Are VPNs getting useless against geo-restricted services?

Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 27/11/2019 19.19, Cameo wrote:
On 11/26/2019 9:13 PM, Kenny McCormack wrote:
In article , default
wrote:
On Tue, 26 Nov 2019 09:06:11 -0500, Wolffan
wrote:

On 25 Nov 2019, Cameo wrote (in article
):

I just tried a free subscription to Hulu and it wants me to
enable the location service in the Chrome browser. Apparently
Hulu got smart and does not rely on the US IP provided by the
VPN. Chrome location would probably provide my true location
in EU. Is there a way to defeat that, too?

Don’tuse Chrome. Use Brave. Or Vivaldi. Or Firefox. Or... there
are a _lot_ of alternatives. Brave is faster than Chrome
talking to the same sites via the same network and on the same
hardware, and _doesn’t_ blab your location.

I've often thought with a pint of Abby Ale, and some Vivaldi on
the stereo, cares seem to melt away.

That's just two of the Holy Trinity. (wine, women and song)

Hulu? Who needs it? Curl up with a good book.

If you had said (as I was expecting you were going to) "Curl up
with a good woman", then you would, indeed, have all 3.

What I find amusing in this thread is that usually, on any online
forum, when somebody is trying to do something illegal (as is
clearly the case here),

Technically it's illegal and I wish there was a legal way to receive
US broadcast channels in Europe. I would not mind paying for it. In
fact I am paying Hulu a pretty hefty price, even "illegally." Frankly
I don't see what's the harm in what I am doing. If anything I am
contributing to the revenue of Hulu (which is paying some of that to
the content providers.) If I stay "legal", that would be a lost
opportunity cost to them, wouldn't it? So I think with this stupid
geo-restriction the broadcasters only shoot themselves in the foot as
it hurts them financially. So they should be thankful for my helping
their bottom line, and I'll be thankful to keep me up-to-date on US
politics better than what I could gain from the local European TV
broadcasts. This is especially important now with the US election
season in full swing.

One of the main reasons is that the stations have not paid the content
owners for the right to distribute outside of the USA.

That's a regulatory issue.

They pay also
considering how many people are expected to watch the programming.

Why do they pay?

On another aspect, the commercials are tailored for the USA, so they
make no revenue from airing on Europe.

They've already paid for the advertising slot so getting extra people
seeing the ads - even outside their target audience - is a bonus.

It is similar reasoning to using regions on DVDs.

No. That is purely a marketing ploy to artificially stage releases and
avoid grey imports. There is no good reason for region coding other than to
extract more money from customers.

Cameo wrote:
[...]

Actually, I was wrong when I wrote that Google was interfering with the
news server. It was with the mail servers, but since I use the same
client (Thunderbird) for both, I thought it was about the news server.
And most of my email servers are configured for imap, especially the 3
gmail accounts.

If your (Thunderbird) Gmail accounts use IMAP, then configure those
accounts to use OAuth2 [1] and your problems should go away.

[1] On the 'Server Settings' page: Security Settings - Authentication
Method - OAuth2.

On 28/11/2019 20:21, Cameo wrote:

But why banks keep asking me every time if I plan to use this PC in
future transaction with them and they never take my YES seriously

It's because they have some info about you. Were you involved in fraud
or attempted a fraud but stopped because of your stupidity? there are
dumb fradsters around in this world and you might be one of them.




--
With over 1,000,000 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

On 28/11/2019 21.17, Cameo wrote:
On 11/28/2019 1:13 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 28/11/2019 00.36, Cameo wrote:
On 11/27/2019 9:30 PM, Panthera Tigris Altaica wrote:
On 2019-11-25 16:22, Cameo wrote:
I just tried a free subscription to Hulu and it wants me to enable
the location service in the Chrome browser. Apparently Hulu got smart
and does not rely on the US IP provided by the VPN. Chrome location
would probably provide my true location in EU. Is there a way to
defeat that, too?

Stop using Chrome.

I hear it so often that I just might give it a try. Another related
thing that started happening lately is that when I turn on the VPN and
then I try to run my Thunderbird news client, Google gives me all kinds
of security warnings and even blocks the client from accessing the news
server. This is fairly recent behavior and forces me not to use
Thunderbird with VPN on. I am getting tired of this heavyhandedness by
Google and wonder if Chrome is in the middle of all that, too.

What news server are you using?

I don't see why google would even see your connection to
ethernal-september.

You must have got it wrong, google is not complaining about your news
access. It is probably complaining about your access to google mail -
which is a known issue if you use an vpn.

You're right. It was the mail servers. I use Thunderbird.
BTW, I just installed FireFox, too, and so far it looks good and play
well with ExpressVPN. Looks like I better remember not to bring up
Thunderbird while my VPN is on.

