Slashdot Mirror
Wired on Defeating the Olympics Censorship
An anonymous reader writes "As discussed on Slashdot recently, Internet footage of Olympics events are being censored for US citizens. Wired.com is covering the issue in a recent story, discussing ways of defeating these measures. Duane Wessels, developer of the Squid caching proxy, and Len Sassaman, Mixmaster anonymity software author, are interviewed. Are they correct? Is geolocation content censorship impossible?"
Anyone with shell access to a server abroad can just SSH to a machine located outside of US and start their browser from there.
... Corporate Control.
The "Olympics" (tm) is Globalization defined. Duh. Who wants to watch that?
I doubt the majority of people either have a machine overseas, or know how to SSH to one. I also doubt they want to watch the games on their computer.
Up north of you the Olympics are on public TV, down south of you is the same thing. Wait a second only in the US is this known of. Now isn't it sad to see that people are all up in arms because the Olympics aren't coming through but don't give a damn when it's news you're not getting? I guess what they don't know doesn't hurt them.
OlympicsInColor.com would be for the American viewers and OlympicsInColour.co.uk would be the unfettered site. Simple, cheap, well, perhaps not effective in any way, but worth a shot.
Security thorugh obscurity is always the best, no matter what those GnuPG people tell you. After all the biggest software company in the world is a strong advocate of this.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Never mind about that, what about this!!5 65616.st m
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3
The Olympics have officially sold out (probably years ago but hey) you are not allowed into watch any of the games if you are wearing clothing thats clearly showing logos of a non-sponsering company. All non-sponsership adverts were pulled from bill-boards for miles around the grounds and you arnt allowed to eat anything other than mcdonalds or drink any water (consider the heat) thats not official Olympic water (read overpriced water).
Couldnt care less about the Olympics its nothing more than an advertising platform or a test-ground for new drugs. But damn its making someone a shit load of cash and i wanna be that someone..
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Even if you use a broadband or other high-speed connection, I wonder how much bandwidth you could get through the overseas connection that would be required to view a European stream.
Bandwidth may certainly be getting cheaper, but with a ping to an overseas IP takes over 100 ms, you'd better hope that everything arrives in order or else you'll suffer from too many dropped frames as packets get lost (especially as more people from the US try to get into the same relays online).
Besides, are the Olympics going to get better ratings this year then they did in Salt Lake City?
We the british public fund the BBC through our licence fee, it is because of this fee that we have impartial, and world wide recognised excelelnt broadcasts from the BBC.
This is not just restricted to BBC1 and BBC2 but also their digital chanels, where there 4 extra streams are being broadcast as well
I do feel bad for the American public have to put up with commercial crap during the games, but getting round the proxies is unfair on the BBC who are probably working hard on blocking non UK IP numbers.
After that, it was the U.S. boycott of 1980, then the Russia boycott of 1984. From 1988 on, it's been all commercials and tape delays.
yes.
but that doesn't mean that it doesn't work for the tv networks purposes(which is why these clausees that make bbc & etc limit the feeds only to their areas). their purpose is just to make it hard enough that the average customer will wait for the time delayed showing in the states rather than go on and somehow proxy it.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
There is a difference between a brutal, corrupt and oppresive force preventing the masses from knowing what their government are really up to, in order to prevent a revolution (censorship, a la China, North Korea, Fox News) and a broadcaster not being prepared to pay for the rights to Internet broadcast of somebody's legitimately owned IPR.
Grow up. This is not censorship. It's licensing. Confusing the two makes you look stupid, your arguments weak, and provides ammunition to those whom you may have a legitiamte gripe with regarding IPR whilst reducing the travesty of true censorship to something akin to you not being able to watch some TV.
I'm actually pretty disgusted that you've used the word censorship like this. This will get modded down as trolling, but I really think you guys need to get things into perspective. I feel sick.
Tossing around a word like "censorship" when it really does not apply only dilutes the term and renders it ineffective when you really do mean to use it.
IIRC, he resigned a while ago, but he sure set the tone for the whole damn Olympics.
I was watching the Opening Ceremony, it was a great show, until they started this a tribute to Eros, the god of Love, with a pair playing in the water, and they kissed! Oh my Zeus, they kissed each other, won't someone think of the children, we need a special senate session, call the FCC and tell them to bomb Greece!!! This shameless moral corruption must not go unpunished!
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
I mean, it's tough enough for Joe Sixpack to use teh intarweb, so adding an extra layer of proxies and SSH port forwarding mechanisms, just to watch the Olympics is waaay too much work. Paying the Corporate Tax is more feasible.
It may catch on with the tech crowd. However, someone has to pay for the bandwidth, and I can't imagine it being reliable, so...
You want to end this "We bought exclusive rights for North America" crap?
Do it the ole fashioned way - fight through congress, by sending letters to the companies, by boycotting as much as you can (since in these days of corporate owned everything, you're bound to boycott too much for it to be practical).
Vote for third parties. Encourage others to do so as well. Show the Republicrats the votes they're slowly losing. Big Money can fund your campaign, but someone still has to vote for you.
It might fail.
But it's worth a try.
-- "I'm not a religious man, but if you're up there, save me Superman..."
Maybe this is a good way to promote P2P broadcasting?
PeerCast is an Open Source (not sure about the license but the sourcecode is available using Subversion) P2P broadcasting system which works great! I've not tried broadcasting/viewing videostreams, just listened to radiostations, but it has support for MP3, OGG Vorbis, Theora, WMA, WMV and NSV streams.
Very easy to install and use, it's just a single executable!
You just point it to a streaming source (for example your own IceCast server, a WMV stream which you have access to or your favourite internet radiostation) and the stream is available on the PeerCast network for everybody to listen to or watch, just pointing your favourite player to a http://localhost-URL.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
NBC is airing full coverage every Olympic game somewhere here in the USA. Every hour during the day right now, there is coverage on at least one of the NBC-Universal networks which include NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, USA and Telemundo. Also, in areas where digital TV service is fully functional, NBC is providing a 24/7 HD feed, but that is only available to you if you have a digital TV decoder.
