[HN Gopher] Smartphone Tethering: A Bigger Grind Than It Needed ...
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Smartphone Tethering: A Bigger Grind Than It Needed to Be
Author : shortformblog
Score : 72 points
Date : 2024-09-09 14:43 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tedium.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (tedium.co)
| notjulianjaynes wrote:
| Like 5 years ago I paid $10 for an app called easytether. Drivers
| for Windows, Mac, Linux you install these and app on your phone.
| It tunnels all computer traffic through your phone's browser so
| no tethering fees or data caps if you have unlimited phone data.
| Very simple and when I lived in a rural area it was the choice
| between that and the hilariously slow/overpriced satalite
| internet (this was pre starlink).
| LorenDB wrote:
| Or you could have done the same for free by setting the packet
| TTL on all client devices to 65. Carriers check if a device is
| using hotspot by looking at packet TTLs. Anything coming from
| your phone directly has a TTL of 64, but anything connected via
| hotspot loses one TTL hopping through your phone, so it comes
| through as 63 (or 127 for Windows devices). Overriding your
| client TTL to 65 means that carriers will receive the packet
| with a TTL of 64.
| jasonjayr wrote:
| It can't be that simple? Doesn't the phone switch APN's when
| tethering is active? Or bridge the hotspot to a different
| APN?
| LorenDB wrote:
| It is that simple. I have successfully used this to
| continue using hotspot after exceeding my monthly allowance
| as recently as a few months ago.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| IIRC there were even some hacky tethering services that
| leveraged unlimited text messaging plans with a smartphone to
| some special server to facilitate internet.
| lxgr wrote:
| I remember Palm OS being able to send and receive binary
| attachments via SMS (over Infrared or Bluetooth and an
| attached phone, I think). Not MMS, actually data SMS!
|
| As far as I remember, a full screen JPEG (320x320 pixel)
| would have been _thousands_ of messages according to the UI.
|
| Having a phone plan where each text was dozens of cents, that
| UI scared me a lot.
| reginald78 wrote:
| Those pre-starlink satellite internet setups were horrible. I
| remember using a bandwidth calculator to determine I could
| download about the same per month off my 56K modem as the
| monthly data cap. Sure, it sucked for burst downloads but the
| 56K was way cheaper and had much better latency as well
| (Hughesnet type setups had multiple second latency). It wasn't
| a great experience playing online games on 56K but with
| Hughesnet it was actually impossible.
|
| I ultimately determined that if I wanted to spend more money
| for better internet then shotgunned 56K was the next step up,
| not satellite.
| nosioptar wrote:
| I got (unauthorized) tethering to work on a few phones.
|
| Easytether was infinitely easier and worth every penny. I love
| that they sell it straight off their website rather than making
| people buy via the play store.
|
| (I paid for it on three phones. Had it been play store only, I
| would have pirated it each time.)
| LorenDB wrote:
| I am infuriated that practically every (US) carrier claims an
| unlimited data plan, but then proceeds to limit your hotspot
| usage. It's just data. Let me use it.
|
| Yes, I know about (and sometimes use) the ttl=65 loophole, but
| I'd like to see a major carrier launch a truly unlimited plan.
| jonpurdy wrote:
| Since you mentioned it, on MacOS when tethering:
|
| sudo sysctl -w net.inet.ip.ttl=65
|
| When done, switch it back:
|
| sudo sysctl -w net.inet.ip.ttl=64
|
| I went from 0.3Mbps on T-Mobile to 50+ Mbps with this; on
| providers that limit hotspot speed by examining TTL, this can
| be an effective way to get around it.
|
| (They assume if they see TTL as one lower than expected, data
| is passing through a hotspot/phone instead of directly from the
| phone.)
| LorenDB wrote:
| Linux uses a similar command:
|
| sudo sysctl net.ipv4.ip_default_ttl=65
|
| I assume there is an ipv6 version as well, but I haven't
| needed it.
| betaby wrote:
| net.ipv6.conf.all.hop_limit=65 +
| net.ipv6.conf.lo.hop_limit=65
| betaby wrote:
| There is no harm in keeping it at 65 permanently. Unless you
| think that TTL somehow helps to more uniquely identify you.
