Slashdot Mirror
BBC: ISPs Should Assume VPN Users Are Pirates
An anonymous reader sends this news from TorrentFreak:
After cutting its teeth as a domestic broadcaster, the BBC is spreading its products all around the globe. Shows like Top Gear have done extremely well overseas and the trend of exploiting other shows in multiple territories is set to continue. As a result, the BBC is now getting involved in the copyright debates of other countries, notably Australia, where it operates four subscription channels. Following submissions from Hollywood interests and local ISPs, BBC Worldwide has now presented its own to the Federal Government. Its text shows that the corporation wants new anti-piracy measures to go further than ever before.
The BBC begins by indicating a preference for a co-operative scheme, one in which content owners and ISPs share responsibility to "reduce and eliminate" online copyright infringement. ... "Since the evolution of peer-to-peer software protocols to incorporate decentralized architectures, which has allowed users to download content from numerous host computers, the detection and prosecution of copyright violations has become a complex task. This situation is further amplified by the adoption of virtual private networks (VPNs) and proxy servers by some users, allowing them to circumvent geo-blocking technologies and further evade detection," the BBC explains.
The BBC begins by indicating a preference for a co-operative scheme, one in which content owners and ISPs share responsibility to "reduce and eliminate" online copyright infringement. ... "Since the evolution of peer-to-peer software protocols to incorporate decentralized architectures, which has allowed users to download content from numerous host computers, the detection and prosecution of copyright violations has become a complex task. This situation is further amplified by the adoption of virtual private networks (VPNs) and proxy servers by some users, allowing them to circumvent geo-blocking technologies and further evade detection," the BBC explains.
...have to VPN in to the work network to deal with switches or to check the status of an outage, I'm automatically assumed to be a pirate?
Seems like the BBC is looking to piss off every IT department in the UK.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Why not go all the way and say VPN users are terrorists? Just like all news media outlets are property of their respective government.
Lolwut? So when I connect to my corporate network to do legal stuff I get a paycheck for, I am a pirate?
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Think I'll be downloading my Doctor Who fix from now on.
Just like all news media outlets are property of their respective government.
It's the other way around. Government is property of the media, as the news media have power to make or break a candidate for public office. And with major movie studios owning most of the news media...
... is to avoid your ISP from injecting their own ads into web pages, like Comcast does. I would not be surprised if some ISPs tried to block VPN access just so they can mess with your traffic.
What say the managers and officers running the BBC open up all their finances for the public to see. What? You don't want to? Well then you must be embezzling.
The co-operative approach is obvious. I mean, if a Ford-brand car battery is used to electrocute a journalist's genitals in a spider-hole in Iraq, of course the journalist and his survivors can sue Ford. That's just obvious. And BBC is going to find that many businesses at home and abroad do not care to have their means of secure communication severed.
The BBC may want strong geo-blocking but it is completely against the interest of you and I. Geo-blocking is not a right given by law it is just a consequence of license agreements (an indirect consequence of copyright law).
Why should I as an internet user be compelled to give you accurate information about where I am located geographically?
"This situation is further amplified by the adoption of virtual private networks (VPNs) and proxy servers by some users, allowing them to circumvent geo-blocking technologies and further evade detection,"
It also helps me circumvent geo-blocking technologies, ie. access GOOGLE, from China. Ooooohohhhhh....the evil!
The old saying "The Emperor has no clothes" applies here. Copyright law is a distorted abomination. The terms of copyright are outrageous, a work created today will not enter the public domain in my lifetime because the length of protection is so corrupted. Since I will die before Alien (1979) enters the public domain then that means copyright is effectively unlimited. "Expiry" is a lie. Sane copyright law would see works enter the public domain after a reasonable amount of time such as 14 (original term) to 20 years (what would be acceptable). Not only would those works then be able to be freely shared but also new works, with new sane protection terms, would be able to be created in those universes. A new Alien movie which does not need the blessing of the old creators. 20 years is long enough, long enough for Terminator 2 to now be public domain and Skynet to be a free literary construct. When it comes to copyright laws another saying applies "unjust laws serve to bring all laws into contempt." A primer on the subject can be found here as a freely downloadable PDF: The Public Domain.
Shh.
I use VPN to dial into my home machine while at work because the it idiots just check filters and apps instead of really examining traffic.
I also use netflix to watch top gear, but after this fiasco, I'll be looking into d/l all my favorite bbc stuff like ground force, sarah jane, mi5 and the rest.
