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TV detector vans

Crispy Duck

Thinker
C
Joined
Aug 29, 2005
Messages
128
This came up off-topic in another thread (http://206.225.95.123/forumlive/showthread.php?t=48617) but I thought it might be of more general interest.

Here in the UK, we are legally obliged to buy a TV license before we can have a TV. To enforce this, we're told that there are 'TV detector vans' patrolling the streets - allegedly, the equipment in these vans can remotely detect any operating TV inside houses, and even work out which channel you're watching.

I've occasionally read sceptical articles suggesting that such a feat is impossible, but having looked it up, it's actually well-known, and the US effort to exploit and defend against this technology is known as Tempest:

http://cryptome.org/tempest-leak.htm

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ih98-tempest.pdf

Interesting stuff. It's only a matter of time until they can read your thoughts directly, I tells yer.
 
I have seen the inside of one of those 'detector vans', it was a minibus with blacked out windows, nothing more.

It's nonsense, I tell ya.
 
I know a guy from a van knocked on my door one day and asked to see my license because I had a television on site and I played the "dumb American" role and said I didn't know I needed a license and they asked me how long I lived here and I said a year and they said by now I should know and I was fined and had to buy a license. Detector van or random house check van? I never knew, but it did cost me a lot.
 
OK, let me explain how it works in the UK.

1) Vendors of television sets are legally obliged to take the name and address of anyone buying a TV.

2) They have to pass this on to the licence people, who put it into their database.

3) If you buy a licence, the database gets updated with this information.

4) The automated system checks the database for people who have not bought a licence. If you are such a person, you will get a letter.

5) If you do not respond to the letter, the database issues a list of 'visits' to the licence officials, who come round to your house and ask to see your licence or proof that you are not receiving TV signals.

The 'vans' are a smokescreen, only the database tells them who has or hasn't got a licence.

The most important (and annoying) factor in all this is that you do not need a licence simply to own a TV set. The licence is if you set up the television to receive broadcast channels, e.g. by putting a TV aerial into the back of it. However, the licence people like to give the impression that you need one merely for being alive. Their default position is that no household would live without watching TV, therefore everyone without a licence is a criminal unless you let them into your home to prove otherwise.

It drives me mad. I have an annual dance with them to prove that my TV set doesn't do anything except play DVDs and games. No aerial, no magic, no lame programmes at all. And NO LICENCE!
 
Crispy Duck said:
This came up off-topic in another thread (http://206.225.95.123/forumlive/showthread.php?t=48617) but I thought it might be of more general interest.

Here in the UK, we are legally obliged to buy a TV license before we can have a TV. To enforce this, we're told that there are 'TV detector vans' patrolling the streets - allegedly, the equipment in these vans can remotely detect any operating TV inside houses, and even work out which channel you're watching.

I've occasionally read sceptical articles suggesting that such a feat is impossible, but having looked it up, it's actually well-known, and the US effort to exploit and defend against this technology is known as Tempest:

http://cryptome.org/tempest-leak.htm

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ih98-tempest.pdf

Interesting stuff. It's only a matter of time until they can read your thoughts directly, I tells yer.
Click to expand...

[nitpick]It's TEMPEST, not Tempest. And, seriously, that's about all I can say about it since my clearance lapsed.[/nitpick]
 
I suspect that the vast majority of detector vans were just dummies, used to drive up and down streets to scare people into buying licences.

But the technology has been there for a long while to detect if a TV set was on. I though Tempest (/TEMPEST) relied on the emissions from the screen and therefore worked on computers as well as TVs. But for a TV it should also be possible to detect the signal bouncing back from the mismatch in characteristic impedance between TV and antenna cable, and this was the means by which a detector van was supposed to work. Though I'm not sure how this would be affected by whether the TV was on or not.

Course, it's a damn sight cheaper to have empty blacked-out minibuses driving up and down, and probably more effective too.
 
van eck phreaking is easily defeated. create a faraday cage around your living room and you can have all the unlicensed tv sets as you want running.
 
BillC said:
But the technology has been there for a long while to detect if a TV set was on.
Click to expand...

So would this only apply to TVs that are receiving a broadcast channel? It's not much use to the licensing people if it merely detects a working set (not that they use any such technology anyway) - they'd be busting me for perfectly legal Playstation use every day. My TV is often switched on but I sure as heck don't need a licence.

