[SOLVED] TTL change who can tell ?

Jan 19, 2022
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When using a usb hotpot to connect to the internet the cell service provider can tell that its on a hotspot instead of the actual cell phone that's why the hotspot speeds are speed capped on my provider.

It does this by Looking at the TTL or so im told one TTL value is cell phone related and another is pc related.

My question is if my pc or router masks its TTL and it matches the cell phones value TTL can my cell service provider tell that its coming from the usb tethered hotspot or will it still think its coming from the cell phone itself since the TTL matches androids TTL instead of a Pc's TTL ?

(From whats im gathering is that they can't decipher if its actually the cell or the pc )

Thanks
 
Solution
I doubt they use ttl to detect this but I suppose it depends on the provider. It would be rather stupid because they know how easily it is bypassed.

The reason I doubt it is the 2 that I have used had tether caps that when you hit them they dropped the speed to a extremely low value. If this were true then only the pc would drop in speed and the phones and tablets connecting to the hotspot would continue to work. The TTL is a function of the OS it will use
the same when it connects over wifi or over mobile broadband. Since it slowed all the devices it must have a different method to determine which traffic is tethered. If were as trivial as changing the ttl people would not be doing the crazy stuff to root phones to...

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator
When using a usb hotpot to connect to the internet the cell service provider can tell that its on a hotspot instead of the actual cell phone that's why the hotspot speeds are speed capped on my provider.

It does this by Looking at the TTL or so im told one TTL value is cell phone related and another is pc related.

My question is if my pc or router masks its TTL and it matches the cell phones value TTL can my cell service provider tell that its coming from the usb tethered hotspot or will it still think its coming from the cell phone itself since the TTL matches androids TTL instead of a Pc's TTL ?

(From whats im gathering is that they can't decipher if its actually the cell or the pc )

Thanks
I doubt it is "TTL" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_to_live
It is more likely that the PHONE knows the difference and tells the cell provider.
 
I doubt they use ttl to detect this but I suppose it depends on the provider. It would be rather stupid because they know how easily it is bypassed.

The reason I doubt it is the 2 that I have used had tether caps that when you hit them they dropped the speed to a extremely low value. If this were true then only the pc would drop in speed and the phones and tablets connecting to the hotspot would continue to work. The TTL is a function of the OS it will use
the same when it connects over wifi or over mobile broadband. Since it slowed all the devices it must have a different method to determine which traffic is tethered. If were as trivial as changing the ttl people would not be doing the crazy stuff to root phones to bypass the hotspot app.
 
Solution

Math Geek

Titan
Ambassador
i do not know how they do it now, but back maybe 10-12 years ago it was as simple as the ip address it connected to. when at&t had the iphone monopoly they made you pay separately for hotspot for like $40-50 a month, i don't recall exactly :)

but once jailbroken you could set it to tether using the cell data ip and they never knew. i did it that way for years.

again no clue how it is done now but not that long ago it was simply changing the ip to the "cell data" one vs the "tethered" ip to get around it.

just a thought and perhaps something to look into.
 
Jan 19, 2022
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Yeah im not sure either but all i know is if i dont change the ttl the usb tethering is on ly 10 mb which is what the cell provider advertises. If i change the ttl in windows i full cell phone speed 30-100mb via usb>pc. I was just curious if they could tell or not or even cared lol. The cool thing is they have unlimited bandwidth and no throttling after a certain amount (their claims) and im at 159gb used so far.
 
That all depends what the fine print of the contract says. I have seen some that say they can charge your for the extra data usage. I mean if I were a evil company that is what I would do, make it easy to bypass and then send a huge bill with the threat if they don't pay they pretty much get blacklisted from ever having a cell phone plan again.