[tor-relays] BBC and UK Lottery blocking ip addresses running relay nodes

Matt Puckey matt at puckey.org
Wed Sep 17 20:48:35 UTC 2014


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-anonymous-users)
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





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