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Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

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Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#11

Post by oceanghost »

This article is poorly structured to be polite.

I recently set one of these up for my daughter, and there is indeed no way to use the display without a Roku account, and that does require a credit card, and sneakily tries to get you to sign up for trials, as the article mentions. It took a lot of effort for me to make sure my (3 year old) couldn't order HBO, etc.

Had I known that, I woudln't have bought it. It's easy to envision a future where Roku is out of business and this tv can't be activated again if needs be.

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#12

Post by gregmac »

jandrese wrote: post #4

> Disclaimer: by ‘’Lock’’ I mean soft-lock. They do technically allow you to continue without doing do on the payment, but the options are hidden and only available if you look for them. Dark-net patterns are absolutely at work here, and unless you factory reset your TV it’s a freaking brick for the majority of people. Your TV is what I will call ‘’BlueBricked’’ "Cryptolocking" is something I generally associate with…

Oh no, it sounds like "cryptolocking" has the potential to be yet another term subsumed into meaning the wrong thing, much like "hacker", "drone", and "bot" have been.

This pattern and cryptolocking both have the common trait that you have to pay to get past a specific point, so I get why this happens: they're indistinguishable from a "typical end user" point of view.

Really, I think "Paywall" is maybe closer to the proper term to use here.

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#13

Post by danpalmer »

There's a lot wrong with this article, but:

> Lets get something straight here. Gender should ALWAYS be a optional choice.

This is a good take. Many more services should make gender more optional. It's unnecessary for almost all services, it's something that is often used for _poor_ targeting – targeting based on markers in platform activity is likely to yield much better targeting, and unless you spend a lot of time thinking about how to model the answers to that question it has the potential to exclude and offend. Let's just stop asking for it!

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#14

Post by lotsofpulp »

pwinnski wrote: post #9
nkrisc wrote: post #2

Is this a TV with some kind of Roku software built in? I thought Roku was a physical device that you could just unplug. This is why I will only buy "dumb" TVs that can only display input from external sources.

Just last week I bought a TCL Roku TV. The price was right! During setup, I declined to connect to WiFi and then set the TV to automatically switch to HDMI 1 when it turns on, and to honor CEC over HDMI so that my external AppleTV box can power it on and off. Taught the AppleTV remote how to handle the volume on the TV, and that's it. The Roku remote is in a drawer, and the TV behaves as a dumb monitor. I'm not even…

>The price was right!

In my opinion, a "right" price would not encourage the kind of behavior that puts bullshit software on a device in the first place. Also, your TV could be connected to mobile networks and you would not know, although I'm not sure what information they can divine from the TV being on or off, other than the times someone is home or not.

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#15

Post by MrMember »

pwinnski wrote: post #9
nkrisc wrote: post #2

Is this a TV with some kind of Roku software built in? I thought Roku was a physical device that you could just unplug. This is why I will only buy "dumb" TVs that can only display input from external sources.

Just last week I bought a TCL Roku TV. The price was right! During setup, I declined to connect to WiFi and then set the TV to automatically switch to HDMI 1 when it turns on, and to honor CEC over HDMI so that my external AppleTV box can power it on and off. Taught the AppleTV remote how to handle the volume on the TV, and that's it. The Roku remote is in a drawer, and the TV behaves as a dumb monitor. I'm not even…

I wonder how long not connecting it to wifi will be a viable option. I wouldn't be surprised if many devices today still attempt to connect to open networks even if you decline to connect it to your home network. Once cell modems are embedded in everything the only option to prevent it from phoning home will be to physically disable the modem or put it in a Faraday cage.

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#16

Post by big_chungus »

jandrese wrote: post #4

> Disclaimer: by ‘’Lock’’ I mean soft-lock. They do technically allow you to continue without doing do on the payment, but the options are hidden and only available if you look for them. Dark-net patterns are absolutely at work here, and unless you factory reset your TV it’s a freaking brick for the majority of people. Your TV is what I will call ‘’BlueBricked’’ "Cryptolocking" is something I generally associate with…

What is a "Dark-net pattern"? And cryptolocking implies it somehow bricks your TV with some sort of cryptographic security.

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#17

Post by d1zzy »

jandrese wrote: post #6
metalliqaz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes. as far as smart TVs go, a Roku one is usually the best option because all the other platforms absolutely suck. I agree with only buying "dumb" TVs

The problem is that "Dumb" TVs are quickly going extinct. They already tend to be more expensive than otherwise equivalent "Smart" TVs, which should give you an idea of how much value is actually added to the TV by these "Smart" features. It's probably about time for someone to figure out the firmware update process and come with a DD-WRT style open source firmware that doesn't have all of this nonsense.

As long as "smart" TVs still provide for a way to not connect it to any network (this is true for Roku TVs too) it's all good and we can use them as dumb TVs.

Yes, most people may not realize that's an option. But also, yes, the TV price already factors in the financial benefits of getting people's personal information. I remember reading an article on this, oh yes: https://www.businessinsider.com/smart-tv-data-collection-adv...

""" It's not just about data collection. It's about post-purchase monetization of the TV. """

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#18

Post by excalibur »

Does anybody here know a good alternative? A device you can connect to a dumb TV to play streaming content that doesn't spy on you? All of the commercially available options seem to be selecting a giant corporation to send all your data to. As a "small" company that does this and nothing else, you would think Roku would be a relatively privacy-focused option, but it appears to be the opposite. I feel like we're being forced to go the Kodi route, which leads to a disturbing correlation of privacy with piracy.

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#19

Post by zamalek »

excalibur wrote: post #18

Does anybody here know a good alternative? A device you can connect to a dumb TV to play streaming content that doesn't spy on you? All of the commercially available options seem to be selecting a giant corporation to send all your data to. As a "small" company that does this and nothing else, you would think Roku would be a relatively privacy-focused option, but it appears to be the opposite. I feel like we're being…

A Raspberry Pi has HDMI out and can run Linux, for a more Roku-like experience you could try installing Android on it.

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#20

Post by intothemild »

This looks like an Oauth2-like pin code flow. My guess is it’s doing this because Roku are requiring logged in users to access the software. This isn’t unheard of. I’d argue that it’s highly beneficial.

But if this is the main OS of the TV, and this is a requirement to use external inputs. Then fuck this.

I think my Sony Android TV allowed me to skip user login during setup. I might be wrong because I logged in then subsequently put it on my “Internet of Shit” VLAN, where all the other terrible crap goes.

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