| ghotli wrote:
| You're the real mvp on this thread. Thanks I figured this was
| in place but never thought through the ttl bit.
| gigachadbro wrote:
| > It's just data. Let me use it.
|
| You're sending and receiving data over a shared medium (RF). By
| that vary definition your simplistic view is not possible
| without caveats, qualifications, and conditionals.
| margana wrote:
| You completely missed the point. There is no difference on
| the "shared medium" whether you use that data directly on
| your phone or on your PC through your phone.
|
| Also, service providers shouldn't be allowed to make false
| advertisements. It is not the job of the consumer to think
| "clearly infinite data isn't realistic, I should have no
| expectation to actually get infinite data even though they
| advertise that". If it isn't technically feasible, it is the
| service provider's job to clearly state what they actually
| offer in practice.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| The network doesn't necessarily[1] care that it is "phone"
| data or "hotspot" data, no.
|
| But I, for one, certainly use more data doing stuff with a
| real computer (or a LAN full of real computers) than I do
| with my pocket computer by itself.
|
| It's not something I normally pay much attention to, but I
| did check just now. My LAN at home uses an average of
| around 1TB of WAN data per month, with just me using it.
| Meanwhile, my pocket computer uses around 10GB of cellular
| data (including instances of tethering) in an normal month.
|
| That's a rather gargantuan difference. And it'd be the same
| ~1TB at home whether it was over GPON, DOCSIS, or cellular
| tethering.
|
| One may be inclined to say that something like "There's _no
| difference_ -- it 's just data!", but doing so seems to
| willfully ignore the usage patterns being a couple of
| orders of magnitude apart.
|
| Meanwhile, advertising: The truthiness of advertising can
| always be improved, but that's a different discussion
| entirely.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41490252
| Zak wrote:
| Advertising "unlimited" leads to the need for limitations
| like that. A wireless provider probably can't provide 1TB
| of data for a monthly price that most customers are
| willing to pay.
|
| Service with a fixed data limit, however should treat all
| data the same.
| mcfedr wrote:
| I'm so surprised this is still a thing, I remember it was like
| 10 years ago, but now you just turn on hotspot and keep going
| .. at least I thought.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| In 2009-2010, it was rather eye-opening in the US to have an
| iPhone 3g/3gs both jailbroken (to run a tethering app like
| PDAnet) and unlocked (to use a cheaper GSM provider like T-Mobile
| instead of AT&T) which required all sorts of particulars like
| making sure the modem firmware didn't get updated.
|
| The article doesn't quite mention it but back then the other
| option to get internet on a laptop was a dedicated USB dongle
| modem or Wifi hub thing.
|
| Probably the next 'oh that's neat' moment happened a decade later
| when usb-c tethering became enabled such that one could tether a
| whole ethernet network of things to a phone if needed on occasion
| (e.g. broadband outages, moving to a new home)
| CalRobert wrote:
| There were other options! I had a Palm Centro and ran PDANet on
| it - it was the only way I got internet in my house in a canyon
| in the country.
|
| https://the-gadgeteer.com/2009/06/09/pdanet-for-palm-os/
| bluGill wrote:
| I remember back then connecting by laptop to my cell phone via
| bluetooth. It was something like dialup, and only 2g speeds,
| but it worked on the road. I bought the first android phone a
| couple months latter and then I was able to tether via wifi,
| but still only 2g speeds. (IIRC 3g came latter)
|
| Now get off my lawn you young whippersnappers.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| The 2G stuff worked almost everywhere in the US there was
| cell service, and when 3G came out it was only good in the
| big cities for a number of years.
|
| Before USB, things that made a smartphone smart were its
| ability to get your laptop (or desktop) on the internet,
| anywhere that you had cell service. No differently than from
| a land line (except the land line did not charge by the
| minute unless it was long-distance). This is when you were
| paying for cellular voice service by the minute, with a
| certain number of free minutes included each month by this
| time. Dial-up ISP was on similar terms from a different
| provider like AOL, "always on" broadband was not very
| familiar yet and people were still accustomed to internet
| "sessions" where you log off as soon as you are finished.
