Today, for the first time, I couldn’t use iplayer. As usual, I switched country to UK, cleared browsing data, deleted everything from temp app data file before going there. Was using Firefox. Tried same procedure with Epic browser. Same result. Chatted with Nord support. They wanted screenshots of results from dnsleaktest dot com. Tech said wait while they checked it out. After a little while, chat terminated. Created a ticket via email.
Have BBC finally made themselves bullet-proof?
BBC could ID a VPN IP address based on usage and concurrent sessions, but honestly most companies that block VPNs just purchase IP address lists from any number of vendors. Pixalate and DoubleVerify are two that I’ve worked with in the past that both provide that data to clients. They rarely ever block entire IP blocks though, so you might just try reconnecting from a different location/server within the UK until you land on one that works (if any).
It used to be that they didn’t throw me out before I got to a program’s page. Today, upon login, they redirected me to BBC’s main page. Google tells me this: “In addition to the measures listed above, the BBC is also reportedly working on a new anti-VPN measure that uses machine learning to identify and block VPN traffic. This measure is still under development, but it has the potential to be more effective than the BBC’s current anti-VPN measures.”
Machine learning, making just about everything progressively worse.
I’m pretty sure ML is how Pixalate and DoubleVerify were building their lists, too. The difference is they were footing the bill in terms of resources and time spent to develop a solution. Training ML isn’t hard, its just really time consuming.