BBC and UK Lottery blocking ip addresses running relay nodes
All I can see there was a previous thread related to this in June, but thought I'd add what I'm seeing to the discussion. After the *Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill (DRIP) *was rushed through parliament I decided to do my bit for the privacy cause and run a couple of Tor relays. I run one from my laptop at home and one from my desktop at work. Since doing this I have suffered deliberate disruption in service from the BBC and the National Lottery. A Tor relay is a node on The Onion Router network that traffic gets router through to anonymise where it originated from. ( https://www.eff.org/torchallenge/what-is-tor.html) Note that I am running middle relays, not exit relays, so the connection to the destination site will never come directly from one of my relay nodes. Neither have I used the Tor browser to access either site. *The BBC* Within 48 hours the http://bbc.co.uk website started redirecting me to the http://bbc.com international version. They seem to think I am no longer a licence payer, or perhaps conspiring to allow non licence payers to access their UK service. The redirect is based on my homes IP address, so all devices, laptop, phone, ipad etc get redirected. The redirect seems to trigger via Javascript, I can access http://www.bbc.co.uk with Javascript disabled. The international site recognises that my ip address is in the UK and refuses to let me access international content. The net result is that I and my family can no longer access either UK or international BBC content. *The National Lottery* The Lottery allows me to connect and browse their site but as soon as I try to make a purchase I get blocked: *Why is this odd:* Any of the popular IP checking sites/tools show that my address is located in the UK: e.g www.whatsmyip.com or https://who.is I am using two different ISPs (Zen and VirginMedia) neither can explain the behaviour. Contacting the lottery they blame the ISP, I have been unable to get a response from the BBC. Assuming I can believe the look up services and the ISPs that my IP addresses are still located in the UK, the only explanation I can come up with is that the BBC and the lottery are deliberately blocking ip addresses that are registered on the Tor network. Whether they do this independently or avail of a common third party is unknown. So the cost of trying to maintain privacy seems to be the loss of BBC and Lottery – which seems unfair. Regards Dan
Dear Dan, Sorry to hear you're having trouble. As I guess you read in previous messages on here - I had a similar issue with nhs.gov.uk and the BBC earlier this year. At this point, I again have access to both sites. for the BBC, you could try filling in this form if you haven't already: http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/tv/incorrect_location_may2014 I'd advise you tell them that you are running a Tor relay when you describe the issue. I assume you're running middle (i.e. not exit) relays given you are using your home IP? If so - make sure you include this detail, and emphasise that as a result, no Tor traffic is coming from your IP to the BBC website - the only traffic is from you yourself. If you don't hear back from them within a week or so, you could try poking the iPlayer guys on Twitter giving them your case number (@BBCiPlayer). At least for me, once I regained access to iPlayer, I also regained access to all other BBC UK only content. I'm afraid I don't have any experience dealing with the Lottery site, so I can't advise there. It's possible that the BBC and Lottery people are using the same hosting provider, and so fixing the BBC issue may resolve your Lottery problem...but we can't be sure. I'd get whatever contact details you can from them and explain the problem, what a middle relay is, how it's just you etc and see what they say. Good luck, Chris On 11 September 2014 17:23, Dan Hanley <hanley.dan@gmail.com> wrote:
All
I can see there was a previous thread related to this in June, but thought I'd add what I'm seeing to the discussion.
After the *Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill (DRIP) *was rushed through parliament I decided to do my bit for the privacy cause and run a couple of Tor relays.
I run one from my laptop at home and one from my desktop at work.
Since doing this I have suffered deliberate disruption in service from the BBC and the National Lottery.
A Tor relay is a node on The Onion Router network that traffic gets router through to anonymise where it originated from. ( https://www.eff.org/torchallenge/what-is-tor.html)
Note that I am running middle relays, not exit relays, so the connection to the destination site will never come directly from one of my relay nodes. Neither have I used the Tor browser to access either site.
*The BBC*
Within 48 hours the http://bbc.co.uk website started redirecting me to the http://bbc.com international version. They seem to think I am no longer a licence payer, or perhaps conspiring to allow non licence payers to access their UK service. The redirect is based on my homes IP address, so all devices, laptop, phone, ipad etc get redirected. The redirect seems to trigger via Javascript, I can access http://www.bbc.co.uk with Javascript disabled.
The international site recognises that my ip address is in the UK and refuses to let me access international content.
The net result is that I and my family can no longer access either UK or international BBC content.
*The National Lottery*
The Lottery allows me to connect and browse their site but as soon as I try to make a purchase I get blocked:
*Why is this odd:*
Any of the popular IP checking sites/tools show that my address is located in the UK: e.g www.whatsmyip.com or https://who.is
I am using two different ISPs (Zen and VirginMedia) neither can explain the behaviour.
