The BBC is going to intercept WiFi traffic to find people watching iPlayer without paying the license fee

[Kamil]

So... Is there really not an option to just switch to an actual opt-in payment rather than a convoluted fuck-up? Like, it seems like almost anything else would be a better option then "make it available to everyone then spy on all the houses because even though we specifically made it possible for those people to use, they aren't allowed to use it".

[callum92]

They should redirect all this effort in to producing some content that is worth watching.

[Just Monika]

A possible solution to prevent snooping, switch to powerline ethernet, if traditional ethernet is not possible? Targeting Wifi is awfully specific.

[jagdtigger]

Or just use OpenVPN for wifi devices in your LAN. I have one for remote access and it uses 4096 bit keys so good luck decrypting that traffic...

[Master Disaster]

2 hours ago, vorticalbox said:

if you're watching live tv, regardless of the source or broadcast material regardless of when it was broadcast you require a tv licence to view it.

 

publicly posting you're breaking the law is never a good idea.

And if you look at the post I made after the one you quoted you'll see I do have a TV licence. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

And that's legal how? If that's honestly legal and it doesn't gets stopped, Brexit is the least of the UK's fucking problems. Seriously this is next level Orwellian fucking shit.

How do you think they will intercept the wifi here. Will they abuse the provider, or just log in to our internet. By now, I think that creating a custom router firmware won't actually be a bad idea. If I can create a firmware that logs any connection attempts, than spying on their little wifi intercepting vans would be possible.

[Zodiark1593]

19 minutes ago, spidsepttk said:

How do you think they will intercept the wifi here. Will they abuse the provider, or just log in to our internet. By now, I think that creating a custom router firmware won't actually be a bad idea. If I can create a firmware that logs any connection attempts, than spying on their little wifi intercepting vans would be possible.

Intercepting wifi traffic isn't terribly difficult (script kiddie level). The protection encryption provides is to the content of the packet, not necessarily to the size of the packet. If you write a program that transmits data over wifi with a certain packet size (or even potentially  a combination of sizes in sequence), one could narrow down the households that may be using your program. 

 

This can be done without any sort of login. In a sense, it's much like looking through the window of a house from the sidewalk. 

 

[Guest]

Just now, Zodiark1593 said:

Intercepting wifi traffic isn't terribly difficult (script kiddie level). The protection encryption provides is to the content of the packet, not necessarily to the size of the packet. If you write a program that transmits data over wifi with a certain packet size (or even potentially  a combination of sizes in sequence), one could narrow down the households that may be using your program. 

Yeah, but i'm kind of sick of ordinary wifi router firmware. With my liking for writing terminals and basic operating systems I'm sure that with enough time I could write a network driver and network firewall.

 

I often find router firmware interfaces buggy and annoying to use. 

 

Anyway, it's good to code something with a use, and I think I would learn a lot from it. I have never written an os level network driver before.

[porina]

The TV license fee system itself is broken, and enforcement of that is just a second order of brokenness. They missed a chance during the digital switchover, where it would have been trivial for them to lock the BBC content behind a paywall, which is effectively what the licence fee is. They could as easily have done with same with iplayer. No, they want to perpetuate the myth that anyone who doesn't pay is odd, and should be paying regardless.

 

Also personally I think the value is poor. Top Gear *was* the only thing worth paying for and they haven't even got that now. The BBC continuously asks for ever increasing licence fees, to provide more content in more forms e.g. funding the move online. They fail to recognise that people have a fixed time budget, and however much more content they produce, are unlikely to consume that extra content. So, paying more for what you can't practically use.

 

I don't know if they have changed the wording on the licence in recent years, but in the old days it said you need a licence if you even own equipment capable of receiving TV content, regardless if you use it as such. This has caught out people who bought a TV for the sole purpose of watching recorded media and console gaming for example. Now, if they could apply this to the internet era, then conceivably anyone with access to an internet connection may be assumed to be capable of obtaining BBC content for the purposes of licencing. They haven't gone that far... yet.

 

There has been vague talk about changing the system the next time the charter is reviewed, but with everything else happening in the world anything could happen.

[Clanscorpia]

But what are they going to do after? Sue you? They get 0 reward  Plus this cant prove anything. Packet size proves nadda.

[Tomsen]

Wouldn't it be all simpler if BBC's fee were covered by taxes (taxes would increase every so slightly), and have the whole thing done with.

Then all the stupidity about catching people trying to evade the license cost would go away.

It is a public service after all, isn't it?

[Energycore]

5 hours ago, colonel_mortis said:

Given that they were explicitly allowed to intercept communications in the IPA, I think they have probably whitelisted from other relevant legislation, if it exists, too. They aren't actually reading traffic, just analysing "metadata", so I suspect a lot of protections don't apply anyway. 

