8 ms·

Advice on accessing BBC News

150 points by ngcc_hk 5y ago

dennisy 5y ago
Do people feel we should try and get these blocked sites back up, in a simpler way to access than using TOR?
madaxe_again 5y ago
Ironically, this advice is illegal in the U.K. under the computer misuse act - circumventing measures intended to restrict access to information is a criminal offence, as is providing information on how do do so.
- nix23 5y ago
  Can you please show me the law? Because that would mean that the U.K needs to close GCHQ and any other secret-service maybe even some police-work.
  - madaxe_again 5y ago
    Believe it or not, law enforcement and intelligence agencies are permitted to do things ordinary citizens aren’t, in the course of their work. As to the relevant bit - section one, paragraph one, subsection a: >> 1)A person is guilty of an offence if— >> (a)he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer [or to enable any such access to be secured] ; https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/section/1 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/section/1
    - nix23 5y ago
      I knew you meant that law, and the whole law is about "hacking" INTO computer systems/networks to access private/not-authorized data, not circumvent blocking measurements for accessing public/authorized-by-the-owner-of-the-system data. >Believe it or not, law enforcement and intelligence agencies are permitted to do things ordinary citizens aren’t Believe it or not, that's just partially true.
    - jstanley 5y ago
      That's not the whole thing. See also subsection b: > (b)the access he intends to secure [F2, or to enable to be secured,] is unauthorised If you're trying to access a news website it's pretty likely that your access is authorised. Without subsection b, literally every use of a computer is computer misuse.
  - usr1106 5y ago
    Many things the agencies do is either illegal or would be illegal for ordinary citizens.
- jstanley 5y ago
  My sense is that this is incorrect. I think the law would prohibit breaking into people's computers, not circumventing internet censorship. By circumventing internet censorship you're accessing information that its owner wants you to be able to access. You're not breaking into their computer.
  - madaxe_again 5y ago
    Unfortunately, no. Consider prosecutions of users in the U.K. for accessing TPB via a VPN - TPB didn’t prohibit access, the govt did - but using any computer to access any information on any other computer which you are not authorised to access for any reason is an offence.
    - neuroma 5y ago
      Link? Can't find any evidence that people have been prosecuted in UK for using VPN for TPB.
    - nix23 5y ago
      Now your are mixing copyright problems with accessing public-data...not really honest of you. And it was not the Goverment who went against the users but Atari, Codemasters, TopWare Interactive, Reality Pump, Techland and the "Ministy of Sound"...for COPYRIGHT violations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing_in_the_United_Kin...
- raverbashing 5y ago
  "restrict access to information" means passwords, etc
  - TruthWillHurt 5y ago
    True, but I'd say blocking network access os also a valid restriction by the owner. And that's the key difference here - restricted by owner.
fulvioterzapi 5y ago
Interestingly, they also work for accessing RT and Sputnik from the EU that are banning them.
- nix23 5y ago
  It's funny that the EU needs censoring to "protect" the public from censored media...that smells really bad to me TBH.
- usr1106 5y ago
  Broadcasting them in EU is banned. But accessing them on the internet is not. Or in which EU country it has been blocked? (I'm in EU but have not tried. Not interested in their content even for curiosity. I can read in our media what they say: There is no war. Ukraine is no nation, but Russians suppressed by nazis that ask to be liberated. In Russian media other standpoints are not mentioned at all.) Edit: I have no good feeling about banning them. But I understand the Baltic countries: They have a substantial Russian-speaking community that consumes only Russian state media.
  - jstanley 5y ago
    > Not interested in their content even for curiosity. I can read in our media what they say If you're not interested in looking even for curiosity, how would you know whether your media is representing them accurately? Do you think it would be reasonable for people in Russia to say they're not interested in looking at the BBC, even for curiosity, because they can read all about what the BBC are saying in Russian media?
    - usr1106 5y ago
      I am not completely happy with Western media. They don't address the fact that stopping cars in Europe would be the hardest sanction to Russia because Russian energy exports have built a strong Russian military and continue to maintain it. Still energy is excluded from sanctions. There are other wars were EU and NATO don't give a good picture. 1000s of people drowng in the Mediterranean. But still I have a basic trust and know that outright lies are much less common in Western media than in Russian ones. If you don't count reports how Trump's victory was stolen. But the US is dangerously close from leaving Western democracy standards. Not the media, but 48% or so of the voters.
amriksohata 5y ago
Both sides calling a lack of freedom of press, guess it's only freedom when one sided narrative fits. With the internet it's possible to get around most walls
