[colug-432] IPv6 Tunnels blocked by Netflix

[Rick Hornsby]

On June 23, 2016 at 18:13:23, Rick Troth (rmt at casita.net) wrote:

On 06/23/2016 12:01 PM, Josh Preston wrote:

EGATS!

We get a "you're bad, don't proxy" error message when trying to stream
Netflix.  If I disable my IPv6 tunnel, it works properly.  Now that I've
gotten used to IPv6 and reworked my entire home network, I am reluctant to
undo all that work!


I think I heard about this on G+. We dropped NetFlix last year so I can't
personally verify/investigate.


There have been a few stories over the last several months that NF was
going to start "cracking down" and blocking well-known proxy IP ranges.

Netflix tried to convince me that it is my ISP and Tunnel Provider's
problem, and that it was nothing on their end... despite some articles to
the contrary [1][2][3].


Does your ISP provide IPv6? Mine does (now), though I still use SixXS for
anything that I want nailed down. (And still use SixXS *heavily* in places
where I can't get native IPv6, which are many.) I'd be curious if you could
compare IPv6 to NetFlix from an ISP bequest IPv6 address versus your HE
tunneled IPv6 address(es).

I have Netflix, and my ISP provides native IPv6, but so far I can only get
it working using their gateway device. (I'm not sure if the AppleTV I use
does IPv6 or not?) I've been unable to get IPv6 to work (at all) using
pfSense as a replacement for their gateway.  I think it's mostly because
I'm IPv6 illiterate and I think because the ISP isn't giving up the
information that's needed to configure it client side.
If I had to guess, Netflix is basically just saying blanket that HE is a
proxy ("VPN") provider, therefore (ignoring that HE is US-based) you're a
hacker pirate!! and pre-emptively declaring you must not be originating
from a geography we permit you to originate from - you you hacker
pirate!!!.  A little different, but uStream has stupid and overly broad
rules like this about connecting to their IRC servers.

NetFlix has (I presume, based on observation) legal obligation to the
content owners. While NF could fairly be accused of ineffective methods
(I'm being nice), they're probably not the *real* bad guys in this case.
Blame Hollywood.   This isn't a DMCA situation; it's not even copyright per
se. But it *is* related to "controlled release" (my term).

It's basically the same thing as DVD region encoding. There's no reason for
it, except that Hollywood wants to exercise control over who, what, when,
and where you can view their content. On one hand, it's their content. On
the other hand, my opinion is they're kind of being asshats with this sort
of stuff.

It's possible, this is just a WAG, that NF policy is intended to look good
to Hollywood lawyers.

Without caving to some of the Hollywood demands, as obnoxious as they might
be, Netflix loses content deals. No content deals, no content, no Netflix.
It shouldn't come as a shock to anyone in Hollywood why Amazon/Netflix/etc
are producing their own content.
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