|
| With cellphones and ISPs most people were still acting like
| every session should be limited or it could end up running
| their minutes over, and for the relatively few who wanted
| portable internet it had always been double minutes (well
| from two providers) in cost so the airwaves were not filled
| with any significant data minutes compared to voice. If it
| could wait people would do it on a land line, even long
| conversations.
|
| Oh, yeah, the cellphone itself was "on the internet" but
| about all it would do is email. Without a camera, color
| screen or very much of a keyboard the idea was to connect to
| a laptop if you needed portable internet.
|
| Which is why the phones eventually had a free software suite
| from the manufacturer which included the PC drivers for its
| cellular modem so you could dial-up to places like AOL. It
| was a virtual COM port which the PC could address like it was
| internal hardware, dial out to any ISP you had an account
| with, and the modem naturally communicated with the answering
| party over regular phone lines like it was supposed to do.
| Once AT&T itself started offering broadband, they also had
| toll-free phone numbers posted for account holders to use
| when they were not at their home router. You could dial up
| from any land line or smartphone.
|
| There was also a driver for the phone's virtual ethernet
| adapter if you wanted to use that, your phone would have an
| IP address. This is not the phone connecting by wifi, that
| came later.
|
| It was the PC software that made smartphones smart, along
| with removable storage, and USB networking when it came
| along.
|
| The early Motorola and Sony-Ericsson phones had infrared COM
| ports, to communicate with the early business laptops which
| had physical IR COM ports. Laptops were not yet affordable
| for very many students at all. IOW using Windows 98 over IR
| all you needed was the same built-in Windows apps to dial-up
| and log in to your ISP of choice, or alternatively autodial a
| fax machine and use Windows Faxing to send or receive a
| document straight from a file, with no paper involved at your
| end. Office 97 was not even necessary. Remember faxing was
| well established way before the internet got popular.
|
| The virtual COM ports over USB or Bluetooth came later but
| served the same purpose.
|
| After IR ports were long gone, the most common approach was
| using the USB cable but nobody called it "tethering" (that
| would have to wait until a different paradigm could be
| adopted and it could be billed for in an ongoing way). The
| USB cables were proprietary at one end and did cost about $30
| extra so it was definitely not as popular as it could have
| been.
|
| Sure enough, one day somebody decided they would get more
| cellphone customers if they had "unlimited minutes". And
| also, cellular carriers gradually became ISPs themselves.
|
| But that basically meant that smartphone customers could have
| "always on" internet for the first time in history, even
| though it was not widely recognized.
|
| Over about a year period the carriers disavowed all knowledge
| of specialized USB communication cables. This was still
| before the iPhone but I could tell things were going
| downhill, and wanted to get some spare Sony cables before my
| phone was discontinued and replaced by a less capable but
| more expensive unit. In the retail stores you could tell they
| were operating from a script when they said they had never
| had factory USB cords, and it was the same stores where they
| had been in stock in earlier years.
|
| They did usher in a new generation of phones, a few of which
| would eventually communicate over generic USB cords. _If_ you
| had a data plan, which would be charged extra, and there was
| no more factory cellphone software.
|
| The carrier handled it all, that's when they started calling
| it "tethering", always meaning that there's "supposed to be"
| an upcharge, and acting like it's a new feature with never-
| before-seen convenience.
|
| Fortunately the gigabytes have gotten liberal and it has
| gotten pretty convenient to enable tethering on Android, then
| connect any PC by USB or Bluetooth and be online.
|
| As the article says, "it was pretty messy for a while there,
| and it had nothing to do with the devices. It was basically
| the providers getting in the way."
| outofpaper wrote:
| In Canada for some time Petro Canada resold Roger's with
| unlimted 3g web access. IF you were willing to setup a VPN that
| operated over https it was super duper for everything including
| even the old Skype call. Ahh what we did back in the iPhone 4s
| days..
| harha wrote:
| A current challenge is moving eSIMs around.
| stonogo wrote:
| > The article doesn't quite mention it but back then the other
| option to get internet on a laptop was a dedicated USB dongle
| modem or Wifi hub thing.