You don't need to pay NBC to get the digital service, but you do need to provide the hardware to get access to it, and you have to hope that your local station has done the same. DirecTV is also offering the digital feed on their service, but you must have an HD decoder for DirecTV and your local NBC station or stations must have signed off.
Censorship is the intentional destruction of information in order to kill off a taboo topic. That's not what's going on here, NBC is simply letting its business need to sell ad content affect in what ways they're distributing coverage. And part of that means that no Internet coverage from other nation's rightsholders can be tolerated.
If you're not NBC but ESPN, you must comply with NBC's rules and limits on the usage of the TV coverage to put highlights on SportsCenter. In fact, even if you're the sports reporter on an NBC affiliate station, you have to agree to those rules or not use them.
Sports highlights are not free. There are strings attached to their usage usually dictated by the league who wants the right mix of promotion of their sport while also not giving away the store when it comes to their TV rights money.
LOL........I didn't even know the olympics had started, until I read something about it on the web. I quit watching ABC,CBS,NBC,CNN,PBS years ago.
I don't see how this is different from other major arenas. For example, Ohio Stadium (home of the Buckeyes) has sponsored ads throughout (including on the scoreboard), no food or drink is allowed in, nor is video/audio/photographic equipment. Also, airplane banners (there are a few of the on gamedays) must stay a certain distance away from the stadium. There are no billboards nearby (though OSU owns all of the land around the stadium).
I do admit the "no logo clothing" regulation is a bit weird.
It's not as difficult as described in the article: Since I couldn't see the TV broadcast of the opening ceremony live, I recorded it and my recorder missed the ending. So I went to everybody's favorite bittorrent source (you know which one) and downloaded the whole ceremony in a few hours. According to the stats, some 1000 people did the same thus far. Difficult? No way!
when more conservative countries in the middle east and NK, China were/are censoring what their people are allowed to see... saying it violates the rights of 'free people'.
I think it's time for people to stop urinating on the constitution. Sadly, it's not just those who hate America. It's the very politicians who accuse everyone of hating america.
200 years later America is still only for upper class white males between the ages of 18-35 gainfully employed with an automobile, and a dwelling of at least 2 bedrooms for rent (in a neighborhoood deemed 'middle class' or better) or a dwelling of at least 2 bedrooms which they own or pay a morgage no more than 20 years on.
I'm sure there's more to add to the above, but it's just to depressing.
and I dont think you know what 'censorship' means.
the best way to make NBC understand that they their coverage style isn't appreciated is to tell them:
nbcolympicsfeedback@nbcuni.com
They've got the monopoly so they will get the ratings regardless so the message to send them is that you'd love to watch more but find the overemphasis of successful americans and inane chatter of Costas and Couric to much to take.
I am already reading about the first people who were stupid enough to type in their visa card numbers on that NBCOlympics website and had their accounts cleaned out. I am sure we'll hear of many more cases in the coming days...
Please don't write "& etc." You see, the ampersand is actually a ligature of "et" (the common Latin word for "and"). "Etc." is an abbreviation for "et cetera," which is Latin for "and such" (basically). Instead, you could write &c or &ca, which are older ligatures for "etc." (I prefer &c myself).
If you are a terrorist or something, it is quite easy to send covert messages back and forth.
What if you are just somebody in communist China and just want to know what's really going on in the world? I think internet censorship is darn hard to defeat. The worse problem is that if you do find a way to defeat it, it's probably easy to find you.
Good old (low tech) short wave radio probably still has the advantage here. (Yes, I realize that you can find a radio by sniffing its IF.)
The short answer is probably that internet censorship can not be beaten by the majority of people if the authorities care enough about it.
The fact that the RIAA hasn't been able to snuff out file sharing proves that it isn't easy but they can't send a squad of guys with guns over to your house at 3 AM. If I lived in China I sure wouldn't try to get forbidden content over the internet.
Wow. Carter's boycott must have worked all too well, erasing the entire 1980 summer games from memory.
The 1980 summer games (the real olympics) were in moscow.
The 1980 winter games (a smaller, ancillary companion) were held n Lake Placid, New York.
I want to correct one thing. In these articles, it is always stated that the Olympics are being censored for US citizens. Nothing is further from the truth!
In Belgium, the national station has only the rights to broadcast 6 hours live per day, because they could not pay more. Furthermore, they don't have the rights to put video reports about the Olympics on their news and sports site, not even for Belgian citizens.
The NBC has a government supported monopoly over Olympic Broadcast in the US. They face no competition at this point because they won a bidding war, or someone got a little cashola. There are other venues that are providing superior online Olympic Coverage. As a US citizen (not saying only US citizens can do this), I am used to shopping for the best product in a free market enconomy (although patent law is slowly erroding the variety of that market.) I have no choice in this matter.
Why do I say government supported monopoly? I am sure there is some obscure law somewhere that makes it illegal, although it is a little incovenient and impratcical, to tap into the British only BBC streams. They will not be using government funds, just government muscle.
What can you do about this? Well, if you live in the US, just boycott the NBC broadcasts completely. If a product is bad, do not use it. Everybody in the US complains about problems and issues and erroding rights, but no one does anything about it. If NBCs ratings are bad, then they get a clear message that something is wrong.
Of course, if they see their online ratings are bad, they will just paint it as no one wanting to see online coverage, as opposed to no one wanting to watch their spotty, incomplete, pleebian coverage. Peel back the paint.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
What gets me madder than a rabid fundamentalist at a philosophy conference is the sheer hypocrisy of it all. We're talking about countries that can't afford toilet paper in their embassies sending out athletes to this event--and let's not even start wondering how Greece, itself a troubled country, is going to pay for this extravaganza. All this sacrifice, all this classic athletic devotion, and for what? One of America's most powerful television broadcast corporations (with ties to Microsoft, no less) can't find it in their generous hearts to air more than 8 minutes of the games or opening ceremonies without a "We'll be right back?"
