Talk:NTL Incorporated

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Surfboard Cable Modems
are worth a mention. They were amongst the first that were widely used in the UK and issued by NTL. The basic flaw in them was the configuration file sat on an EEPROM in the modem. The basic default gave you 64kbs, but then plugged in and booted, it checked back to base and if you had paid for more bandwith it updated the config file in the EEPROM and gave you more speed. It was soon discovered you could run a packet sniffer and watch pcakets going past down the net, and when the packet sniffer found a config file that allowed the fastest speed, 10 Mbs, it downloaded it. You could then flash it onto the EEPROM, reboot the modem ,and it became a clone of the modem that was originally destined to recieve the fast config file. Only if that other account was terminated did the modem stop working, requiring you to sniff out another fast config file. Afer a few years NTL clicked onto his trick and came up with a different system that required the modem to fetch the correct config file off the server directly, at regular intervals, making it pointless to sniff passing files. 2.59.114.197 (talk) 21:30, 15 April 2020 (UTC)