Towards accurate accounting of cellular data for TCP retransmission

Abstract

The current architecture supporting data services to mobile devices is built below the network layer (IP) and users receive the payload at the application layer. Between them is the transport layer that can cause data consumption inflation due to the retransmission mechanism that provides reliable delivery. In this paper, we examine the accounting policies of five large cellular ISPs in the U.S. and South Korea. We look at their policies regarding the transport layer reliability mechanism with TCP's retransmission and show that the current implementation of accounting policies either fails to meet the billing fairness or is vulnerable to charge evasions. Three of the ISPs surveyed charge for all IP packets regardless of retransmission, allowing attackers to inflate a victim's bill by intentionally retransmitting packets. The other two ISPs deduct the retransmitted amount from the user's bill thus allowing tunneling through TCP retransmissions. We show that a "free-riding" attack is viable with these ISPs and discuss some of the mitigation techniques.