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I used a small independent proxy company that I paid £50 a year annually through PayPal. I think they must've been small enough to fly under the radar of the de

by domh 4y ago

I used a small independent proxy company that I paid £50 a year annually through PayPal. I think they must've been small enough to fly under the radar of the detection algorithms. When I went onto google maps connected to the proxy, it always thought I was in Dubai, which gives you an idea of the clientele. Maybe it was something to do with the fact that it was a Proxy and not a VPN, though I'm not sure if this makes it any less detectable. I even had a Firefox extension that automatically turned on the proxy when opening iPlayer tabs! It worked very well, though I wish I could've paid the license fee and just got access.

867-5309 4y ago
I dabbled with free and cheap paid-for proxies which were either injecting javascript or too flaky for live video. I saw a few of those smaller providers, but the initial outlay would have been too risky, because I am convinced the BBC throw a lot of money at residential geolocation, so if they haven't already their IP address blocks will be blacklisted at some point in the near future interesting about Dubai though, makes me wonder if they have some sort of expat or economic deal with them. if Google thinks you're there, you can bet BBC do too. I discovered they use multiple CDNs and delivery mechanisms as fallback/best effort for the gamut of user agents, network health and device capabilities, which sometimes (but not always) sieved most (but not all) VPN and proxy locations in an indeterminate (yet authoritatively intentional) fashion, so perhaps Dubai is whitelisted on one of those. who knows. sometimes it's like rolling dice. inconsistency and implied mischief sure are strong deterrents. might investigate further at some point if I can swallow some bile first
- domh 4y ago
  Email is in my profile if you wanna find out more about the proxy service I used!
Bluecobra 4y ago
I also used some UK shell provider (via SOCKS proxy + Putty) in the past and it worked really well. My guess is that there’s some there’s kind of threshold/concurrent connection that iPlayer looks at per IP address. It’s pretty silly though, I would absolutely pay for a TV license if given the opportunity. Dear BBC: Shut up and take my money!
- 867-5309 4y ago
  how far in the past ago, during nascent video streaming pre-VPN days? with live tv as well as VOD? if there is a relatively cheap, concrete solution I did not uncover which has been stable for over a year I would buy that wizard a thimbleful of scumble
  - Bluecobra 4y ago
    This was about 15 years ago, definitely before when VPNs got popular… Clarkson was still hosting Top Gear. I seem to recall getting so irked that BBC America was something like 6-12 months behind current Top Gear episodes that it lead me down this path of ‘stealing’ iPlayer. It actually opened the door for me to content that I would have otherwise seen or known about, like obscure comedy shows on Channel 4 or the much better UK version of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. The shell provider I used was Phurix, not if they are still around or not.

by domh 4y ago

867-5309 4y ago

I dabbled with free and cheap paid-for proxies which were either injecting javascript or too flaky for live video. I saw a few of those smaller providers, but the initial outlay would have been too risky, because I am convinced the BBC throw a lot of money at residential geolocation, so if they haven't already their IP address blocks will be blacklisted at some point in the near future interesting about Dubai though, makes me wonder if they have some sort of expat or economic deal with them. if Google thinks you're there, you can bet BBC do too. I discovered they use multiple CDNs and delivery mechanisms as fallback/best effort for the gamut of user agents, network health and device capabilities, which sometimes (but not always) sieved most (but not all) VPN and proxy locations in an indeterminate (yet authoritatively intentional) fashion, so perhaps Dubai is whitelisted on one of those. who knows. sometimes it's like rolling dice. inconsistency and implied mischief sure are strong deterrents. might investigate further at some point if I can swallow some bile first

domh 4y ago
Email is in my profile if you wanna find out more about the proxy service I used!

Bluecobra 4y ago

I also used some UK shell provider (via SOCKS proxy + Putty) in the past and it worked really well. My guess is that there’s some there’s kind of threshold/concurrent connection that iPlayer looks at per IP address. It’s pretty silly though, I would absolutely pay for a TV license if given the opportunity. Dear BBC: Shut up and take my money!

867-5309 4y ago
how far in the past ago, during nascent video streaming pre-VPN days? with live tv as well as VOD? if there is a relatively cheap, concrete solution I did not uncover which has been stable for over a year I would buy that wizard a thimbleful of scumble
- Bluecobra 4y ago
  This was about 15 years ago, definitely before when VPNs got popular… Clarkson was still hosting Top Gear. I seem to recall getting so irked that BBC America was something like 6-12 months behind current Top Gear episodes that it lead me down this path of ‘stealing’ iPlayer. It actually opened the door for me to content that I would have otherwise seen or known about, like obscure comedy shows on Channel 4 or the much better UK version of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. The shell provider I used was Phurix, not if they are still around or not.