Because clearly, the BBC is above the laws, even the ones it itself makes.

 

Wasn't that one of the core concepts of tyranny?

[Energycore]

1 minute ago, Tomsen said:

Wouldn't it be all simpler if BBC's fee were covered by taxes (taxes would increase every so slightly), and have the whole thing done with.

Then all the stupidity about catching people trying to evade the license cost would go away.

It is a public service after all, isn't it?

GENIUS

 

Give this human an award

[porina]

3 minutes ago, Tomsen said:

Wouldn't it be all simpler if BBC's fee were covered by taxes (taxes would increase every so slightly), and have the whole thing done with.

Then all the stupidity about catching people trying to evade the license cost would go away.

It is a public service after all, isn't it?

There was talk of doing that, but the need for government not to be seen to be i control of the BBC would need to be addressed. Maybe in a similar way to how MPs supposedly don't pick their own pay and it is set by a separate body.

 

You can bet the unions of the enforcers and related jobs to licensing will resist this. Need to get Clarkson to deal with it.

[Prysin]

7 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

Lol and they said the NSA was bad, they said..................

 

 

 

[points if you get the reference]

They say a lot of things.

 

Well then, time for everyone to learn how these vans look, and start streaming german dungeon porn once the van is in the area. That should teach em.

[AlwaysFSX]

1 minute ago, Prysin said:

They say a lot of things.

 

Well then, time for everyone to learn how these vans look, and start streaming german dungeon porn once the van is in the area. That should teach em.

Good fucking lord.

[Prysin]

1 minute ago, AlwaysFSX said:

Good fucking lord.

they got to learn. The hard way...

 

huehuehue

[AlwaysFSX]

2 minutes ago, Prysin said:

they got to learn. The hard way...

 

huehuehue

o______O

[Dabombinable]

We (Australia) actually got rid of the license years ago. Also, did the retards ever hear of Ethernet? And how are they going to intercept packets sent over that?

[LAwLz]

5 hours ago, SamStrecker said:

What about a VPN?

3 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Or just use OpenVPN for wifi devices in your LAN. I have one for remote access and it uses 4096 bit keys so good luck decrypting that traffic...

Does not help.

WPA2 is already (in practice) uncrackable and will prevent them from seeing what's inside the packets. What they do is look at the size of packets being sent to you, when they are sent, how often, with what latency, and so on, in order to determine if it matches a pattern of packets being sent from their servers.

No type of encryption prevents this (except one that pads your packets), because they collecting meta data, not the actual data.

 

 

4 hours ago, sof006 said:

Can you not just hide your SSID and then they won't scan for your WiFI signal?

Hiding your SSID doesn't actually do anything against any type of attack. Especially not this type.

[spellmanuk]

7 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

Something something 1984....

 

In all seriousness, the solution here is for people in the UK to stop watching BBC content, and to not use their online player. Hurt them where they will feel it, right in the wallet.

 

Not sure if that's possible though. Can you get services like DirectTV in the UK? Surely you have some options besides the BBC (I would hope)

 

Also, VPN and done.

that would never work there basiclly the core channel so if you stop watching bbc you stop watching TV basically also they make some pretty good shows, doctor who, robot wars, sherlock, luther and bad eduaction just to name a few not to metion things like east enders that fetch 8 million verws every night monday though friday it would never work as for VPN youd have to VPN to somwhere indie the uk that had a license as you can only watch iplayer inside the uk

[spellmanuk]

43 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

We (Australia) actually got rid of the license years ago. Also, did the retards ever hear of Ethernet? And how are they going to intercept packets sent over that?

well the majoriy of iplayer traffic comes from Tablets phones laptops and smart TVs all things that mainly use WIFI (yes i know most smart tvs can use Ethernet as well but still) 

[Citadelen]

9 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

-snip-

The government has been meddling with the BBC recently, they've been attempting to erode the service to sell it because they're on the economic right. Reduced funding means they're strapped for cash thus they need to extract money from iPlayer. They're not decrypting the packets, so this isn't illegal. Besides, whatever they see, our ISP's see, which in turn the government is allowed to see. It's not the ideal situation, but it's not as bad as it is at first glance.

[Sir Asvald]

I guess this is convo they had with the TECH team before coming up with this plan. 

 

Person 1: We're some noise from the Ethernet cable!

Person 2: What's the sound?!

Person 1: The sound is...is...oh it's only electromagnetic interference.

Person 2: I though it was the sound of iplayer starting.

[DildorTheDecent]

10 hours ago, colonel_mortis said:

(you already needed to pay to watch live TV online using iPlayer, but not on demand),

can't recall that being a thing. It's covered by the licence iirc. 

 

https://i.gyazo.com/d3b31663459dedcba0c27c09c44d39a6.mp4