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TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

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Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#71

Post by Closi »

scrooched_moose wrote: post #29
offtop5 wrote: post #3

Pretty sure this was outted as fake. The idea of a van watching you is enough for many to change their behavior

I believe the current theory is they simply look for light leakage. If they see a "flash - 200ms - flash - 400ms - flash - 350ms - flash" pattern leaking through your curtains precisely at the moment the same pattern occurs in a live broadcast they know you're watching.

There was another theory (spread by the media and by the half-denying-half-encouraging bbc) that the vans can detect iPlayer usage across WiFi by looking at the level of network traffic, and then to a range of IP addresses in an area intentionally changing the amount of data the app received up/down to see if network activity changed correspondingly.

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/6976...

It’s really all a big scare tactic though. The best way to detect iPlayer being used wrongly will be to see who registers for an account with an identifiable email address.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#72

Post by cpach »

lqet wrote: post #38

> The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege. I know at least three countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) which do the same (edit: according the Wikipedia [0], such a fee exists in basically every European country, Japan, Israel, South Korea and Namibia). In Germany, the situation changed a few years…

Sweden also had this system until recently.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#73

Post by ohgodplsno »

glandium wrote: post #44
lqet wrote: post #38

> The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege. I know at least three countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) which do the same (edit: according the Wikipedia [0], such a fee exists in basically every European country, Japan, Israel, South Korea and Namibia). In Germany, the situation changed a few years…

You can add France and Japan to the list. In France, they don't go door to door, though, it's only a check box on some tax returns forms. In Japan they do come door to door. I've never heard about "detection vans" in either, though.

They actually can go door to door in France! And the fine for having lied is quite unpleasant.

Not that they have time to anymore since almost every single public service got their budgets slashed.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#74

Post by llampx »

Aachen wrote: post #17
comprev wrote: post #2

Ireland also requires a TV license for each home. If you have any device _capable_ of receiving a signal you're required to pay.... even if you only use the TV for games consoles or Netflix.

Same in Germany, or at least it used to be that way and somewhat recently they just got rid of the requirement to have a TV. It's just yet another tax. Moving to Germany feels a bit like they pretend to keep "tax rates" low by splitting out various things and making it "not a tax". In the Netherlands I had income tax and that was it, from that the govt just pays development aid and old age money (AOW) as needed. Here…

Sounds like the options list when you buy a new BMW. Now I know where they got their inspiration from.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#75

Post by tripa »

glandium wrote: post #44
lqet wrote: post #38

> The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege. I know at least three countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) which do the same (edit: according the Wikipedia [0], such a fee exists in basically every European country, Japan, Israel, South Korea and Namibia). In Germany, the situation changed a few years…

You can add France and Japan to the list. In France, they don't go door to door, though, it's only a check box on some tax returns forms. In Japan they do come door to door. I've never heard about "detection vans" in either, though.

They do come for a surprise visit if you tick the box in France. Used to, at least, circa 2009.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#76

Post by progre »

cpach wrote: post #72
lqet wrote: post #38

> The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege. I know at least three countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) which do the same (edit: according the Wikipedia [0], such a fee exists in basically every European country, Japan, Israel, South Korea and Namibia). In Germany, the situation changed a few years…

Sweden also had this system until recently.

Also, alledgely, using scanners to catch cheaters. Though I got a visit from a man checking for unlicensed TV sets once and he didn't have a scanner, just a long list of people that didn't have a TV license.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#77

Post by hadrien01 »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #4

I have said this before and I will say it again...Dear BBC, please allow the rest of the world to pay for a subscription to the iPlayer. Just take my money, really, please?

They had a BBC iPlayer subscription for Europe a few years ago, but there was far less content (because of rights management, obviously).

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#78

Post by wojciii »

lqet wrote: post #38

> The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege. I know at least three countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) which do the same (edit: according the Wikipedia [0], such a fee exists in basically every European country, Japan, Israel, South Korea and Namibia). In Germany, the situation changed a few years…

Also same kind of system is in use in Denmark. :)

The law is such that the inspector can look into your home from public areas but you don't have to open your door to them or talk to them. They are unable to determine if you own any device which can be used to watch state TV. This is quite silly. People actually fear this and gladly pay up.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#79

Post by petepete »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #12
myrandomcomment wrote: post #4

I have said this before and I will say it again...Dear BBC, please allow the rest of the world to pay for a subscription to the iPlayer. Just take my money, really, please?

Geniune question: what is on the BBC that you would want to watch that you can't get elsewhere?

The content from BBC4 in general.

Mainly the wide array of in-depth documentaries presented by experts.

Yes, there've been loads of TOTP reruns since their budget was slashed and there may be some overlap with Sky Arts in some areas, but no channel comes close.

Notable excellent non-docs include Screenwipe, Only Connect, Detectorists (my favourite sitcom from the last ten years), The Thick of It.

I'd pay my licence fee just for BBC4, Radio 4 and BBC News.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#80

Post by sleavey »

lqet wrote: post #38

> The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege. I know at least three countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) which do the same (edit: according the Wikipedia [0], such a fee exists in basically every European country, Japan, Israel, South Korea and Namibia). In Germany, the situation changed a few years…

> In Germany, the situation changed a few years ago, every household has to pay now, even if they don't own a television or radio.

This was literally the first piece of mail I got when I moved to Germany: a letter demanding I pay for the TV networks I don't watch. I didn't even own a TV by that point, nor would have understood much of what was being said! A German explained to me once that the forced payment by non-watchers is justified as it benefits society as a whole. I must say, I've now found some of the programming on the publicly funded TV stations is actually pretty good.

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