Hosts: Blocking all emails on Outlook App (Android)

[jellydonuts]

I have your list being pulled by my pi-hole blocker and noticed that whenever I am on my home network, the Outlook App on my mobile phone stops being able to load email messages.

I tracked it down to a blocked query of "mobile.pipe.aria.microsoft.com" which you have listed as "Office 2016 'Connected User Experience' Telemetry" "OneNote Telemetry Service"

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[hopeseekr]

mobile.pipe.aria.microsoft.com is one of the worst privacy offenders on my personal network. Skype uses it to, among other things, apparently eavesdrop in still unknown ways.

https://www.pcministry.com/win10_telemetry/summary_stats_and_conclusions/

This issue may be more like whether we should or should not block 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 on our networks, as part of the greater anti-dystopia war we have all found ourselves in circa 2015/2016.

Sure, blocking 8.8.8.8 used to cause my Google Chromecast to seize up, claiming the Internet had gone down. But enough of us put our foot down and, after I had already migrated to another piece of hardware, apparently Google backpedaled and did the right thing and now 8.8.8.8 can be blocked and Chromecast works fine.

Other browsers, like Chrome on Android are/were hardcoding 8.8.8.8 as the DNS, so you lose privacy no matter what your personal actions are, without blocking those two public IPs. Next, I guess, they'll just start using secretive DNS IPs :-/

[dnmTX]

Some programs(Avast for example) are using Google's DNS to resolve the domains responsible for updates and whatnot:

Blocking 8.8.8.8 here,in such a popular lists is not a option.

[jellydonuts]

given your post and information regarding what else goes through this hostname it's probably a good idea to keep it on the blocklist. I think I'll stop using the default Outlook app on my phone for mail and switch to something better.

Any suggestions?

[spirillen]

given your post and information regarding what else goes through this hostname it's probably a good idea to keep it on the blocklist. I think I'll stop using the default Outlook app on my phone for mail and switch to something better.

Any suggestions?

protonmail.com is a good safe place which encourage usage of PGP encrypted mails

[hopeseekr]

@dnmTX I really don't want to derail this conversation, but your point is exactly why 8.8.8.8 needs to be blocked. Don't you see the rampant privacy problems with Google being queried by third parties without your knowledge, informed consent, and going against 5 decades of how DNS server derivation (either via DHCP or static configuration) has been done?

Even if you don't care about the privacy problems, consider that despotic corporations and regimes around the world are using 8.8.8.8 to block / spy on things like VPNs, secure communication lines, etc.

Responsible tech people need to start blocking 8.8.8.8 right now before something like it is used to really further dystopian agendas. Our parents, relatives, and non-technical colleagues have little hope in even detecting these shenanigans, much less blocking them on their own. And if we can't stand unified, who will?

[spirillen]

8.8.8.8

that exactly why AS15169 is blocked in my routers firewall :smiley:

[jawz101]

mobile.pipe.aria.microsoft.com is one of the worst privacy offenders on my personal network. Skype uses it to, among other things, apparently eavesdrop in still unknown ways.

https://www.pcministry.com/win10_telemetry/summary_stats_and_conclusions/

This issue may be more like whether we should or should not block 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 on our networks, as part of the greater anti-dystopia war we have all found ourselves in circa 2015/2016.

Sure, blocking 8.8.8.8 used to cause my Google Chromecast to seize up, claiming the Internet had gone down. But enough of us put our foot down and, after I had already migrated to another piece of hardware, apparently Google backpedaled and did the right thing and now 8.8.8.8 can be blocked and Chromecast works fine.

Other browsers, like Chrome on Android are/were hardcoding 8.8.8.8 as the DNS, so you lose privacy no matter what your personal actions are, without blocking those two public IPs. Next, I guess, they'll just start using secretive DNS IPs :-/

I personally block mobile.pipe.aria.microsoft.com but - according to the link you supplied- I don't actually see that it is a privacy offender. Without any real inspection, you could deduce that it could be some keepalive request since it is frequently called. It just gives us a warm fuzzy to see that it gets blocked a lot but it might be something that polls for new mail more frequently or something.

As for the 8.8.8.8 thingy, one thing I do on my pfSense firewall is redirect any DNS requests _not_ going to my local DNS resolver to actually use it. For example, if destination isn't 192.168.1.1 and TCP/UDP port 53, send it to 192.168.1.1 port 53. I also include TCP/UDP port 853 since that is the common DNS over HTTPS/TLS port used.

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed in 14 daysif no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[stale[bot]]

Closing.