Man, I wish we had a BBC.
They have to pander to the gov't more than other channels as ultimately the gov controls the tax fee we brits have to pay.
I've been trying ot watch the BBC feed through a UK proxy ...
s .stm_ 4x3_nb.asx
...
One of the feeds appears to be:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sol/ukfs_sport/hi/nb/f
(which I got from clicking their top feed, then selecting Windows Media over Real because I figured mplayer would like it better).
Nothing shows up, and I get a 404 trying to access that file directly. Any brits have any ideas? Is it my web browser (Firefox 0.9.1) doing funny things with redirections? Does anybody have a better/real link?
I don't even own a TV, and I don't have a Visa credit card anyway so NBC appears to be not a choice according to how I read the article. Even if it were, I would like to watch the superior feeds
I can get 5000 different streaming pr0n videos but not a simple live feed of the freakin Olympics?!
I tried, and was able to, yes, proxy in and fool the BBC to think my HTTP traffic was from the UK -- BUT, fooling Real Player has been a bit harder. Since Real Player uses different ports, and even a different protocol (they are forcing the use of RTSP) then it would really be impossible w/out using something like SOCKSv5. I would have to socksify the whole wintcpip stack -- and, bascially, it's just to big a pain in the ass -- I'll watch on NBC.
But I tried -- and it could be done, with a few hours time, that it just wasn't in the end worth to me. The BBC is using IP only -- and NBC using a credit card may in fact be more savvy, if less desirable.
Stop seeing the world in black and white. It isn't a question of who's anti-American and who isn't. It's about the issues and you are not allowing for a fair discussion if all you care about is letting others know that you are blindly patriotic.
I'm not sure, but I think I have better things to do than watch the "thrilling" and "compelling" bout of the Chilean and US table tennis champions as they wage a war of running around after a little white plastic ball inside perhaps the largest and emptiest table tennis venue I've ever seen.
Although, the spaceage looking table tennis table with the under-table lighting effects might be worth it...no...it's not.
No...I'm pretty sure I can get better use out of that Java-ridden porn website where the movies are free, the sound sucks, and, when the Java applet loads the movie, I get pop-up ads. WOOHOO!
IronChefMorimoto
P.S. - Also pretty sure I don't want to waste my Internet connection watching our "best hope" Olypmic mens gymnist do one flip and fall on his head. Yeah -- don't want my connection making me sad about losing gold. [Sniffle.] Just can't [Sniffle, again.] deal with it [Sniffle, snob -- hey -- free Java porn!].
I'm not talking about the kind where the (and by far) biggest producers and consummers of porn in the world suddenly feel pure when seeing a metal covered tit during the superbowl and take "measures" so that it doesn't happen again.
I'm talking about the one where only US athlete will be shown, when they win or could and before the dope test, so as to again falsely give the impression to the american population that they are the best. Hell on forums troughout the net most americans will tell you they've been the most cheered country during the countries announcement when, actually, they were boo'ed. This is not a coincidence, some stuff is happening before it gets on their TV. How many time in the past did world athlete did exceptionnal stuf and it wasn't even covered in american medias, all that was covered is their guy loosing, they just can't stand not being the center of attention. The country which is the least aware of the world is the one that judge it the most, how sad, one wonders why?
I find these two paragraphs, each exerpted from the Wired article, both insightful and ignorant, respectively:
"But does the Internet community really care enough about the Olympics to set up an alternative network for live footage? "I would guess that there is a small percentage of Olympics viewers out there who would want the information as fast as possible and would try to do this,'' said Wessels. "But the majority of people are not so obsessed that they are going to try these techniques just to get the info. They will be satisfied watching the news later that day."
Comment by Anon boy: This is the most intelligent commentary yet - there simply is not enough demand for the Olympics to want to watch it online and in real time. There may be a few events that a niche market may care to watch, especially major sporting events that Americans identify with such as Tennis, Basketball and Baseball, but how many Americans want to watch "curling" (Actually, I like curling because I'm fascinated by it!! lol!), pole-vaulting, the long jump or jousting? I am one of the people who is quite satisfied with watching the results and highlights of the Olympics either on TV or footage on the Internet.
Here's the Ignorant comment:
"I think they will probably turn on the television, which is what NBC really wants," added Sassaman. "The amount of hassle worrying about whether they are keeping credit card information safe and whether they are charging you would be more distraction than using this imaginary open proxy."
Anon boy takes issue: imaginary open proxy? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH (and you can multiply the hahahahahhahahahahha by at least a margin of 100). Imaginary. That's good. I'm sure Sassaman was once a good salesman or should be hired as one since he tends to ignore the relaty of open proxies and misconfigurations.
While I guess I can understand NBC's position: they've paid enormously for this, so they should be able to try and make some of the money back. There's not very many people who would be up at 4 in the morning to watch a swim meet, but there's a bunch who'll watch the same thing in the evening. Trying to sell ads for $1 million per second at 04:00 would be a disaster.
What really annoys me, though, is being forced to listen to such blatantly political commentary. What am I talking about, you ask? During the opening ceremony, those morons doing the commentary for NBC made every attempt to point out the places where Islamic groups were "causing" strife. They couldn't seem to resist talking about the problems in the Sudan caused by the Muslims. They also made every effort to talk up how much the US has helped our little brown brothers we liberated in Afghanistan and Iraq, and had the gall to complain about the torture used by the Iraqi training program! I guess torture is OK in the name of national defense but not in the name of national pride.
For all the high-falootin' ideals that the Olympics supposedly stand for, it makes me want to puke every time I hear the American media make some snide comment so they can use the forum to propegate a political agenda.
funny...i coulda sworn it was the 1984 games that were in the IS (LA, actually), DUMBASS!!!
Mod parent up; the facism link is NOT a troll. Try reading some history.
