Abstract
Commercial Virtual Private Network (VPN) providers have steadily increased their presence in Internet culture. Their most advertised use cases are preserving the user’s privacy, or circumventing censorship. However, a number of VPN providers nowadays have added what they call a streaming unblocking service. In practice, such VPN providers allow their users to access streaming content that Video-on-Demand (VOD) providers do not provide in a specific geographical region.
In this work, we investigate the mechanisms by which commercial VPN providers facilitate access to geo-restricted content, de-facto bypassing VPN-detection countermeasures by VOD providers (blocklists). We actively measure the geo-unblocking capabilities of 6 commercial VPN providers in 4 different geographical regions during two measurements periods of 7 and 4 months respectively. Our results identify two methods to circumvent the geo-restriction mechanisms. These methods consist of: (1) specialized ISPs/hosting providers which do not appear on the blocklists used by content providers to geo-restrict content and (2) the use of residential proxies, which due to their nature also do not appear in those blocklists. Our analysis shows that the ecosystem of the geo-unblocking VPN providers is highly dynamic, adapting their chosen geo-unblocking mechanisms not only over time, but also according to different geographical regions.
In this work, we investigate the mechanisms by which commercial VPN providers facilitate access to geo-restricted content, de-facto bypassing VPN-detection countermeasures by VOD providers (blocklists). We actively measure the geo-unblocking capabilities of 6 commercial VPN providers in 4 different geographical regions during two measurements periods of 7 and 4 months respectively. Our results identify two methods to circumvent the geo-restriction mechanisms. These methods consist of: (1) specialized ISPs/hosting providers which do not appear on the blocklists used by content providers to geo-restrict content and (2) the use of residential proxies, which due to their nature also do not appear in those blocklists. Our analysis shows that the ecosystem of the geo-unblocking VPN providers is highly dynamic, adapting their chosen geo-unblocking mechanisms not only over time, but also according to different geographical regions.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Passive and Active Measurement |
Subtitle of host publication | 24th International Conference, PAM 2023, Virtual Event, March 21–23, 2023, Proceedings |
Editors | Anna Brunstrom, Marcel Flores, Marco Fiore |
Pages | 46-68 |
Number of pages | 23 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9783031284861 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 10 Mar 2023 |
Event | 24th International Conference on Passive and Active Measurement, PAM 2023 - Virtual, Online Duration: 21 Mar 2023 → 23 Mar 2023 Conference number: 24 |
Conference
Conference | 24th International Conference on Passive and Active Measurement, PAM 2023 |
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Abbreviated title | PAM 2023 |
City | Virtual, Online |
Period | 21/03/23 → 23/03/23 |
Keywords
- 2023 OA procedure