Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?
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@JaredBusch said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@JaredBusch said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@Fredtx said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@dbeato said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
I have two customers in NC and SC and they have Spectrum with Static IPs and it is not fully bridged mode at all. We had so many problems with Sonicwalls and Edgerouters with their static IP and blocking of traffic.
One of my colleagues had spoken with Spectrum before me and told me what they said. I was like, no way. That doesn’t make sense. So I went ahead and called myself and got told the same thing. All they say is the problem is not on their end. Im like dude the traceroute is hopping through yalls modems private IP and these issues appeared after yall replaced their modem. I spent an hour debating with them on the phone and didn’t get anywhere. I’ll have to escalate this on Monday and will probably waste another hour on the phone.
That's pretty much the process. There is no FTC oversight in reality with these guys. You CAN file with the FTC, but not likely to get you very far.
Why would he do this? There is no legal ground here, to my knowledge.
Lying about their service, in a demonstrable way, is where the FTC gets involved.
There is no lie. These units are only able to be used in this IP Passthrough mode. This is not held back.
They keep telling him they have set up bridging. That has to be a lie as it is a router, not a bridge, after they claim the opposite.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@JaredBusch said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@JaredBusch said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@Fredtx said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@dbeato said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
I have two customers in NC and SC and they have Spectrum with Static IPs and it is not fully bridged mode at all. We had so many problems with Sonicwalls and Edgerouters with their static IP and blocking of traffic.
One of my colleagues had spoken with Spectrum before me and told me what they said. I was like, no way. That doesn’t make sense. So I went ahead and called myself and got told the same thing. All they say is the problem is not on their end. Im like dude the traceroute is hopping through yalls modems private IP and these issues appeared after yall replaced their modem. I spent an hour debating with them on the phone and didn’t get anywhere. I’ll have to escalate this on Monday and will probably waste another hour on the phone.
That's pretty much the process. There is no FTC oversight in reality with these guys. You CAN file with the FTC, but not likely to get you very far.
Why would he do this? There is no legal ground here, to my knowledge.
Lying about their service, in a demonstrable way, is where the FTC gets involved.
There is no lie. These units are only able to be used in this IP Passthrough mode. This is not held back.
They keep telling him they have set up bridging. That has to be a lie as it is a router, not a bridge, after they claim the opposite.
No, because no matter how much you want to claim a word can only mean the thing you say it means, language is living and this IP Passthrough or WTF ever Spectrum does is an accepted use of the term bridging in this context. It has been for in common use like this since at least 2013.
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@JaredBusch said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@JaredBusch said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@JaredBusch said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@Fredtx said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@dbeato said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
I have two customers in NC and SC and they have Spectrum with Static IPs and it is not fully bridged mode at all. We had so many problems with Sonicwalls and Edgerouters with their static IP and blocking of traffic.
One of my colleagues had spoken with Spectrum before me and told me what they said. I was like, no way. That doesn’t make sense. So I went ahead and called myself and got told the same thing. All they say is the problem is not on their end. Im like dude the traceroute is hopping through yalls modems private IP and these issues appeared after yall replaced their modem. I spent an hour debating with them on the phone and didn’t get anywhere. I’ll have to escalate this on Monday and will probably waste another hour on the phone.
That's pretty much the process. There is no FTC oversight in reality with these guys. You CAN file with the FTC, but not likely to get you very far.
Why would he do this? There is no legal ground here, to my knowledge.
Lying about their service, in a demonstrable way, is where the FTC gets involved.
There is no lie. These units are only able to be used in this IP Passthrough mode. This is not held back.
They keep telling him they have set up bridging. That has to be a lie as it is a router, not a bridge, after they claim the opposite.
No, because no matter how much you want to claim a word can only mean the thing you say it means, language is living and this IP Passthrough or WTF ever Spectrum does is an accepted use of the term bridging in this context. It has been for in common use like this since at least 2013.
Not in IT circles. A bridge is a very specific thing, and misuse for the purpose of lying to customers is exactly the concern. Sure, you can claim they've been intentionally lying and misusing an extremely specific and technical term for a long time, but that is just a foundation of intentional misdirection and proves the point.
