[185867] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Project Fi and the Great Firewall
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joel Jaeggli)
Sat Nov 14 21:22:49 2015
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: Joel Jaeggli <joelja@bogus.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2015 18:18:50 -0800
In-Reply-To: <CAMnJLmoGy3tf58APx1qadkv1S4hyi5ai_MK3crn0ESv4CU-3mA@mail.gmail.com>
To: Sean Hunter <jamesb2147@gmail.com>
Cc: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
Sent from my iPhone
> On Nov 14, 2015, at 18:00, Sean Hunter <jamesb2147@gmail.com> wrote:
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> Hello everyone,
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> 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.
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> 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 fro=
m your UE is indeed tunneled through the PGW
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Architecture_Evolution#
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> 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.
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> 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?
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> Anyway, I'd just love to hear from a knowledgeable engineer about how this=
> works.
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> If you've read this far, thanks for your time and have a great day!
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