|
| Those were the only other options _from the carriers_ ; lots of
| phones supported the bluetooth DUN profile and so forth, which
| carriers would disable. So the alternative was to buy an
| unlocked phone elsewhere and activate it. This was essentially
| impossible on Sprint and Verizon but AT&T and T-Mobile could
| pull it off -- and T-Mobile's frequencies overlapped those used
| my many European carriers, so the best bet was to buy a Nokia
| from the UK or such and activate it with a T-Mobile sim back in
| America.
|
| There was also JoikuSpot for some of the Nokia devices.
| arittr wrote:
| > I type in binary at about 30 words per minute
|
| I'll just go quit my day job now
| MisterTea wrote:
| Assuming 16 bit words that's just 60 bytes per minute.
| bluedino wrote:
| For some reason I've always romanticized using a laptop +
| hotspot.
|
| This year due to various circumstances, I was going to start
| using it 24/7. I did not, however, because:
|
| T-Mobile seems to have an actual, usable and affordable plan.
| $50/month, but they don't offer it in my area.
|
| Verizon offers 5G home internet and it's only $35/month (I'm
| already a verizon wireless customer). It's available in my area,
| but there aren't any slots actually open for it. Their
| traditional 'Jetpack' options are $100/150GB of data. And using
| your phone as a hotspot only gives you 60GB of premium data and
| then you're rate limitied.
|
| ATT offers Internet Air, but they don't have any information on
| usage other than "In rare cases, if your usage is contributing to
| congestion on the network, AT&T will greatly reduce your speed
| for a min. of 30 min". Previously, their product wasn't offered
| at my address, and they also had disclaimers about not using it
| for media consumption or commercial use. They also allow 60GB of
| smartphone tethering and then throttled to 128kbs.
| spogbiper wrote:
| Google Fi offers unlimited tethering for $65/month. Not sure of
| all the details
| password4321 wrote:
| https://support.google.com/fi/answer/9462101?hl=en
|
| > _Unlimited Plus plans allow up to 50 GB of full-speed
| data._
|
| > _any data used after you reach your data limit is throttled
| or slowed to 256 kbps_
| doubled112 wrote:
| That's not unlimited at all.
| bqmjjx0kac wrote:
| Not a single "unlimited" plan has ever been unlimited. I
| think they should be required to advertise a demonstrably
| achievable figure instead, such as 10 TiB/month. Or
| better yet, a sustainable MiB/second that won't get
| capped down to nothing.
| doubled112 wrote:
| Could you imagine if the water company worked like an
| ISP? You can't use an unlimited amount of water either.
|
| "You can pay a flat rate for unlimited use, but after you
| use 3,000L of water, we will reduce service to your house
| to 1/10th the normal pressure"
|
| It's fine, you just have to wait 40 minutes between
| flushes.
| drozycki wrote:
| But the water utility charges per unit consumed
| mdasen wrote:
| That's not really true. All three carriers have top tier
| plans that are actually unlimited for mobile data
| (without slowing down).
|
| Many MVNOs have "unlimited" plans that are definitely not
| unlimited. If a plan offers 50GB of high-speed data and
| then throttles the connection to 256kbps, it's a 50GB
| plan. By contrast, a plan like T-Mobile's Go 5G Plus/Next
| plans never slow your mobile data.
|
| Other plans like T-Mobile's Go 5G (regular) will be lower
| priority once you've used 100GB. That lower priority
| averages 11-15% slower. Most of the time, the network
| isn't congested and it doesn't matter. You get virtually
| the same speed as truly unlimited plans. 11-15% slower
| isn't the same as getting throttled to 256kbps. Of
| course, it will depend on network conditions. If you're
| at a fireworks show or a music festival, lower priority
| might be a lot slower.
|
| There are options if you want truly unlimited mobile
| data. If you're looking for hotspot, that's harder.
| T-Mobile does offer its Away Unlimited plan for $160/mo,
| but that is lower priority - 13-30% slower at the 25th
| and 75th percentiles. 77-292 Mbps from the 25th to 75th
| percentiles is pretty decent performance, but if you end
| up in an area with lots of network congestion, then
| you're low priority.
| roninorder wrote:
| I really hope the phone starts making dial-up connection
| sounds when it slows down to 256 kbps.
