The BBC Is Buying a Fleet of Wi-Fi Sniffing Vans to Fight Piracy

Are you watching BBC programming without paying for it? The BBC wants you to know that they will find you with their new wi-fi-detecting vans that are set to “sniff out” anyone watching BBC programming without paying for it.

In September 2016 the BBC’s iPlayer service will no longer be free, and if you want to use it you will have to pay £145.50 to buy a license for BBC content. The spy vans are the BBC’s way of enforcing this new law. The technology being used by these vans is usually only available to crime-fighting agencies, but under the Regulation Of Investigatory Powers Act, the BBC can legally use these snooping vans to detect fee evaders.

“Detection vans can identify viewing on a non-TV device in the same way that they can detect viewing on a television set,” said Sir Amyas Morse the comptroller and auditor of the snooping program. The BBC wants everyone to know that the Wi-Fi vans are not looking for anything other than BBC iPlayer access.

This is just one in many recent efforts—from blocking VPNs and SmartDNS services to going after torrent sites—to fight piracy. Even that promote piracy have been targeted in recent weeks as content owners seem to be throwing the kitchen sink into the fight of stopping piracy.

Source: The Telegraph

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