One of the things I could never figure about the 'detector van' logic was how on earth they could possibly isolate one TV and aerial in, say, a high-rise block of flats. "Affirmitive on flat number 79, old Mrs Miggins and her cat Tiddles are watching Strictly Come Dancing. Reckon we can get the battering ram up the stairs? The lift's out of order."
 
I think you're liable for the licence if you simply have a PAL receiver in the house, even if it isn't actually tuned in to anything. This would apply whether it was in a TV or a VCR.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
I think you're liable for the licence if you simply have a PAL receiver in the house, even if it isn't actually tuned in to anything. This would apply whether it was in a TV or a VCR.

Rolfe.
Click to expand...

Nope, absolutely not. You are only liable for the licence if your equipment is set up to receive broadcast channels. This applies to TV and internet, of course (for example, if you watched the Eurovision Song Contest live on the web, you needed to have a licence). But if you merely own the equipment, as long as you ensure that it is completely tuned away from any signal (even without an aerial you can still pick up bits of fuzzy Eastenders), then you don't need the licence.

I have de-tuned both my TV and VCR so they can't pick up even the merest hint of TV signal, because technically that would make me liable for a licence, but as my current setup stands (TV attached to VCR, DVD player and games consoles but no aerial or TV channel receiver of any kind), I do not need one.

Like I said, the licence is not for simply owning a TV, it's for receiving broadcast channels. If you don't receive them, and de-tune so you can't, then you don't need a licence. The TV licensing website used to state this quite explicitly but they've recently changed the wording so it's more vague, presumably in an attempt to fool non-conformist programme-free heathens like me into buying a licence for a piece of equipment merely because it is capable of something I don't use it for. No such luck, TV police! *shakes fist at the sky*
 
I agree with tkingdoll: in the early days of home computing (the 1980's), a TV was used as a monitor supplied by a coax lead from the computer. If this was the only use your TV received, you didn't need a TV licence. The same went for TV's that were only connected to, say a VCR.

As an side note, I moved into an apartment and didn't own a TV for at least 9 months. I still got a call from the licence collectors after a few weeks. I showed him in to prove I didn't own a TV.
 
Students in my halls have recived threats from the TV people of various types every year. There has yet to be a check.
 
tkingdoll is right.

I'm one of the 1-3% of poor, benighted souls who do not own a TV set.
This has been true since 1983.
However, TV Licencing UK- a company set up under government auspices, but run by the BBC- does not believe me.

After yet another spate of letters- carefully written to imply, but not quite state that I am a criminal- I responded by requesting that they supply me with any and all information in their database relating to me, in accord with the Data Protection Act (1998). This was ignored, but they wrote me another threatening letter, so I phoned them. The chap I spoke to assured me- as suspected- that they have absolutely no data in their database except my name and address- clear proof of a crime. I have sent another written request- this time registered so they can't "lose" it.
They have promised to remove my name from their active list , so long as I permit one of their "officers" (actually an employee of a security company which does much government work) to inspect my premises.

This will happen the day Osama Bin Laden is made Pope.

The licence fee funds the BBC, an organisation which now openly competes in the commercial marketplace. I do not supply interest free grants to major corporations. The licence fee should be scrapped as it was in New Zealand a few years ago. It is a hangover from bygone days. Frankly, if the BBC cannot compete without public money, then it should go under like any other business. Why miners, steelworkers , fishermen and others who have watched their own livelihoods go under continue to pay this tax to fund a bunch of overpaid disc jockeys is beyond my comprehension.
 
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ISTR they used a sensitive reciever and a directional aerial to tune into the TV reciever's Intermediate Frequency in order to determine if the TV is actually recieving a broadcast. Seems it's possible to detect such things via this method.

However, it requires relatively specialized equipment and a somewhat trained operator. I suppose it's probably just as effective to randomly hassle households known to have a TV.
 
The same principle applies. You pay the licence fee. This also applies to cable TV to. Which I think is an outrage. I pay a subscription to receive the drivel via satellite and then I have to pay a license fee on top too. If you are watching TV directly then cough up the fee.

To get exempt you have to prove your TV has no capabilities to receive any broadcast and have it certified by some electronic wizard to say this is so. Even that will not stop them knocking on your door.
 
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