That it is now an established pattern of intentional bait and switch is actually the best way to put it.
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And 'is an accepted use of the term' applies to literally no one I've ever heard of, except for the ISPs pulling the bait and switch. It might be "accepted" by the ISP, but not by customers, or the industry.
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Language is living, but technical definitions are not. If bridging had become a new technical term for something directly opposite of its original meaning, you'd expect for it to be "accepted" that it would at least be mentioned when you look up the term, but it is not...
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AT&T defines IP Passthrough as an alternative to Bridging, not another word for it. And this is 2017, quite recent.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
AT&T defines IP Passthrough as an alternative to Bridging, not another word for it. And this is 2017, quite recent.
I never said AT&Tcalled it bridging.
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@JaredBusch said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
AT&T defines IP Passthrough as an alternative to Bridging, not another word for it. And this is 2017, quite recent.
I never said AT&Tcalled it bridging.
No, the point is that no one does except for the techs on the phone lying about their setup. It's not accepted by other ISPs, probably not even by Spectrum officially, definitely not be customers, IT or networking people. Not by language references. Saying that it's an accepted use of an inverse term would require that someone could look it up.
What I'm trying to show is that the people inside Spectrum saying that this is bridged are just flat out being dishonest. There is no accepted use of bridge to mean the polar opposite. The term bridge is the inverse of router in this context. but a router is what they are doing, while trying to mislead the customer.
The real important bit here is "intention to mislead or defraud". There's no grey area where they could produce reference material that says that bridge now means the exact opposite of its meaning up to this point.
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Moreso, they conversation that they are having with the customer, the customer is pointing out that it is not a bridge and showing why it cannot be. There's really no excuse, even if there was some grey area for using the terms to mean exactly the opposite of their established meanings which I dont' believe that there is, for the techs at Spectrum to not acknowledge that clearly the customer has established what they mean by the term and explain that they are using a wholly different term than the customer is. By showing that there should be no IP address, the onus is on the techs to divulge that they have made up a new meaning for an established term now that they are aware that the customer has explained that they have requested something by the old (and only) meaning.
Imagine if you went into a car dealership, bought a Chevy Suburban in blue, and then they delivered something red and just kept saying it was blue and even when you said it was red and you weren't happy because you ordered blue that they just kept calling it blue knowing full well that they had secretly started using blue to mean red. They know that that isn't what you meant, and they know that they made up their own meaning... that's what lying is here. It's that they are using the term to deceive.
Now why Spectrum so often goes to such lengths over something so incredibly unimportant to them, I have no idea. There has to be something really awful that they are doing with those boxes that gets disabled when actually bridged.
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@Fredtx when contacting Spectrum/Time Warner in the past I never used the word 'Bridged', that only confused the level whatever technicians. Always say you want to configure pass-through mode, or Spectrum needs to provide a device that does not include wireless. Right now I have 2 sites; one is in pass-thru; they do have a private IP in the traceroute but that at least so far has not impacted us. The device onsite is a Ubee modem with wifi that they insist will not be replaced unless there is a physical failure. The other site I had to specify that we wanted a modem only device no wifi or extra features and I did that at time of install. They provided a Ubee as well but its a base modem no wifi or other options just 1 coax port and 4 ethernet ports (I dont have the model# but can find it). Just be persistent that the device is not working properly and you must have A device that does not contain wifi or extra features.
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@jt1001001 said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
They provided a Ubee as well but its a base modem no wifi or other options just 1 coax port and 4 ethernet ports (I dont have the model# but can find it).
This is a router, not a modem. Modems do not have multiple LAN ports.
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Hey guys. So this customer is still having connection issues at this site with the new modem. Is there an alternate solution for these remote users to connect to the terminal server simultaneously outside the vpn? Connectwise? Nomachine remote s/w?
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@Fredtx said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
Hey guys. So this customer is still having connection issues at this site with the new modem. Is there an alternate solution for these remote users to connect to the terminal server simultaneously outside the vpn? Connectwise? Nomachine remote s/w?
