Vodacom hits back at IS
Internet Solutions (IS) recently criticised Vodacom’s new mobile surfing service which aims at making the Internet more accessible with mobile phones.
IS said in a press statement that “some of the unintended results [of Vodacom’s mobile service] have given rise to serious privacy concerns amongst consumers and corporate customers alike”.
Brett Steingo, general manager of mobility solutions at IIS said: “Since all traffic is routed first through their proxy server, sites requiring login information result in your password being intercepted and reformatted. Clients logging in, for example to Webmail, have their passwords captured in plain text and forwarded on. In the event of a failure, this password is being re-directed to a Google search page in plain text.”
Vodacom, however, hit back at IS, saying that the statements were not accurate: “The statement by Internet Solutions, published in the press on the 8th of July, 12 days after the launch of Vodacom’s content adaptation service, is factually incorrect.”
“At service launch, the ‘login’ problem was immediately detected by Vodacom and Vodacom immediately addressed the issue and resolved the matter to ensure that no information from customers could be intercepted,” the company said.
“Any inputs from a customer’s cellphone are carried securely across the mobile network to the Mobile Access Gateway and the destination website – at no time is any customer-input logged or cached.”
“Furthermore the statement that IS APN’s were not affected is also technically incorrect as the content adaption service is not APN specific.”
Vodacom also recently responded to criticism from the Internet Society of South Africa about the new mobile Internet system, saying that their statements were also not entirely factual and that they are “looking forward to a retraction from ISOC in respect of the incorrect statements made in this regard”.
Vodacom mobile surfing discussion
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