It will probably work if you change the authorization system to oauth2.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 28/11/2019 21.21, Cameo wrote:
On 11/28/2019 2:35 PM, Arlen Holder wrote:
On Thu, 28 Nov 2019 00:36:02 +0100, Cameo wrote:

Google gives me all kinds
of security warnings and even blocks the client from accessing the news
server.

Google hates when you log into its mail servers from Canada one
moment, and
then from Russia the next, and China the next...

Ask me how I know.

I figure that's how they figure something fishy is going on. But why
banks keep asking me every time if I plan to use this PC in future
transaction with them and they never take my YES seriously because next
time they ask it again.

Because they don't use it correctly... A change of GeoIP location
confuses them a lot. Most clients are always on the same site; if
somebody stole your laptop and moved to another city, or if your
credentials suddenly appear on another country, it makes sense to verify
that it is actually you and not a thief.

It is not only internet: some banks block your credit card, and call you
home - and of course, you are not there. Subsequently they cancel the
card and create a lot of trouble for you, without money abroad. You need
to make an international phone call to the branch to have it restored.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 28/11/2019 21.34, Chris wrote:
Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 27/11/2019 19.19, Cameo wrote:
On 11/26/2019 9:13 PM, Kenny McCormack wrote:
In article , default
wrote:
On Tue, 26 Nov 2019 09:06:11 -0500, Wolffan
wrote:

On 25 Nov 2019, Cameo wrote (in article
):

I just tried a free subscription to Hulu and it wants me to
enable the location service in the Chrome browser. Apparently
Hulu got smart and does not rely on the US IP provided by the
VPN. Chrome location would probably provide my true location
in EU. Is there a way to defeat that, too?

Don’tuse Chrome. Use Brave. Or Vivaldi. Or Firefox. Or... there
are a _lot_ of alternatives. Brave is faster than Chrome
talking to the same sites via the same network and on the same
hardware, and _doesn’t_ blab your location.

I've often thought with a pint of Abby Ale, and some Vivaldi on
the stereo, cares seem to melt away.

That's just two of the Holy Trinity. (wine, women and song)

Hulu? Who needs it? Curl up with a good book.

If you had said (as I was expecting you were going to) "Curl up
with a good woman", then you would, indeed, have all 3.

What I find amusing in this thread is that usually, on any online
forum, when somebody is trying to do something illegal (as is
clearly the case here),

Technically it's illegal and I wish there was a legal way to receive
US broadcast channels in Europe. I would not mind paying for it. In
fact I am paying Hulu a pretty hefty price, even "illegally." Frankly
I don't see what's the harm in what I am doing. If anything I am
contributing to the revenue of Hulu (which is paying some of that to
the content providers.) If I stay "legal", that would be a lost
opportunity cost to them, wouldn't it? So I think with this stupid
geo-restriction the broadcasters only shoot themselves in the foot as
it hurts them financially. So they should be thankful for my helping
their bottom line, and I'll be thankful to keep me up-to-date on US
politics better than what I could gain from the local European TV
broadcasts. This is especially important now with the US election
season in full swing.

One of the main reasons is that the stations have not paid the content
owners for the right to distribute outside of the USA.

That's a regulatory issue.

They pay also
considering how many people are expected to watch the programming.

Why do they pay?

It is agasint the law to not pay. They are taken to court and they
impound the business. Their license to air is cancelled.


On another aspect, the commercials are tailored for the USA, so they
make no revenue from airing on Europe.

They've already paid for the advertising slot so getting extra people
seeing the ads - even outside their target audience - is a bonus.

They don't see it that way. They want comercials customized as much as
possible to the people seeing it, and charge as much as possible for the
advertising.

To them, airing a commercial for the Ford Mustang and show it in Spain
is a loss of air time and money.


It is similar reasoning to using regions on DVDs.

No. That is purely a marketing ploy to artificially stage releases and
avoid grey imports. There is no good reason for region coding other than to
extract more money from customers.

Again, they don't see it that way :-P

It is always about they getting your money, as much as they can, not
threading on other wolves shoes.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 11/28/2019 9:57 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 28/11/2019 21.17, Cameo wrote:
On 11/28/2019 1:13 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 28/11/2019 00.36, Cameo wrote:
On 11/27/2019 9:30 PM, Panthera Tigris Altaica wrote:
On 2019-11-25 16:22, Cameo wrote:
I just tried a free subscription to Hulu and it wants me to enable
the location service in the Chrome browser. Apparently Hulu got smart
and does not rely on the US IP provided by the VPN. Chrome location
would probably provide my true location in EU. Is there a way to
defeat that, too?

Stop using Chrome.

