proxy servers and sling box officially blocked ?

[liddelljohn]

i have not been able to get my slingbox working here recently ,, but now all my proxy server connections also no longer work with many sites ,,

talking to a bright young man at my daughters school today he is an IT specialist at CAT he told me that the government have recently installed a new software in CAT and TOT systems that blocks proxy server content deemed unsuitable in Thailand and also some file downloading and also streaming services sites as most traffic flows through CAT and TOT it seems the answer to my issues ,,

i have true and TOT broadband , and various proxy servers located in USA or EU now many sites ,are throttled or blocked ,, whilst other content flow very fast ...

most of the throttled sites are sports streams or download whilst the blocked sites are thing like daily mail which used to be able to pass proxy its is now blocked just like normal internet but without the thai government notice ....

i went to a ultrafast internet cafe in pattaya today and same issues on their system ..

2 of my friends another brit and a french chap are having similar issues and they are using TT&T

[Chicog]

They installed BlueCoat. It is pretty comprehensive if used judiciously.

Can you still get the Daily Mail on Chrome/Zenmate?

[Somtamnication]

Zenmate still works.

[Langsuan Man]

So does Tunnel Bear

[KhunBENQ]

VPNs still work (CyberGhost, PerfectPrivacy).

But the topic starter writes about proxies (maybe free proxies?) which is a slightly different topic.

There was another thread about slingbox blocking recently.

[liddelljohn]

ii pay for my proxy networks , for instance private tunnel still allows many sites but what ever they are using is able to block sites even when on a proxy,,

the slingbox thread was mine

i spoke with TOT this morning and they admit that they are blocking sites and throttling some including slingbox .

My friend edward has just told me that he also cant get on his slingbox or certain sites via proxy now and he is down in banchang rayong

[Langsuan Man]

VPNs still work (CyberGhost, PerfectPrivacy).

But the topic starter writes about proxies (maybe free proxies?) which is a slightly different topic.

There was another thread about slingbox blocking recently.

Yes, by the same OP

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/776603-slingbox-blocked-in-thailand/?p=8672251

[bartender100]

They installed BlueCoat. It is pretty comprehensive if used judiciously.

Can you still get the Daily Mail on Chrome/Zenmate?

What is Bluecoat? what does it do? and how do you know they have installed it? Looking at their website it looks more like security software than a surveillance. Did CAT install it or the goverment?

Just asking

[Chicog]

https://citizenlab.org/2013/01/planet-blue-coat-mapping-global-censorship-and-surveillance-tools/

[robblok]

Thanks for the heads up.

[Turkleton]

i spoke with TOT this morning and they admit that they are blocking sites and throttling some including slingbox .

My friend edward has just told me that he also cant get on his slingbox or certain sites via proxy now and he is down in banchang rayong

Nonsense, nobody blocks a slingbox, I have TOT too and except a few porn and some other sites, there is nothing been blocked.

After reading you former thread, where it worked one day, after that it didn't, etc..But ok, after all you go back anyway to sort the things. (so you told us).

I bet, all your "problems" rely on some misconfiguration and/or a crappy DSL line delay which causes timeouts (have the same issues some and then).

(All this reminds me of the thread a few weeks ago, where some bloke has claimed, his ISP blocks incoming ports 80+443, even he didn't know the difference between a port and an IP Address )

BUT if you really believe in this nonsense, why don't you and your friend Edward rent a VPS (digitalocean) in SG, like I did.

It's just 5$ / months and you can setup your own VPN and everything is fine.

Edited December 8, 2014 by Turkleton

[liddelljohn]

I have tried tunnel bear and it works , but a bit slow,,but i can reach some previously blocked sites,,that were not available on DNSproxy or private tunnel , my sling box still zero

Turkleton,, i am only relaying what the ISP s are now telling us ,,,although i do agree that ADSL delays and crappy bandwidth may also not help,, I dont believe the figures that my speedtest give me at all , as In UK my talk talk DSL is only rated at 4mb but it works much faster than my supposed 7.9mb connection here ,,,,

and talk talk are not the most reliable either ,,,

i think the only way to put my slingbox issues to bed will be to intall remote access to local computer in Uk when back there and maybe try a different broadband provider in both locations ???