Contacting the lottery they blame the ISP, I have been unable to get a response from the BBC.
Assuming I can believe the look up services and the ISPs that my IP addresses are still located in the UK, the only explanation I can come up with is that the BBC and the lottery are deliberately blocking ip addresses that are registered on the Tor network. Whether they do this independently or avail of a common third party is unknown.
So the cost of trying to maintain privacy seems to be the loss of BBC and Lottery – which seems unfair.
Regards
Dan
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-- *Dr Chris Whittleston 栗主* Department of Chemistry University of Cambridge Lensfield Road, Cambridge, CB2 1EW Email: csw34@cam.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0)1223 336423
Hi all, Just to add another data point on the BBC/Tor situation, I've just had a reply to a case I opened with BBC Audience Services which sounds very discouraging - it appears to be a matter of deliberate policy: "Thank you for contacting the BBC iPlayer support team. "I understand you’re experiencing problems accessing BBC iPlayer as you’re told that you are outside of the UK. "Please note that if you run TOR, then I’m afraid as per our development team’s confirmation you’ll not be able to access BBC iPlayer. If you continue to use TOR then your IP address may be blacklisted against UK only services across bbc.co.uk." I made a point of stating explicitly in my original case filing that I run a middle relay and that no traffic exits from my node to the BBC's website or to anywhere else, along with a link to my node's stats on blutmagie confirming the (non-)exit policy. At times like this, it's a pity iPlayer isn't a paid service - I could at least get some satisfaction out of cancelling my subscription... Time to use a UK-based proxy service for my iPlayer access, maybe? :) Stephen
Stephen Mollett:
[...] "Thank you for contacting the BBC iPlayer support team.
"I understand you’re experiencing problems accessing BBC iPlayer as you’re told that you are outside of the UK.
"Please note that if you run TOR, then I’m afraid as per our development team’s confirmation you’ll not be able to access BBC iPlayer. If you continue to use TOR then your IP address may be blacklisted against UK only services across bbc.co.uk."
I made a point of stating explicitly in my original case filing that I run a middle relay and that no traffic exits from my node to the BBC's website or to anywhere else, along with a link to my node's stats on blutmagie confirming the (non-)exit policy. [...]
Hi Stephen, I'm not sure whether I'm surprised at the BBC or not! It is a shame if they seem to be doing blanket blocking of Tor relay IP addresses. I suppose this (https://blog.torproject.org/blog/call-arms-helping-internet-services-accept-...) has /some/ relevance. The problem is obviously convincing a organisation like the BBC to treat individual IP addresses different from other Tor relay IP addresses (and whether they should be doing that at all). Although it seems Chris Whittleston obviously managed it! Maybe you simply got 'the wrong person at the other end'. Personally, I would continue to pursue this with them! --Matt
Yeah ouch - maybe I just got someone a bit more helpful. I'm with Matt though, it seems like they still don't get the difference between using Tor as a client and running a relay, so this isn't the end of the road there. You are going to have to rely on them wanting to actually think about it though. If all else fails, you could always try to simply report the issue again using the form I linked before, but this time just don't mention Tor at all and see if you get a different customer service person... http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/tv/incorrect_location_may2014 I suspect you'll end up having to explain that you're running a relay in the end anyway, but you never know. Chris On 17 September 2014 21:48, Matt Puckey <matt@puckey.org> wrote:
Stephen Mollett:
[...] "Thank you for contacting the BBC iPlayer support team.
"I understand you’re experiencing problems accessing BBC iPlayer as you’re told that you are outside of the UK.
"Please note that if you run TOR, then I’m afraid as per our development team’s confirmation you’ll not be able to access BBC iPlayer. If you continue to use TOR then your IP address may be blacklisted against UK only services across bbc.co.uk."
I made a point of stating explicitly in my original case filing that I run a middle relay and that no traffic exits from my node to the BBC's website or to anywhere else, along with a link to my node's stats on blutmagie confirming the (non-)exit policy. [...]
Hi Stephen,
I'm not sure whether I'm surprised at the BBC or not!
It is a shame if they seem to be doing blanket blocking of Tor relay IP addresses. I suppose this ( https://blog.torproject.org/blog/call-arms-helping-internet-services-accept-... ) has /some/ relevance.
The problem is obviously convincing a organisation like the BBC to treat individual IP addresses different from other Tor relay IP addresses (and whether they should be doing that at all). Although it seems Chris Whittleston obviously managed it! Maybe you simply got 'the wrong person at the other end'. Personally, I would continue to pursue this with them!
--Matt
_______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
-- *Dr Chris Whittleston 栗主* Department of Chemistry University of Cambridge Lensfield Road, Cambridge, CB2 1EW Email: csw34@cam.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0)1223 336423
participants (4)
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Chris Whittleston -
Dan Hanley -
Matt Puckey -
Stephen Mollett