ISP's and OS's

[nitroshift]

Just a quick question: are ISP's allowed to see one's OS? And if yes, how do they do it?

[CoffeeFiend]

They could try to fingerprint it, using infos gathered from different ports, but if you have any kind of decent firewall (or router), then there's very little they can do.

[nitroshift]

A friend of mine is connecting through PPPOE via cable directly to the ISP's server, no routers, OS is Vista Business. He's a bit paranoid now...

[CoffeeFiend]

Vista has a built-in firewall.

Not that I understand why he's worried. Even if his ISP knew he's using a particular version of Windows, then what?

It's not like they actually care. As long as they're making money (i.e. you pay them), they couldn't care less.

[nitroshift]

It's not like they actually care. As long as they're making money (i.e. you pay them), they couldn't care less.

Exactly what I told him... He's fine now. Thanks for your input

[tain]

They can still sniff your outbound UA string. And they can also get a good idea by what sites you visit or programs you run. Visit MSFN and Google for "Vista" a lot? Run certain applications or games that use known ports and are OS-unique?

Yeah. They can figure it out if they want to do so.

[Tripredacus]

Also your web browser reports your OS as well, and they could easily keep that information and use it for metrics. If you've ever run any stat programs on a webserver, you can see it can see just about every OS.

[ripken204]

Also your web browser reports your OS as well, and they could easily keep that information and use it for metrics. If you've ever run any stat programs on a webserver, you can see it can see just about every OS.

i was just about to type this.

i can track the browsers that IP address are using.