I hear it so often that I just might give it a try. Another related
thing that started happening lately is that when I turn on the VPN and
then I try to run my Thunderbird news client, Google gives me all kinds
of security warnings and even blocks the client from accessing the news
server. This is fairly recent behavior and forces me not to use
Thunderbird with VPN on. I am getting tired of this heavyhandedness by
Google and wonder if Chrome is in the middle of all that, too.

What news server are you using?

I don't see why google would even see your connection to
ethernal-september.

You must have got it wrong, google is not complaining about your news
access. It is probably complaining about your access to google mail -
which is a known issue if you use an vpn.

You're right. It was the mail servers. I use Thunderbird.
BTW, I just installed FireFox, too, and so far it looks good and play
well with ExpressVPN. Looks like I better remember not to bring up
Thunderbird while my VPN is on.

It will probably work if you change the authorization system to oauth2.

oauth2? But don't most servers require specific auth. systems?

On 11/28/2019 9:40 PM, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Cameo wrote:
[...]

Actually, I was wrong when I wrote that Google was interfering with the
news server. It was with the mail servers, but since I use the same
client (Thunderbird) for both, I thought it was about the news server.
And most of my email servers are configured for imap, especially the 3
gmail accounts.

If your (Thunderbird) Gmail accounts use IMAP, then configure those
accounts to use OAuth2 [1] and your problems should go away.

[1] On the 'Server Settings' page: Security Settings - Authentication
Method - OAuth2.

Thanks, I did that and will be testing it out shortly.

On 11/28/2019 9:43 PM, 😉 Good Guy 😉 wrote:
On 28/11/2019 20:21, Cameo wrote:

Â*But why banks keep asking me every time if I plan to use this PC in
future transaction with them and they never take my YES seriously

It's because they have some info about you.Â* Were you involved in fraud
or attempted a fraud but stopped because of your stupidity? there are
dumb fradsters around in this world and you might be one of them.

There you go again. How predictable!

On 11/28/2019 10:01 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 28/11/2019 21.21, Cameo wrote:
On 11/28/2019 2:35 PM, Arlen Holder wrote:
On Thu, 28 Nov 2019 00:36:02 +0100, Cameo wrote:

Google gives me all kinds
of security warnings and even blocks the client from accessing the news
server.

Google hates when you log into its mail servers from Canada one
moment, and
then from Russia the next, and China the next...

Ask me how I know.

I figure that's how they figure something fishy is going on. But why
banks keep asking me every time if I plan to use this PC in future
transaction with them and they never take my YES seriously because next
time they ask it again.

Because they don't use it correctly... A change of GeoIP location
confuses them a lot. Most clients are always on the same site; if
somebody stole your laptop and moved to another city, or if your
credentials suddenly appear on another country, it makes sense to verify
that it is actually you and not a thief.

It is not only internet: some banks block your credit card, and call you
home - and of course, you are not there. Subsequently they cancel the
card and create a lot of trouble for you, without money abroad. You need
to make an international phone call to the branch to have it restored.

Where a Google Voice number comes handy.

On 11/29/2019 12:05 AM, Cameo wrote:
On 11/28/2019 9:40 PM, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Cameo wrote:
[...]

Actually, I was wrong when I wrote that Google was interfering with the
news server. It was with the mail servers, but since I use the same
client (Thunderbird) for both, I thought it was about the news server.
And most of my email servers are configured for imap, especially the 3
gmail accounts.

** If your (Thunderbird) Gmail accounts use IMAP, then configure those
accounts to use OAuth2 [1] and your problems should go away.

[1] On the 'Server Settings' page: Security Settings - Authentication
Method - OAuth2.

Thanks, I did that and will be testing it out shortly.

Well, I ran a test and the authentication error messages still popped up
with VPN running.

In article , Cameo
wrote:

It is not only internet: some banks block your credit card, and call you
home - and of course, you are not there. Subsequently they cancel the
card and create a lot of trouble for you, without money abroad. You need
to make an international phone call to the branch to have it restored.

Where a Google Voice number comes handy.

or any voip number.

On 28/11/2019 23.51, Cameo wrote:
On 11/28/2019 9:57 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 28/11/2019 21.17, Cameo wrote:
On 11/28/2019 1:13 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 28/11/2019 00.36, Cameo wrote:
On 11/27/2019 9:30 PM, Panthera Tigris Altaica wrote:
On 2019-11-25 16:22, Cameo wrote:
I just tried a free subscription to Hulu and it wants me to enable
the location service in the Chrome browser. Apparently Hulu got
smart
and does not rely on the US IP provided by the VPN. Chrome location
would probably provide my true location in EU. Is there a way to
defeat that, too?

Stop using Chrome.

