The internet used to be pretty open but unfortunately there are now a huge amount of filters and blocks applied from every level. This has led obviously to a huge amount of tools and software designed to bypass these filters primarily based on a core of proxy and VPN servers. But they can get expensive if you want any flexibility purely because you often need more in different countries. Think of my friend who is from Krakow originally but now lives in the UK – he often likes to connect back to websites in his home land for obvious reasons. But increasingly he will get blocked because of his location. What he needs is a Poland proxy in order to access these sites – for instance the Polish media channels.

But my friend also likes to watch some strange American series which is only available in the US, plus he likes a show on Canadian pilots on Canadian TV. So to watch all these he’d need a Polish, US and Canadian proxy or VPN service. You’ll notice that many of the proxy providers will sell you access to specific servers but they usually charge extra for each location. But there are a couple who just charge a single subscription and give you access to their entire network.

Here’s how one of my favorites works – first I connect to Google with my normal address.

But unfortunately this means I am tied into a UK location, which is fine if you just want to access UK related sites but what if you want to access sites that are restricted to Poland, Russia, USA or anywhere else on the planet? I need to be able to fool these sites that I am located somewhere else which I can do through using either a proxy or VPN server. For this demonstration I am going to use a Poland based proxy from a company called Overplay.

Here’s what I do – just connect up to my Overplay software and scroll down their list of available proxies.  From the screenshot you can see I have a polish proxy server available so I just connect through that.   It takes about 10 seconds to connect and to extablish the connection after you put in your username and password.

Then you’re connected – at this point you have a VPN tunnel connected between you and the Overplay server in Krakow, Poland.  In plain English this means that you will now appear to every web site you visit to be from Poland.  For instance here’s what you see if you visit Google whilst using the Poland proxy.   The geo location checks your IP address and delivers the Polish version of the search engine.

Of course this isn’t particularly useful if you aren’t actually in Poland.  However if you are getting blocked from a specific site because of your location it can be an incredibly useful tool.   It means all Polish content is available to you whilst connected, any look ups will reveal your location to be Krakow because that’s where the server is located.

Many authors have highlighted the risks of misinformation that is possible through social networking sites, however here it’s powerfully illustrated in Egypt.  It’s completely believable and very well presented.    Have a look to see what you think – the flip side of the sites credited with the Arab Spring.

I think we can all believe that this could happen, one of the main worries is that these sites could also be used by the ‘bad guys’. It would be extremely naive to think that leaders in Syria and Iran for example haven’t got teams working with Facebook and Twitter accounts either spying or spreading another version of reality.

Kind of confusing about what to believe…………….

Cracking Video !!

I’ve had a few emails recently basically asking how I can get a US IP address  so I thought I’d put a quick post up about it.   It’s  actually becoming more and more common, for the simple reason that much of the best sites on the internet restrict access depending on what IP address you have.   Just to make this clear – the IP address is the number assigned to your Internet device when you connect up through your ISP.  It’s uniquely identifiable to you which accounts for the privacy and security risks I tend to bang on about on this site.

Need a US IP Address?

The IP address is also linked to a specific country however, so any website can check where you are accessing from. So just to clarify again – you might be a UK citizen connecting on a UK bought laptop, but if you’re sitting in an airport in Italy that’s where you’ll be categorized as from.  So in this case you’d get blocked from the BBC Iplayer site and all it’s content as you’re considered Italian.  Now this doesn’t happen with the odd site, increasingly all the best commercial sites are restricting access in this way,  mainly due to licensing issues.  It’s also done for economic reasons, allowing sites to operate price discrimination systems (charging more in different countries) and blocking consumers using an adjacent country to order the goods at a cheaper price (very fair huh!).

So that’s where we are – so the individual looking for a US based IP address is probably trying to watch, download or buy something from a US site like Hulu whilst physically located outside the USA.   Fortunately in most circumstances there are ways around this – which I will just list below.