He didn't like the way he was being reared.
I've found both Australia's ABC and BBC news streams have been put on hold during the Olympics. Is there anything left to bounce through a proxy?
He's right.
NOS, here in Holland is sending its feed to one provider only, KPN, and using their infrastructure as a 'giant lan'. (Actually it's a mbone setup on the fake 'A' range like 227.0.0.0/8.) KPN does not offer great bandwidth, so it may require a few ADSL lines coming into a real provider to proxy it fully.
.ram (RealAudio) format if they want to sell more subscriptions. ADPCM (.wmf) works and is not patentable and the MPEG formats, particularly 4, are far better. BBC is known for innovation, so when they get MPEG4 and .ogg audio in a streaming container like .avi they have lots of new customers.
Apart from a stunt like the above, (which is probably going to cost KPN its Internet business) it is technically difficult to limit a true netcast. I was rather surprised how easy it was to get on the BBC netcast without paying. This is only for hack sake. The price BBC charges is fair and I intend to subscribe. They should completely ditch the
The Olympics stopped being about amateur atheletics a long time ago. Now it's just about money. The committees that pick the locations take bribes, the atheletes use steriods, blood transfusions and any other method to get ahead, and it's all done in pursuit of more money for the broadcast rights. What passes for the Olympics now doesn't deserve the name.
If you want to have a proper Olympics you would have to prohibit endorsement contracts, broadcast the games for free all over the world, etc. It will never happen. The games have gotten so disgustingly commercial that I certainly won't be watching them this time around.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
The ideal of amateur competition in the glorious field of sport in the Olympics has been pissed on by a corrupt IOC, rotted by drug scandals, and tainted by athletes competing for nations other than their own for money--not to mention the corporate millions and the politics. I'll be glad when this is over so I can quit hearing about it.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Capitalism works best when many suppliers exist. The many suppliers compete based on price and features. This "licensing" creates an artificial monopoly, and creates barriers preventing other companies from offering similar products.
In a free market, any network that wanted (after paying a fee) could show the Olympics. The networks would be competing for viewership, and thus would have to pay attention to what people wanted to see.
I'm not going to say it's censorship, because censorship is done by governments. Maybe we need a new word for "censorship by corporation". How about we call it IPR.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/1 8656.htm
August 14, 2004 -- THE Greek organizers of this summer's Olympics, which began in Athens yesterday, claim that more women athletes are competing than ever before. Women are also playing a high-profile role in making the whole enterprise, the biggest of its kind in Greek history, run as smoothly as possible. Seen from the Muslim world, however, the Athens game will look like a male-dominated spectacle in which women play an incidental part.
According to officials in Athens, the number of Muslim women participating in this year's game is the lowest since 1960. Several Muslim countries have sent no women athletes at all; others, such as Iran, are taking part with only one, in full hijab. And state-owned TV networks in many Muslim countries, including Iran and Egypt, have received instructions to limit coverage of events featuring women athletes at Athens to a minimum.
A circular from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture in Tehran asks TV editors to make sure that women's games are not televised live: "Images of women engaged in contests [sic] must be carefully vetted," says the letter, leaked in Tehran. "Editors must take care to prevent viewers from being confronted [sic] with uncovered parts of the female anatomy in contests."
Women athletes in Athens are unlikely to wear the Islamic hijab or full-length manteaux that cover their legs to the ankle and their arms to the wrist. The ministry's order thus could mean a blanket ban on images of female athletics.
Fear of Muslim viewers seeing bare female legs and arms on television is also shared by theologians in several Arab states. Sheik Yussuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian theologian based in Qatar, claims that female sport is exploited as a means of undermining "divine morality."
Ayatollah Emami Kashani, one of Iran's ruling mullahs, goes further. In a recent sermon, he claimed that allowing women to compete in the Olympics was a "sign of voyeurism" on the part of the male organizers.
"The question how much of a woman's body could be seen in public is one of the two or three most important issues that have dominated theological debate in Islam for decades," says Mohsen Sahabi, a Muslim historian. "More time and energy is devoted to this issue than to economic development or scientific research. "
Click to learn more...
Islamist theologians are divided on how much of a woman's body can be exposed in public. The most radical, the Sitris, insist that women should be entirely covered from head to toe, including their faces and fingers. The less radical Hanbalis say a woman should be covered all over, but recommend a mask with apertures for the eyes and the mouth. (A version of this, known as the burqa, was imposed on Afghan women by the Taliban).
The Khomeinist version of the hijab, invented in the 1970s and now popular in many countries, including the United States, covers a woman's entire body but allows her face and hands to be exposed. Hijab theoreticians agree on one claim: a woman's hair emanates dangerous rays that could drive men wild with sexual lust and thus undermine social peace.
But the problem of women athletes goes deeper. Some theologians claim that any form of sporting activity by women produces "sinful consequences." In 2000, for example, the Khomeinist authorities in Tehran announced a ban on women riding bicycles or motorcycles. The rationale? Riding bicycles or motorcycles would activate a woman's thighs and legs, thus arousing "uncontrollable lustful drives" in her. And men watching women on their bikes in the streets could be "led towards dangerous urges."
The problems don't end there. According to some theologians, a woman should not be allowed to venture out of her home without a "raqib" or male guardian. But that guardian must be either her husband or her father, brother, grandfather, uncle or son.
One interesting consequence of the poor ticket sales is the NBC response. In the prime time broadcast, they felt compelled to justify the empty seats in the gymnastics arena. Earlier in the day, during the US Women's soccer game, I'm pretty sure that they used a sports equivalent of a laugh track. For a few minutes during each half, the crowd noise suddenly doubled or tripled in volume and intensity suddenly, while the small number of people watching live seemed bored.
This is restriction, NOT censorship. Censorship is something a government does.
If you have a firewall at your business or home, are you "censoring" info or merely restricting it..?
AFAIC, NBC paid a lot of money for exclusive rights. Whether that was wise or not is a separate discussion, but they have the right to get the most value out of their investment.
