Sky BT and other ISPs trying to ban Kodi and now streaming sites

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I'm sure it can be cracked, but looks very difficult. The end device is the key target which makes pretty unsustainable for any 'pirate' to hash a unique key for my *specific* front room TV..

if you can view it, it'll be easy.

even the un crackable is no problem now

After the Denuvo DRM protection for Capcom's Resident Evil 7 was recently cracked less than a week after the game's release, what used to be considered practically "uncrackable" copy protection is looking quite a bit less valuable. Now, Denuvo is defending its "Anti-Tamper" technology, saying it's still the best copy protection currently available.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017...-re7-protection-is-still-better-than-nothing/
 


if you can view it, it'll be easy.

even the un crackable is no problem now

After the Denuvo DRM protection for Capcom's Resident Evil 7 was recently cracked less than a week after the game's release, what used to be considered practically "uncrackable" copy protection is looking quite a bit less valuable. Now, Denuvo is defending its "Anti-Tamper" technology, saying it's still the best copy protection currently available.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017...-re7-protection-is-still-better-than-nothing/

I think putting the software in the end device (TV etc) is the way to go though.

Everything up until now presumes your device will be 'dumb' and therefore just plays a stream of video without any interaction at the chip level..
 
Possible, but difficult. Commercially it would be stupid.

The majority of uses for VPN is for people accessing work, or for a smaller number of more techy people, connecting into home while out/away. If Sky blocked VPN completely then I would not be able to work from home. Given that I do emergency IT cover I could only do this by sitting on site, rather than doing gardening and checking in once per hour. It would have such an impact on my life that I would drop Sky in seconds. Even if that involved paying up a contract for x months it would be worth it. I am certainly not unique in this as home working is becoming so much more common now, they have to allow it otherwise their broadband business is finished.

From the technical point of view, VPN is not one thing like web/http is for example. There are many different ways to encrypt and tunnel your traffic, but normally the average user does not know, they just use a wizard to configure it. There are certain protocols such as p2pp, ipsec and l2pp. These could be blocked, though IPSec has other uses than just VPN so that would be difficult. Another protocol which is becoming very common is SSL, where it uses the same port and protocol as a https server (look at the top of your screen, you are using https now). That is a lot harder to detect and block without blocking access to any secure website. My work is in the process of deploying a SSL VPN right now, just because of the ease of service and the fact that it is more likely to be permitted through hotel/pub/train firewalls.

I have just done a packet capture of the packets and you can tell it is not web requests by doing deep packet inspection. To do that on the fly for a big ISP requires some very big expensive hardware. They would have to process every packet going through one of their main connection points, which is millions of packets per seconds.

The other method is SSH. Normally SSH is a unix thing that allows someone to get a remote command prompt on a unix or linux server. However you can tunnel other traffic over this connection. SSH has so many uses in the world, from remote workers to people running websites. They can not detect if web tunneling is running over that.

There is also another option for people, proxies. There are all sorts of way to proxy traffic if you have a server not controlled by those ISPs anywhere. To set up something bespoke you could even have a webscript. There is stuff out there, but I reckon I could write a cgi script in 1-2 hours that would forward all requests to starstreams, meaning I would just have to visit a particular page on my remote website to see starstreams appear. I rate my self as a reasonably good network engineer who has never written anything like that. If I could do it in 2 hours, how long is it going to take people running these sites who is commercially motivated?

It is an arms race where there is only going to be one loser - Sky.

I would love to pay £3-4 per game for a quality stream of every Sunderland game and I don't think I'm alone in that. You can get loads of TV content free with Kodi and although I installed it one day for a look, I tend to just watch Netflix. Never a problem with it, never had to scrape around looking for a decent quality stream without foreign subtitles etc, it just works with a nice interface that I can chromecast from my phone. That is worth paying less than £10 per month. I'm lazy and to me the convenience is worth more than the cost. I will not subscribe to Sky sports to pay lots for a service that does not show what I want to watch. Waking up to this is the only way Sky will ever win.


Thanks for this. Spo even if the ISPs start deep packet inspection there'll still be ways round it?

I think putting the software in the end device (TV etc) is the way to go though.

Everything up until now presumes your device will be 'dumb' and therefore just plays a stream of video without any interaction at the chip level..


Somebody will sell a thirty quid gadget on ebay that plugs into your telly and lets you stream from a computer. Or you could just not buy an advanced 4k telly with blocking software built in. There'll always be somebody making a decent TV that doesn't have the software on it, there'll be a massive market for it if telly blocking software is effective.
 
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I wonder how many legitimate servers with high demand will get picked up

helps if they get ip address right

“The Second Supplemental Brasich Declaration stated that the IP address for the Vultr/Choopa server was 108.61.191.ll4. However, the correct IP address for the Vultr/Choopa server in question is in fact 108.61.191.141, a transposition of the final two digits.”

https://torrentfreak.com/mpaas-anti-piracy-injunction-targets-wrong-ip-address-due-to-a-typo-170317/

A few days ago news broke that the MPAA was granted a broad injunction, allowing them to shut down the domain names of Pubfilm’s alleged pirate site ring.
 
helps if they get ip address right

“The Second Supplemental Brasich Declaration stated that the IP address for the Vultr/Choopa server was 108.61.191.ll4. However, the correct IP address for the Vultr/Choopa server in question is in fact 108.61.191.141, a transposition of the final two digits.”

https://torrentfreak.com/mpaas-anti-piracy-injunction-targets-wrong-ip-address-due-to-a-typo-170317/

A few days ago news broke that the MPAA was granted a broad injunction, allowing them to shut down the domain names of Pubfilm’s alleged pirate site ring.

:lol::lol::lol::lol:
 
I think putting the software in the end device (TV etc) is the way to go though.

Everything up until now presumes your device will be 'dumb' and therefore just plays a stream of video without any interaction at the chip level..
I can not see that happening. 15 years ago, people sat and watched video content on a big telly in their bedroom or living room. Now a lot of viewing is via tablet and other mobile devices. Some is smart TVs, other is the likes of chromecast or firestick.

Some people I work with have splashed the cash on a big TV but sit with their tablets on their knees watching one thing on a small screen while their missus watches something else on her tablet. Sounds awful to me, but that is the modern world. Students do not take TVs to uni anymore.

If a provider made a service that can only be viewed on one device, I can not see that selling well at all. It just does not fit with consumer demands. It would be a bit like when iTunes added DRM to their content. People were suddenly limited to where they could play their stuff, turned to pirates until the likes of google and amazon filled the void legally and cheaply.
 
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something but, to me, it won't matter if you have VPN or not because they are targeting the servers, not the end user.

If they find a server streaming the game illegally, they shut down that server whether you're in UK, Europe, Africa etc...
Or am I wrong?
They can't shut down that server in e.g. russia
 
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