I hear it so often that I just might give it a try. Another related
thing that started happening lately is that when I turn on the VPN and
then I try to run my Thunderbird news client, Google gives me all
kinds
of security warnings and even blocks the client from accessing the
news
server. This is fairly recent behavior and forces me not to use
Thunderbird with VPN on. I am getting tired of this heavyhandedness by
Google and wonder if Chrome is in the middle of all that, too.

What news server are you using?

I don't see why google would even see your connection to
ethernal-september.

You must have got it wrong, google is not complaining about your news
access. It is probably complaining about your access to google mail -
which is a known issue if you use an vpn.

You're right. It was the mail servers. I use Thunderbird.
BTW, I just installed FireFox, too, and so far it looks good and play
well with ExpressVPN. Looks like I better remember not to bring up
Thunderbird while my VPN is on.

It will probably work if you change the authorization system to oauth2.

oauth2? But don't most servers require specific auth. systems?

No. Most servers give a list of auth systems when connecting to them,
there is a negotiation.

But gmail "wants" you to use oauth2. They do offer others, but they
prefer this one, which they consider more secure - instead of
implementing classic methods like certificates.

The user notices that the client presents a dialog (I think using
javascript) directed from the server which requires interaction. This
plays badly with services running in background.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OAuth#OAuth_2.0

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 29/11/2019 02.25, nospam wrote:
In article , Cameo
wrote:

It is not only internet: some banks block your credit card, and call you
home - and of course, you are not there. Subsequently they cancel the
card and create a lot of trouble for you, without money abroad. You need
to make an international phone call to the branch to have it restored.

Where a Google Voice number comes handy.

or any voip number.


Only if you have Internet access with good bandwidth at the country you
are visiting, and the bank allows "any voip number". My bank only
accepts calls that at least seem to be a classic telephone number on
their own system. Or their own chat system on their web page.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

Panthera Tigris Altaica wrote:
On 2019-11-27 13:19, Cameo wrote:
On 11/26/2019 9:13 PM, Kenny McCormack wrote:
In article ,
defaultÂ* wrote:
On Tue, 26 Nov 2019 09:06:11 -0500, Wolffan
wrote:

On 25 Nov 2019, Cameo wrote
(in article ):

I just tried a free subscription to Hulu and it wants me to enable the
location service in the Chrome browser. Apparently Hulu got smart and
does not rely on the US IP provided by the VPN. Chrome location would
probably provide my true location in EU. Is there a way to defeat
that, too?

Don’tuse Chrome. Use Brave. Or Vivaldi. Or Firefox. Or... there are
a _lot_
of alternatives. Brave is faster than Chrome talking to the same
sites via
the same network and on the same hardware, and _doesn’t_ blab your
location.

I've often thought with a pint of Abby Ale, and some Vivaldi on the
stereo, cares seem to melt away.

That's just two of the Holy Trinity.Â* (wine, women and song)

Hulu?Â* Who needs it?Â* Curl up with a good book.

If you had said (as I was expecting you were going to) "Curl up with a
good
woman", then you would, indeed, have all 3.

What I find amusing in this thread is that usually, on any online forum,
when somebody is trying to do something illegal (as is clearly the case
here),

Technically it's illegal and I wish there was a legal way to receive US
broadcast channels in Europe. I would not mind paying for it. In fact I
am paying Hulu a pretty hefty price, even "illegally." Frankly I don't
see what's the harm in what I am doing. If anything I am contributing to
the revenue of Hulu (which is paying some of that to the content
providers.) If I stay "legal", that would be a lost opportunity cost to
them, wouldn't it? So I think with this stupid geo-restriction the
broadcasters only shoot themselves in the foot as it hurts them
financially. So they should be thankful for my helping their bottom
line, and I'll be thankful to keep me up-to-date on US politics better
than what I could gain from the local European TV broadcasts. This is
especially important now with the US election season in full swing.


I used to spend a lot of time in the Caribbean. The lower edge of North
American satellite TV coverage reaches fairly far south, in some cases
as far as Trinidad. Many cable TV companies in certain Caribbean
territories simply liberate the signal off the satellites and pass it on
to their customers. In Jamaica, for example, a certain cableco handed
out most American channels including all the broadcast channels and HBO
and Showtime and other major movie channels. They delivered NBC from New
York, CBS from Miami, and ABC from Los Angeles, for example. I'm fairly
sure that they didn't pay for any of that content, as they certainly
didn't charge enough to cover, for example, HBO. I expect that they felf
that if the American stations didn't want people in Jamaica to see their
content, they shouldn't have bloody beamed the signal that far south.

Exactly the same in Europe. The Uk's satellite TV signal covers much of
Western Europe. Many people outside of the UK have satellite dishes and uk
decoders in order to watch British TV.