You don't need a VPN for RDP. RDP is already tunneled through a VPN mechanism. Using a VPN is just double VPNing in reality. You likely want to change ports, lock down with some mechanism to increase security, maybe limit to a set of IPs, ensure very strong passwords, etc. But there is no reason to not expose RDP directly, that a VPN is needed is a myth used to sell VPN gear. The VPN encryption is already there, most breaches come from weak passwords, not the protocol.
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@Fredtx On your clients Ubee modem/router try:
Username: technician Password: C0nf1gur3Ubee#All this login does is allow you to configure more options on the CPE end via GUI- one of which is the "bridge mode" option. I add the former merely to save you a frustrating phone call.
Having been a TWC customer (residential AND Business,) - and now once again a residential customer (Spectrum/TWC) living in South Carolina- I have felt (and to some extent-STILL feel) your pain and frustration. During the course of reading this thread I ran a
tracerton my end (EdgeRouter-4 > "Bridged" Ubee M/R) just to check and got inside private 1st hop and outside public 2nd hop.When I had the TWC Business Static- I want to say I remember the entire support mechanism being an entirely separate entity. That being said- me sharing my experience isn't solving your issue so I'll check out now. Best of luck, bud.
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The only problem is this customer was hacked through Rdp a few months ago due to an open port on the router. This happened at 2 of their other sites, but caused a lot of headache for the entire company. This variant is called Darma. We closed all those ports on the rest of their routers.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-brrr-dharma-ransomware-variant-released/
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@Fredtx said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
The only problem is this customer was hacked through Rdp a few months ago due to an open port on the router. This happened at 2 of their other sites, but caused a lot of headache for the entire company. This variant is called Darma. We closed all those ports on the rest of their routers.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-brrr-dharma-ransomware-variant-released/
I’m sorry but it’s not possible to back somebody through a router via RDP. you have to have RDP forwarded through the router to a device it actually is RDP server before somebody can be had to be RDP. So your entire premise for the statement is weird if not a flat out lie.
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@JaredBusch said in
I’m sorry but it’s not possible to back somebody through a router via RDP. you have to have RDP forwarded through the router to a device it actually is RDP server before somebody can be had to be RDP. So your entire premise for the statement is weird if not a flat out lie.
There was a port that was open and then fowarded through 3389 to the TS.
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@Fredtx said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
The only problem is this customer was hacked through Rdp a few months ago due to an open port on the router. This happened at 2 of their other sites, but caused a lot of headache for the entire company. This variant is called Darma. We closed all those ports on the rest of their routers.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-brrr-dharma-ransomware-variant-released/
Define hacked? How would they hack RDP but not a VPN, since RDP has a VPN already. Not that RDP is infallible, but there is no known public vulnerability to its security, and any that it would have would affect many VPNs that share technology with it.
Dharma is what they got infected with, but doesn't explain the "hack". As I said before, all known RDP "hacks" are not RDP hacks, they are all just guessed passwords - which affect VPN equally.
Remember anytime you say that RDP was hacked, you also say that the VPN was hacked. So using a VPN to protect against a VPN hack fundamentally doesn't make sense.
What most people do is use a different or stronger security rules with what they label VPN and use loose ones with RDP then blame RPD for the failure of their policies, but it is not RDP that is the threat, it's the policies or the end users. Treat RDP and a VPN the same, and they have the same security because they are the same security mechanism.
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@Fredtx said in Is Spectrum's modem really bridged?:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-brrr-dharma-ransomware-variant-released/
From your own source, it makes it clear how Dharma is distributed...
"The Dharma Ransomware family, including this Brrr variant, is manually installed by attackers who hack into Remote Desktop Services connected directly to the Internet. These attackers will scan the Internet for computers running RDP, usually on TCP port 3389, and then attempt to brute force the password for the computer.
There are also underground sites that sell known credentials for publicly accessible computers running remote Remote Desktop Services that attackers can buy."
You are only susceptible to Dharma if you are already hacked elsewhere (creds available for sale) or use an easily guessed password that is susceptible to brute force or don't provide any security to lock down brute force attempts. None of that is "hacked RDP", it's all "guessing passwords." It's the password, not RDP, that is hacked. Any password on a VPN would be susceptible exactly the same.