Hee, hee! Someone got under YOUR skin something fierce. Good on 'em.
Is geolocation content censorship impossible?
The real question is: Is unified moral restraint possible when enforcement isn't?
Or, to put it another way: Should human action and decision be based on principles, or on the expected action of the lowest common denominator?
If someone can bring back sports (amateur) without the garbage, I would love to see it and be part of it again. I would not even know how to make it happen.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
(The reason why there are free access points in Germany? Well, the -in some parts insane- regulations on German telecoms guarantee a nice amount of interconnection fees for the providers of these lines.)
The only events that need to be online are the less popular ones that don't get airtime; other than that, I don't care. First of all, I hardly consider it censorship. You can still watch the Olympics on NBC. If you don't have NBC, you don't have a tv! So no arguement there. Secondly, it's not just NBC and corporate America that will lose out. Small business that are depending on local commercials will lose out, too. And thirdly, what's the big deal anyway? Why am I gonna watch coverage on a 15" monitor, when I can watch it on a 60" tv that'll be better quality?
That's my 10 cents.
Ardente veritate incendite tenebras mundi
because censorship is done by governments
Actually, that's an incredibly narrow view point to hold (and a dangerous one, IMHO). Censorship can be performed by any entity which has control over lines of communication. This could be the government, or it could be a giant media conglomerate. After all, what happens when the giant media conglomerate is in cahoots with the government and chooses to "select" only content that's favourable to the incumbants? I'd call that censorship...
OTOH, what's happening with the Olympics is most definitely *not* censorship, and the submitter should be severely chastised for invoking that word in this situation, as it simply serves to further confuse people regarding what does and doesn't qualify as censorship (an incredibly important issue in this day and age).
In all fairness, not all Americans are so willfully ignorant. It's just that those who are, tend to be especially loud.
People still watch the olympics?
It bores me out of my mind. OOooo look he can run fast...
Then I came up with a great idea. Make the Olympics old Skool, like the real greeks used to. Where people were brutal and we could have sports like "LIve-Angry-Lion Tossing" and get rid of "sports" (using the term lightly) like ice skating.
Oh yeah and get rid of ALL safety equipment. Let's see some pain.
"If I were bound by all laws everywhere I'm sure I would have committed a capital crime somewhere."
Prohibition never works.
I watched a lot of the coverage in Europe, and it was absolute crap.* Looked like stuff indymedia would've done.
* The BBC being exempt from this, as it actually had some decent coverage.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
In your "information wants to be free" world, the word "censorship" might be redefined to mean "any restrictions on passing on information", but out here in the real world, that's not what it means. Censorship is preventing you from saying something because of its content. If you're thrown in jail for criticizing President Bush, that's censorshp. That is not what's happening here.
Here the Olympic Committee is saying that, in the US, only NBC, who paid them a lot of money, is allowed to show their competition. As the Olympic Committee is in charge of the competition, they're allowed to say that. Similarly, if I was holding a competition in my garage, I could set restrictions on who can televise it, and I would not be "censoring" people by doing so.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
"Yet, for some reason, that is okay... however, what these Islamic countries are doing is only an extrapolation of the beliefs of people in the Western world (rather than just breasts, they feel the entire female body is enticing to males, and thus men need to be protected from it)."
I think you have things out of order. Islam's covering of women predated the west by centuries. The idea that women are "enticing" is an old one, and for the US, much like other ideas, came from other contries.
".but now I do not even notice it. I spent 16 years swimming (nationals and all), playing water polo, soccer and running. "
With that kind of investment (and for some more). Can one really be called an "amateur"?
I don't know about Israel but I was watching the opening coverage (in Canada) and while our commentators were worried about a "cool" US reception, the said that there was more applause than most other teams were getting for the US team. I don't remember them commenting anything about Israel but for Iran there was almost a deafening silence. (Iraq on the other hand received a nice ovation).
The Olympics are nothing more than a product now to be "sold." At least that is how they are presented to us now. I don't like the product, so I don't watch them at all. That way I don't have to be slammed with hours of ads for the official fast food joint, the official soft drink, the official shoe, and official SUV of the Olympic Team.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
If you're fortunate enough to live in the Pacific Northwest chances are your local cable company carries a CBC affiliate from Vancouver, Canada. The CBC olympic coverage is MUCH better than on NBC: they actually show atheletes from other countries, and some of the lesser known sports.
use w3cache.icm.edu.pl
Gee, I wonder why.
Way to completely misuse the word "censorship" there. It's gotten to the point that even people who use the word correctly are being shouted down as crazy conspiracy theorists, and shit like this is directly responsible. Thanks, guys.
It's so good to see the Olympic Spirit alive and well. Now people from every country can enjoy the experience of viewing the same "Access Denied" screen at the same time.
...to get a first-hand look at those damaged roof tiles, asshat.
"...because NBC was kind enough to waste 15 minutes with stupid...coverage of Charley, which...severely damaged some tiles on a roof"
Why don't you journey down to Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte, Arcadia, or any of the other places that got the living shit kicked out of them. People got seriously dead down here, and we're talking about a whole lot more than some damaged roof tiles. You can help fill some body bags.
I hope you get to experience a full-on hurricane, on the coast, on a moonless night. You won't be able to scream loud enough to be heard over the wind.
Some of us really could care less about the Olympics, or feetball, or basketball, or trivial crap like that --- we've got storm damage to repair.
Pissed off and still asleep,Mal the Elder
A better word would be 'blocking'.
If it was censorship, it would be banned because of its content. As it is it is simply geographical blocking.
Are they correct? Is geolocation content censorship impossible?"
Yes, they are.
The real question to me is: why would anybody want to watch the games anyway? They have become a celebration of commercialism, advertising, manipulation, politics, and nationalism. They let athletes destroy their bodies and rebuild them with medicine, yet they have hangups about drugs and genetic enhancements. The Olympics are a joke--and not a very funny one.