LAC-Tech 5y ago
I'm always a bit perplexed when people hold up the BBC as an example of a respectable, unbiased news source - a lot of their stuff is ham-fisted, and some of it is flat-out propaganda. I wouldn't say they are noticeably worse than other media staples - everything is biased - but they don't deserve to be on the pedestal they are put on.
- bhobs 5y ago
  They go out of their way to try and represent both sides of a coin, to a fault. If it’s clearly raining, and they have a guest on to talk about the rain, they will also have a guest on who will try and argue “oh these precipitation levels don’t constitute rain” etc. A bit contrived but you get the idea.
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    That's not the case at all. They may do that for some topics but not for all. At the moment coverage of Ukraine really is "war reporting" in the classic sense, i.e, there is control and a line to follow to make sure one side is pure white and the other side pure black.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      In what other way could they possibly represent the war?
      - zarzavat 5y ago
        Some people buy into the narrative that NATO is partially to blame for the war because it allowed Ukraine to seek membership. It seems like nonsense to me because Ukraine has not joined NATO nor is it close to doing so. Another side would be to compare the war to other US wars of recent years. This has a bit more merit as the US has done similar invasions including bombing civilians with even more flimsy justifications without becoming an international pariah state like Russia is now. You won’t find the BBC making such comparison for sure. But two wrongs don’t make a right.
zagrebian 5y ago
> If you find it difficult to get the two applications above from AppStore or Google Play Store, please send a blank email to get@psiphon3.com or gettor@torproject.org, respectively. You will then be sent an email with a direct and safe download link. How safe is this? I don’t know much about email security. Can the ISP intercept and edit the email message?
- sieabahlpark 5y ago
- adam-p 5y ago
  For the Psiphon mail responder, we configure Postfix with `smtp_tls_security_level=verify` and `smtpd_tls_security_level=encrypt` (with three "may" domain exceptions, unfortunately). So, the email should be encrypted through the ISP. Of course, if your ISP is also your email provider (get a new email provider), then your ISP will be able to see and modify your email. We also sign our apps and provide detailed instructions for verifying the authenticity of them: https://psiphon.ca/en/faq.html#verify-psiphon-authentic https://psiphon.ca/en/faq.html#verify-psiphon-authentic (You can't get to that if you can't get to the internet, but it's hard to do much better. We can't email the instructions, since then the instructions could also be modified. But it's entirely possible for some users to be able to load a webpage but not download a 6MB binary.)
- agucova 5y ago
  Non-encrypted email in transit is a concern, but AFAIK most users should already be protected nowadays. (Google estimates [1] put it at around 9/10, tho probably not representative of Russia) A bigger concern might be Russian-monitored email servers, especially given that around 70% of the market share is occupied by Russian providers [2], and email isn't considered personal data in Russia [3]. [1]: https://transparencyreport.google.com/safer-email?hl=en https://transparencyreport.google.com/safer-email?hl=en [2]: https://help.returnpath.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001108411-Country-Overview-Russia https://help.returnpath.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001108411-C... [3]: https://www.plesner.com/insights/articles/2016/01/data-localisation-in-russia-email-addresses-are-not-considered-personal-data?sc_lang=en https://www.plesner.com/insights/articles/2016/01/data-local... Update: as for transit, see adam-p's comment.
prvc 5y ago
Does this work for accessing radio shows which are restricted to U.K. IPs?
nomilk 5y ago
What's with the random characters in the Tor URL? Are Tor URLs always like that? www.bbcnewsd73hkzno2ini43t4gblxvycyac5aw4gnv7t2rccijh7745uqd.onion/
- phaer 5y ago
  Yes, it's an encoded public key, identifying the service. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.onion#Format https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.onion#Format even "bbcnews" is part of that key, probably brute-forced until that prefix was found.
  - jffry 5y ago
    It must've been brute-forced. According to this one old brute forcer I found [1] but have not thoroughly vetted, it would've been one CPU-day of effort on 2012-era hardware [1] https://github.com/katmagic/Shallot https://github.com/katmagic/Shallot
    - jffry 5y ago
      Adding onto this: I was able to use https://github.com/cathugger/mkp224o https://github.com/cathugger/mkp224o to generate my own v3 address with chosen 7-character prefix in just under 1 hour on my i7-8700k I imagine an implementation that leverages a GPU could go much faster.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
adam-p 5y ago
Psiphon usage from Russia is up almost 6x since the war started: https://psix.ca/d/nyi8gE6Zk/regional-overview?orgId=2&var-region=BY&var-region=RU&var-region=UA https://psix.ca/d/nyi8gE6Zk/regional-overview?orgId=2&var-re...