Way to go BBC - did you ever read the book on making friends and influencing enemies?
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Arrrgh, matey! Debit Left!!!, Credit Right!!!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The Slashdot summary essentially misses the point. It's not that VPN equals pirate, but that VPN use combined with heavy bandwidth should make them suspicious. Of course this means that the ISP should be monitoring the traffic in the first place. The whole thing is objectionable because it makes one private entity responsible for enforcing the legal/equitable rights of another, at their own cost.
.
To me, the BBC looks to be an organization that is completely anal with regard to who can view or who can access what on their website.
It looks to me as if the BBC would rather restrict than inform. But, hey, that is their choice.
If I were a news-oriented organization, I would probably take a different approach, but that's just me.
Methinks BBC did what they did on the advise of their lawyers, and I am sure that there are still plenty of good people within BBC who can discern good from bad, right from wrong
So ... why don't all of us contact BBC and tell them what we think ?
Their website is at http://bbc.com/
You can contact them via http://www.bbc.co.uk/faqs/cont...
Or file a complaint at http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaint...
Their worldservice email address is at worldservice.letters@bbc.co.uk
Their FB page is at https://www.facebook.com/bbcwo...
Let them know, let BBC know how wrong they are about VPN
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Everyone who wears pants is hiding something!!!! or they are modest, or cold or something... But they are for damn sure guilty of wearing pants!!!!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Presumably this is to stop non license payers watching BBC iPlayer (it's catch-up TV and streaming service) from abroad. As a British ex-pat in South Africa (where the local TV is dire), I would happily pay a subscription to access iPlayer, but I can't. This can't be a difficult thing for them to do, but instead they want to enforce geo-blocking. Since they won't take my money, why bother enforcing the geo-blocking? This is just stupid.
Because no one ever VPN'd in for work purposes.
I mean, I did at every corporate and government job I have had to date, but I'm sure I'm the exception to the rule. I mean, who would actually work from home on a consumer grade connection?
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
So? Would a rose by any other name not smell as sweet? Would a steamy pill o dog shit you just stepped in not small as sour? Bits are electrons and electrons like butterflies are free. Free to commit crimes. Free to be as electrons will be. Free to invade the Ukraine. Free to put stuff up our skirts. Free to be free. Free to not be free. Now go bow to your royals and let the real world be. Free. Word.
What's surprising, based on this article, is the minimal checks that the BBC's geolocation blocking uses. It's purely DNS based. Just set your nameserver to a UK-based DNS nameserver and you can fire up and watch programs using the BBC iPlayer.
The ITVPlayer, in the other hand requires the actual program streams to be pulled using a UK-based IP address.
For people with the technical skills, a London, UK based virtual private server can be rented for about $10/month and perhaps less.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
FUCK YOU BBC. I use VPN because my ISP works for NSA in five-eye spy program. Fucking little bitch BBC now showing its real fascist face, fuck you cunt!
We're bummed that our territory protection doesn't work anymore. Global trade be damned!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is the person who is clearly so illiterate both in technology and logic that they need to be skulfucked until they beg for an end that will never come - and forced to be tortured into a fetal position?
There is a conceptually really simple solution to this problem. Imitation protocols (make video look like other types of content), add in significantly more caching, utilize predictive algorithms, and eliminate the need for the video to arrive on time consistently. 10 minutes of every movie ever produced in the United States can fit onto a 300GB hard drive. Even with extremely restrictive data caps users would be able to start watching any film they desired immediately while the rest downloaded in the background via a protocol that didn't care about latency or even arriving in a timely fashion (things that make current streaming protocols or traffic flows stand out as being streaming even when encrypted). An imitation protocol would literally look like anything and everything in order to maximize the available bandwidth available without arising suspicion. You can't block an SSL stream that looks like normal SSL web traffic (with appropriate bursts and all). You'd only be able to identify it as a video stream over SSL if it behaved like a video stream over SSL. Change that and the system fails. The only remotely identifying property about this I can conceive of is it may appear that there are more users online than there actually are. Unless they plan to limit households to having a certain number of devices/and or 'people' it probably wouldn't work. Even if you did that it probably wouldn't work.
Tor already has something called pluggable transports which transform the Tor traffic flow between the client and the bridge. This way, censors who monitor traffic between the client and the bridge will see innocent-looking transformed traffic instead of the actual Tor traffic. The same concept can be applied for video with additional caching. Tor in and of itself is not an application for piracy and you'd never want to use it for that. It's slow and not designed for streaming video (even though it apparently does work now, it was done at LibrePlanet 2014 by a Tor developer to present to the conference via a video stream over Tor).