[phazey]

Bluecoats are in deed wonderful boxes to work with. I did a pretty significant installation of them a number of years ago, and used right, do a lovely job.

But OP, if you are convinced your Slingbox is blocked, just have it listen on port 80 or 443 at your remote end, and map that port on your router. Also consider that your talk talk may be 4MB, but it's upload would be something like 1MB - and ToS/QoS would serve that at a lower priority.

I'm not 100% sure Bluecoats can intercept and decrypt SSL traffic. I know it's possible, but just not sure if they can.

[Turkleton]

Turkleton,, i am only relaying what the ISP s are now telling us ,,,although i do agree that ADSL delays and crappy bandwidth may also not help,, I dont believe the figures that my speedtest give me at all , as In UK my talk talk DSL is only rated at 4mb but it works much faster than my supposed 7.9mb connection here ,,,,

And your upload speed?

I have a very reliable 50/10 Mbit/s (Telekom) VDSL line in Germany but even with 10 Mbit Upload, it's sometimes impossible to stream, or even to login into my streaming box!

TOT has a crappy routing with lots of packet losses.

BUT, I can receive/record the "home" stream 24h without issues, with my VPS in Singapore.

i think the only way to put my slingbox issues to bed will be to intall remote access to local computer in Uk when back there and maybe try a different broadband provider in both locations ???

I have this set up (and a lot more for business purposes) now many years.

And to be honest, you will never get a reliable "homemade" Live stream, without a CDN and/or cloud services from the EU to TH. (USA may work better, because of the distance)

Fortunately, there are much better alternatives around for European Live TV nowadays.

I can't remember when I've used my streaming box the last time....

[GinBoy2]

I tried slingbox, granted years ago, from my home in the US and eventually gave up. You are a UK dude, so why bother with it? You can stream pretty much everything without it. Buy a roku in the UK and it will have BBC iplayer installed as basic firmware if you want a seamless experience on your TV. I think the additional step of the slingbox upload just over complicates things

[Gopro]

BUT if you really believe in this nonsense, why don't you and your friend Edward rent a VPS (digitalocean) in SG, like I did.

It's just 5$ / months and you can setup your own VPN and everything is fine.

images.jpg

I tried DO, but have no idea how to muck around with their droplets. Or what the heck it all means. Any tutorials around for something like that? I want to set something up for hosting and vpn.

[yankee99]

I tried slingbox, granted years ago, from my home in the US and eventually gave up. You are a UK dude, so why bother with it? You can stream pretty much everything without it. Buy a roku in the UK and it will have BBC iplayer installed as basic firmware if you want a seamless experience on your TV. I think the additional step of the slingbox upload just over complicates things

Nothing for free can compete with a slingbox. True and 3bb sling 24/7 in East pattaya on port 5004 where I set it. My strongvpn account functions as it always has.

[Chicog]

Bluecoats are in deed wonderful boxes to work with. I did a pretty significant installation of them a number of years ago, and used right, do a lovely job.

But OP, if you are convinced your Slingbox is blocked, just have it listen on port 80 or 443 at your remote end, and map that port on your router. Also consider that your talk talk may be 4MB, but it's upload would be something like 1MB - and ToS/QoS would serve that at a lower priority.

I'm not 100% sure Bluecoats can intercept and decrypt SSL traffic. I know it's possible, but just not sure if they can.

Yes they can.

Managing SSL and HTTPS Traffic

Gain visibility with Encrypted Traffic Management. Only from Blue Coat. Advanced cyber threats are hiding in your encrypted SSL and HTTPS traffic. Eliminate the security blind spot. Blue Coat’s Encrypted Traffic Management solutions give you the tools to combat hidden risks in your SSL and HTTPS traffic, enforce your policies, and preserve privacy.

[phazey]

Bluecoats are in deed wonderful boxes to work with. I did a pretty significant installation of them a number of years ago, and used right, do a lovely job.