| bluGill wrote:
| Politics - Verizon has long been short on bandwidth, but more
| radio was made available a few years back the terms were setup
| such that Verizon decided forced to sit out, while t-mobile got
| it for cheap (AT&T didn't need it and so didn't bid). Now
| t-mobile has lots of radio bandwidth, and so is selling it.
| Verizon needs customers to go elsewhere, but they still have
| the least coverage gaps so many are staying despite the high
| prices. (this isn't a good problem - if tmobile gets just a few
| more gaps in service closed people will go there and Verizon
| will be forced to lower prices to keep existing customers while
| tmobile has more volume of customers)
| ssl-3 wrote:
| The workaround I've been using is Visible[0], which I pay
| $35/month for [normally $45, but deals often exist].
|
| I get 50GB of data at a higher priority, and then unlimited
| data at a lower priority. It's not a deliberate or fixed speed
| limit -- it's just QoS, and after 50GB it's the same QoS as
| their lower-tier $25 plan always has.
|
| On both sides of the QoS fence, loosely speaking: If the
| network is congested in an area, things get slow. If the
| network has good coverage and is not congested, then things are
| fast _enough_ -- dozens of Mbps in both directions is typical
| with my old phone 's somewhat-limited available 5G NSA or LTE
| CA modes. (Sometimes, it's triple-digit Mbps, which amusing and
| frankly overkill for my use.)
|
| With TTL=65, this works fine for me in my neck of the woods. I
| need tethering when I need it, though I don't need it often.
| But in some circumstances (some friends and I do a technology-
| laden form of "camping" sometimes and one of my roles there is
| to provide Internet) I burn through quite a lot of data.
|
| [1]: Visible is a part of Verizon, and has always been. The
| chief difference other than different pricing is that it comes
| with _even worse_ customer support, if you can believe that.
| mdasen wrote:
| According to Visible, their tethering is limited to 5Mbps on
| their low-tier plan and 10Mbps on their upper-tier plan.
| That's still useful - you can even watch Netflix and stuff.
| However, the tethering is limited in speed.
|
| The mobile data isn't limited in speed, just lower priority
| as you note.
| lxgr wrote:
| It's also capped to support only a single tethered device,
| at least on iPhones.
|
| The fact that Visible/Verizon can even get my (unlocked,
| full price) iPhone to cooperate in limiting itself in that
| way in the first place makes me pretty sad.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| That's the official party line, more or less. _By design_ ,
| there is a hard bandwidth limit on tethering. There's also
| a device limit.
|
| Eg, if one were to buy a new phone and put a new Visible
| SIM into that phone and tether their new MacBook with it,
| and do nothing else, the speed would indeed be limited and
| this limit would be enforced at the carrier level, and
| furthermore connecting a second device would be
| theoretically impossible.
|
| But setting TTL to 65 has been very effective every time
| I've done it, whereby: The speed of tethering is about the
| same as the speed of data on the pocket computer itself at
| any given time.
|
| And I've never actually run into a device limit, even
| without tricks.
|
| (So yeah, there's _reasons_ for my camping rig to have a
| USB 3 ethernet adapter for a phone, with USB PD
| passthrough. I wouldn 't care so much if 10Mbps were all
| that could be accomplished, but things are not necessarily
| slow like that at all if you're holding it right.
|
| There's a million other ways to skin this cat. A cheap
| travel router is one way. A cheap USB WiFi adapter on a
| laptop is another. Y'all know how to do NAT.)
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| My non-branded customer-provided Samsung S22 recently started
| being unwilling to turn on hotspotting, respecting some flag for
| my carrier.
|
| You can still workaround by creating a Routine to turn it on, it
| it was infuriating to run into. Makes me want to go back to
| running custom roms, but Android SafetyNet keeps making that less
| and less feasible.
|
| I'm switching carriers, since it seems like writing is on the
| wall for this important capability for me.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| Pixel is mid hardware, but wins because GrapheneOS. Loudly
| ditch any app which locks you out for some new SafetyNet
| reasons (Graphene does attested boot and locks boot loader).
| swozey wrote:
| Ever since 5GUW.. maybe even just 5G, I haven't connected to a
| single wifi connection out working remotely than my phone. It's
| faster than nearly all of the bar/coffee/cowork wifis nowadays.