First the Technologies – there are two main ways of bypassing these restrictions,  both of which involve masking your true IP address and presenting a different one to the web site you are visiting.  You can either use a proxy or VPN server – both can hide your true IP address to some extent.  They function in similar ways however the proxy server routes traffic from a specific application or software (in our case usually the browser) to the proxy server.  Whereas the VPN is a secure, encrypted tunnel which routes all traffic from your computer through the remote VPN server.  Both have their advantages and disadvantages – in practice a VPN is normally harder to detect by the web sites however there is normally a slight overhead on speed due to the encryption.    Which one you select is normally down to your primary requirements – a VPN offers security and is required for a lot of media sites like Hulu and NBC, whilst a proxy server works best for the BBC Iplayer (although a VPN still works too!)

Finding a Server for our US IP Address

Hopefully that makes sense so let’s focus on how we can find one of these servers.  Let’s imagine we want to access Hulu from somewhere in Europe – for this a proxy won’t work so we need to find ourself a VPN service.  Unfortunately unlike proxies you are unlikely to find a free VPN service.   Although if you work for a big company who have American offices it might be worth checking if they have a US VPN you can use occasionally.  Many people forget that their connection back to work is likely to be a VPN so it’s an avenue worth investigating for many.

For anyone else you have two options – first make your own by installing a VPN server on your own US based computer (or perhaps a friend with a good internet connection).   The other option is to subscribe to a VPN service and use their servers when you need them.  They are fairly inexpensive now and the best ones let you access content all over the world – here’s a few checkpoints for selecting a provider to give you that US IP address you need.

• Ensure they have software for easy connection – best firms have custom software to make it easy to connect/switch servers
• Your subscription should provide access to multiple servers in multiple countries (not pay per country unless it’s very cheap!)
• Speed is essential especially for streaming media – try a short trial or test before subscribing for any length of time
• Watch out for recurring payments
• If you do subscribe with automatic renewal – select using something like Paypal which you can easily cancel at any time

The prices for these are falling now, but unfortunately there are a lot of  awful services set up by people without the skills and resources to provide a decent infrastructure.  Anyone can set up a VPN and charge people to connect but it takes skill and investment to provide the secure, high speed access people need for these sites.

I use two of these services which I can recommend – both have VPN and proxy services and are very good value.

Identity Cloaker – has proxy and VPN modes and is primarily a security product.  It’s probably the best option for UK based services like the BBC as it has a lot of fast UK servers.  It also has a lot of other servers included though like USA,  Canada and many others.

Overplay – again a good price, simple connection software and probably the biggest international selection of VPN servers of any provider.  Depends if you need Russian or Hungarian servers though.  Good service though and knowledgeable staff.  Easy to sign up for a month and cancel whenever through Paypal

There are lots of others, but I wouldn’t spend more than either of those two as they are probably the best in terms of speed and value.  There are a couple of cheaper ones I’ve tried but their US and UK servers where overloaded and you couldn’t stream video very well.

There has been an update (28th, June 2011) on the Australian Government’s internet filtering scheme and I’m afraid it still suffers from the usual limitations of such censorship schemes. To be fair they have made a few changes after the huge wave of crticism from the initial prototype scheme which frankly was ill conceived, badly implemented and well pointless to be honest.

So what has the Internet Industry Association (Australian Internet body) come up with this time?

Well it’s probably not surprising considering the current economic climate that it’s definitely pretty cheap. In fact there is virtually no new equipment required, nothing more than a few tweaks to current infrastructure. It’s important to keep costs down when you’re doing something as pointless as this sort of censorship of course.

Now of course no-one can argue with the basic assumption that we should protect children and restrict access to child pornography. The scheme will effectively implement the blocking of a list of such sites provided by Interpol and the Australian Federal Police. The onus will pretty much be on the ISPs using the big stick of section 313 if Australia’s Telecommunication Act. It’s not much more than a basic framework of a big blacklist of bad sites which are blocked by the ISPs in their routing tables.

The sites will also be blocked by the even more pointless method of modifying DNS tables. Just to clarify this method involves changing the DNS tables on Australian servers so that the ‘bad’ sites don’t resolve to their correct servers properly. It’s a very crude method, easily bypassed and one I’ve never liked. Messing around with the way the internet works is never a good idea but of course as well as being pointless and easily circumvented – it does have the advantage of being CHEAP!