But OP, if you are convinced your Slingbox is blocked, just have it listen on port 80 or 443 at your remote end, and map that port on your router. Also consider that your talk talk may be 4MB, but it's upload would be something like 1MB - and ToS/QoS would serve that at a lower priority.

I'm not 100% sure Bluecoats can intercept and decrypt SSL traffic. I know it's possible, but just not sure if they can.

Yes they can.

Managing SSL and HTTPS Traffic

Gain visibility with Encrypted Traffic Management. Only from Blue Coat. Advanced cyber threats are hiding in your encrypted SSL and HTTPS traffic. Eliminate the security blind spot. Blue Coat’s Encrypted Traffic Management solutions give you the tools to combat hidden risks in your SSL and HTTPS traffic, enforce your policies, and preserve privacy.

Although I can pretty much guarantee it's not enabled. To do so, they'd need to push out a new root CA to resign the pages certificates. In a corporate environment, these new CA's are pushed out with group policy. In our environment (we do SSL scanning/resigning as a portion of the service) We offer a new root CA group bundle the users can download to their infrastructure.

If all SSL pages come up with an untrusted connection, then yes, SSL scanning is in place as a MITM vector.

[liddelljohn]

well my internet connections might be a problem too ,, both true and TOT are now only running at 1.8mb with pings to bangkok of 278m/s and much slower to USA or UK ,, they should and were over 6mb with pings of 27m/s only a few weeks ago ,,,

i dont think either company gives a toss either when i complain they just say line ok working ,,,

Edited December 8, 2014 by liddelljohn

[liddelljohn]

Turkleton what would you reccomend for european /Uk live Tv and sport in thailand that is reliable ????

i think anything internet based must be compromised by the poor infrastructure here ,,,

[Turkleton]

Turkleton what would you reccomend for european /Uk live Tv and sport in thailand that is reliable ????

Sorry, no idea for UK Live TV sources, because I'm only interested in German TV.

Fortunately, there are a some good sources for German TV.

i think anything internet based must be compromised by the poor infrastructure here ,,,

Not necessarily, some ISP have a direct peering, which can give very decent speeds.

It also seems, that Wilmaa uses a very effective CDN with direct peering, because their streams are usually very reliable.

And if everything breaks, I can use my home server via Singapore VPN or I just re-stream the live TV from SG to TH with VLC, which works ok in most of the cases.

But there is no 100% bullet proof solution.

[Turkleton]

I tried DO, but have no idea how to muck around with their droplets. Or what the heck it all means. Any tutorials around for something like that? I want to set something up for hosting and vpn.

In my case, I've installed Centos 7 and used these instructions to set up an OpenVPN server.

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-setup-and-configure-an-openvpn-server-on-centos-7

And this one for a "LAMP stack"

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-linux-apache-mysql-php-lamp-stack-on-centos-7

Worked perfect.

They (DO) have loads of good instructions, which are easy to follow.

But you will need basic Linux knowledge!

[Langsuan Man]

I have had a Slingbox in the US since I first came to Thailand for retirement in 2007 and it has worked pretty flawlessly the whole time especially since I found a way to reboot it remotely

But I have found myself using it less and less as time goes on. In fact last year I only used it once to watch the Super Bowl and this year I cancelled my Cable TV service for the 8 months I spend in Thailand saving myself almost a hundred dollars a month is fees. Did keep Cable Internet just so I could still remotely view my house via CCTV and control certain house functions

Since Thailand has such a robust torrenting community I now get everything I need via torrents, lots of seeders, crystal clear, and without commercials. If something is not on the torrents I can always fall back on Direct Download "storage" providers such as Rapidgator.net or Uploaded.net. Download stuff to my computer, transfer to a USB stick and watch it on any of the "smart" TV.s I have in my house

