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As noted by think broadband, a privacy flaw in the way UK carrier O2 handles web traffic on mobile devices has resulted in users' mobile numbers being sent to any website visited from the device as part of the headers in the HTTP requests. While O2 is apparently still investigating the situation, it appears to have the potential for significant privacy-related issues.
If you're reading this news article using your O2 mobile phone, you'll be pleased to know that O2 have already sent us your mobile phone number within the HTTP headers which normally contain information about how content can be displayed on your device. These headers are not normally seen by users, and usually not logged by most websites, but the flaw allows malicious sites to get more personal information about you than you may be willing to share.
For example, if you open an e-mail which includes references to external images, the mere action of opening the e-mail would divulge your phone number. This could be used by anyone undertaking a phishing attack or other scam to get more information from you. The opportunity to abuse this is potentially endless.
The issue was discovered by Twitter user @lewispeckover, who then set up a website to allow users to see what headers are being sent as part of their HTTP requests to websites.
He now notes that the headers coming from his device appear to have stopped showing his mobile phone number, although O2 has yet to issue an official statement on the matter. The company's Twitter account is continuing to blast out responses to concerned users, noting only that the company is looking into the situation and will issue an update when it knows more.
The issue is not exclusive to the iPhone and has the potential to affect all mobile data on the second-largest carrier in the UK, although some users have reported that they are not seeing their mobile numbers appearing in their HTTP request headers. The issue has the potential to for a significant impact on UK iPhone users, as O2 has proven to be a popular choice for iPhone users dating back to its status as the exclusive iPhone carrier in the UK when the device originally launched back in 2007.
Those familiar with the UK's privacy laws have indicated that mobile phone numbers are not considered protected information, but the disclosure of such numbers as part of standard HTTP requests does have the potential to carry implications for users.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)Everything Everywhere are very good, but Three (in the south of England at least) are best by far for 3G coverage.
Perhaps if O2 spent more money on, well, being a service provider and improving their network, rather than all that "priority moments" crap, they might increase their 3G coverage.
Not so in my o2 account with an iPhone using iOS 5.0.1 via Safari.
It wasn't inserted into the user agent, it was a separate header: "x-up-calling-line-id".
I'm thrilled they fixed it so quickly.
I'm going to treat o2 with a bit more suspicion from here on out.
I am now intrigued though as to who the "trusted partners" are. O2 themselves and BT Openzone are the only ones I can think of.
One is Bango, the company that runs O2's adult verification software and thought sending credit card numbers in plaintext over http was a good idea.
O2 might "trust" them. I don't.
Phazer
*The junk texts don't stop when you leave Vodafone. The other day I received a text that said "Come back to Vodafone and we'll give you a free Windows 7 laptop". If there's one thing that would be guaranteed to STOP me going back to them, it's the threat of a crappy low end piece of junk with a crappy low end OS turning up at my house.