Just ‘Lost’ without a Netflix IP Address

Would it be fair to say, that people become more relaxed and accepting of life’s little obstacles as you get older?   I think maybe it is, the angry young man turns into something a little bit calmer and relaxed.  After all if you’ve survived a few decades you’ve inevitably learn a thing or two – never buy anything from your doorstep or if something’s free then there’s inevitably a catch somewhere.

Lost on a Netflix IP Address

For me personally, I can accept most little setbacks relatively easily – after all I know they don’t just happen to me and there isn’t much I can do about them.  Yet again, utter annoyance and frustration is always there bubbling under the surface.   It arose the other week when I and my good lady settled down for an evening’s TV watching , our chosen series the Science Fiction show Lost.  Now every body else seems to have watched this about ten years ago, but we’ve only just found it.

Finding the Right Netflix IP Range Address

However when we signed on to Netflix to watch episode 54 out of 70 something, I couldn’t find it.  It had completely disappeared from the Netflix subscription, not a word or a warning for those of us who had spent the last few weeks ploughing through this confusing box set.   After some internet sleuthing I discovered that it had been removed but only from certain regional variations of Netflix including the UK one I was using.   It seemed I had the wrong Netflix IP address, typical.

However it still remained on others including the US version which seems to have much more than the UK version of Netflix.  Anyway the cross part soon receded and problem solving was the order of the day – here’s the solution I found in this video, how to spoof ip address to watch Netflix.

It’s actually quite straight forward, to switch between the different versions of Netflix you just need to change your IP address to match the country you need. So for the Canadian version you need a Canadian IP address, for the US one you need a US based address and so on. You can’t actually change your own IP address but you can bounce your connection off something called a VPN server and have a Netflix IP address which obscures your real address from view.

I suppose you could call it Netflix by proxy watching with the help of a third party.   So in the video they make a connection to a US based VPN server, which then routes you to the US version of Netflix. It works just as promised and ‘Lost’ is there happily sitting in the US Netflix movie list!

However before you go looking for a super cheap VPN, there’s something you should know about the specific Netflix addresses.  Unfortunately although many people switch netflix domains it’s not something the company like and they take a lot of effort in blocking these VPN servers.  In reality only about 5% VPN companies have a valid Netflix ip address list, because the company also blocks ‘commercial’ ip addresses.  These are addresses which are tagged from a commercial source which most VPN services are from.

Certainly the move has been welcomed by IT departments across the world.  No longer do they have to wonder how to block Netflix at work to stop people flooding their network with video.  This is because most corporate networks run on commercial based IP addresses which won’t work anymore, so Netflix have effectively saved them a job!

The solution, which you should check with the provider, is to have a ‘residential IP address’ assigned to the VPNs, without this your netflix ip address change will be pointless – it won’t work.   It’s the reason why Netflix won’t be accessible from most corporate networks either,  a relief for many network administrators who were learning how to block netflix on firewall or external routers.   Of course, many administrators have already installed rules to block Netflix IP range too and most content filters have an updated black list of Netflix servers.  They are the only company who have done this and it’s been extremely effective,  fully expect others to follow suit.

It’s a developing situation though, digital products like Netflix subscription change depending on where you are. Netflix is better than most though because at least your subscription is normally accessible – if you pay for a UK TV license you’ll lose access to all their channels the moment you step outside the UK. Unless of course you invest in a British address  that allows you access from anywhere!

Anyway here’s the VPN service which I use – it includes residential IP address ranges that work and are on the approved netflix ip address list.

Try the trial first to see for yourself – 10 Day Trial of Identity Cloaker.

Who’s Been Snooping at Your Email?

There’s been loads in  the news recently about countries snooping on each other, it appears we’re all at it.  The UK Intelligence services at GCHQ hoovering up all the internet data that crosses the UK, Russians, Chinese and Israeli Intelligence all investing heavily in internet surveillance and the NSA in the US well spying on everyone including their own via Prism.

Many of us now feel that we have to use technology to protect ourselves,  a simple VPN can go a long way to blocking those who are spying on us.  They have other uses, for example to access region locked sites – watch this video – BBC News Streaming , for an example.

So it’s obviously quite understandable to start thinking about how much of our communications is so easily monitored. Our web traffic at least the majority of it, is I’m afraid very easily accessible by just about anyone in any position of power.  At every ISP a detailed list of the majority of your communication traffic is easily picked up.  The web’s favorite protocol – HTTP is unfortunately rather lacking in security features and as such web traffic is mostly transmitted in the clear.

So what about email? It’s still one of the most used messaging systems in the world, but how secure is email – read this report?  There are two main issues regarding the security of your average email –

1) It’s transported in clear text so everyone can read it.

2) The email is transmitted across the shared infrastructure of the internet.

It means that email is not private at all. Not only is is transmitted in a completely readable format with no encryption at all but this ’open letter’ is delivered by using a network of shared routers, servers and cabling.   Anyone at any point can tap into this data a little like GCHQ have tapped into the major fiber connections in the UK.

There are solutions that can make Outlook or Thunderbird a little more secure – one of the major improvements is to encrypt your messages.  This means that if done properly only the sender and the recipient would be able to decipher the contents.  Look for applications like Hushmail and programs like PGP to offer different solutions to this issue

James Williams

Author of RAI Streaming Estero