Could a modem-router be caught out trying to surreptitiously phone home?

Hi,

Completely paranoid question I know, but it occurred to me that if a
wireless modem-router was programmed to store details of people's
browsing habits and send these to the manufacturer (perhaps after
being leaned on by the NSA, or as part of a deal with a market
research agency), since the user has nothing between it and the
Internet, as long as it didn't flash it's lights for _these_ pieces of
traffic, store them in logfiles etc, there would be no way for them to
detect it.

Am I completely wrong about this? Has anyone monitored the outgoing
traffic from a modem/modem-router?

James.

~ Completely paranoid question I know, but it occurred to me that if a
~ wireless modem-router was programmed to store details of people's
~ browsing habits and send these to the manufacturer (perhaps after
~ being leaned on by the NSA, or as part of a deal with a market
~ research agency), since the user has nothing between it and the
~ Internet, as long as it didn't flash it's lights for _these_ pieces of
~ traffic, store them in logfiles etc, there would be no way for them to
~ detect it.

I can't believe that the NSA would be party to any such scheme. But
I wouldn't put it past those blighters in MI5 - from what I hear,
they're *always* up to no good ...

Cheers,

Aaron

----

~ Am I completely wrong about this? Has anyone monitored the outgoing
~ traffic from a modem/modem-router?
~
~ James.

On Mon, 27 Aug 2007 15:37:46 -0700, james.d.mclaughlin@googlemail.com
wrote:

>Completely paranoid question I know,

Yep. Totally paranoid.

>but it occurred to me that if a
>wireless modem-router was programmed to store details of people's
>browsing habits and send these to the manufacturer (perhaps after
>being leaned on by the NSA, or as part of a deal with a market
>research agency), since the user has nothing between it and the
>Internet, as long as it didn't flash it's lights for _these_ pieces of
>traffic, store them in logfiles etc, there would be no way for them to
>detect it.

Yep. That can be done. In fact, it's a feature of some routers that
will email the contents of the log file(s) to any address. I think
various Netgear routers will do this. They don't collect web sites
visited, but that's close enough to your worst nightmare.

If that's insufficient, syslog and SNMP are features of many routers.
Syslog will -send- activity (including IP addresses visited) to any
syslog server on the internet. I collect this data for some of my
customers. SNMP is similar except that the monitoring computer has to
poll for the information.

>Am I completely wrong about this?

Yes, you're not completely wrong. It can be done fairly easily. No
NSA or conspiracy required.

>Has anyone monitored the outgoing
>traffic from a modem/modem-router?

Yep. I do it all the time.
<http://sonic.net/wallwatcher/>
There are others.

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
# http://802.11junk.com jeffl@cruzio.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

On Aug 27, 5:37 pm, james.d.mclaugh...@googlemail.com wrote:
> Am I completely wrong about this? Has anyone monitored the outgoing
> traffic from a modem/modem-router?

As an internet service provider, you would have to be able to provide
such information on demand to the any agency that requests it. So yes,
its done all the time by law.