Russian audiences found themselves under Mata Hari’s spell again when the titular television series, a joint work of Russian and Portuguese companies, debuted in 2017. However, for the 20 million – 30 million Russian nationals living outside their home borders, it is almost impossible to watch episodes of Mata Hari. The program is exclusive to the two aforementioned TV networks as well as Portugal’s SIC, and cannot be viewed by residents in other countries because of those network’s geo-blocking tendencies. However, your ability to watch the episodes runs out at the 30-day mark of the free trial. Without a membership, you can buy a single episode for US$0.99 in standard definition or in high definition for $1.99. The entire first season can be purchased in standard definition for US$9.99 or in high definition for US$19.99.
The Basics of a VPN
Business people will use VPNs when they work on sensitive material, particularly when using public or untrusted WiFi networks. VPNs keep data passing between the home and remote computers safe by having them pass through the encrypted connection which cannot be cracked by a third-party observer or hacker, even your own Internet Service Provider (ISP). Said data is decrypted by the remote server and assigned an IP address commiserate with the location the remote server is in. If you are trying to unlock geo-blocked websites or material, you would select a remote server in that country. The remote server pairs your requests with a local IP address and sends it on to the website of your choice. In this case, the Russian TV network site will identify your request as coming from a Russian IP address and allow you to start selecting programs to stream. The data will first download to the remote server, which will encrypt it and send it through the VPN to your device, where you can decrypt it and watch it, regardless of if you are in Cairo, California, Calgary, or Copenhagen.
