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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?"
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.
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..
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IIRC, he resigned a while ago, but he sure set the tone for the whole damn Olympics.
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..."
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.
The (modern) olympics started with high ideals, brining the world together and stuff. That's the difference. It's been a long time now since anyone's been able to pretend it's about anything except money, but it still strikes some of us as sad.
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 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.
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.
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
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?
>I do admit the "no logo clothing" regulation is a >bit weird.
There is a reasonable explanation for this. It seems that the companies, like nike, adidas, etc which are not official sponsors have attempted in previous years to "ambush" the events.
What this means is plastering the city with their billboards, changing their advertising to suggest a connection to the Olympics where there is none, or to pay large groups of people to wear their logos and attract attention to themselves in the stadium and therefore on the television screens.
This regulation is a nuisance to individual fans, but is part of a crucial strategy on the part of the organisers. Sponsors pay large amounts of money to become exclusive sponsors of the Olympic Games. These funds are crucial in funding the games, and ambush campaigns could mean a lot of lost revenue to the games.
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).
Gee, I wonder why.
Hmm. perhaps I'll have to ask my parents if the harassment has resumed. Their semi-detached is peppered with aerials (from the previous owners), and the inspectors seem utterly convinced that television is a necessity.
But if you don't own a television, it is not necessary to pay the license fee. It's not a poll tax. I suppose a nicely worded letter from a solicitor might help-- but his fees would probably eclipse any possible savings.
"It takes a special kind of person to deride an international event based on the ideals of self improvement, national pride, and respect for other countries."
I believe the parent post was primarily about the coverage by the American TV corporations. The bit about the torch was an aside. (And I agree with your opinion on that.)
The problem with showing only events where The Glorious US wins is that it panders to a rather degoutant idea: that America Rules All.
Nor is Olympic coverage the only example of this refusal to let Americans see that any other nation might be an equal. American movies are notorious for changing history so that The Heroic Americans Rescue the World (All By Themselves.)
From a review of the movie "U-571" by Dr. Timothy P. Mulligan, archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration, specializing in captured German and related World War II records:
I don't slag this meme becuase it doesn't give others proper credit. That's a moral question, and I'm always rather queasy about imposing my morality on ohters. However, is it an ethical position? Does it give proper credits to people you call friends and allies? Do you expect them to love and admire you when you slight them thus?This attitude, I would also argue, is septic in that it deludes the American population into thinking that they are omnipotent, and that no one could ever be better or stronger or more clever than an American.
The ancient Greeks called this hubris, and they said that the gods punish it.
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.
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.
But then the producers and directors of the movie should *explicitely* state that the movie is *utterly* for entertainment purposes only, *completely* fictional, has no historical basis, and that *no* part of the film should be taken as truth.
There are enough dim bulbs out there that will and *do* believe otherwise, because this is NOT done.