Needless to say this probably won’t end here – lists of stuff you can’t do rarely get shorter. We’ll probably end up seeing lots of committees and groups lobbying for other web sites to be added to the list. Just as now you see some web sites about evolution being blocked in restrictive Muslim countries.

It’s an almost complete waste of time in my opinion. It’s headline grabbing nonsense that has very little real affect other than allowing a Government to pretend it’s doing something about a problem. The blocks and filtering will only be effective against people who don’t want to access these sites anyway – the vast majority of us. These filtering techniques are so easily bypassed by anyone with a mind to, there are literally thousands of security programs, secure VPNs and private proxies that just make these methods completely ineffective.

The other main issues is that the vast majority of this material is not stored on standard web servers. It’s shared by email, P2P and FTP – it’s stored and distributed on private networks and areas like the darknet. None of these filtering will effect these distribution points.  Censorship is being implemented against the wrong people – innocent users of the internet.   It will have no effect on sophisticated rings of technologically savvy paedophiles across the internet.

But the real concern is that it’s simply posturing and blocking access to a problem rather than trying to solve it. It doesn’t help the victims by altering routing tables so that Australian citizens can’t access the material – it’s still there, the victims are still victims. This posturing would be better replaced by concerted efforts to track down arrest and bring to justice the people who are creating and distributing this material. It’s of course much more difficult to do but does actually have an impact.  Of course it will create more demand for an Australian proxy perhaps.

What we’ll end up with is more pointless censorship on the average, law abiding internet users.

Everywhere you look online there are ‘solutions’ to the problem of watching BBC Iplayer overseas. There are proxies, VPNs for sale on hundreds of web sites promising a solution to that rather annoying block you get when you try and connect to Iplayer when outside the UK. The great thing is that nearly all of these sites work – so how do you choose which is the best one?

Well first the reason you can’t connect, which is basically due to your IP address. When you connect to BBC Iplayer – the application does a simple look up to see where your IP address is registered. If it’s in the UK it lets you in, anywhere else then you get redirected to a polite message saying that you can’t connect.

So you’ll be informed that you can’t watch BBC Iplayer but you can listed to BBC Radio.  It’s called geotargeting and it is happening more and more on the internet.  Of course it’s great when Google uses it to make sure that you get local results for your search for a plumber, but on the whole it’s used to block access to stuff.   You see websites like to control what they charge in different places – the market in USA might support one price but they can charge much more in the UK.  It’s online price discrimination and personally I find it rather annoying.

So anyway all these firms supply proxies and VPNs based in various countries across the world.  These are servers which you can use to relay your requests to any website you like, the advantage is that you ‘adopt’ the IP address of the server.  So if the proxy is in the UK then you’ll have a British IP address and so you can watch BBC Iplayer overseas.

It’s not rocket science – so how should you choose between these companies – well here’s my little list of things to check.

What countries are available ?

Now you might only be interested in watching the latest Dr Who series on BBC Iplayer – so you just need a UK server.  However I’d advise looking at the companies who supply you access to lots of servers in different countries.  For instance if you have access to the US, France or Canada then you can access lots of websites with all the latest shows by using the right country server.   Check that you get access to  a few countries included in your subscription.

Prices of Subscription

Don’t pay a lot, the prices seem to have come down quite a bit with the increased competition.  You should definitely not be paying more than 10 Euros/14 dollars a month and the very most and that would be for a large selection of different servers.  There are a few floating around that charge much more particularly if you want a dedicated IP address which you don’t need to watch most online media.  Be very careful of the free ones, they either don’t work and install nasty adware on your computer or are just so slow are unusable.

VPN or Proxy?

There are two type of service available one is a proxy server which you simply connect to via software or by configuring a manual connection or a VPN (Virtual private network).  In practical terms for watching TV all you need to know is what works for which channels.  The BBC will work with either of these, but for instance a lot of the US channels like Hulu require a VPN to connect with.  Mainly this is due to a VPN being slightly harder to detect.  It’s advisable all things being equal to choose either a service that provides both just in case unless you know that you definitely only want to access the BBC Iplayer.

