BT Parental Controls Pop-up nuisance - anyone else had this?

Strider590

I've done a bit of research on this, I think what your seeing is an advert from BT being injected into various webpages.

Every since "they" convinced everyone they needed a "digital nanny" to look after their kids for them, your connection now has to pass through a content filtering server, where the powers that be (nobody knows who) decide what you can or cannot see. It's at this point where I think these ads are coming from, any website which would be blocked by filters, is having this ad injected into it before it reaches your router.

Is it this? http://i.imgur.com/hUNUDte.png, if so then it's an advertisement aimed specifically toward BT ip addresses.
It's supposed to disappear, but if you don't allow cookies then it won't and unfortunately some idiot in govt decided that all websites had to ask if you want cookies, so if you don't accept the cookie from the BT site where the ad is hosted, then you can't get rid of it.

I'm with BT, but I use adblocking software on all my devices.

Apparently setting your DNS settings to use Google DNS will also stop it, I use Google DNS on all my machines, PC, laptop, phone and tablet, might not be possible to change this on an iDevice though as Apple always knows best and probably won't let you near those settings.
.

bod1467

If the above is true, why do I not see it on any of my devices using any browser? Whilst I use Adblock on FF and Chrome, I don't have anything like that on IE.

And my Homehub (4) is configured with Google's DNS servers.

Strider590

bod1467 wrote: »

If the above is true, why do I not see it on any of my devices using any browser? Whilst I use Adblock on FF and Chrome, I don't have anything like that on IE.

And my Homehub (4) is configured with Google's DNS servers.

You answered your own question.

bod1467

Strider590 wrote: »

You answered your own question.

Sorry - that was a typo - I meant BT's DNS servers.

Strider590

bod1467 wrote: »

Sorry - that was a typo - I meant BT's DNS servers.

Then perhaps you have been rejecting all those evil (or so we're lead to believe) cookies.

Ultimately the way this works, is they check the URL your accessing, they send a popup if it's on their "questionable content" list, you select yes/no and a cookie remembers your choice.

A lot of people over the last year or so, have been rejecting cookies as a matter of course, indoctrinated into believing that they are the /root of all evil.
Ironically the preference for not storing cookies, is actually stored on a cookie, so purging all cookies might actually help to resolve this problem.

Kittenonthekeys

googler wrote: »

Do you get this when using your iPad away from your own router? Or do you always use your iPad within range of it?

I've never used my iPad away from my router, as I've only ever used it at home. My iPad doesn't have 3G capabilities so I don't know if this would happen elsewhere.

Strider590 wrote: »

I've done a bit of research on this, I think what your seeing is an advert from BT being injected into various webpages.

Every since "they" convinced everyone they needed a "digital nanny" to look after their kids for them, your connection now has to pass through a content filtering server, where the powers that be (nobody knows who) decide what you can or cannot see. It's at this point where I think these ads are coming from, any website which would be blocked by filters, is having this ad injected into it before it reaches your router.

Is it this? http://i.imgur.com/hUNUDte.png, if so then it's an advertisement aimed specifically toward BT ip addresses.
It's supposed to disappear, but if you don't allow cookies then it won't and unfortunately some idiot in govt decided that all websites had to ask if you want cookies, so if you don't accept the cookie from the BT site where the ad is hosted, then you can't get rid of it.

I'm with BT, but I use adblocking software on all my devices.

Apparently setting your DNS settings to use Google DNS will also stop it, I use Google DNS on all my machines, PC, laptop, phone and tablet, might not be possible to change this on an iDevice though as Apple always knows best and probably won't let you near those settings.
.

Yes, that image you posted the link to, was exactly what we'd been getting come up on the screen.
Touch wood, it still hasn't returned so Im (tentatively) hoping it's fixed.
I can't find a way of accessing / changing the DNS; as you say, doubtful that Apple would allow this. I only wish Apple would apply similar diligence to this kind of pop-up intrusion on its devices.

securityguy

Kittenonthekeys wrote: »

I can't find a way of accessing / changing the DNS; as you say, doubtful that Apple would allow this. I only wish Apple would apply similar diligence to this kind of pop-up intrusion on its devices.

Your iPad will, by default, pick up whatever DNS servers your router advertises via DHCP. Depending on your router, you might be able to change those, and therefore change them on your iPad. It's something of a lottery as to whether the router advertises the DNS servers it itself is configured to use, or advertises itself, or some ISP defaults, or whatever.

But you can change the DNS settings manually on an iPad as well. You can simply edit them in place, even if you are using DHCP as most people are (Settings->WiFi->your network->DHCP->DNS). I don't know how well this survives a reboot; I've just changed them on my iPhone, rebooted it, and the changes are still there, but I can imagine there's some sort of time-out. By experiment, if you delete the settings you put in manually to leave the item empty, and then renew the lease, you get the network defaults back. It's rather neat: automatic config for the 99% case, fiddle with it manually for the other 1%.

Alternatively, you can set things up so that your home WiFi uses Static settings on your iOS device, which allows you to set your DNS by hand and be certain it persists.

So on this occasion, Apple are not keeping you from the detailed configuration. I can't really see why you thought you couldn't: the settings are in the obvious places. The weird "Get address by DHCP but select DNS settings manually" stuff that OSX has isn't specifically present, but you can do it by editing. For the very, very hardcore, I think iOS lacks the ability to set per-domain DNS servers (the files in the /etc/resolver directory on OSX) but l suspect you could count the people using that on the fingers of one hand.


[[ In the very unlikely event that you're also using IPv6 at home, it's slightly more complex as what Apple don't allow you to do, in part because the interface would be horrendous, is set up your device's IPv6 address manually: it either uses SLAC or DHCPv6, depending on the flags in the router advertisements, and in the incredibly unlikely scenario where you need to fiddle with the IPv6 settings your options are limited. But anyone clever enough to fiddle with IPv6 settings on a home-scale network is clever enough to not fiddle with IPv6 settings. ]]

Kittenonthekeys

Thank you so much for this, securityguy.
I wasn't actually sure whether I could indeed change the settings or not, as I had never looked into it and wasn't actually sure what to do!
I'd just been assuming that Apple would not allow it, as it doesn't allow access to so many things on one's own device.
Clearly it does allow this, so if I should have any more problems, I'll try and change the settings but I am a little nervous about 'messing up and losing my stuff.
As you may have guessed, this is not my area of expertise, nor something I had ever needed to consider before now, or am particularly confident about tackling!

securityguy

I must confess, I didn't know about the editing the settings in place bit until I tried just now :-)

Anyway, if you edit them and break anything, your choices are (a) just delete the DNS settings completely and then either hit "renew lease" or restart your iPad or (b) in extremis, hit "forget this network" and then re-acquire it.

bod1467

Strider590 wrote: »

Then perhaps you haven't been rejecting all those evil (or so we're lead to believe) cookies.

Ultimately the way this works, is they check the URL your accessing, they send a popup if it's on their "questionable content" list, you select yes/no and a cookie remembers your choice.

A lot of people over the last year or so, have been rejecting cookies as a matter of course, indoctrinated into believing that they are the /root of all evil.
Ironically the preference for not storing cookies, is actually stored on a cookie, so purging all cookies might actually help to resolve this problem.

Any indication of the domain that such cookies are generated by? (I have some BT domains whitelisted in CCleaner). That said ... I don't recall EVER getting any such popup notification - ever.