|
| I have 2GB (for an insane $145ish/mo) CenturyLink fiber and it's
| been horrible for the last 3-4 months.
|
| With that said, in my city subreddit we have a thread about how
| there are certain intersections/blocks that will kill your Apple
| Carplay while driving until you've exited the area. Th e running
| theory is there's a big telecom company or a defense contractor
| right there doing something weird.
| betaby wrote:
| > I have 2GB (for an insane $145ish/mo) CenturyLink fiber and
| it's been horrible for the last 3-4 months.
|
| Why though? Are talking about bad Wi-Fi experience or you are
| not getting good speed even while connected through Ethernet.
| My friends with CenturyLinks have no complains.
| Dwedit wrote:
| I just use TetherFi (from Pyamsoft). Works great, except for wss
| sockets that do not support connections through proxies.
|
| Only hairy part is configuring proxy servers on Windows. For some
| stupid reason, a proxy configuration script must be served from a
| website and not a local file. So you need to install a localhost
| webserver just to serve the proxy configuration script.
| Thoreandan wrote:
| Carriers send tethered traffic out different networks than they
| do for traffic from the mobile device.
|
| Fun side effects: Apps on your phone which, when you're on wi-fi,
| can connect to other apps on the same wi-fi, can't.
|
| Terrible performance getting to streaming services, when apps
| running on the device itself talk to them fine.
| killingtime74 wrote:
| This is not universally true. Which network and country are you
| in?
| somat wrote:
| Wearing my network engineer hat. I was furious when I found out
| tethering in android was an option that could only be set by the
| network provider. Why should they get any say if I want to use my
| phone as a router.
|
| So just on principle alone I refuse to pay the tethering tax and
| tether using terminux and ssh. the usability sucks in comparison
| to the built in method but at least I get to control my packets.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I never saw that, then again we usually mostly buy Android
| phones pre-paid, free of any operator shenanigans.
| m463 wrote:
| There is so much BS the cellphone companies have tried.
|
| I remember when ringtones could only be downloaded from the
| cellphone company.
|
| there were workarounds, but it was hard.
|
| then apple fixed all that.
|
| And now apple has "fixed" all their UIs so for practical
| purposes, people are back to buying their ringtones (from apple
| now).
|
| there are workarounds, but it is hard.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| >"then apple fixed all that"
|
| Market had fixed that many years before iphone existed
| pstrateman wrote:
| Pretty much all of the FOSS AOSP alternatives leave it to the
| user.
| dangus wrote:
| At risk of being a cellular carrier apologist, I think the idea
| has some grounds.
|
| All cellular customers are not created equal. If a cell phone
| company sold a $50 unlimited plan and the person used it to
| host a video streaming business with some rackmount servers in
| their closet, that user wouldn't really be the same as selling
| a $50 unlimited plan to someone who just wants to scroll TikTok
| for a few hours a day.
|
| The other factor at play here is that consumers really hate
| tracking data usage and it's a horrible user experience. Nobody
| really understands what a gigabyte is and how to control usage
| on their phone.
|
| So really, cellular companies need to sell plan tiers based on
| usage patterns. Basically, they have Grandma who doesn't give a
| flying fuck about how nice their YouTube looks, the phone
| addict who needs lots of streaming video and TikTok, and then
| you've got the road warrior business person who needs to hop on
| their computer and do some serious work.
|
| In other words, they need to sell the exact same product with
| very similar usage terms to completely different users who have
| massive differences in usage patterns between them.
|
| And let's be real here, we know that someone with a laptop can
| push more data than someone with a phone. The workflows are
| different. Nobody's downloading ISOs on their cell phone.
|
| Remember that bandwidth is what cloud providers like AWS charge
| for. They can do that because their customers are highly
| technical and can understand those charges. But that business
| model just won't work for Joe Public on cellular networks.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Here I am waiting for Apple to put a 5g chip in MacBooks. My 5G
| iPad is one of my favorite tech purchases ever. Always online
| feels so close. Even the iPhone/Macbook tethering thing feels so
| sloppy and fragile. Half the time I don't see my phone in the
| network list. I don't want to have to think about it.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I may still have the RS-232 adapter for my ~2004ish flip phone;
| it presented a Hayes Modem (AT commands) interface for data.
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