Location Spoofing for Websites

October 5, 2006 10:11 AM

How can I spoof my location so ABC believes I am an american?

So, ABC offers streaming of the latest episodes of their shows. Except they won't let me watch them in Canada. I was wondering if there was any way to trick their website into believing that I am an american, maybe through a proxy server? Has anyone tried this with any success?

posted by dflemingdotorg to technology (10 comments total)

Use a proxy server based in the US to access the site on your behalf.

If ABC uses an external application to project streaming video (like Quicktime, WMP, or Real Player, all of which use non-HTTP protocols) then this may not work. Embedded Flash should work, however.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:52 AM on October 5, 2006

This is a nice feature that abc has, I watched Ugly Betty last week this way and there were only 1 min 30sec of commercials total. You could buy an AOL account and dial in through an american modem. This will assign you an american IP address. But, this will probably be more expensive than getting cable, and potentially too slow a connection to actually watch the shows. Come to think of it, this content might be provided to all AOL subscribers, I don't know. Do you have a friend in the US that would let you remote desktop?
posted by Eringatang at 10:56 AM on October 5, 2006

btw: the BBC does this, too. folks in britain can watch some shows on their website.
posted by krautland at 10:57 AM on October 5, 2006

use tor servers, or for an all in one solution torpark

http://www.torrify.com/

now if you get an outside the states ip...your out of luck...but i always get us ip addresses
posted by killyb at 10:59 AM on October 5, 2006

btw: the BBC does this, too. folks in britain can watch some shows on their website.

Indeed. How do I spoof so that I look like I'm in the UK?
posted by ob at 11:03 AM on October 5, 2006

Yeah, I've been quite annoyed by this. I'm an American living in Germany and I really want to keep up with Lost! I guess they really want me to just use BitTorrent.
posted by atomly at 11:51 AM on October 5, 2006

Find a friend in the US with a Tivo, and buy him a Slingbox for Christmas on the condition that you get to watch shows off his Tivo sometimes.
posted by kindall at 1:31 PM on October 5, 2006

I doubt tor nodes or proxies are going to last very long with people streaming video through them. In fact I doubt either would work very well anyway.
posted by zaebiz at 3:29 PM on October 5, 2006

I have a friend in Italy who has this very problem. We tried setting up a proxy, but ABC.com seemed to see through that and still placed her in Italy.
posted by chefscotticus at 8:59 PM on October 5, 2006

Showime won't even let me (in Canada) on their site.

Kinda takes one of the "w's" out of www doesn't it?

Mind you, I get around it by using The Cloak. Should work for you too.
posted by Neiltupper at 9:57 PM on October 5, 2006