72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by bjelkeman-again » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

mikeryan wrote: post #165

bitlevel wrote: post #89

They appear to not be trustworthy to be on our networks - so we should: 1. Not join them to our networks 2. Stop buying 'Smart TV's' 3. Get panels and a smart box that you can control I'm lucky enough to be able to direct ALL DNS through my router first. Nothing gets out without my say so. Not everyone has that capability, sadly, with home routers. The solution provided by the OP is a solid one - another would be to…

It’s going to be really difficult to not get a smart tv pretty soon. You can, of course not hook it up to the internet. But pretty much all of the current TVs (particularly the good ones with nice displays) are going to be “Smart”. One reason for the recent huge price drops on TVs is the ability to subsidize the price by selling viewing data. It’s the new normal in the CE world.

In Europe I buy TVs aimed at office dashboard displays etc. No “Smart TV” with crappy software in my home.

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

#232

Post by sokoloff » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:10 PM UTC

fuzzy2 wrote: post #216

Zhenya wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Illegal to sell by the OEM or illegal to drive? Two very different things.

Because it is probably part of the vehicle type approval, it would be a modification that needs to be authorized by whatever institution does that in your country. Otherwise it is probably mostly equal to driving without registration. It may not be a felony, but it will be fined.

Given what I see driving around on US roads, there is epsilon-squared chance this would be found let alone fined here. (I’m also not nearly convinced that it’s even illegal in my state and likely not so in any of them, especially given that my car had a dealer service to remove the SIM card as a recall item.)

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

#233

Post by Ekaros » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

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...

This makes whole anti-trust angle actually even more interesting. If Google or Alphabet were to be split up, who would own the DNS? And would they still have business case to run probably relatively expensive service? Or would someone calculate that it makes more sense just to shut it down. Or maybe point all queries to nice marketing website?

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

#234

Post by throwaway201103 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

shawnz wrote: post #187

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DoH absolutely can get network filtering: if I block port 53 outbound to control DNS queries within my network, DoH (and other tunneling technologies) is bypassing my network filtering of DNS.

By the same logic HTTPS is bypassing your network filtering of every service which happens to have an alternative available over HTTPS. So do you block HTTPS?

Yes, from your IoT devices maybe you do.

The usual approach to setting up a firewall is a default of "block everything" and then selectively allow only what is needed.

Most people cheat and only do this on inbound connections, allowing everything on the egress side, because it's easier. But if you want to block your IoT devices from making outbound https connections, you easily can.

There's nothing really new going on here. It's always been possible to tunnel one protocol over another, or use nonstandard ports, and use encryption on the traffic to hide what you're doing.

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

#235

Post by swiley » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

At this point I don't want things with nonfree firmware in my house.

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

#236

Post by 2Gkashmiri » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

DarthGhandi wrote: post #84

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #64

Jio (India) is super obnoxious in the fact that their own router is locked down hard. Now you cant even change your DNS. I have suggested few people to bypass this limitation by removing the router as dhcp and using pihole for that. That works but don't know for how long. The pathetic thing is their router does not even allow bridging mode. Fuck jio.

While not for the average consumer, most routers are easily jailbroken. They aren't locked to anywhere near the extent a mobile phone is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/czl1f1/jio_fiber_rou...

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

#237

Post by supertrope » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

Hard coding DNS removes a troubleshooting variable and decreases customer support load and return rates. Some ISPs hijack DNS to serve up search ads (when it’s not down or slow). Some routers are part of botnets so DNS is not to be trusted.

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

#238

Post by kps » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #141

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

I'm not an expert in this space, but professional displays (e.g., screens mounted in airports, and the like) do not seem notable for their cinematic visual quality-- usually they have a washed out appearance. They're reliable screens, but not made for watching movies.

Look for terms like “conference room display” rather than “smart signage”.

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

#239

Post by Ekaros » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

xurukefi wrote: post #212

I always found it puzzling that DNS blacklisting for adblocking purposes works at all . I mean I'm not a webdev or anything like that, so what I'm saying might be a bit native, but couldn't you simply serve your ads using the same domain you use for your content? This immediately defeats things like PiHole completely.

To me it really sounds like trivial to serve adds from exactly the same address and even full URL as the content. Then again maybe adblocking isn't yet having such big effect that companies want to do that.

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

#240

Post by tomatocracy » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

fuzzy2 wrote: post #216

Zhenya wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Illegal to sell by the OEM or illegal to drive? Two very different things.

Because it is probably part of the vehicle type approval, it would be a modification that needs to be authorized by whatever institution does that in your country. Otherwise it is probably mostly equal to driving without registration. It may not be a felony, but it will be fined.

Theoretically illegal perhaps but I'd be very very surprised if this ever actually gets picked up by anyone even on an annual roadworthiness inspection. Maybe during some OEM servicing but then again maybe not.