If VPN use impedes the enforcement of geo-blocking then the answer is very simple - do not try and use geo-blocking. Restricting where content may be viewed is a concept which should have passed its 'sell by date'.
The old saying "The Emperor has no clothes" applies here. Copyright law is a distorted abomination. The terms of copyright are outrageous, a work created today will not enter the public domain in my lifetime because the length of protection is so corrupted. Since I will die before Alien (1979) enters the public domain then that means copyright is effectively unlimited. "Expiry" is a lie. Sane copyright law would see works enter the public domain after a reasonable amount of time such as 14 (original term) to 20 years (what would be acceptable). Not only would those works then be able to be freely shared but also new works, with new sane protection terms, would be able to be created in those universes. A new Alien movie which does not need the blessing of the old creators. 20 years is long enough, long enough for Terminator 2 to now be public domain and Skynet to be a free literary construct. When it comes to copyright laws another saying applies "unjust laws serve to bring all laws into contempt." A primer on the subject can be found here as a freely downloadable PDF: The Public Domain.
Yes and no. A starving artist who makes nothing from his work should continue to receive his small royalty, if he gets any; a project that hasn't earned back its costs should have copyright extended for a *long* time--maybe 40 years or the lifetime of the artist, whichever is longer. But a project that has made its producers hundreds of millions should enter the public domain within five to ten years. There is no justification for copyright beyond that term when a project has been enormously successful.
Interesting how leaving out one word in the title makes all the difference in how its interpreted.
Slashdot
BBC: ISPs Should Assume VPN Users are Pirates
Original Article
BBC: ISPs Should Assume Heavy VPN Users are Pirates
The BBC has been sucking on the British Public's tit for the last 90 years, now that's going dry it's time to for them to start sucking on the rest of the world.
If the September 18 referendum results in an independent Scotland then the BBC may be in trouble. I've read that the BBC will not be made available there and so will the TV and radio set fees Scots pay for the privilege of watching and listening to the BBC. I assume the total from Scotland is substantial so there's likely to be more job losses at the BBC, probably a reduction in content production and maybe a cut in channels for both radio and TV. Too bad for the lower paid folks, but the high earners will likely make out as usual.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
I want to watch some BBC shows on its website so I just switched to a UK proxy and that's that.
I want to watch some Youtube videos blocked 'for my region', so I switched to the relevant proxy to watch it.
It's the same nonsense as when DVDs are region locked... they can be easily bypassed.
Geoblocking, in essence, is corporate-greed driven censorship. The nature of Internet access is universal, unbound by geography. Geoblocking is morally not much different from the Great Firewall of China.
It's not our problem if you have failed to negotiate for 'distribution rights' for a particular region.
Please let geoblocking go the way of dialup Internet and 5.25 inch floppy diskettes.
If you look through the rather overexcited rhretoric in TFA, you'll find - there's no link to the actual source material. That's a troll flag right there.
But no worries, you can find the submission for yourself with a very modest amount of searching. It's here (PDF link).
The paragraph that is causing all this jaw-grinding reads, in full:
Elsewhere, it (a) recommends a "graduated response" with multiple warnings/"education" efforts addressed to people identified as offending, (b) stresses the need to allow customer appeals and "competent Court or authority" being involved in applying any actual sanctions to a suspected offender, (c) offers to share the cost to ISPs of administering the scheme.
Is that really so outrageous that it justifies an entire Slashdot hatethread?
To the inevitable downvoters: no, I am not paid by the BBC or any agency related thereto. I'm just a guy who likes to read things before getting too heated about them. Yes, I'm posting AC. So what? I'm showing my working, which is more than the authors of TFA, or TFS, have.
Content owners only need very limited rights so they can profit of their work for a short time.
They certainly shouldn't have the right to deprive people of information, because they haven't paid, or because they didn't pay for a new media format, or because they are using a VPN!
The more ridiclous these attempts to lock people from accessing information, the more they will be circumvented. Methods to circamvent will continue to improve, becoming ever more convenient until these idiot companies die or wise up.
Donation model ONLY. Money paid gets a copy, maybe something extra cool, that's it. If you give a copy to someone or copy it to your computer you are not a criminal and should not be treated like one.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Also, I do not know a single person that uses VPN in order to access 'content'.
