Fooling the BBC ?
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Fooling the BBC ?
08-12-2007 11:58 PM
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I like to keep in touch when abroad by watching the BBC video streams from the BBC Newsplayer service (http://news.bbc.co.uk/) on my laptop.
In some countries, the BBC are able to distinguish international visitors from UK visitors somehow, and then they either stream the video in narrowband quality or add in irritating advertisments into the news to pay for the service, evidently.
Now, as I pay my TV licence in the UK, I feel that I should be able to watch these Newsplayer services from abroad on my laptop in the same way as I watch them in the UK on my laptop when away from home, in reasonable broadband resolution and without any advertisements.
So my question is, how can I fool the BBC into thinking I am in the UK, even though I am using a foreign internet connection ? Could I hide behind some sort of UK based proxy, or even use a dynamic IP address - I don't really understand these things, and may be being naive, but any suggestions would be appeciated.
How's that for an unusual topic ?
Re: Fooling the BBC ?
09-12-2007 12:09 AM
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Your only way around this would be to go via a proxy located in the UK.
Even a dynamic address comes from a range supplied by your ISP - so the BBC knows that either:-
a) You came through a National ISP like PlusNet or
b) You came via some multinational connection such as AOL
Since the BBC know you are in a foreign country they presume that you are not a television licence payer. It's actually quite nice of them to provide you with any kind of service.
"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."
Re: Fooling the BBC ?
09-12-2007 12:24 AM
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Performance may not be that great though!
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler) Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!) Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20) Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month) Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month) |
Re: Fooling the BBC ?
09-12-2007 9:12 AM
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Soit seems that using a UK-based proxy would be the answer. Any idea how I might be able to get a UK proxy ?
Re: Fooling the BBC ?
09-12-2007 10:50 AM
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How about setting up a VPN to your home network and then routing BBC only over the VPN?
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler) Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!) Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20) Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month) Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month) |
Re: Fooling the BBC ?
10-12-2007 11:13 AM
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There is a current issue ongoing with OpenDNS as they are returning an IP that the BBC serves to people using DNS servers located outside the UK even though they have a server located in London.
Even if your IP is a UK one, if you use OpenDNS you'll be blocked from video content.
See this thread on the OpenDNS forums.
Re: Fooling the BBC ?
10-12-2007 11:41 AM
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You wouldn't need to have the full compression levels, as that can be adjusted via the software.
It is chargeable @£24.99, but, they have a 14 day money back guarantee - so if it doesn't do what you want it to just get them to refund and remove the software to try something else.
Re: Fooling the BBC ?
10-12-2007 11:54 PM
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I have just received the following email from the BBC :
News 24 stream is only available in the UK because of the copyright agreements regarding using certain pictures (notably sports video) outside the UK. We have permission to stream the channel live to users in the UK and we use GOIP recognition to identify the location of the computer requesting the stream. If your computer is located outside the UK, eg the USA, you will not be able to view the live stream.
I hope that explains the reason why you can't watch news 24 live from the BBC News website from outside the UK.
I have not heard of GOIP recognition before but guess it may be something like Global Overseas Internet Protocol recognition ?
Can anyone answer whether under these circumstances, Onspeed's proxy server might fool them ?
Re: Fooling the BBC ?
11-12-2007 12:06 AM
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Unfortunately, anything of interest such as streamed video and large images, flash content is fairly compressed already.
So you face the cost of onspeed + cost of call to UK. Streamed media will be at narrowband resolutions - but you would see a proper UK web page.
Provided you go through a UK OnSpeed, properly configured to look like a national UK source...
"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."
Re: Fooling the BBC ?
11-12-2007 12:10 AM
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Also (slightly OT) didn't MN used to offer a similar product to OnSpeed, or am I going mad (Jameseh?)
Re: Fooling the BBC ?
11-12-2007 12:12 AM
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Puddy
do you have to call home to change channels?
Re: Fooling the BBC ?
11-12-2007 10:05 AM
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One thing that I have discovered with Onspeed is that email often gets tagged as spam by spam filters when sent with Onspeed turned on. Looking at the headers of spam tagged email, the spam filters see huge quantities of data coming from the Onspeed IP, and mistake Onspeed for a spammer ! Because all their clients' data go through their server, the output would of course look unusually large, and A.I. is not that intelligent.
On the other hand, Onspeed masks your own IP extremely well, better apparantly than a firewall. I did the Plusnet test to see how well protected I am behind my router, my firewall and then the Plusnet firewall. I scored maximum points possible and when I looked into it further, I learnt that the additional security of the Onspeed proxy meant that my pc is totally invisible when Onspeed is turned on !
Re: Fooling the BBC ?
12-12-2007 11:04 AM
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It might be that the initial trying might convince the BBC to think you are in the right place and it will carry on?
Re: Fooling the BBC ?
12-12-2007 11:23 AM
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jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler) Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!) Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20) Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month) Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month) |
Re: Fooling the BBC ?
12-12-2007 11:40 AM
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I routinely roam around the UK, london, sheffield, nottingham, leeds, manchester are the most common, and all the time I use my laptop, its like Im just sat at my desk, on my PN connection.
Setting up a proxy is rather easy. I wouldnt operate a straight proxy, as it is horrendously unsecured and normally only runs with HTTP traffic.
What would work, and has been touched on already is to assign a staic IP to your F9 connection, throw in a VPN box and connect into that! Then all your traffic looks like it is from your home / bussiness etc.
All you need is an old PC, 2 NICs and you already have all you need! If you want to try out a system, drop me a PM, ive got a demo system here you can connect to and have a play with if you wanted.
Scott
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