[189784] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Netflix VPN detection - actual engineer needed
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Mon Jun 6 19:44:09 2016
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
In-Reply-To: <bebaae73-0fa7-14b1-079d-54a237d7c051@heliacal.net>
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2016 16:40:17 -0700
To: Laszlo Hanyecz <laszlo@heliacal.net>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
> On Jun 6, 2016, at 9:01 AM, Laszlo Hanyecz <laszlo@heliacal.net> =
wrote:
>=20
>=20
> On 2016-06-06 15:21, Tore Anderson wrote:
>>=20
>> But Netflix shouldn't have any need to ask in the first place. Their
>> customers need to log in to their own personal accounts in order to
>> access any content, when they do Netflix can discover their =
addresses.
>>=20
>> Tore
>=20
> Hey there's an idea, how about they ASK the users where they are =
located, instead of telling them where they are located. Presumably a =
user will have a new billing address when they move to a new place. =
That ought to be a lot more accurate than lookup based on a static map =
of number -> location. I don't think this is too crazy of an idea.. my =
car insurance company asks me what zip code I keep my cars in. Netflix =
could ask people what zip code they watch video from.
>=20
> -Laszlo
The problem is that some users travel and they try to watch Netflix =
using their home account in far away lands.
Now you and I may think this should be perfectly fine and I suspect =
Netflix would like to agree with us, but I=E2=80=99m sure many content =
providers have their crania planted so firmly up their collective recta =
that they believe this is akin to piracy.
That=E2=80=99s why they don=E2=80=99t want to allow users who are =
actually in <prohibited_place> to claim to be in <permitted_place> by =
using a VPN.
The tactic being used for this measurement is silly to the point of =
absurd (why not use RTT measurements instead), but that=E2=80=99s what I =
suspect is driving this.
Owen