I am wondering when people will start realizing that Internet is dead, and has been for at least 2 years.
Australians hate geo-blocking. It's a tool used to make them pay more for content simply because they live in Australia.
A direct effect if copyright was reformed to reasonable terms would very likely be a golden age for our culture. All of a sudden those pent up reserves of story craft would be unleashed in a myriad of creative expression and experience. Movies, Music, Books, Interactive Entertainment, everything that copyright currently hoards. New ventures into existing universes is one thing but the ad-hoc communities that would form around the freed works would also spur a renaissance in our culture. Old computer games could be packaged up in whatever emulation needed to make them operate on modern machines, freely distributed. Legitimate torrent sites could specialize in genres and not only host the information but also a chorus of discussion that would not have existed when the works were locked away. If our culture was a tapestry then releasing the flood would weave into it vibrant colour and pattern that is currently dulled and frayed. The only reason this is all prevented right now is regulatory capture by vested interests who choose to keep their penny rather than let a dollar fall into a collective grasp.
Shh.
They do a great job of attacking Jews too.
And the fact that geoblocking is counter to the interests of its non-UK subscribers doesn't hit them between the eyes.
Until these clowns adjust their business models to better suite the needs, requirements, viewing/listening habits and the like of their consumers ... they can shove it as far as I'm concerned. I'd like to view/listen to what I want, when I want, where I want, how I want ... rather than conform to their obsolete broadcast, timetable based, region locked, disc based sale, model that died in the ass years ago.
Either move with the times, and contract your content creation out to others, or step aside.
fuck it, i hope uk does not get the land of the stupid and of the walking whales like the us. this insanity has to stop. let's us all use VPNs or tor as collective disobedience. At the end of the day, this is just political propaganda, because the establishment wants to sniff and correlate more easily the (meta)data of ISP customers. Now if someone gave two black eyes to people who insults willingly the public at large, some idiots would think twice before spewing garbage.
The fossils running content providers, and some ISPs still can't figure out how to monitize the internet for their existing models of the world. This problem is so 1990's, still so applicable. Rather than realize the internet for what it is, they need to apply boarders and geoblocking because, well... because otherwise Johnny Rotten would be able to sell butter outside of Britain?
The BBC are morons. People aren't going to stop using VPNs, the genie is way too far out of the bottle for that. If they really want to control content for profit, perhaps they should look at all of the folks make money on subscriptions services?
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
And I assume by default that broadcasters are robber barons.
Bring out the pitchforks!
The BBC is financed primarily by mandatory TV license fees. Everything they do should be in the public domain, just like other government-financed data and media. Why the hell should they weigh in on issues related to "piracy" at all?
The BBC implement geo-blocking to ensure that their content is only viewed by those that pay for it: those that pay TV license fees in England (or is it Britain/GB/UK?)
That means that whilst those that pay fees are entitled to free access whenever they so choose, the BBC is also under no obligation to provide it to those that haven't paid. And there's the rub: proxies and VPNs allow for people to pretend that they're inside the UK.
The "Biased Broadcasting Corporation" can go dick their own noses the cant even read news with totally fucking it up. ..
And as for Top Gear what a load of crap , If it was never broadcast again it would be too often
So yea go fuck yourself BBC ..
Serioiusly, I have never read anything on that site that didn't hideously distort the facts.
You know what's funny?? To watch BBC in Australia (well short of $250 a month to Foxtel... ) you have to VPN to their English servers..
Thank fuck though ISPs cannot switch off our internet here if they suspect piracy. So let them suspect what they like.
In reality I VPN to watch American TV :)
so I have an excuse not to work from home!
The mere thought that a content provider wants to ban and restrict consumers is absurd to me. They should provide content that's equally accessible by everyone, no exceptions, and no bans based on your location in the world. For example I was abroad during the world cup, and I wanted to watch it, but I couldn't because my very own country's provider didn't let me because I connected using a foreign IP. But this is exactly the time I'd use a streaming service, when I can't access to my regular cable subscription. It feels to me that they're trying to hold on to values and methods that worked 20 years ago. They could get away with separating continents then (barely). But the internet is global, the world is global, you cannot restrict me from accessing the content I want to. Or you can, but it will force me to look for other sources. (torrent, circumventing geoban, etc). The answer is so obvious, why not let everyone have easy access to the content for a modest fee? I'd gladly pay, but don't please don't think a restrictive poor quality ad riddled online player will do.