Anyway I hope that helps clarify some points – there are lots of great services out there with fast, well run servers so by all means shop around.  I actually use the Identity Cloaker as although it’s not advertised as a way of watching BBC iplayer or bypassing these blocks it works perfectly.  It has both modes VPN and proxy and has servers in about a dozen countries including UK, US, Canada and Australia to name a few.  It also has easy to use software so that you don’t have to set up the connection like you do with a lot of the other services.  It’s also primarily a security software which keeps your connection safe but the added advantage is that it won’t get pursued by legal departments like all the other firms who advertise as TV VPN/proxy services.   It’s also one of the cheapest!

Anyway you can try the trial version for 10 days f or a few bucks – 10 day account

]]> http://www.onlineanonymity.org/uk-tv/watching-bbc-iplayer-and-doctor-who-overseas/feed/ 0 http://www.onlineanonymity.org/proxies/indian-proxy-and-vpn-launched/ http://www.onlineanonymity.org/proxies/indian-proxy-and-vpn-launched/#comments Sun, 20 Mar 2011 18:52:40 +0000 http://www.onlineanonymity.org/?p=166 Posted in Proxies

The problem with most media sites is that they look at your IP address before deciding what you can watch online. More accurately they look at WHERE your IP address is registered to. Some sites like search engines use this to tailor your search results, so that you don’t end up with a plumber who lives on the other side of the planet when you type “local plumber” into Google.

So that’s fine but unfortunately that’s about the only plus point. More often it’s used to block access so if you want to watch US TV stations online from Europe or UK TV in the US then you’ll be out of luck.

Here’s an example of the sort of screen that you’ll get if you try to access UK TV in USA

You’ll get the same sort of thing if you try and access NBC, ABC, Hulu or even Pandora from anywhere outside the USA. It can get really annoying especially if you travel a lot and find yourself blocked from your favorite sites just because you happen to be in a different country briefly.

Fortunately it is possible to bypass these blocks, in fact a whole little mini industry has built up into allowing unfettered access to these sites.

So How do You Watch UK TV in the USA?

Well just to take this for an example, although the same applies to nearly every single media site on the planet. We’ll just use Identity Cloaker to access the BBC to illustrate. The trick is to fool the web site into thinking your in the United Kingdom. This can be done by connecting via a proxy server which hides your IP address.

Here’s what I do -

This is the little front end of Identity Cloaker which gives you access to the proxy server. The important thing to remember is to click a UK one as that will give you a UK IP address.  In this screen you scroll down and look for a UK server that has the quickest speed to your relative location.  You can also access sites in the USA, France, Germany, Canada, Netherlands and a few more countries just by picking the correct flags.

This will then allow you to reconnect to the BBC web site and allow you to watch the UK TV stations from anywhere in the world.   One of the advantages of using Identity Cloaker is that it is very easy to use,  you don’t have to set up these connections manually as most of the companies do.

Anyway if you want to see it demonstrated – here’s a short video (sorry about the quality!)

Sometime a Proxy Isn’t Enough

Unfortunately now, a lot of the sites won’t work with just a proxy server – although currently the most popular one the BBC works fine.  Many sites you’ll need to connect using something called a VPN (Virtual Private Network).    All sounds a bit complicated but it’s not really – but first check this next paragraph

STOP – If you travel with work and connect back to your office using some connection icon, there’s a very good chance you are already using a VPN maybe to access your email system.  So if you’re working for a company  in the UK just connect back to this and then try and access the BBC whilst you’re connected.  Same goes for any other country, if you connect to your base first you should have an IP address from that country.  Bigger companies have VPNs in lots of countries so check with your IT department first – might save yourself some money!

