I have a client that travels to Africa and wants to be able to watch local channels from Chicago while he’s abroad. He connected to a VPN but when you access the TV app, it says it won’t connect because hlit detects the VPN and blocks the connection.
Is there any way to get to the local channels from Africa? Workaround possibly?
I’ve had better luck using a VPN to home or office to get around the geo-restrictions. Commercially available VPNs like Nord or PIA typically wont work.
You support your clients while they violate the terms of service for their vendors?
This is one of those things that fall into the best effort category. I would simply say that the use of a VPN to access out of market VOD services is blocked by you tube and there is nothing you can do about it.
Install a VPN supported router in his chicago home or business and configure VPN server on it. then have his laptop connect to that local VPN.
streaming apps maintain a list of known VPNs and will automatically block them.
What’s his home wifi setup?
Ubiquiti Unifi at his home & VPN back to it. Will show as his home rather than some random VPN provider.
Obviously, the VPN they are using has a static or set of exit addresses that have been qualified as known VPN points.
I would suggest changing VPN providers and testing until one is secure or obscure enough to evade detection.
Those tests could be carried out while still in CONUS so it would not a matter of walking the end-user through the options.
Simply find one or two that work consistently and would be in the list of available VPN’s in their Network settings.
Unattended remote access to a device in Chicago, use YTTV from that device.
The best solution would be having a residential IP and keeping the load from each server low so it doesn’t seem like a connection is being shared. The only other thing I’d really be concerned about would be ASN which is much harder to do something about, however there are VPN services that route through people’s home networks.
Just use an iptv service, they are all shady, you can watch whatever from wherever.
I used a commercially available VPN to watch a local NFL game in Mexico without issue, worked great.
And this is doubly good since you could have just a one-time equipment cost. Or if you run a PFSense VM you could do it for free. Then charge whatever your time is worth for it.
This exactly. Commercial solutions are… well… commercial all providers know their IP gateways and they will block them. Using something like a fortigate or other firewall/router to connect to the VPN and route your traffic out from their home or business network should get you want you need.
This is a good point