I wonder if the costs for implementing DRM, polishing the bad publicity and paying all those lawyers is really in the same order of magnitude as the "damages" by some people enjoying BBC content. And the only damage I see is that those alleged "pirates" are using BBCs bandwidth to stream the content. They wouldn't (because they couldn't) be customers of the BBC anyway.
You mean the company that had widespread child abuse in its building for decades and everyone looked the other way? That BBC?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
No. A good chunk of charities waste a good chunk of the money (usually around 80% of it) before it gets to supporting something. Donating to a charity is wasteful, donating directly to a cause on the other hand is another thing.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Define what 'heavy' is? Because the more I think about it, the harder time I have a problem differentiating between the amount of traffic used for general internet + windows updates + anti-virus + work network shares + work backups etc. (as normal for corporate VPNs) verses streaming usage.
I think about my streaming usage and if I was to do it over a VPN, I suspect it would be significantly less than what I currently do on my work laptop over a VPN.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
As the BBC is a heavy user of VPNs (to connect its sites), then ISPs should assume that the BBC are pirates.
Their criteria for detecting was 'heavy VPN' usage, not traffic patterns though.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Opaque walls in private homes enable the residents of those home to commit crimes. The detection and prosecution of those crimes is a difficult task due to the use of opaque walls. All building contractors need to take responsibility, and join together to reduce and eliminate those crimes. I propose that it should not be permitted to build any new private homes whose walls are made from opaque materials.
Have you noticed the difference between my proposal and the BBC's proposal? That's right - the crimes enabled by opaque walls do not threaten to reduce the profits of large media corporations like the BBC. Ah well, I guess my proposal doesn't have much chance of adoption, then.
This statement:
"This situation is further amplified by the adoption of virtual private networks (VPNs) and proxy servers by some users, allowing them to circumvent geo-blocking technologies and further evade detection," the BBC explains."
Doesn't appear to be remotely close to what the topic claims:
"BBC: ISPs Should Assume VPN Users Are Pirates"
Quite the opposite, it very clearly that "some users" use it for multiple purposes.
Yet that hasn't stopped anyone here from simply assuming the article header is correct and complaining. Which is precisely why everyone ignores nerds.
Although its not the primary reason I use VPN, I'll admit it...yeah, BBC, I live in the US and I use it to watch your programming. Because US factual and documentary programming sucks. And BBC America is a fucking joke. Just to name a few off the top of my head, if a BBC program has David Attenborough, Monty Don, or Fred Dibnah in it, I'll watch it. Even if its a show about watching paint dry. So instead of trying to find ways to lock out people like me, why don't you turn it in to a money making opportunity...shut up, take my money, and sell me a TV license.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
As someone who lives and works in the U.S., I love BBC. Listen to BBC news radio on the way to work every day (free streaming on TuneIn Radio) and watch several BBC shows on cable.
In fact, BBC is something I wouldn't mind spending extra money to get a 'TV license' for, just like they force people in the UK to pay.
So offer me one. Give me a internet license for BBC online and let me stream it from whereever I am on the planet. If you want you can do it by creating your own VPN and renting that to me.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Why the hell the BBC don't just drop the geo-location detection and switch to having an access code system that has an unlock key linked to your TV license I don't know
all owners of hammers must be assumed to be murderors
Obvious there are all the users that use VPN's to connect to their office networks and the arguments that only public VPN users are pirates, but what about gamers? There are a lot of gamers that use VPN's to run games that either don't work well through a NAT situation or only support LAN play and so need a VPN to make that work across a LAN.
On one side, VPN users are pirate. Ok. So no VPN.
On the other side, not using a VPN to work/transfer personal stuff is a security risk, that can lead to data leak, identity theft, etc. So, VPN. And screw the BBC. I suppose they do all their data transfer in the clear, too?
Actually this comes from 'BBC Worldwide'
A massively incompetent organisation who takes the BBCs programmes, sells them for £1.2 billion and then hands the BBC a little over 1 tenth of that amount!
They pay their employees an average of £79000 each to somehow lose over a billion pounds whilst selling the BBCs programmes.
I mean seriously, how much can it cost to sell a product that is fucking digital, according to BBC Worldwide it costs £524,700,000 to sell stuff, WTF? (and that's excluding wages of 144,000,000)
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
After cutting its teeth as a domestic broadcaster, the BBC is spreading its products all around the globe.