150 points by ngcc_hk 5y ago

Do people feel we should try and get these blocked sites back up, in a simpler way to access than using TOR?

Ironically, this advice is illegal in the U.K. under the computer misuse act - circumventing measures intended to restrict access to information is a criminal offence, as is providing information on how do do so.

nix23 5y ago
Can you please show me the law? Because that would mean that the U.K needs to close GCHQ and any other secret-service maybe even some police-work.
- madaxe_again 5y ago
  Believe it or not, law enforcement and intelligence agencies are permitted to do things ordinary citizens aren’t, in the course of their work. As to the relevant bit - section one, paragraph one, subsection a: >> 1)A person is guilty of an offence if— >> (a)he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer [or to enable any such access to be secured] ; https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/section/1 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/section/1
  - nix23 5y ago
    I knew you meant that law, and the whole law is about "hacking" INTO computer systems/networks to access private/not-authorized data, not circumvent blocking measurements for accessing public/authorized-by-the-owner-of-the-system data. >Believe it or not, law enforcement and intelligence agencies are permitted to do things ordinary citizens aren’t Believe it or not, that's just partially true.
  - jstanley 5y ago
    That's not the whole thing. See also subsection b: > (b)the access he intends to secure [F2, or to enable to be secured,] is unauthorised If you're trying to access a news website it's pretty likely that your access is authorised. Without subsection b, literally every use of a computer is computer misuse.
- usr1106 5y ago
  Many things the agencies do is either illegal or would be illegal for ordinary citizens.
jstanley 5y ago
My sense is that this is incorrect. I think the law would prohibit breaking into people's computers, not circumventing internet censorship. By circumventing internet censorship you're accessing information that its owner wants you to be able to access. You're not breaking into their computer.
- madaxe_again 5y ago
  Unfortunately, no. Consider prosecutions of users in the U.K. for accessing TPB via a VPN - TPB didn’t prohibit access, the govt did - but using any computer to access any information on any other computer which you are not authorised to access for any reason is an offence.
  - neuroma 5y ago
    Link? Can't find any evidence that people have been prosecuted in UK for using VPN for TPB.
  - nix23 5y ago
    Now your are mixing copyright problems with accessing public-data...not really honest of you. And it was not the Goverment who went against the users but Atari, Codemasters, TopWare Interactive, Reality Pump, Techland and the "Ministy of Sound"...for COPYRIGHT violations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing_in_the_United_Kin...
raverbashing 5y ago
"restrict access to information" means passwords, etc
- TruthWillHurt 5y ago
  True, but I'd say blocking network access os also a valid restriction by the owner. And that's the key difference here - restricted by owner.

fulvioterzapi 5y ago

Interestingly, they also work for accessing RT and Sputnik from the EU that are banning them.

nix23 5y ago
It's funny that the EU needs censoring to "protect" the public from censored media...that smells really bad to me TBH.
usr1106 5y ago
Broadcasting them in EU is banned. But accessing them on the internet is not. Or in which EU country it has been blocked? (I'm in EU but have not tried. Not interested in their content even for curiosity. I can read in our media what they say: There is no war. Ukraine is no nation, but Russians suppressed by nazis that ask to be liberated. In Russian media other standpoints are not mentioned at all.) Edit: I have no good feeling about banning them. But I understand the Baltic countries: They have a substantial Russian-speaking community that consumes only Russian state media.
- jstanley 5y ago
  > Not interested in their content even for curiosity. I can read in our media what they say If you're not interested in looking even for curiosity, how would you know whether your media is representing them accurately? Do you think it would be reasonable for people in Russia to say they're not interested in looking at the BBC, even for curiosity, because they can read all about what the BBC are saying in Russian media?
  - usr1106 5y ago
    I am not completely happy with Western media. They don't address the fact that stopping cars in Europe would be the hardest sanction to Russia because Russian energy exports have built a strong Russian military and continue to maintain it. Still energy is excluded from sanctions. There are other wars were EU and NATO don't give a good picture. 1000s of people drowng in the Mediterranean. But still I have a basic trust and know that outright lies are much less common in Western media than in Russian ones. If you don't count reports how Trump's victory was stolen. But the US is dangerously close from leaving Western democracy standards. Not the media, but 48% or so of the voters.

amriksohata 5y ago

Both sides calling a lack of freedom of press, guess it's only freedom when one sided narrative fits. With the internet it's possible to get around most walls

