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Comment by stuartk | Hacker News Reader

It says there are 13,000 licences for black and white TV's, so I wonder how many of those are just trying to get their licences cheap but actually own a colour TV.

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At a "saving" of almost £100 that does seem by far the most likely explanation.

The language in that article seems to suggest that they're about to launch an offensive against the BW license payers.

My mother was fined for having a colour television whilst having a black and white license. She had forgotten to upgrade since being given the television from my grand parents.

Why would someone pay for a TV license at all in that case?

Because they lessen the likelihood that the licensing folks are going to be knocking on their door.

Perhaps the idea is that they are less likely to get a visit from the TV License inspectors if they have a B&W license vs no license at all?

An irrational sense of not cheating quite as much. A vast overestimation of TV Licensing's ability to detect you - something like correlating cable/satellite subscription databases with license payers list (as if paying for cable, but claiming to own a BW TV set isn't a red flag) and the nefarious detector vans.

Makes me wonder how sensitive the vans are. The other methods you quoted seems to be much more accurate

(not to mention seeing varying shades of light behind the curtain)

As for the detector vans: does anyone know if they actually exist?

Several times in the past I have looked up information on them, and all I find seems to be in the realm of urban legend -slash- marketing ploy.

What is the physical principle behind this tech? Does anyone have reliable information?

The physical principle is that they detect the leakage from the local oscillator in the superheterodyne receiver circuit.

I very much doubt that they exist now, if they ever did. It just isn't cost efficient compared to sending out letters and low paid inspectors who peer through windows looking for people watching TV.

The only means I know of for one to reliably detect the image on the screen would be TEMPEST style attacks [1]. I doubt that Capita can afford to buy the necessary equipment, or even views it as economically viable given the volume of letters they sent out - 56 million letters were sent in 2009, for example [2].

I'm not sure if modern TVs will even emit anything obvious since the connection from the decoder to the panel is covered in EMI shielding.

[1] : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename) [2] : http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-administering-the-tv-...

To stop all the letters. I had no TV for a couple of years and we would get letters all the time. Even when told the inspectors would still try and come round. They even faked who they were once, pretended they were here to deliver a package.

Contrast = 0. Hipster.

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