I don't have to remember to log on to my Slingbox to schedule recordings using my home DVR, or have the Sunday night shows get out of sync because the late NFL game ran too long, or worry about whether or not my Internet connection in Thailand is going to go belly up right in the middle of an important scene. Since sports scores are not screamed as headlines here I can watch a 3 hour NFL football game in an hour and a half, a day or two late, and still be surprised at the scores and most importantly don't have to listen to the inane chatter of the broadcasters who have to speak because that is what they are getting paid for

This doesn't solve the OP's problem but is an alternative if he he doesn't want to continue fighting with the poor Internet infrastructure here in Thailand

[wgdanson]

I tried slingbox, granted years ago, from my home in the US and eventually gave up. You are a UK dude, so why bother with it? You can stream pretty much everything without it. Buy a roku in the UK and it will have BBC iplayer installed as basic firmware if you want a seamless experience on your TV. I think the additional step of the slingbox upload just over complicates things

My Slingbox is, and has, worked perfectly for the 5 years I've been in Thailand. I can even got a good picture up in Phitsanulok on Edge phone, Bht 14 a day, and can 3ven watch while I'm driving (shhhhhhhhhhh)

[GinBoy2]

I tried slingbox, granted years ago, from my home in the US and eventually gave up. You are a UK dude, so why bother with it? You can stream pretty much everything without it. Buy a roku in the UK and it will have BBC iplayer installed as basic firmware if you want a seamless experience on your TV. I think the additional step of the slingbox upload just over complicates things

My Slingbox is, and has, worked perfectly for the 5 years I've been in Thailand. I can even got a good picture up in Phitsanulok on Edge phone, Bht 14 a day, and can 3ven watch while I'm driving (shhhhhhhhhhh)

Only watching TV while driving! That doesn't even count. Downing a bottle of white whisky at the same time as watching, well 'maybe' that gets a slap on the wrist from BiB

[phazey]

OP FWIW i've just set up my sling box, with my router forwarding on 21, 443 and 5001, will let you know when i can log on to my Thai machine tomorrow. If that works, i have no issue giving you a guess account.

It's got an old Sony decoder on it, seems the new FreeView lineup on the mendip transmitter crashes all sling boxes apart from the Pro HD

EDIT: It's just occurred to me, are you guys using the web based player ? There's a good chance this is blocked as it uses 5001 as default!

Try the legacy SlingPlayer standalone app, and if possible, use "standard" ports, ones no one should block unless they really want to break the Internet.

Edited December 9, 2014 by phazey

[rwdrwdrwd]

I tried DO, but have no idea how to muck around with their droplets. Or what the heck it all means. Any tutorials around for something like that? I want to set something up for hosting and vpn.

In my case, I've installed Centos 7 and used these instructions to set up an OpenVPN server.

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-setup-and-configure-an-openvpn-server-on-centos-7

And this one for a "LAMP stack"

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-linux-apache-mysql-php-lamp-stack-on-centos-7

Worked perfect.

They (DO) have loads of good instructions, which are easy to follow.

But you will need basic Linux knowledge!

This service makes it even easier - generates a configured VPN for you on a DO Droplet - https://www.tinfoilsecurity.com/vpn/new

Only issue is it creates one on a US Droplet, however it is easy to take a snapshot and migrate to the Singapore datacenter using this tutorial - https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-migrate-digitalocean-snapshots-between-regions

Once you have migrated to Singapore, change the IP address in the VPN client config file that the generator made.

Done this myself, took all of 5 minutes.

[Chicog]

I tried slingbox, granted years ago, from my home in the US and eventually gave up. You are a UK dude, so why bother with it? You can stream pretty much everything without it. Buy a roku in the UK and it will have BBC iplayer installed as basic firmware if you want a seamless experience on your TV. I think the additional step of the slingbox upload just over complicates things

My Slingbox is, and has, worked perfectly for the 5 years I've been in Thailand. I can even got a good picture up in Phitsanulok on Edge phone, Bht 14 a day, and can 3ven watch while I'm driving (shhhhhhhhhhh)

Only watching TV while driving! That doesn't even count. Downing a bottle of white whisky at the same time as watching, well 'maybe' that gets a slap on the wrist from BiB

Nah, it's no good unless he has his nine year old do the driving for him.