A warning for anyone re-streaming

[dr. benway]

5 minutes ago, 0191Owl said:

If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that it’s not a MAC address as such but a unique identifier that uses hexadecimal. Not sure what the identifier is directly referencing but it will certainly be iFollow’s way of working out who’s stream it is.

I’m more than happy to accept that but as I said earlier I’m surprised they’re putting the computational effort into watermarking individual streams with a fingerprint—however maybe there’s a technique that makes this easier/cheaper than I’m thinking it is?

[0191Owl]

I haven’t checked the length of the hexadecimal strings to tell but could it be people’s public IP addresses in hex? 

[Guest Therealrealist]

Just scare story’s..ah lass sez one er mates on Feb has had a knock at the door cus they watch all their sports for on firestick ..it’s a loada rounduns ..to try and make yer pay about 50 quid a month

[0191Owl]

1 minute ago, dr. benway said:

I’m more than happy to accept that but as I said earlier I’m surprised they’re putting the computational effort into watermarking individual streams with a fingerprint—however maybe there’s a technique that makes this easier/cheaper than I’m thinking it is?

I think at the end of the day, if it can potentially lose the broadcasters any money then it’s certainly within their interests to take measures such as these. I think when they’ve taken the measures to create a service such as this, it shouldn’t be too much of an ask for them to configure. I’m sorry I can’t elaborate more on the ins and outs but I honestly don’t know.

[S40owl]

I watch games through mobdro does that make me a naughty person , I don't understand all this IT poo .

[dr. benway]

Just now, 0191Owl said:

I think at the end of the day, if it can potentially lose the broadcasters any money then it’s certainly within their interests to take measures such as these. I think when they’ve taken the measures to create a service such as this, it shouldn’t be too much of an ask for them to configure. I’m sorry I can’t elaborate more on the ins and outs but I honestly don’t know.

Fair enough! I’m also making educated guesses at best as this isn’t my area at all, hence why I’m interested in figuring it out. I’d have thought that individual watermarks would be awful for bandwidth usage as you’re having to upload individual streams rather than multicast, but agreed if there’s a lot of money in it then the protection might be worth the cost...

[Guest Therealrealist]

1 minute ago, S40owl said:

I watch games through mobdro does that make me a naughty person , I don't understand all this IT poo .

No it doesn’t..but apparently everybody who watches all sport for about 60 quid a year are going to get a knock at door and get 5 years in the can

[0191Owl]

4 minutes ago, dr. benway said:

Fair enough! I’m also making educated guesses at best as this isn’t my area at all, hence why I’m interested in figuring it out. I’d have thought that individual watermarks would be awful for bandwidth usage as you’re having to upload individual streams rather than multicast, but agreed if there’s a lot of money in it then the protection might be worth the cost...

I think for the sake of resources, it will just be just one broadcast per game but I think that the overlay may be factored in afterwards, or else like you say, it would be an inefficient use of resources on their part.