The Wire

If you live in the UK, you can watch the first episode of The Wire streaming courtesy of The Guardian. If you live outside the UK, instead of watching the episode (you can't!), maybe you can explain to me how the internet knows where I am (or maybe I'll see if Google can tell me).

UPDATE: It's in the IP address, of course....

Comments

So all you have to do is route through a UK proxy. Then they'll let you see it.

Posted by jim | July 22, 2007 2:15 PM

this is the greatest tv show ever made.

Posted by ryan | July 22, 2007 2:19 PM

Porn sites seem to be the heaviest users of IP addys to figure out how to cater to local needs.

Posted by JimPortlandOR | July 22, 2007 2:24 PM

American electrons smell different. You need to use a UK proxy to bounce your electrons around across the pond for a while, until they can fake the accent.

Posted by Consumatopia | July 22, 2007 4:18 PM

The problem being that the first few episodes of The Wire aren't that great. When it first came out, I watched the first few episodes and said, eh, Homicide was better, and stopped watching. Only after I had some time to kill and HBO on demand did I decide to finish season 1. I'm really glad I did, because once it hit its stride, it was and is fantastic. But I know a lot of people who originally stopped watching after episode three. So Britons, if episode one does not live up to the hype you've heard about, and trust me, it won't, DO NOT GIVE UP. The payoff comes later.

Posted by xjerryx | July 22, 2007 5:39 PM

Matthew,

The best book on this stuff is "Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World by Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu," which argues that the Internet is becoming heavily zoned through these sorts of technologies, and that this zoning will continue. If you like the Lessig and Benkler books, this is an important follow up.

Posted by John G. | July 22, 2007 6:38 PM

A fistful of yellow-tops to whoever can provide detailed instructions on how those of us in the US can watch the video.

Posted by ADL | July 22, 2007 9:47 PM

I am currently convincing the internet that I am about 2 miles South East of here (where I really am) by using my work server as a proxy server even though I am at home with the first mile handled by a commercial ISP/Phone company.

To get "the wire" you need a proxy server in the UK which will typically demand a username and password (my password is my e-mail popserver password and if anyone has a friend in the UK ...)

Anyway in Firefox the deal is
click on
tools
options
advanced (you knew it was in there somwhere no ?)
netword (second of tabs)
settings

the mark manual proxy settings

Then the hard part. You need a UK proxy server address. I am using
proxy.uniroma2.it port 80
and marked use for all protocols
and something about don't use for local host which just happened.

Then with a username (WaldRob) and password (I'm not crazy enough to give out my password) I have access to nexis and stuff. Still it is in Rome not the UK so no wire.

Alessandra Braiotta taught me all of this.
http://tinyurl.com/3cyzcc

Posted by Robert Waldmann | July 22, 2007 11:58 PM

Ooops WaldRob is the user name to update my work web page http://tinyurl.com/3bjyrt. My popserver and proxy username is Waldmann. The password is still secret and it's still not in the UK.

Posted by Robert Waldmann | July 23, 2007 12:03 AM

http://www.proxy.org. Search the list for a UK proxy.

Posted by Brian Link | July 23, 2007 12:42 PM