Why Google Voice & Cloudflare

[GoldWing]

Hello,

Why does Google Voice and Cloudflare show up in my new Router's Active Sessions?

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Voice

I use Visible for my cellular service on my iPhone which is using my LAN's WiFi. Hence question above.

My router is presently using Quad9 for DoH DNS queries. Hence question above.

Thanks!

Goldwing

 

[ColinTaylor]

Port 5223 = Apple Push Notification Service (APNS)

TCP and UDP ports used by Apple software products - Apple Support

Learn about TCP and UDP ports used by Apple products such as macOS, and iCloud. Many of these are well-known, industry-standard ports.

support.apple.com

 

[XIII]

,
Why does Google Voice and Cloudflare show up in my new Router's Active Sessions?

My router is presently using Quad9 for DoH DNS queries. Hence question above.

The SSL/Cloudflare entries are on port 443, like other SSL entries, so those are not the Cloudflare DNS (1.1.1.1) service, in case you were thinking that.

 

[Ripshod]

... 104.16.156.111 is a website using Cloudflare nameservers. I've run an rDNS on it and it's returning (for me) downloads.nordcdn.com - if that means anything to you

 

[XIII]

downloads.nordcdn.com

That's probably the CDN of NordVPN?

 

[sfx2000]

iPhone, when using iCloud Private Relay, uses Cloudflare (and a couple of other partners)...

 

[GoldWing]

Port 5223 = Apple Push Notification Service (APNS)

TCP and UDP ports used by Apple software products - Apple Support

Learn about TCP and UDP ports used by Apple products such as macOS, and iCloud. Many of these are well-known, industry-standard ports.

support.apple.com

See the new Sessions image per "ActiveSessions_Duplicate" attached file which shows both "Apple Push" and "Google Voice" as 2 different outbound services where IP of 216.239.36.131 is owned by Google, and IP of 17.57.144.245 is owned by Apple per https://www.iplocation.net/ip-lookup.

I'm not signed up to use "Google Voice" in my Google Account. I even logged into my Google Account to check via my old Gmail address, and there was no Google Voice account set up.

I've checked with the support team of Peplink. They are not able to duplicate. So I've provided them info on my setup, and the circumstances where the Google Voice service shows up.

So why would Google need to use the same port 5223 that is used by Apple's Push Notification Service (APNS) when I do not have a Google Voice account?

Regards,

GoldWing

 

[GoldWing]

Hello,

For purpose of documentation I've attached the "Voice_Google_com_6311.PNG" image file which shows a screenshot of my Google account from my iPhone with no Google Voice setup.

Regards,

GoldWing

 

[degrub]

Do you have VOIP telephone service ?

 

[GoldWing]

Do you have VOIP telephone service ?

I use Visible for my cellular service per https://www.visible.com/ on my iPhone 14 Pro.

To my knowledge Visible does not use VOIP after doing a DuckDuckGo search on "does visible cellular use VOIP" over the last year, and opening some of the pages with a Firefox search (a.k.a. Cntrl + F) on "VOIP" without any positive Firefox search results.

I bought a new router which provides "Active Sessions" in which the "Google Voice" showed up in the results. The "Active Sessions" only shows activity for the last minute. The "Google Voice" only shows up when I'm actively using my iPhone connected to the WiFi of the new router. I use Face ID on my iPhone which automatically locks after 1 minute. If I leave my iPhone lock with WiFi connected and do not use for over a minute, then "Google Voice" does NOT show up in my new router's "Active Session".

So when I saw the "Google Voice" service show up in the "Active Sessions" of my new router without having used https://voice.google.com/about I thought it was strange. Hence the inquiry on SnB Forums, and the Peplink support team. I have used the SnB forums for learning more about routers basically to improve my home network security and privacy.

The Peplink support team of the router suggested that I contact Apple's support team.

I'm not a network expert. I am an experienced user of PC's, and have extensive data analysis experience in prior work experiences.

So I'm just trying to make sense to something that initially made no sense.

I'm still scratching my head.

Regards,

GoldWing

 

[GoldWing]

Do you have VOIP telephone service ?

No.

I've checked with Visible's live agent in a chat session. See the "Visible_ChatSession_Screenshot from 2024-09-25 16-45-34.png" image attached. quoting one of the lines near the end of the session captured in the image states "As a recap, you were asking if Visible offers VOIP, unfortunately we are purely a provider of mobile service only."

Regards,

GoldWing (a.k.a. Greg)

 

[degrub]

"using my iPhone connected to the WiFi"

Is wifi calling enabled ?

 

[GoldWing]

"using my iPhone connected to the WiFi"

Is wifi calling enabled ?

No.

Good ideal though!

FWIW I did take Peplink's suggestion and contacted Apple support. Apple's support only suggestion was the possiblity of a Google app installed on my iPhone that may be the culprit. I gave Apple's support visibility access to my iPhone 14 Pro's apps installed. The only app that Apple's support saw that they knew for sure was a Google App was the "Authenticator" app.

So still scratching my head.

Regards,

GoldWing

 

[sfx2000]

"using my iPhone connected to the WiFi"

Is wifi calling enabled ?

Exactly - iPhone carrier WiFi calling is not VOIP, it's VoWIFI, and an extension of VoLTe...

This shows up as a IPv6 connection, FWIW, and tunneled via IPSec

OP never answered the question for iPhone and iCloud Private Relay which applies to both on network as well as off network.

 

[GoldWing]

OP never answered the question for iPhone and iCloud Private Relay which applies to both on network as well as off network.

sfx2000 I believe XIII answered the SSL/Cloudflare on port 443 above which I've copied below.

The SSL/Cloudflare entries are on port 443, like other SSL entries, so those are not the Cloudflare DNS (1.1.1.1) service, in case you were thinking that.

Regards,

GoldWing