PeerCast is an Open Source (not sure about the license but the sourcecode is available using Subversion) P2P broadcasting system which works great!
Mr. Stallman would approve: not only does it run on GNU/Linux, but it's under the GNU General Public License.
You are forgetting the advantage of the US setup - if you don't like the Olympics you don't have to pay for them. The BBC is providing me with the olympics whether I want it or not.
I'd much rather it spent the money on say the cricket 8)
YHBT, HTH, HAND.
However, I think the most prudent thing for you to do would be re-read the post, and engage both your thinking and humor abilities (if either exist).
It's only because US Companies like NBC pay 3/4 of a billion dollars that the IOC has the resources to hold these games in a secure fashion.
If it were contemplated that NBC would not be able to turn a profit due to Internet coverage, the IOC would not be getting $750 million, and the games would be pathetic and weak. Who the hell do you think paid for that opening ceremony and all the olympic village and beautiful venues? A large part of it was NBC's licensing fees.
I think the whole world should thank NBC for investying in the games and making them possible. This one-dimensional YRO perspective on /. is so myopic.
Capitalism in action people.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Apologies for the subject. I do actually have a TV, but I get two broadcast channels, neither of them NBC. The lack of internet coverage really pisses me off. If someone had a site with decent coverage, I'd be there.
--(())
The word "here" clearly referred to "the prohibition on internet broadcast of olympic events in the United States".
I don't see what relevance your link has to that.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
You're basically saying that all copyright law is by definition censorship, which is not the usual meaning of the term "censorship".
Some examples:
Censorship: Prohibiting your publication of a book you wrote because it criticizes the government.
Not censorship: Prohibiting your publication of a book I wrote because, well, I'm the one that wrote it.
Censorship: Prohibiting you from distributing copies of a CD you recorded because it's "offensive".
Not censorship: Prohibiting you from distributing copies of a CD someone else recorded because it's copyrighted.
The sorts of restrictions that come under the term "censorship" are not all restrictions on content distribution, but particular ones. I can provide some more examples if you're still confused.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Sounds like a perception problem to me. You've got to be overly sensitive and expecting things from other people that you really shouldn't. I meet plenty of canucks here in Michigan and it's true that a lot of them disagree with much of the current economic and political trends... but they're hardly anti-American for having differing opinions. It's not like they're planting bombs in our embassies.
It's like people expect them to be flag-waving patriots for the US, despite the fact that they aren't even citizens. I don't know how most just shrug that off. I'd be livid if, say, some brit gave me shit for not supporting the monarchy.
Perhaps the luke warm reception for Iran may have been related to one of their competitors withdrawing from an event after being drawn to compete against an Isreali? Something to do with Iran not recognise Isreal as a state... or something like that. Guess its not the first time something like that has happened. I'd like to see the 2016 Olympics in either Tel Aviv or Riyadh. That would make for an interesting games.
one can argue for the broadcasters' right to do this sort of thing, maximising shareholder value etc, and these arguments are valid.
However, if they insist on trying to separate markets by time purely to increase profit, then people are going to route around this, and this is only to be expected.
Films come out in the cinema much later in Europe than they do in the UK, purely because it is expensive to make celluloid copies, and so the UK gets copies that have ceased circulating in the US. Thus I am not squeamish about downloading a film off the 'net - if I am merely a second-class consumer, then fuck you right back pal, I'll help myself, until you sort your shit out.
Similar case, for different reasons, with the local blackouts of sports coverage in the USA. Of course people will try to get around it.
The word "consumer" has come to have a ring of contempt about it in many circles, but companies should think harder about what the word means.
I am a Consumer. Like it or not, I consume.
Your job is to try to shake me down in the process. If you don't manage to do that, better try harder next time.
I think the American News Media is very heavily censored. Not deliberately, but the effect is the same.
Having just returned to the UK from a 2 week vacation in California, I have to say I am (again) stunned by the quality of the American news media in general. It seemed to be one third Iraq, one third Iran and one third domestic. The domestic coverage was split between some trail thats happening at the moment, some kind of political scandal or other, and political stuff that was duller than dishwater.
Getting back home to the BBC is like seeing the world in color again!
I've boycotted NBC,ABC, and CBS for years! You mean to tell me they're still around?!? Dammit!
Xutopia has it right. When your beliefs aren't build on solid ground, you tend to see anti-[insert country/religion/race/sexuality] sentiment everywhere. During the times of the great Soviet Russia, a Finnish car magazine reviewed a Russian made car, Lada. The magazine said that the car is a piece of junk. For that, Russian officials publicly blamed the magazine and the Finnish government for criticizing U.S.S.R, communism, Russian way of life, etc. All your opinions are belong to Soviet Russia...
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Boycotts are feasible.
But they only work with a large enough group of people. Letters can be thrown away, but sackloads of letters and declining sales get the point across.
Politicians will always be corrupt (since they're at least corruptible). Companies aim to make money.
They can only get away with it when the people just don't care.
On a side note, the technology is impractical - buffering doesn't matter - unless the stream is multicasted, a large enough group will either bring down the server/s, or impose a huge bill for bandwidth.
-- "I'm not a religious man, but if you're up there, save me Superman..."
I'm making a big assumption here... But I think Slashdotters are more pissed off about being shut off from information than missing the games themselves.
Anti-Americanism is the instinctive belief that nothing the US (or its citizens) can do no right. American jingoism is the instinctive belief that the US (or its citizens) can do no wrong. They're really the same thing; we see far too much of both these days; and they of course feed each other.
Just more proof that Enlightenment democracy is hard.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
If the Onion hadn't gone premium for its archives, I'd be linking that grand old masterpiece, "Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television."
Of course, if a woman marries a male football player and then does something newsworthy like has a haircut or visits a shop, that gets the front pages.
Inspector: May I ask why you don't have a TV licence?
Him: (brief pause, then in a puzzled voice) Because we don't have a TV.
