On 21 Jul 2009, at 15:04, Michael Watterson wrote:
> No-one gets charged for "packets" but you get charged for "traffic".
This is as wrong as a very wrong thing. It reminds me of the U.K.
tech. journalist who advised people to watch BBC programmes on iPlayer
streaming rather than downloading them, as that way you wouldn't use
up your download allowance :-(
If you're using a network provider which charges you for incoming
bits, you're getting charged for those bits whether you're interested
in them or not, whether you think of them as "packets" or "traffic" -
hence you can be badly screwed if you get some bastard doing something
as simple as pinging your IP for a long time, or from many hosts.
This is exactly what O2's distinction between 'internet' and
'open.internet' protects you from - you receive no bits/packets/
traffic using the 'internet' APRN which is not part of a connection
YOU have already set up hence malicious pings or whatever never get
sent to you, so you don't pay for them. If you use the 'open.internet'
APRN OTOH you are susceptible to DDOW (distributed denial of wallet)
and the suggestion is that this might be happening to the OP on his 3G
connection.
Niall
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