Anyway if you’re not lucky enough to have a work server to connect to,  here’s the Identity Cloaker VPN mode -

Just click the button and it allows you to login via a VPN.  The major difference being that all your traffic is funnelled down an encrypted tunnel and so is much more difficult for the web sites to detect.  There are a few UK TV stations that need this mode like Channel 4, Channel 5 and RTE player (this one you need to use the Irish server though)

So there you go that’s how you can watch UK TV in USA, or any TV in any country for that matter.   There’s loads of services out there now, but I really can recommend Identity Cloaker, they’ve been around a few years  and don’t charge per server like most of the companies.  There’s a very cheap trial for 10 days for a  few dollars here – Identity Cloaker 10 day trial – try it first to see how it works for you.

Someone mentioned to me they had need of a Japan proxy server for some online business they were involved in. It started me thinking about the increasing use of these services. I’ve been using proxies and VPNs most of my life, it started off mainly configuring at work but now they are definitely becoming fairly mainstream technology. Sure many people have probably used them for years too without really noticing. If you can use the internet at work or college, it’s very likely being redirected through a proxy server of some sort in order to maintain, audit and control what comes in and out of the network.

But why do people increasingly need proxies and specifically a Japan proxy or a US proxy etc. Well the two most common reasons by far – are first to bypass network or ISP restrictions blocking people from specific sites. There’s a whole host of content filtering software on most networks and increasingly installed at a country or ISP level which blocks access to specific sites. Using a proxy server can bypass these restrictions in many situations. the product Identity Cloaker is particularly adept at bypassing these blocks in any situation even the advanced content filters such as Websense which easily defeat online proxy sites. Whether this is a priority for you often depends on where you live and work. Trying to access normal technology can be a real pain in locations like Quatar and Saudi Arabia which routinely block useful sites like Skype, Facebook and Youtube for their own particular reasons.

But in these situations any proxy will do and the location is not that important. But sometimes people want a proxy in a specific country.

So Why Would Someone Want a Japan Proxy for Instance?

Well it might be that they wanted to access specific services or content in Japan whilst out of the country. Increasingly many companies are blocking access to different content when accessed outside the country. It may be for licensing issues, perhaps to restrict markets or offers to a specific area. It happens with just about all big TV and media companies for instance – they will all block access from outside their home territory. So if you wanted to watch Japan TV or radio then you’d likely need a Japan proxy server if you were somewhere else in the world.

Here’s what you’ll see if you connect through a Japanese proxy server for instance irrespective of where you are located.

Google uses similar technology to the companies who block based on location. So here Google has decided that we are based in Japan so it would be best to use the Japanese version of it’s search engine. Of course I am not really there but because I have access to a selection of Japanese proxies and VPNs I can access content there if I so wish.

But it’s not all about watching films or TV and shows online. Many people use proxies for marketing and in their online businesses. For instance I know some Australian businessmen who sell lots of stuff in Japan online but have to appear actually be there to post adverts, use Japanese websites and suchlike. Just like Ebay or Craiglist will block certain actions for non-residents, people who use the internet to sell or promote use networks of proxies to hide their real location.

These proxy services used to be very expensive but they have fallen rapidly in price as competition enters the market. Still too many companies try and charge fees for a single proxy or VPN in a specific country though. There are a couple who offer much more flexibility though – my favorite for price and sheer diversity of the servers that they have available is OverPlay, They have Japan proxy servers, more in Singapore, South America, USA, Canada, UK and loads of other places and your $10 subscription includes every single one of them.

Here’s the software in action – it actually make a VPN (Virtual private network connection) to each server simply by selecting the one from a list. This makes it easier to access US Media sites like Hulu, ABC which require a VPN connection to allow access.

It’s a cracking investment I use it to access whatever country I require, I use it in my work online and for watching media sites like the BBC IPlayer, Pandora and Hulu for fun. Check them out especially if you need a hard to find proxy or VPN like Australia or Japan – try them out for a month I’m certain you’ll be amazed at the possibilities it opens up online and there’s no better value believe me I’ve searched – Private Proxy Network

If you have any recommendations on other Japanese VPN or Proxy providers I’d love to hear about them!

Good Luck to all the Japanese People after their losses.