(wait for it...) tinkle tinkle WHOOMP!
Funny how much glass there is lying around council estates these days...
its about damn time we show these assholes who actually owns the olympics (think the people, not the corps), there are 1,000,000 of us to every 1 of them, do they really think they can win? We should broadcast every second of every event.
So far, all I've been able to use bittorrent for is iso downloads (and of course, uploads). Last time I searched for bt sites (more than 6 months ago, probably when the second knoppix release went public), I came up empty, but I'm guessing I wasn't using the right search terms.
hint?
Sheesh. All the anti-American/corporate/globalization whining from people who obviously didn't RTFA doesn't surprise me.
I've been to two Olympics ('84 and '96). They rock. People from all over the world get together and party peacefully. It's great to watch the contingents of fans from the various countries cheering their athletes on - without the riots of soccer. All you railing against the Olympics are just a bunch of bitter whiners.
But not one single proxy server so I can watch the BBC broadband content. No addresses of other national sites where I can watch content from other countries. No URLs for good photo sites with pictures from folks who are there. Or amateur video from the streets. Nothing. Just a bunch of bitter naysayers.
Bah.
- Jasen.
Get a grip fuzzboy. That's no censorship!
Its not being censored: You didn't PAY to watch it! Nobody else paid for you.
So you don't have a right to watch it.
(Don't like it? Fight Copyright law)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I may be mistaken, but comments like that certainly don't help abolish anti-Americanism.
"Send more comedians down..."
Why send them, if you don't give a shit what Canadians have to say? You've already proven that you do care just by posting.
Love,
You're a fuckhead.
Censorship by area is easy... Just use some other language and only censor incredibly boring shows. Bang, no one can stand to watch.
Not a sentence!
Does anybody think footage from an event such as the Olympics should be public domain?
Or at least let seperate TV/webcast crews set up or somthing.
This is a bad start of the 21st centuary.
The networks don't seem to learn very fast. It wasn't very long ago this new idea called a PVR came out that virtually eliminates commercials. How long is it going to take them to figure out unless they give their customers what they want, the customers will go elsewhere. Seems to me that NBC should be a little more innovative with their broadcast methods.
After playing around for a while I have figured a way to get the "UK only" streams from within the USA. While its still not perfect, its better than nothing.
Surely if someone is anti-American they must necessarily be anti-Canadian (and anti-Brazilian as well), since both Canada and Brazil are part of America. Or was he just using the blinkered, parochial view that the United States were sole owners of the entire continent, and if so where did he think Canada was?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Just like many other 'net related technologies (let's include things like mp3 and dvd for argument sake), it's nearly impossible to make this 100% secure. It is, however, possible to make it a bit harder for the 'normal' people.
But with technologies like VPN, it's very simple to make it almost impossible to trace the geological location of people on the web.
Hardly. I think it's more of a short-hand for United States of American. Just shorten to American, as I do not know of any other country which includes America in their name.
Of course there is USAsian, but that is more recent.
I am John Hurt.
Only sabre fencing is being shown on US TV, to the exclusion of foil and epee.
The reason for this is that the strongest US medal contenders in fencing are sabre fencers.
This is great for people who want to paint their face with the stars and stripes and chant USA USA, but not very good for fencers (who, I think, this is sort of geared toward.)
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
No, they're not. They aren't being prevented due to the content of the broadcast or their own political views. They were outbid. You might not like it but it isn't repression. It isn't repression when you aren't allowed to do whatever you want -- no matter how loudly scream the idiots who want to speed at 100 mph on city streets.
If you don't like the fact that NBC could buy an exclusive license, hey, OK. I'm hip with that. But it isn't "censorship".
Language matters. Words mean something. It's important to use the right ones.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Yeah, and after turning on the HD coverage every so often, all I've seen so far is either (a) the opening ceremony (b) some stupid Sony commerical, or (c) generic greek scenery played over and over and over and over and over again. I haven't seen one event on HD yet (although I've been busy this afternoon). I'm really disappointed in the HD coverage.
In Israel, Wagner is still extremely controversial.
In Israel, -not- surgically mutilating the penises of otherwise healthy newborn babies is still extremely controversial.
You missed my point.
http://www.imuna.org/manual/app_a.html#C defines censorship as "broadly, any government restrictions on speech or writing; more precisely, government restrictions on forms of expression before they are disseminated".
Regardless of how "accurate" this definition may seem to you, a lot of people think of censorship in this way. The parent to my post was thinking this way. It is precisely because this kind of thinking is dangerous that I (half-sarcastically) suggested we develop a new word for "censorship by corporation" (which I jokingly suggested naming "Intellectual Property Rights").
Also, in your post the example you list for corporate censorship was one restricting political speech. I'm sure you're already thinking this, but since the parent to my original post wasn't clear about this, I'm going to say it anyway. Censorship is not limited to political speech. Any form of speech may be subjected to censorship. Galileo faced censorship by the Church.
Is what is happening with the Olympics censorship? Yes and no.
Yes because the policies involve prohibit alternative viewpoints from being expressed. I'm sure many stations and commentators have insights they would like to express during the competitions, but due to the exclusive contract, they are not able to.
No because the producer's or artist's representative (the IOC) decided on a limited distribution via and exclusive contract (making it self-censorship).
Myself, I happen to believe that all exclusive contracts are and forever shall be an anathema to free market capitalism. And that was the point of my post. I don't care much to argue definitions, so I generally use the definitions of those I am responding to.
Gosh. American movies made by Americans for an American audience tend to concern American things or emphasize American involvement in events. This is of course vastly different from movies made in, say, India. Half of what was depicted in Braveheart never occurred either. Movies about history lie utterly, shamelessly, and thoroughly. U-571 was made-up historical garbage. Cleopatra was made-up historical garbage. Amistad was made-up historical garbage. Filmmakers lie. That's life.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
I'm sitting up here in Ontario, watching the Olympics on CBC, and it's the same thing. In the US television concentrates on the American team; in Canada television concentrates on the Canadian team. I watched the Sydney games in Scotland, and they concentrated on the British athletes. Why should that be so strange?
