Could this be the begining of the end of VPN UKTV

[Quillan]

Following an article on the BBC News website last night I went to the source.

PIPCU arrest Nottingham man believed to be running proxy server

and

City of London Police launches advert replacement on illegal websites

Thing is a lot of people think vpn's are used for dodgy things like watching TV because of geoblocking where as a lot of companies use vpn's to secure their servers and data moving between them. If the Police are spying on vpn's can they also spy on genuine ones?

I also read on the BBC News feed for Tablets last night that they are going to start to use https connections for IPlayer because Google has announce they will take preference over http websites. Google to prioritise secure websites

 

[woolybanana]

Quillan, please explain this in words that can be understood by normal people!

[Quillan]

The police are going round closing sites that offer the ability (amongst other things) to watch UK TV from outside the UK so it means gradually these sites are being closed down. A site that comes to mind is Expatshield for example. Nothing may of happened yet but they are gradually working through the vpn's etc to see what they are being used for and if they are used to get round the fact that you should be in the UK to watch UK tv then they will close them down. You need to read the links.

[Jako]

Watching UK TV from abroad using a proxy- or VPN server can easily be blocked by the provider of the service e.g. BBC, ITV etc.

The filter they use just needs to look a bit closer into the traffic to find the original IP and block it if outside the UK.

Blocking complete websites like the UK does (Censorship) is against EU law Net neutrality if approved, as is already the case in the Netherlands.

[woolybanana]

Thank you Quillan. Phew,

Well, how is this a police matter, surely civil?

[Quillan]

Have to say thats what I thought and to a degree that is true as far as the end user is concerned. However according to the police providing a service that allows people to break copyright is called 'piracy' and that is illegal. I guess as it passes through their server they are nicking it and then rebroadcasting (even though technically they don't 'record' the program on their server but just using it as a 'passthrough') is what they class as piracy. You need to read the stuff on the UK Intellectual Property Office website that deals with all this sort of thing.

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/

To be honest I would have thought the most easiest one to go for would have been Filmon especially as it has offices in London.

[NormanH]

I think a more serious threat to watching iPlayer will be when you have to enter a code from your UK TV license to be able to access it.

This could well come in with the proposal to make a universal charge on UK residents ..

[NickP]

[quote user="NormanH"]I think a more serious threat to watching iPlayer will be when you have to enter a code from your UK TV license to be able to access it.

This could well come in with the proposal to make a universal charge on UK residents ..

[/quote] I would like to see a link to the proposal , because as far as I know every household in the UK with a television pays the licence fee anyway. In fact when you buy a TV in the UK the store I believe is responsible to advise the authorities of the transaction; and supplying name and address of the purchaser. So for me stopping people illegally watching of UK TV is correct and proper especially when they don't pay their share of the licence fee.

[NormanH]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2657599/Nearly-half-million-iPlayer-users-avoid-paying-licence-fee-Escape-145-50-charge-declaring-not-television-set-live-shows.html

[NickP]

[quote user="NormanH"]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2657599/Nearly-half-million-iPlayer-users-avoid-paying-licence-fee-Escape-145-50-charge-declaring-not-television-set-live-shows.html[/quote]

Thank you, that is really good news, maybe I should increase my knowledge base by reading the Daily Mail more often. [:D]