Can HTML5 support a USSD call to a mobile handset

[vipaldridge]

It is the first time I used Bytes... and the give us more details will not let me in? I want to design a system with 100% browser web access to my site/webpage. I want UK only mobile handsets to have access. I understand that the incoming dot.mobi message access will not show handset details. Can my website establish a handshake (or separate session) with the handset (web access source) to check if it is on a UK network. I do understand that a USSD link to a handset provides all required detail, but need to understand if my HTML5 code can include a call/handshake/echo to identify the handset source. I am told that all handset web accesses will use a dynamic IP address. Do UK MNOs have a specific range of dynamic IP addresses that we might be able to check against. The authentication of the user is crucial to the solution!!
I trust this attachment can be accessed!!
John Aldridge

[SwissProgrammer]

"Do UK MNOs have a specific range of dynamic IP addresses that we might be able to check against." the current answer seems to be "no". They might say that they are, but they are probably not.

Here is an example: A cell phone tower in France (or where ever across the channel) has so many connections that it fills up to a limit that activates a relay to another cell tower. The other cell tower is across the channel in the United Kingdom. You see the user as in the UK because some switching in the long distance carrier assumes that the user is in the UK. You therefore have invalid data and someone outside the UK is assumed as being inside the UK.

Or, more serious example, someone writes a program that simulates that overload and rejects all relayed towers that are outside of the UK until it gets relayed to a cell phone tower that is known to be in the UK thus programmaticall y being seen as inside the UK.

Currently, it seems, the government of the UK has not aggressively chosen to rectify that situation. The problem of communication re-vectoring can be obfuscated, but maybe they do not yet care enough. The Bible says, "strong fences make good neighbors", but it seems that many people and businesses and governments are lazy about building strong fences. The truth is there. Follow it.

Some thoughts on some things:
SSL, and firmware, and many current operating systems have built in back doors or are breakable. SSL can be broken and analyzed and changed. Firmware currently commonly connects and communicates with third party intruders by design and can be intercepted in its communications. Many current operating systems do similar intrusions and much more intrusions than the firmware.

Do not give up. Your asking is a first step. Secure at your end and work from there.

[bakertaylor28]

Can my website establish a handshake (or separate session) with the handset (web access source) to check if it is on a UK network. I do understand that a USSD link to a handset provides all required detail, but need to understand if my HTML5 code can include a call/handshake/echo to identify the handset source.

HTML isn't going to do this. HTML cannot interact with anything, because HTML is a static language.

You could use an Apache server, and use mod_rewrite to direct / redirect based upon user agent (to detect if mobile device or not), then use a php script to compare IP address with a white list. (Though it is better to do this in the server not the content.)The problem with this is then you have the issue of the mobile towers sending and receiving proxy as a means of network load handling, and then you have the whole issue of blocking Tor exit nodes. (if you've never heard of Tor, visit http://www.torproject.org for a primer).

In short, its possible to do what you aim to do, but it will be very difficult.