LAC-Tech 5y ago

I'm always a bit perplexed when people hold up the BBC as an example of a respectable, unbiased news source - a lot of their stuff is ham-fisted, and some of it is flat-out propaganda. I wouldn't say they are noticeably worse than other media staples - everything is biased - but they don't deserve to be on the pedestal they are put on.

bhobs 5y ago
They go out of their way to try and represent both sides of a coin, to a fault. If it’s clearly raining, and they have a guest on to talk about the rain, they will also have a guest on who will try and argue “oh these precipitation levels don’t constitute rain” etc. A bit contrived but you get the idea.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  That's not the case at all. They may do that for some topics but not for all. At the moment coverage of Ukraine really is "war reporting" in the classic sense, i.e, there is control and a line to follow to make sure one side is pure white and the other side pure black.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    In what other way could they possibly represent the war?
    - zarzavat 5y ago
      Some people buy into the narrative that NATO is partially to blame for the war because it allowed Ukraine to seek membership. It seems like nonsense to me because Ukraine has not joined NATO nor is it close to doing so. Another side would be to compare the war to other US wars of recent years. This has a bit more merit as the US has done similar invasions including bombing civilians with even more flimsy justifications without becoming an international pariah state like Russia is now. You won’t find the BBC making such comparison for sure. But two wrongs don’t make a right.

zagrebian 5y ago

> If you find it difficult to get the two applications above from AppStore or Google Play Store, please send a blank email to get@psiphon3.com or gettor@torproject.org, respectively. You will then be sent an email with a direct and safe download link. How safe is this? I don’t know much about email security. Can the ISP intercept and edit the email message?

sieabahlpark 5y ago
adam-p 5y ago
For the Psiphon mail responder, we configure Postfix with `smtp_tls_security_level=verify` and `smtpd_tls_security_level=encrypt` (with three "may" domain exceptions, unfortunately). So, the email should be encrypted through the ISP. Of course, if your ISP is also your email provider (get a new email provider), then your ISP will be able to see and modify your email. We also sign our apps and provide detailed instructions for verifying the authenticity of them: https://psiphon.ca/en/faq.html#verify-psiphon-authentic https://psiphon.ca/en/faq.html#verify-psiphon-authentic (You can't get to that if you can't get to the internet, but it's hard to do much better. We can't email the instructions, since then the instructions could also be modified. But it's entirely possible for some users to be able to load a webpage but not download a 6MB binary.)
agucova 5y ago
Non-encrypted email in transit is a concern, but AFAIK most users should already be protected nowadays. (Google estimates [1] put it at around 9/10, tho probably not representative of Russia) A bigger concern might be Russian-monitored email servers, especially given that around 70% of the market share is occupied by Russian providers [2], and email isn't considered personal data in Russia [3]. [1]: https://transparencyreport.google.com/safer-email?hl=en https://transparencyreport.google.com/safer-email?hl=en [2]: https://help.returnpath.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001108411-Country-Overview-Russia https://help.returnpath.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001108411-C... [3]: https://www.plesner.com/insights/articles/2016/01/data-localisation-in-russia-email-addresses-are-not-considered-personal-data?sc_lang=en https://www.plesner.com/insights/articles/2016/01/data-local... Update: as for transit, see adam-p's comment.

prvc 5y ago

Does this work for accessing radio shows which are restricted to U.K. IPs?

nomilk 5y ago

What's with the random characters in the Tor URL? Are Tor URLs always like that? www.bbcnewsd73hkzno2ini43t4gblxvycyac5aw4gnv7t2rccijh7745uqd.onion/

phaer 5y ago
Yes, it's an encoded public key, identifying the service. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.onion#Format https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.onion#Format even "bbcnews" is part of that key, probably brute-forced until that prefix was found.
- jffry 5y ago
  It must've been brute-forced. According to this one old brute forcer I found [1] but have not thoroughly vetted, it would've been one CPU-day of effort on 2012-era hardware [1] https://github.com/katmagic/Shallot https://github.com/katmagic/Shallot
  - jffry 5y ago
    Adding onto this: I was able to use https://github.com/cathugger/mkp224o https://github.com/cathugger/mkp224o to generate my own v3 address with chosen 7-character prefix in just under 1 hour on my i7-8700k I imagine an implementation that leverages a GPU could go much faster.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

adam-p 5y ago

Psiphon usage from Russia is up almost 6x since the war started: https://psix.ca/d/nyi8gE6Zk/regional-overview?orgId=2&var-region=BY&var-region=RU&var-region=UA https://psix.ca/d/nyi8gE6Zk/regional-overview?orgId=2&var-re...