Who is responsible for proper routing ? T-Mobile is using my IP address

I have an odd problem and I'm not entirely sure who, if anyone, is responsible for getting it fixed. Here is my situation: I have rented a dedicated server from Hetzner. They have provided a server with an IP in the 'newly' freed 5.* range. T-Mobile USA apparently feels free to use my IP address for internal hardware (routers usually, though it seems to change based on where in the country you try).

My users say: "All other websites on the internet work. It's not my fault."

T-Mobile says: "We don't have a contract with you. We aren't going to help you."

Hetzner says: "It's not our fault T-Mobile uses your IP."

I'm a bit at a loss at what my next step should be to get this issue resolved. Isn't there some sort of ruleset internet providers are supposed to play by ? What can I do about it ? Is there a place to report that kind of issue ? It seems like T-Mobile is quite clearly at fault here, and quite clearly unwilling to fix the issue (and forum posts suggest that it has been an ongoing issue for ~2 years), and I can't exactly ask potential users to open tickets with their ISP for us (plus, even if I did, they couldn't see it, since they cant go to my website).

Hope this place is appropriate for the question, kind of hard to tell what goes where on SE.

Torque

Posted 2014-01-12T23:41:28.447

Reputation: 221

Does anyone here use T-Mobile USA and if so can they confirm whether or not this is still an issue? (feel free to use raspbian.org as a target for test pings/traceroutes) – plugwash – 2016-12-07T15:07:45.067

1Can your hosting provider give you a different ip/range? – Brian Adkins – 2014-01-12T23:50:28.947

I think the most straightforward way would be to find T-mobile customers willing to complain to T-mobile that it is blocking access to your services. --- Did not you find existing users of your services encountering the problem with T-mobile? – pabouk – 2014-01-13T00:19:07.430

Apparently due to location routing, changing our IP range is not possible, and it also is not possible to simple get a new server with an IP guaranteed not to be in that range (I'm guessing they are 'out' of old ones).

We have made attempts to get old users who use our website from home via cable to complain but the response has been less than ideal as you can imagine. – Torque – 2014-01-13T01:17:43.507

You are a customer of Hetzner. If they purchase the range from T-Mobile then only they can resolve this problem. – Ramhound – 2014-01-13T11:58:49.583

They have not purchased anything nor even have any relation to T-Mobile. – Torque – 2014-01-13T12:20:16.473

Answers

It is a well known fact that T-Mobile uses several unused ranges as if they were rfc1918 ranges. Continual complaining to T-mobile might help the situation. This is clearly T-mobiles fault and the blame can't be pointed anywhere else.

pppingme

Posted 2014-01-12T23:41:28.447

Reputation: 31

1With the issue ongoing for years now, it seems like complaints, especially from someone who doesn't even have a contract with them, are outright ignored. – Torque – 2014-01-13T01:19:02.077

Disclaimer: I don't know if this is still an issue, I am not a T-Mobile user and the newest posts about this are a couple of years old. Even if they have fixed it this post may be useful in dealing with other carriers.

Afaict there is no law that protects against such IP abuse where providers use public addresses they do not own as-if they were private.

The IANA and the RIRs tried to hold back the ranges that were being widely abused for as long as possible but eventually we reached the point where they were the only ranges left to allocate. They have been trying to put pressure on carriers that misuse these addresses but afaict they have no legal power to force them to fix it.

Unfortunately you are not T-mobile USA's customer and your users while customers of T-mobile USA are just end users on "we gaurantee nothing" contracts. If T-Mobile have not fixed the issue then I doubt there is anything you or your users can do to force them too.

If you are in the USA it might be worth complaining to the FCC about issues like this, they probablly won't do anything for a single complaint but if they get enough complaints they may consider regulatory action, or they may not.

Also if you haven't already done so you should enable IPv6 for your services. This won't completely solve the problem but it will mitigate it to some extent.

plugwash

Posted 2014-01-12T23:41:28.447

Reputation: 4 587