The BBC have been doing this for well over half a century.....
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
The correct way to do this would be to require a login, which would be provided for free along with your UK TV license. Then they know the people watching iPlayer are actual UK license fee payers. Relying on a broken and workable-around system like geo-blocking is both philosophically and technically the wrong solution to the problem.
Anti-piracy efforts by entertainment giants, combined with government snooping by 3-lettered agencies is going to result in an arms race where the average man collaborates with others to turn systems such as TOR and VPNs into the equivalent of nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.
Eventually, corporatism will win because corporations will buy legislation to change the Internet as we know it, and severely limit our access to the tubes.
The irony of this discussion is that as someone who lives in the UK and pays his licence fee, I still sometimes run into content on the BBC that I'm told I'm not allowed to see because I live in the wrong place.
This is why I lack much sympathy for the Beeb when people use VPNs and the like to circumvent geographical restrictions. I do understand that there are commercial agreements and licensing conditions at work here, and I do understand that the BBC Worldwide commercial arm is not the same as the BBC itself (though it is a wholly owned subsidiary).
Just to be clear, I think the BBC is a borderline national treasure. It is certainly not perfect, but the range and quality of programming it has produced over the years is so much better than the apparent norm on commercial television channels that I pay my licence fee gladly, even if it is a bizarre pseudo-tax based on archaic rules about who has to contribute.
However, if you're going to take primarily public funding, with only a relatively small amount coming from BBC Worldwide's commercial activities, then not sharing the results with those members of the public who are paying your bills is not on, IMHO.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Hey, Beeb. If you don't like people pirating your content (I don't, other than watching YouTube), them let them buy access, FFS. I'd be willing to pay a modest fee to watch domestic BBC programs for the convenience of not having to wait months / years / never (Porridge) for the content to show up in alternative media.
Or they could just be working.. How many of us Work Form Home now days and are required to connect to the Corporate Network? Really BBC? Many you should just stick to what you know.
When the BBC opened 4 digital channels here in Oz on FoxTel, my assumption was that this is an intermediate move to establish the brand and also debug the distribution channels ahead of a time a few years away where everything is an "app" on whatever STB you choose, with a paid subscription model. Foxtel is only being used for now (I supposed) because that's where the technology is at and not everyone yet has an open-ish STB that can support arbitrary channel apps.
This latest shows that the BBC isn't doing this after all, which is a great shame, as it's surely the way TV is going to go (as long as governments have the balls to tell Murdoch to stuff his 80s distribution model up his arse). If there were a BBC "app" with a simple subscription model (in the manner of say, Apple TV) then the BBC would not give a shit who runs a VPN or how the content is accessed. They only have to ensure that the client has paid for the service. I'd go for that, it's a no brainer. Everyone wins - the BBC, the consumer, the box makers. Oh, Rupert doesn't, oh well, boo hoo hoo.
I just don't get it. The BBC is generally quite forward-looking and surely can see the way this is all going? If they truly can't, as this stupid comment seems to imply, then I really hope somebody gets their brain into gear over there soon.
Roy: No, BBC, I'm sorry. The Elders of the Internet would never stand for it.
Moss: "Unbelievable! Some idiot disabled all VPNs, meaning all the computers on every floor are teeming with MITM attacks, plus I've just had to walk all the way down the motherfudging stairs, because the lifts are broken again!"
Who is it really for? The people or for big business?
But what exactly are you going to say? Despite the inflammatory slashdot summary the quoted text from the BBC submission only says that pirates use VPNs. This is not at all the same as saying that all VPN users are pirates. The troubling part is that they are advocating that ISPs should throttle and disconnect users based on accusations from other companies which, as we have seen time and time again are often inaccurate.
So lets go after the real issues and not invent new ones based on deliberate misinterpretation since the latter will result in loss of all credibility and leave the field wild open for really draconian suggestions.
This is what happens when you let the bureaucrats control a creative organization such as the Beeb. They will piss off their viewers so thoroughly that we will stop watching altogether. I'd happily pay to watch Dr. Who online or wait a bit to see it (I don't get TV or cable), but their abortion of a video player doesn't work outside of the UK...
... is used to getting stuffed silly at the license payer's expense.
I'm not in the UK, but I imagine a lot of people there would initiate a electronic retaliation, and it would be justified.
Do all of you in the "free U.K." really care about being free or is it just another word to you?