You wouldn’t think it would be that hard but if you have tried searching for an Australian proxy you’ll realise it’s not that easy. The reason I’ve been looking for one is a friend of mine (who is from Australia) is feeling a bit homesick and misses some of his home countries TV stations. He also misses that strange Australian Rules game for some strange reason. There is also some strange desire to ensure that his young children have decent access to the Wiggles, which again I find completely bewildering.  

As with most media sites across the world, they are restricted to access from Australian IP addresses, which of course you’ll have to be in Oz to get one.  That is of course unless you connect via a proxy or VPN based there.

Anyway over the fast few weeks I’ve looked pretty hard for a free Australian proxy which he could use. Normally I don’t look for free proxies – it’s pretty much impossible to find a decent US or UK one that lasts for more than a couple of hours but I wondered if Australian ones would be quite as popular. Well to start off I had a look at the obvious places – Proxies by countries (Australia) and indeed found a few. The usual problem though, if after a while filtering and testing you’d find a decent proxy based in Oz then when you went back to it a few hours later it was so slow to be unusable.

There’s frequently none on this site though, but it’s worth a look if  you just have the need for a one-off use for such a proxy.    Anyway I then started looking at some other sites and again found a similar problem – they were both extremely difficult to find and were extremely slow.

There are a few ‘proxy scraper’ tools which are knocking around the internet but they come up with the same sorts of lists and as far as Australian proxies were concerned the list wasn’t terribly long.   In fact I’d pretty much given up when I saw mention of a very fast Open proxy with an Australian IP address on one of  the many proxy IRC channels that exist.

This was indeed super fast and even seemed to hang around for a bit.  Unfortunately a little bit of research showed that it was obviously a mis configured server at an Australian educational establishment.   It was certainly the fastest free Australian proxy I’d ever seen but again after a few days it had disappeared as presumably the admin realised his mistake.

Remember virtually all these free proxies are either accidentally left open servers or worse ones that have been hacked into and turned into open relay proxies.   Behind them all there is a bandwidth bill to be settled as if you allow unlimited traffic through a server then those bills will start rising fast.  The legitimate ones are set up on cheap hosting accounts using scripts like Glype financed by advertising – this is fine for just the occasional web browsing but you can’t watch online video using  them either.

The problem is that bandwidth and hosting accounts in Australia are rather expensive, so it’s unlikely you’ll find many proxies to use that are based in  Australia.   Even the proxy and VPN service providers in most cases don’t bother with Australian proxies due to demand and costs.   The demand for Australian stuff will probably grow though with Foxtel broadcasting more sports, Ten Sports with more free stuff and of course the big National channel ABC which people will definitely like access to.

I had a look at using Tor and Foxy Proxy but no luck here either, it was very difficult to find an Australian exit node you could use that all these channels needed.  In the end I had to recommend a company to provide the service there are one or two who do supply servers in Australia.   I never suggest ones who charge you per server as this get’s really expensive and very annoying when you want to access some content in a different country like Hulu, Pandora in the US or even UK channels if your travelling or on holiday.

So here they are one of the best VPN suppliers I have found, very cheap subscription, don’t force you into direct debits, you can subscribe for a month at a time and best of all they give you access to every single one of their servers included in the subscription.   Try them out for a month and see what you think – they’re called OverPlay.  They also have specific configurations to allow faster access to their Australian proxy from Europe and the US.  If you do try them also check out the other media sites using their other servers – Hulu, NBC and Pandora using the US proxies are great.  Use the UK Servers for  BBC Iplayer, Channel 4, ITV and Channel 5 for some great content that streams really quickly.  You’ll also find some great sites in other countries like M6 Replay in France and some great Canadian TV Sites using those servers.

So my recommendation for a cheap, fast Australian Proxy is OverPlay

Quick Update – Nov 10th, 2011

Identity Cloaker have also added some Australian Proxies as well although to be honest I haven’t really tested them for speed yet – might be worth checking them. They are similar price but safest to try the 10 day trial first to see if it works ok for you – 10 Day trial.