPGW/Proxy ===
X-ICAP-Version: 1.0
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Length: 0
Accept: text/html,text/vnd.wap.wml,application/vnd.wap.html+xml,application/xhtml+xml,application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml,text/x-wap.wml,text/x-hdml,text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor,application/java-archive,application/octet-stream,image/png,image/gif,image/jpg,image/jpeg,*/*
Accept-Charset: iso-8859-1,utf-8
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
User-Agent: HeaderValidator/1.1
X-Nokia-RemoteSocket: 10.37.7.162:11961
X-Nokia-LocalSocket: 193.35.132.107:8080
X-Nokia-Gateway-Id: NBG/1.0.91/91
X-Nokia-BEARER: GPRS
X-Nokia-CONNECTION_MODE: TCP
X-Orange-ID: 2/oj/g2sxXXXXXXXXXXXX==
X-Forwarded-For: 10.37.7.162, 193.35.132.106
Via: 1.1, 1.1 pg-proxy1 (NetCache NetApp/6.0.6P1)

=== Orange UK direct INTERNET connection ===
Accept: text/html,text/vnd.wap.wml,application/vnd.wap.html+xml,application/xhtml+xml,application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml,text/x-wap.wml,text/x-hdml,text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor,application/java-archive,application/octet-stream,,image/png,image/gif,image/jpg,image/jpeg,*/*
Accept-Charset: iso-8859-1,utf-8
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
User-Agent: HeaderValidator/1.1-dir
X-Nokia-BEARER: GPRS
X-Operator-Domain: orange.co.uk
X-Orange-Roaming: NO
X-Orange-ID: OR4B9UD7xXXXXXXXXXXXXX==
Via: 1.1 pg_squid4_3 (squid)
X-Forwarded-For: 172.24.36.9
Cache-Control: max-age=259200
Connection: keep-alive

In Orange UK we see one of the examples of HTTP header overhead. We can see all the useless Nokia headers and this time I´d like to highlight the following ones:

X-Nokia-RemoteSocket: 10.37.7.162:11961
X-Nokia-LocalSocket: 193.35.132.107:8080

The bigmouthed Nokia GW is telling us that the mobile device has the IP  10.37.7.162 and a socket connecting from port 11961 to the GW IP 193.35.132.107 and port 8080. I can think of a couple of tests that could be done with this information...

Another piece of useful information is that Orange is using a Nokia GW for the WAP connection and a Squid proxy as a transparent proxy.
Regarding the header

X-Orange-ID: OR4B9UD7xXXXXXXXXXXXXX==

this is a unique ID that is being updated every 24h. Needed?.... not really. Harmful? not too much.


Except Orange, the Mobile Operators in the UK seam to do a good job, not allowing third parties to track their customers and having light proxys. What they all have is a transparent proxy on the Internet connection which seems to be quite common in most operators. Next post will be a summary of the assessed operators.