A "portal-page" blocker for Konqueror, 2nd try

[Juergen Pfennig]

Please let me comment some of the answers to my 1st mail...

(1) I am proposing something simple for end-users not for Linux/KDE gurus. The 
solution should be as simple as the pop-up blocker AND it should be optional. 
Solutions like being allways connected or the modification of a dial-in 
script are quite special and do not work for all users.

(2) Some people say: "change your provider"
This is becoming difficult (at least in Germany). We see here the raise of a 
new monopoly (a company called "united internet"). Currently they still allow 
users to turn off the portal page - but will the users have that choice in 
future?

(3) George Staikos said: they are hijacking DNS.
There has been an issue that a company operating a root server manipulated DNS 
not too long ago. This was probably only a first step. Portal pages are step 
2 and content dynamically injected into the data stream would be a logical 
step 3. For step 1 and 2 certicates could help. For step 3 some sort of 
digital signature could help.

(4) George Staikos also said: Some wireless providers are doing similar 
things ...
Right and I was the author of one of these systems. Our solution at that time 
used custom iptable modules. But in the wireless szenario "hijacking" wanted 
to give people a simple way to get access to the WLAN (also surprisingly many 
people had preconfigured IP adresses, which is why we also had to spoof arp).

(6) Others: ...data loaded twice...  ...problems with onlinbanking (https)...
Adding a portal page blocker to Konqueror and Firefox cannot be a perfect 
solution but it would help many people in many szenarios.

Conclusion:

For the moment I will try to write a more general solution in form of an 
iptable module. I will publish it on my web-site. Let's see if people like it 
- but again: an iptable module is Linux-only and is not a good solution for 
end-users.

Yours Jürgen