If one sits inside all day watching pirated content instead of getting out in the sunshine and exercising, one is bound to put on a few kilograms!
After cutting its teeth as a domestic broadcaster, the BBC is spreading its products all around the globe.
The BBC launched in 1922. The World Service on shortwave in 1932.
In the states, PBS's "Masterpiece Theater" has been importing or co-producing productions by the BBC since 1971.
Yet it's ok for the carriers to commit GPL violations as they deploy their set-top boxes.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
AC:BBC should fuck off!
I would be very surprised if the BBC themselves (well, their IT dept) didn't use VPN's. Almost any mid-large sized business will be using them in some fashion, and even many small businesses do these days.
A lot of ISP's ban home servers if - par example - you're divvying out content to the internet (though often not unless you're caught, those port 25 and/or 80 blocks are also common).
However, a lot of "home servers" these days are just media boxen used to personal consumption. The cloud-enabled ones usually have some service for allowing remote-access as well. Geeks may have a file/media server along with maybe a game host of some type, which doesn't necessarily break the TOS for the ISP.
If it's fair to generalise and assume that all VPN users are "pirates", is it also fair to generalise and assume that all content producers are paedophiles manufacturing child pornography? After all, some of them are...
It is absolutely crazy that the BBC would think labeling every VPN user as a likely criminal is a good idea. Secure channels of communication are all but required for the most important types of journalism, so it seems like the BBC might be putting profit in front of long term viability. Perhaps that's a good deal for the BBC, considering their successful media properties, but it definitely isn't a good idea for journalism outlets in general.
Once, I needed to download something Microsoft recommended, I had to install bittorrent to get it.
When my son works from home or here or he can tether his phone, for that matter, he has to use the company VPN.
Most companies keep their pirates in the finance department.
I'm suddenly remembering that it's been a while since I saw "Month Python's TheMeaning of Life".
Everyone uses them. Every major corporation and government... including the BBC. Fire your tech writer.
Next topic.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
that the downfall of our race was caused by our absolute insistence on basing everything: human relationships, law, economics, etc. on passive entertainment. Maybe this really is (as some have asserted) SETI's great cosmic filter.
"The wisdom of the Patriarchs was that they *knew* they were fools." --Master Foo
They can try but they won't get away with it. No matter who they THINK they are, they won't get past a judge with the ASSUMPTION of guilt as a springboard for anti-piracy legislation. Just more sabre rattling.
#13 Should have been: no property rights in lifeforms that belong to the homo sapiens species. In fact, you could get wild, and say no property rights to pets, if the pet is obviously unhappy in the abusive relationship, where the value of the animal is not economic profit, but personal companionship. Property rights still apply to livestock like cattle, sheep, based on prevailing economics, (or even economic based shepherd dogs, or hunting dogs,) but there too happiness, and a sort of "happy consent" to the relationship with the owner of such life forms should be sought, at least until the moment of their death for meat. Chicken cages with debeaked chickens sitting on top of each other stacked 4 high is one example of excessive stress, and lack of happy consent, unfortunately it's good profit and good economics. The cage-free chicken eggs you buy in stores suck because they are not fresh, because nobody buys them and they sit on the shelf forever, because they cost another 50 cents a dozen.
Also male baby cattle, just because they happen to be born male and unable to provide milk profit later, kept lying low in tents for their entire short life span, so their meat remains tender, and commands a higher profit at the meat store, that seems like an unhappy, suffering, consent lacking scenario, and people should be able to eat the not-so-tender veal meat, like they can eat regular beef steak. It's like if I had to be an animal bred and raised for meat food, I'd like to live out a happy life, and when it's time for me to die, I'd like not to be a priori informed about it, it should just happen like I'd go to sleep, and never wake up. I would much prefer that situation compared to constant mental anguish and suffering throughout my life. Do unto others as thou would have them do unto thee. Sometimes that principle comes in handy. In fact the great game analyst, Johny Neumann came up with the forgiving tit for tat method as a best strategy: play tit for tat most of the time, but once in a while forgive, like 9 out of 10 tit for tat, good acts for good acts, bad acts for bad acts, but once in a while, 1 out of 10, or something like that, if you're stuck in a perpetual bad acts for bad acts response situation, make a good act for bad act response. Never make a bad act for good act response, though.
I use VPN every day for at least 8 hours because I work from home....
But instead of countless threads all complaining about their valid VPN uses, we'd get countless threads of tumblrites triggered by fat shaming.