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72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

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Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#151

Post by Datenstrom »

jon-wood wrote: post #10

I’m responsible for a bunch of IoT hardware, and every firmware spec I write includes a note on not using the DNS servers provided via DHCP. While sure there are companies explicitly doing this to avoid filtering, at least in my case it’s because a significant proportion of DHCP servers are configured to send DNS to your ISP, and ISP provided DNS is almost universally terrible. They’ll ignore TTLs, rewrite NXDOMAIN r…

DoH will just be the start of another arms race. If you would like to control DoH also user LinuxBender responded to a question I asked about DoH blocklists with these repos in another post. I haven't got around to trying it out yet though.

[1]: https://github.com/bambenek/block-doh

[2]: https://github.com/Sekhan/TheGreatWall

Edit: I am mostly curious to see what devices/applications it will break.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#152

Post by willcipriano »

willis936 wrote: post #54
willcipriano wrote: post #16

> Smart devices manufacturers often “hard-code” in a public DNS server, like Google’s 8.8.8.8, and their devices ignore whatever DNS server is assigned by your router - such as your PiHole. Going to be a sad day for those advertisers when the DNS project gets killed by Google. Hopefully they are smart enough to set a alternate as well.

I don’t understand the downvotes. Google has a long history of killing projects. Of all the public DNS to trust, why does anyone have confidence in Google? Because they’re big? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 1500 times...

Not only that, I have a TV that is in working order that's 30 some years old. The average lifespan of a fortune 500 company is half that.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#153

Post by kevindong »

willis936 wrote: post #49
fingerlocks wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, support is supremely expensive. This is especially true in the hardware IoT space under discussion. Some large fraction of any semi-successful hardware company will exist to field a constant onslaught of support emails, handling returns, warranties, and social media. It’s a big money sink. Margins are already razor thin in hardware, so yeah anything that can be done to reduce your support costs is welcomed.

It’s a gamble, not a guarantee. What happens when your hard coded DNS is not available? The more convincing narrative is that setting custom DNS decreases ad revenue and cuts into growth.

Can't it be both?

On balance, I'd expect Google is be much better about maintaining their DNS uptime than most ISPs.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#154

Post by syshum »

jon-wood wrote: post #31
rightbyte wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What DNS do you hardcode? Google's? Or do you advice the use to set it up himself? I am very suspicious of the push for https and the like. I feel it is mainly about hiding the payload from me not any third party.

Currently we’re using both Google and Cloudflare’s DNS, providing resiliency against one or the other being unavailable, but I’m looking at potentially using our own resolvers just to reduce the amount of data being exposed to third parties.

So if I have a firewall level block to both 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 your devices will not work for me at all?

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#155

Post by Yeri »

vsskanth wrote: post #143
mlacks wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term you are looking for is “professional display”. NEC/sharp, Sony, and Samsung off the top of my head have a division for this. I work in a classified military space where the security of our equipment has been verified; our 80 inchers are all NEC and work wonderfully

Thanks for the tip. Is there a trade off ? Do they support 4k HDR and/or 120 Hz ?

I have a side-business in digital signage. Professional displays are indeed usually dumb TVs and are made to witstand 24/7 operation and may have higher lumen, etc. They do come at 4k. They also usually come with better management software and more ports. They can be connected to the internet for some remote management but I’ve never used that.

There’s of course a price difference between you $300 cheapo consumer stuff, and a $1000-2000 pro display.

I used to have these pro displays at home with Chromecast, works fine.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#156

Post by Yeri »

Dahoon wrote: post #100
comprev wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 'smart' TV has no internet connection configured as I use a Chromecast for streaming services and beaming local content.

That you know of.. Alexa auto-connects to other Alexa networks (like your neighbors). Some TVs have Alexa built-in. Bingo, telemetry.

That’s Alexa hardware using something like LORAWAN or zigbee or something. Bandwidth is low.

I doubt that (at this stage) TVs have something similar builtin. When they come with Alexa/GHome/... it’s usually the software and not an actual Alexa device built in.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#157

Post by mstade »

t0astbread wrote: post #24
EvanAnderson wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right to be suspicious. The DNS-over-HTTPS model favors those who run the servers (because they get exclusive access to monetizable end user name resolution data) and those who control the resolvers. You might control the resolver on your personal computer (for now). You probably don't control it on your phone. You most likely won't control it on your embedded devices.

The root evil here is that you can't change the root certificates in such devices. Even if you controlled its DNS, the device could still just be programmed to fail if it doesn't reach its analytics/ad/whatever server.

The IKEA Tradfri "smart" lighting gateway will stop responding to commands if it can't phone home to some IKEA server. I noticed this when I changed my router to use NextDNS, which blocked the IKEA lookups. I was ready to return the device as broken until I realized this. I've also had issues with Bang & Olufsen speakers in the past, and inclined to believe it's for the same reasons.

I think it's insane that devices can effectively be bricked if they can't phone home. It's nothing short of waste, and I think environmental legislation should require device manufacturers to supply ways of disabling or overriding these mechanisms such that devices can continue to operate regardless of whether home servers are blocked or otherwise out of reach, e.g. company goes belly up, censorship etc.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#158

Post by [deleted] »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #142
jon-wood wrote: post #10

I’m responsible for a bunch of IoT hardware, and every firmware spec I write includes a note on not using the DNS servers provided via DHCP. While sure there are companies explicitly doing this to avoid filtering, at least in my case it’s because a significant proportion of DHCP servers are configured to send DNS to your ISP, and ISP provided DNS is almost universally terrible. They’ll ignore TTLs, rewrite NXDOMAIN r…

> and occasionally just highjack every single query to send you to a page saying you’re approaching your bandwidth quota It boggles my mind it's still a problem in some countries. Last time I saw this kind of notice it was in the nineties, and on a web server, definitely not on a client endpoint. People have had unlimited bandwidth for at least a decade now.

[deleted]

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#159

Post by quineoa »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #142
jon-wood wrote: post #10

I’m responsible for a bunch of IoT hardware, and every firmware spec I write includes a note on not using the DNS servers provided via DHCP. While sure there are companies explicitly doing this to avoid filtering, at least in my case it’s because a significant proportion of DHCP servers are configured to send DNS to your ISP, and ISP provided DNS is almost universally terrible. They’ll ignore TTLs, rewrite NXDOMAIN r…

> and occasionally just highjack every single query to send you to a page saying you’re approaching your bandwidth quota It boggles my mind it's still a problem in some countries. Last time I saw this kind of notice it was in the nineties, and on a web server, definitely not on a client endpoint. People have had unlimited bandwidth for at least a decade now.

This has regressed. In the NetZero days you would be limited to some hours per month depending on your plan. Then came unlimited cable. And now we are back: my residential AT&T DSL connection is limited to 1TB per month in the Bay Area

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#160

Post by giuliomagnifico »

dgl wrote: post #13
giuliomagnifico wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes sorry. I haven’t noticed it, don’t know what url I copied in my clipboard.

Looks like it wasn't your fault, the page has: https://0.0.0.0:4000/blog/force-dns-pihole "> So some "Share" buttons may pick that up.

This is what happened! Because I posted it from my phone via share button! Thanks for the investigation :-)
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