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
I wasn't even aware of that, sitting here in California watching NBC.
So I'm gonna guess you're not getting the same 24/7 Michael Phelps marketing machine that we're seeing. How fortunate for you.
If I tell you Phelps doesn't get gold in his second swim match, is that a spoiler?
Where is the line? Obviously fiction (books/movies) have "spoilers", but can current events/news have spoilers just because they are in a different time zone?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
It isn't censorship when doen by media conglomerates because you can still legally say your alternative point-of-view.
I think its more dangerous to say that those who have the means to reach large audiences should be forced to provide certain views.
I'm quite irritated at the lack of being able to watch some of these events live. I tuned in earlier and caught the rowing events. Quite an exciting race.
But more to the point. I like watching the olypics for the sport of it. Sports that at least in america we don't get to see a lot of. So watching other countries is fun to me. What really really irritates me, is the lack of staying on one event. This coverage really blows compared to other years that I remember. Trying to watch NBC's coverage is confusing at best. Start to get into the flow of one event, and all of the sudden Bob Costas comes in to blab about what you JUST SAW, then takes off to volleyball (only to show half of it) then come back to gymnastics, then swimming, then gymnastics.. etc. it's sickening. If they are going to give us taped feeds that we have no choice of watching, they could at least keep them fluid.
(BTW I don't have cable, so I may just be bent out of shape for being broke and not getting any of the xNBC's)
-----
My two cents... prolly not even worth that.
And what about team handball, badminton or tae kwon do?!?
Half the point of the Olympics is to enrich yourself learning about other countries and their sports.
They must have shown 10 hrs of beach volleyball so far. They've got great bodies, but if I wanted to see beach volleyball, I'd go to the beach.
Show me something special, it's the damn Olympics!
And for all their talk of multi-station coverage, while there were live sports going on in Athens, MSNBC was showing repeats of Hardball and USA had a Monk marathon. WTF!!!
> Personally I'm kinda pissed that Hitler ruined a perfectly good moustache ...
well I always thought that Ron Mael (sp?), Sparks keyboard player, did a decent job of rehabilitating it...
(this is where I find out that Ron was responsible for destroying half the world in the early 80s and I never noticed...)
"we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
The problem with the Olympics is that they have been hijacked by local politicians and corrupt IOC officials, the former use the Olympics as an excuse to highlight infrastructural improvements that should have been done anyway. The later, well, we know abut Salt Lake City scandals, still now the BBC unmasked a Bulgarian IOC member that is alleged was willing to sell his vote to the higgest bidder for the 2012 selection of the host city.
Most civilized countries have an Olympic stadium (for goodness sake, my country, Mexico, must have at least 5 or 6 with enough capacity , I am thinking 40000+), venues for Gymnastics, indoor sports and can learn (in case they don't know how!) how to organize street events like cycling, marthons or thriathlons. Also most ountries will have an Olympic sized swimming pool (note that only one pool is used) that could be comfortably used for diving and waterpolo.
With todays electronics miniaturization you can set up a media centre pretty much in any big convention centre in any place in the world.
So again, why do we need 6 billion US$ for this?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And host the games at a national level, not by a city only.
And why not host the games worldwide? That way shouldering the cost would be much easier.
The problem with the IOC is that they are lazy bastards leeching the system for all what is is worth, they are killing the spirit of the Olympcis for the sake of milking as much money as possible from their little money earner.
I think it is time that people wake up and realize that a place in which you can't drink or eat whatever you please is a place you should not support with your custom (which seems to be happening in Athens at least on thie intiial stages in several sports).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Nope, Not a bit.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I mentioned the BBC's five streaming video channels (UK broadband customers only, but if you qualify see www.bbc.co.uk/olympics and follow the links for live video) in last Friday's net.wars, and have since had email from people around the world including Australia and Scandinavia to the effect that because the BBC bought the "Net rights" other broadcasters such as the ABC and various ones in Europe have turned off their Internet streams for the duration of the Games because they can't guarantee that some Olympic coverage won't be included in current affairs programs. wg
German state-controlled television "ARD" & "ZDF" which are also like the BBC with compulsory tv-fees spent USD 1.6 BILLION (!!!). If it's available on their servers ARD or ZDF be my guest, after all I had to pay for this shit and I don't even watch.
This thread is useless without pics.
It's OK. Canadians are letting the government tax them into oblivion anyway. Give 'em 10 more years, they won't be around any more.
Whenever you read this sig someone's refrigerator light turns on.
You're not cool, you're a fucking moron. Shut the fuck up and die.
And what are you, exactly? So far, we've determined "uneducated". Do you even *have* a job?
...which completely omitted any mention of the Polish success in cracking an earlier version of Enigma between the wars. That initial Polish work was indispensible to everything done by the Brits w/r/t Enigma during the war. The movie was called Enigma, IIRC. The only Pole in the movie turned out to be a spy for the Germans (not out of ideological conviction, mind you, but because he hated the Soviets even more, over the Katyn Massacre thing).
Maybe everybody has national pride, eh? Maybe all movies made for the purpose of entertainment and tend to rewrite complicated reality into a simple story?
Just maybe?
It also strikes me that Americans have been hearing quite a bit for the past thirty years about how badly we got clobbered in Vietnam. Oceans of ink have been spilled in hand-wringing about our competitiveness in international markets, our educational system, our number of math and science grads compared to eleventeen other nations, Japanese ownership of US companies and real estate (big, big topic before the Japanese economy faltered after the 1980s), etc. etc. etc. Back in the 1980s there was an entire genre of books about how much better the Japanese were at doing business than we were.
For every example, there is a counter-example. Sounds like you're selectively representing reality for the sake of a simple and compelling narrative arc, yourself.
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive" -- hey, that's me!