Right now, the servicemen and servicewomen of the US Military are overseas fighting for your freedom. They chose to serve in the military knowing full well that someday they might be put in harm’s way. These dedicated men and women put country above their own safety. Now in far away countries, they fight for us on the front lines. Over the years, these front lines have changed. Yes, the danger is still there, but so are options to relieve their boredom. Enter the world wide web. Just like us, they have access to the Internet.
So what do they do on the Internet? Believe it or not, many of them watch TV. Sure, they might be able to watch TV using a TV set, but the shows available in country are either in a different language or they are old reruns of old American TV programs. While I’m sure that “I Love Lucy” is still a favorite, and who doesn’t want to watch “Gilligan’s Island”, current US TV shows are not usually available. On the Internet, they can stream TV shows from the major networks. They could have watched the last episode of “Monk” or the new “White Collar” show on the USA Network. Or maybe they want to watch baseball. The Internet makes this possible.
Instead of TV, they might be on social networking sites like FaceBook or MySpace. For those who have not served in the military, you can’t imagine how much of a gift these websites are to lonely young men and women far from home. With a click of the mouse, they can see friends and loved ones. They can catch up on the latest happenings in their families or circle of friends. They can see videos, pictures and general updates. And maybe, just maybe, some of the loneliness might go away. Yes, they are still at the front. Sure they are still in harm’s way. But they have a connection back to their normal every day lives. Unfortunately, they can’t always connect back to these US websites. You’d think the Internet is available everywhere.
The purpose of companies streaming their television shows onto the web is so that people will see them, and eventually decide to buy them on DVD. People outside the country however will not be able to buy these because they are simply unavailable. Companies decided that they were actually losing money because such people couldn’t get a hold of their products! They didn’t seem to consider all of the people IN the US that were buying. After all, what could it hurt if a few foreigners watched an episode of The Office, or even Stargate Universe? Well you wouldn’t think that it could hurt at all, but the production companies didn’t quite see it that way. For this reason they started to block IP addresses outside of the United States. The same went for several social networking websites because they suffered from the same advertisement problem. This however did not stop the military personnel from viewing their favorite websites. They instead turned to proxies.
An anonymous proxy changes the IP address of the user to one it has control over. A good anonymous proxy is also encrypted and protects any information sent over the web. With the change in the IP address to an IP address in the United States, the user can access US websites that are blocked because of the IP address. With encryption, the surfer can by pass in country blocks out in place by restrictive governments. For many surfers an anonymous proxy is a way to protect their online identity. For our servicemen, it’s a way to access the Internet freely just as all people in the US can.
For additional information on how to mask your IP address so that you can avoid any type of website censorship or blocks, please go to our change IP website.