MSE News: Warning: TV licence loophole could close this autumn

VisionMan

Cornucopia wrote: »

Anything that any other broadcaster/content owner does to secure their content is open to the BBC to use.

I can see it being very flexible to cope with the various sizes/types of household. The most obvious option for me is to provide a Master account with each TV Licence that has the option to create a finite number of Sub-accounts (say 8 or maybe 6 fixed accounts and 4 mobile). There might be restrictions on those Sub-accounts, for example that they exchange a security token with the Master account periodically, and (for fixed accounts) that they share the IP address range of the device hosting the Master account when first registered.

It might also be possible to unlock further sub-accounts by contacting the BBC Call Centre.

Making it 100% secure might be tricky, but making it sufficiently secure to prevent mass fraud and make minor fraud more trouble than it is worth is not that hard.

Hopefully they will ask some proper IT people (like me) to design it for them, rather than asking random journalists and forumites to do it for them.

Agree with this. The log on/in process could (and probably will) start with the simple question "Do you have a TV Licence?" and upon clicking 'Yes', one simply inputs ones TV licence number. And probably be IP address enabled for registered mobile devices (ie phones and tablets).

This is a welcome and well overdue change . But flipside there are also downsides for the BBC. The Senior Citizen population in the UK is massive, and so represents a sizeable hit to the BBCs TVL income. And this demographic is usually the most honest in declaring such.

VisionMan

mardycow wrote: »

Why oh why hasn't this monopoly been abolished, we pay enough for tv services

Thats your choice, no one elses.

brewerdave

VisionMan wrote: »

Agree with this. The log on/in process could (and probably will) start with the simple question "Do you have a TV Licence?" and upon clicking 'Yes', one simply inputs ones TV licence number. And probably be IP address enabled for registered mobile devices (ie phones and tablets).

This is a welcome and well overdue change . But flipside there are also downsides for the BBC. The Senior Citizen population in the UK is massive, and so represents a sizeable hit to the BBCs TVL income. And this demographic is usually the most honest in declaring such.

...still having probs. getting my mind around HOW it would actually work. For example, I have a TV license at my home but currently log on to a hot spot elsewhere to watch the BBC NEWS on my tablet. It won't have an IP addy anything like my home network address?? As far as I'm aware Sky Go just looks to see if the user is one of the devices allowed via its MAC address.:o

sparky93

how will it work? login via email i guess. but then i wont give my login to the kids for example... so they loose out?

Cornucopia

brewerdave wrote: »

...still having probs. getting my mind around HOW it would actually work. For example, I have a TV license at my home but currently log on to a hot spot elsewhere to watch the BBC NEWS on my tablet. It won't have an IP addy anything like my home network address?? As far as I'm aware Sky Go just looks to see if the user is one of the devices allowed via its MAC address.:o

There are so many different ways to go about doing this that predicting how the BBC might approach it becomes quite tricky.

The most obvious approach would be to allow the first account associated with a Licence number to be freely assigned, and assumed to be a Mobile account. That would allow an account to be established, connected to a Licence, but not tied to the physical street address or its IP address.

If the LF-payer only wants/needs one account, then that's that.

If the LF-payer wants more than one account, then the process of establishing a host IP-address range and Security Token exchange begins. There might also be rules about maximum concurrent usage of linked accounts.

It's not rocket science, but there is an art to system design, and I'm not entirely sure that this is the place for it, not least because second-guessing the BBC on matters this detailed would seem to be a waste of time.

Marvel1

Will this also apply to people living aborad?

martin2345uk

When I was abroad I couldn't watch iPlayer; I think it's uk only

HappyMJ

cjdavies wrote: »

Will this also apply to people living aborad?

The laws of the UK do not generally apply to foreigners in foreign countries.

martin2345uk wrote: »

When I was abroad I couldn't watch iPlayer; I think it's uk only

A VPN can easily get around geo-blocking and BBC iPlayer can be used.

It's not illegal to use a VPN in a foreign country to appear as if you are in the UK.

VisionMan

HappyMJ wrote: »

The laws of the UK do not generally apply to foreigners in foreign countries. A VPN can easily get around geo-blocking and BBC iPlayer can be used. It's not illegal to use a VPN in a foreign country to appear as if you are in the UK.

The BBC iPlayer will shortly start blocking VPNs. They'll be using the same software that Netflix currently employ.

Cornucopia

cjdavies wrote: »

Will this also apply to people living aborad?

The UK TV Licence does not apply to UK nationals living abroad.

Any technical developments that the BBC introduces to iPlayer to regulate access will obviously apply to anyone attempting to access it.