Freedome Interfering With Periscope App

teaneedz
teaneedz Posts: 16 Enthusiast
in Privacy VPN

When Freedome for iOS is enabled, Twitter's new *Periscope* app will open but live streams will not display.

 

1. Is Freedome blocking Periscope live stream?

2. Is Twitter Periscope blocking F-Secure or VPN?

 

 

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Comments

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0

    As this app is quite new we haven't had any report on it.

     

    From a quick search it could be a problem affecting VPN's in general(again I couldn't find much information). You might want to contact the Periscope app support team to confirm that VPNs are supported.

     

    Do you get any error when the live streams don't display?

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  • teaneedz
    teaneedz Posts: 16 Enthusiast
    I will attempt to contact them. There are no errors, just a constant loading message. When Freedome, is disabled, the video streams load fine.
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  • Tehfcae
    Tehfcae Posts: 107 Contributor

    Based off what I can kind from their privacy policy and terms of service they require your location to run the app. Various apps that try to use both Network location and GPS location at the same time get confused when using a VPN as your GPS will say one thing and your network location may say another. Apps that have not been designed with this in mind may simply freeze and those that are may not start while a VPN is connected to avoid issues. 

     

    You may beable to simply turn on your GPS location as some apps will override network location by using GPS location. This can be done by turning on location services for Periscope in the privacy section of the phone settings.

     

    I would like mention I do not work for or with Periscope and do not use the app. I am just going off of specution based off the information I could find of them.

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  • teaneedz
    teaneedz Posts: 16 Enthusiast
    Well it's interesting that Periscope doesn't even appear under the Location services tab. Wouldn't that imply that they are solely getting location off the network and not device GPS?
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  • Tehfcae
    Tehfcae Posts: 107 Contributor

    That would appear so.  How are your network speeds? You may need to download the ookla speed test app. It may be that the app requires a fast enough network speed to run and running a VPN can limit that especially if your local network is not very fast.

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  • teaneedz
    teaneedz Posts: 16 Enthusiast
    So-so on network speed but I have the same issue over 50mps networks. I've seen at least one other complaint from someone else using Freedome and at least one from a PIA VPN user. That might point to an app design issue, but I'm not convinced it's not something else.
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  • Tehfcae
    Tehfcae Posts: 107 Contributor

    I wouldn't rule out an app issue until you hear back from periscope. However, as I can't help you troubleshoot that app I can help you rule our the issue being with Freedome specificly. Do you have any OS updates or Freedome updates?

     

    Also let us know when you hear from them as I would like to know what they say.

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  • teaneedz
    teaneedz Posts: 16 Enthusiast
    I just noticed that Periscope dropped 1.0.1 in the app store. It does not fix my problem though. Everything is up to date on my side. I've asked their support channel to escalate this to the product team (not sure how they divvy up their support issues or what their org process is like). I'll report back when they respond again.
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  • teaneedz
    teaneedz Posts: 16 Enthusiast
    > Thanks for the suggestion! I'll share it with the team.

    > We are busy working to improve the Periscope app and your feedback is very helpful and much appreciated. Be sure to follow @periscopeco on Twitter for updates about new features and upcoming releases.

    > Much love,

    > Periscope Team
    > @periscopeco

    I think this is their final response to my request for escalation.

    Either they're clueless about the VPN issue or don't want to disclose what they are doing on the location side.

    Can Freedome tell me definitely that it is not filtering or interfering with the packets of Periscope's live streams?

    There is a conflict, but I don't know who is the responsible party.

    I suppose that when this boils down to having to decide between using a VPN or a new app, I will choose the VPN. Still, it would have been nice to know the root cause.


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  • Tehfcae
    Tehfcae Posts: 107 Contributor
    My guess is that it would be on their side. Freedome only blocks malicious trackers. It is possible that periscope uses tracking software that is set as malicious according to F-secure's malware definitions. However, that is unlikely as apple would not have allowed it through to the app store. I'll do some testing when I get to iPad to see if I can replicate the issue and play around with it. I'll let you know what I find.
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  • Tehfcae
    Tehfcae Posts: 107 Contributor
    Hello, sorry for the delay I am busy and my iPad is old and unreliable. From what I can tell periscope was having issues with all my vpns. Tunnelbear, surfeasy, Cisco anyconnect, and even the VPN I have set up on my home router. This may be that my iPad is a bit broken and has trouble with everything, but it appears to be on periscopes side.
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  • teaneedz
    teaneedz Posts: 16 Enthusiast
    Thank you Tehfcae for looking into this more. From a Freedome tweet response, Persicope is sending binary non-HTTP traffic over port 80. This is what's causing any good VPN, proxy or firewall to choke. It sounds like F-Secure will work around this soon, but ultimately the root cause is a Periscope design issue. This is something that Periscope/Twitter should address rather than referring users to their VPN provider. The whole experience has made me trust Freedome even more :)
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