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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?"
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.
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!
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.
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.
How is this "insightful"? This is NOT censorship! I repeat: THIS IS NOT CENSORSHIP. If you think it's censorship, show me the law telling NBC they have to tape-delay their broadcasts, or the IOC (a non-US entity) that they must write geographical restrictions into their broadcast contracts.
The ignorance of some of you astounds me.
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Important difference: there's no actual censorship going on here; the Olympics made a deal with NBC and that deal included blocking any other "broadcasts" (loosely defined) of the Olympics to the US. If you're going to blame someone, blame the IOC for selling us all down the river; the US government's only role here is that its court system enforces the contract and the copyrights (held by the IOC) of the broadcasts. Read the Areopagitica for more on censhorhip.
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 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?
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
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.
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).
They blatantly don't, as the BBC is constantly in trouble with the government for doing what the hell it wants :) Remember pretty much everything before the Iraq war? If it was smoking the government pole, none of those scandals would have even aired.
>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.
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
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).
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.
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
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
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.
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.
Filmmakers lie. That's life.
Actually, it's entertainment. If you want historical accuracy, watch a documentary - but the point of making movies (aside from the moneygrubbing and casting couch aspects of which there are many) is to entertain.
Should it be to educate? Probably, but the public seems pretty satisfied with entertainment and they're the ones driving the demand. Change that equation on the supply side, and it's a long downhill slide to the poorhouse.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
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.
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.
Ummm. Yeah. I'll get back to you on that when Quixotic Campaign to Labelize Everything According to It's True Nature has it's first meeting. Here on Planet Reality, we just assume that movies are for entertainment and if someone doesn't understand that, well, they should have paid more attention in school.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.