Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/ Why I Was Banned from WATCH ABC and Hulu Josh Centers Back when ABC arrived on the Apple TV (see '[1]Apple TV Gains ABC, Bloomberg, Crackle, KORTV,' 11 December 2013), I noted that I couldn't access it, because it said I was in an 'unsupported geo region.' I didn't think too much about it at the time, figuring it was some kind of launch bug, and besides, there's nothing I care to watch on ABC. [2][tn_ABC-Apple-TV-unsupported-geo-region.jpg] But months later, I still didn't have access. The part of me that hates tech mysteries was bothered, but with a baby, a book to finish, and HBO's 'True Detective,' I had more pressing concerns. Then, the problem began to spread. One day my wife asked why Hulu Plus on the Apple TV said we were behind an anonymous proxy. We, of course, were not. I tried playing something on Hulu's Web site, and received the same error message, claiming that my Comcast-provided IP address was behind an anonymous proxy. Strange. At this point, I was completely baffled. Who do you contact when something like this happens? Hulu? ABC? Your ISP? I decided to start with Hulu, since I pay for the service, and Comcast is a nightmare to work with. Hulu doesn't make it obvious how to contact support, but there is a [3]Hulu support page with a contact form. ABC makes it even less obvious, but the company's feedback form [4]doubles as a support request form. Upon contacting Hulu, I immediately received an automated message back: Thanks for contacting us. Based on the IP address you were using when you submitted this message, our system determined that your computer was accessing our site using a proxy server. Once you disable it, you should be able to watch videos on Hulu again. I replied to the automated message, explaining that my IP was assigned by Comcast. Meanwhile, I received a similar message from ABC: We detected that your internet network's IP address is using an anonymous proxy service. Our player requires that IP settings are not anonymous or routed to known anonymous proxy services. Please follow the steps below to update your proxy settings: I replied, explaining, as I did with Hulu, that my Comcast-supplied IP address isn't an anonymous proxy. I got this reply: Thank you very much for your response. However, when we verified your IP address XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX, the proxy setting is still set to 'anonymous,' please contact Comcast Xfinity to get more assistance on how to turn the proxy setting off on your router. Argh! This was becoming Kafkaesque. I decided to try to take matters in my own hands. I tried resetting my AirPort Express to factory defaults, just in case I had enabled something screwy. No dice. Comcast assigns dynamic IP addresses to the devices on its network, which means that they don't stay the same forever. However, an IP address tends to stick to a MAC address (a unique identifier for every network interface) for quite some time. In the past, I've been able to work around IP bans by manually changing, or 'cloning,' the MAC address for my router, which makes an ISP think that it's a different device, needing a new IP number. Unfortunately, Apple's AirPort base stations don't have that feature. Fortunately, I found a guide explaining [5]how to change your Comcast IP address without changing the MAC address. That technique worked, but I still couldn't access Hulu or ABC. It appears that an entire IP range was banned. I still hadn't heard from a human at Hulu, but I decided to give ABC another shot. I sent a screenshot from AirPort Utility with my automatically assigned IP address, explaining that I had reset my router and that I'm not using any sort of proxy. The good news is that this story has a happy ending. Within a few days, support reps at both Hulu and ABC acknowledged that my IP address was not an anonymous proxy and restored service. Thanks to Ben at ABC and Lauren M. at Hulu for getting this fixed. A Taste of the Future? -- While I'm glad to have these problems fixed, they serve as sobering reminders that these streaming services can ban you at any time, for any reason. As we shift from traditional TV to online video, will such problems become more commonplace? What bugs me is that I'm still not sure how this happened, though I have a couple of theories. In December 2013, I was putting the finishing touches on '[6]Take Control of Apple TV,' and as part of my research, was experimenting with various proxies at the request of our early access readers. I was also experimenting with the [7]TOR anonymization network on my MacBook, due to NSA-induced paranoia. I can understand blocking TOR or blocking these proxies, but was my IP banned simply for using these at all? If so, that's disturbing. What about people who use such services to protect their privacy and freedom of speech? Will we have to choose between watching commercial TV and protecting our rights? Could this be used by governments to discourage widespread adoption of anonymization technologies? Closer to the here and now, what if a friend visits your house and uses one of these services on your network? Will that get you blacklisted? But maybe I'm being paranoid. After all, services like Hulu, WATCH ABC, and HBO GO are reluctantly offered by traditional media companies to combat piracy, but these companies would prefer that you watch the old-fashioned way, over a coaxial cable. Case in point: [8]HBO GO crashed in spectacular fashion when the season finale of the excellent 'True Detective' was released. Even at the best of times, HBO GO has numerous network glitches and mediocre picture quality. Meanwhile, Netflix held up like a champ when it debuted season 2 of the also-excellent 'House of Cards,' nor does it ban users indiscriminately, or seem to care if you use proxies to access foreign content. The difference, of course, is that other than licensing deals, Netflix is independent of the old guard. Netflix doesn't exist out of reluctance, and it shows. If we want a bright future for Internet-based TV, we need more independent content creators and distributors like Netflix. References 1. http://tidbits.com/article/14369 2. http://tidbits.com/resources/2014-03/ABC-Apple-TV-unsupported-geo-region.png 3. http://www.hulu.com/support/support_form 4. http://abc.go.com/feedback 5. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/force-comcast-modem-give-new-ip-27085.html 6. http://tid.bl.it/tco-apple-tv-tidbits 7. https://www.torproject.org/ 8. http://www.deadline.com/2014/03/true-detective-finale-crashes-hbo-go/ .