Travel Technology - Downloading Amazon Unboxed from outside USA

I have a legally purchased license to several titles through Amazon Unbox which I started downloading in the US. As you may know if you have used the service, downloading takes forever, and I did not complete downloading all of my titles before deploying. Now that I am in Afghanistan, I cannot download them because when I try, it says that downloading is only available in the US, even on the titles which were partly downloaded in the US.

Is there anyway to have the server believe that I am downloading from the US and actually complete my downloads from Afghanistan? I am not trying to steal anything, rather, simply get the titles which I have already paid for.

You could try Hotspot Shield (http://anchorfree.com/downloads/hotspot-shield/). It'll VPN you through a US connection, which may or may not fool Amazon...

I'm facing a similar situation as Paolo01. I'm in Ukraine and have essentially been shut out by Amazon Unbox, Xbox Live, and the US TV networks as they have all begun (really in the past 6-12 months, it seems) started checking IP addresses. I considered buying firewalls and setting up a VPN at a family member's house in the US that I could log into. But that's a rather drastic and potentially problematic solution. Plus, Comcast could decide that my parents are "using too much bandwidth" and cut them off.

I'm looking into the Hotspot Shield to see if it will help with the laptop. But if anyone has thoughts/ideas/suggestions about the Xbox, I'm all ears.

Thanks, in advance.

I'm facing a similar situation as Paolo01. I'm in Ukraine and have essentially been shut out by Amazon Unbox, Xbox Live, and the US TV networks as they have all begun (really in the past 6-12 months, it seems) started checking IP addresses. I considered buying firewalls and setting up a VPN at a family member's house in the US that I could log into. But that's a rather drastic and potentially problematic solution. Plus, Comcast could decide that my parents are "using too much bandwidth" and cut them off.

I'm looking into the Hotspot Shield to see if it will help with the laptop. But if anyone has thoughts/ideas/suggestions about the Xbox, I'm all ears.

Thanks, in advance.

You may be able to use Internet Sharing on your desktop/laptop for the Xbox and route that through hotspot shield, but I'm not sure the 2 (internet sharing/hotspot shield) are compatible.

You could try Hotspot Shield (http://anchorfree.com/downloads/hotspot-shield/). It'll VPN you through a US connection, which may or may not fool Amazon...

Not a bad program to have kicking around. There is some overhead and injected ads, but the ads were nulled out by my locally running proxy.

Don't know about Amazon, but it didn't trick CNN into allowing me to watch the live video feed.

STREAM BLOCKED
CNN LIVE Video is not available in your geographic location.

I have been very pleased with http://www.publicvpn.com/. It is a secure way to access sites in the US that are blocked internationally. I was able to purchase Christmas items from buy.com for the first time while abroad. I also use it to access pandora.com and any other restricted site. It is a safer way to access sites when travelling. Especially high-end hotels where hackers have been stealing guest information whilst accessing bank and brokerage services.

When we lived in Dubai, I used iphantom.com which was a hardware box which sat between my ADSL modem and my router and gave me a US IP address on every domain (except for the ones I manually excluded). The entire house used that one connection.

When we lived in Dubai, I used iphantom.com which was a hardware box which sat between my ADSL modem and my router and gave me a US IP address on every domain (except for the ones I manually excluded). The entire house used that one connection.

It sounds like this would probably work better than Internet Sharing, as the Xbox runs through the router, vice the PC.

As to HotSpot Shield, I have it up and running now, picking up some episodes of House that became available since I was last in the US. Now if there was some way to ditch that AnchorFree Rewards Bar banner at the top of the window...

Wow. Now that Netflix includes unlimited movie watching over the internet with the $17.95 subscription, this may mean a few more movies nights while on the road abroad.

I will try it out!

Lots of good ideas that I will try today. One of my problems though is that I can only connect here through a WIRED LAN connection so I am not sure if some of these VPN wireless filters will work. I will try a few tonight though and report back. Thank you for all of the input.

I occasionally use VforVPN (http://www.vforvpn.com) and it works with both wired and wireless.

Lots of good ideas that I will try today. One of my problems though is that I can only connect here through a WIRED LAN connection so I am not sure if some of these VPN wireless filters will work. I will try a few tonight though and report back. Thank you for all of the input.

My tests over the last two days have proven that hotspot shield just does not work. I cannot prove emphatically that it does not, but Amazon Unbox did not download a single KB. It just kept extending the projected download time. I gave up when a single 45 min episode was projected to take over two days to download and had yet to over the course of several hours download a single bit. That being said, Amazon did not chime in with their standard, "You cannot download from your location, Amazon Unboxed is only available to be downloaded within the US."

I'll keep trying other possible solutions.

I'll keep trying other possible solutions.

Please do keep us posted.

I am specifically interested in Netflix and Amazon.

With the VPN turned on, do a speed test. Try testyourvoip.com and report back. I bet something is timing out.

Especially high-end hotels where hackers have been stealing guest information whilst accessing bank and brokerage services.

OT: How are they breaking the encryption on those sites to do said "stealing?"

Sounds like a perfect use of a squid.