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

#311

Post by unreal6 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

supertrope wrote: post #290

unreal6 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, now all we need is a television company who’s business model isn’t tied to surveilling its customers through its "smart features." Quite honestly, by just airgapping your "smart" TV, you're effectively receiving a subsidy (as annoying as that may be)

It’s probably in the range of $1 to $10. For example Verizon asked for $1 or $2 per phone to preload an app. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/08/verizon-has-a-plan-t... Twitter makes about $4 per set of eyeballs per year.

This article summarizes an interview The Verge’s Nilay Patel had with Vizios Bill Baxter [1]. Their televisions are being sold at or close to at cost, and their business model is tied to tracking and selling offerings on their smart TV platform. Roku has a similar model. I believe that in this case, the total monetization value of using the smart tv services has to be higher than that.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/smart-tv-data-collection-adv...

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

#312

Post by idiot900 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #261

This isn't difficult: TVs should not be "smart". TVs should be incredibly dumb. They should be screens for displaying stuff. That's it. Nothing else. No network connection of any kind, no apps, no software beyond that necessary to do basic setup of how that screen works: brightness, input selection, etc.

You're in luck. Buy a commercial TV, or a hospitality TV. For example:

https://www.lg.com/us/business/commercial-tvs/lg-65ut640s0ua

Other TV manufacturers make similar products.

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

#313

Post by jasonvorhe » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

erentz wrote: post #191

I’m kind of surprised there isn’t an OpenWRT style project out there to provide a replacement OS for common Smart TVs. At least I couldn’t find one. I’m obviously lacking in understanding the massive difficulties such a project would likely face. But it sure would be very nice to be able to replace my TVs firmware with something open source. I don’t want a dongle or extra box or extra remote. There’s a perfectly good…

Afaik OpenWRT still has no auto-updating functionality so I'd rather not see something in that poor state on even more Internet connected devices.

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

#314

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #296

Bud wrote: post #261

This isn't difficult: TVs should not be "smart". TVs should be incredibly dumb. They should be screens for displaying stuff. That's it. Nothing else. No network connection of any kind, no apps, no software beyond that necessary to do basic setup of how that screen works: brightness, input selection, etc.

I use streaming apps on the TV all the time. I don't see any real justification for this luddite mindset. If you don't like data collection that makes the TV cheaper that's a separate issue.

[deleted]

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

#315

Post by Ecstatify » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

ufmace wrote: post #272

Ecstatify wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is because they don’t give you the option to change it. Set the default to what ever you want, but give me the user who bought the goddamn thing the option to configure it how I see fit. You think TV companies are injecting adverts into peoples TV home screens for their benefit, I don’t see a big sticker on the box when I buy the TV “Ads Integrated Directly into Device”

As a techie and a possible user, I agree that I'd like that feature. As someone who has/might work for companies building things like that, it sounds like a nightmare. It's a ton of design, testing, translation, validation, etc work to build the UI for adjusting optional settings. And it has to be maintained and tested through all future versions, redesigns, refactorings, etc. It's gonna be a tough sell to do it righ…

The point is I wouldn't have to change my DNS if they didn't inject adverts into my homepage. When I bought the TV there was no mention of Adverts included.

Amazon sold two versions of their kindle, one with and one without ads, not an issue for me. As customer the pro/con relationship is clear. I get what I pay for.

These ads slow down my TV, waste electricity, waste my time more importantly. It's not my problem as a customer if other people mis-configure their TV and have to call support, that's a UX problem, I've never met anyone who has mis-configured their DNS on their phone. If you've updated your DNS on your TV before it's a very long process, using arrow keys to select characters, it's not something you accidentally do.

I paid for a TV and I didn't get what was advertised. The argument that they do it to protect dumb users is non-sense because the TVs that don't have this configurable in the settings are the ones mainly bundled with ads.

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

#316

Post by nitrogen » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #292

Bud wrote: post #261

This isn't difficult: TVs should not be "smart". TVs should be incredibly dumb. They should be screens for displaying stuff. That's it. Nothing else. No network connection of any kind, no apps, no software beyond that necessary to do basic setup of how that screen works: brightness, input selection, etc.

That would essentially force people to buy two devices - one for receiving content to display and a second to display it. All your solution does is shift the problem on to the receiving device. It wouldn't fix anything, and at the same time it'd increase the cost and complexity for the user (by a very small amount admittedly).

Decoupling allows competition and places control in the hands of the user.

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

#317

Post by gnu8 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #271

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn’t really possible, though: CDNs mean that blocking by IP just doesn’t work. The most effective method I’ve found is transparently redirecting all traffic on port 53 to a DNS server I control. DoH means that I might as well setup a transparent HTTPS proxy.

You’ll note that I mentioned a proxy. That’s why: you need to force all traffic through a proxy you control or you’re just hoping that a client doesn’t use hard-coded IPs or an outside API of some source. If your network allows the client to send traffic to port 443 anywhere, any blocking is on the honor system.

My question here is how are you going to install your root certificate on a $300 smart TV? Or, if that is not required because the TV does not verify DoH certificates, how bad is that for security (which we already know is awful on these devices)?

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

#318

Post by ev1 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

Ekaros wrote: post #239

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.

There's no honour among thieves and whatnot; advertisers do not trust publishers to report data or log impressions truthfully without money-signs-on-bags running away with stolen money.

Which, honestly, will 100% happen, considering the sheer amount of weird "adsense click fraud rings" you can find on the shitty, awful part of the internet, like SEO forums.

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

#319

Post by bborud » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

I'm probably going to get downvoted for this, but I couldn't help but note that 16 year old me would have been utterly baffled (and intrigued) by that headline.

Read it out loud a few times and imagine yourself in the VHS era.

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

#320

Post by nitrogen » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

cpuguy83 wrote: post #294

Bud wrote: post #261

This isn't difficult: TVs should not be "smart". TVs should be incredibly dumb. They should be screens for displaying stuff. That's it. Nothing else. No network connection of any kind, no apps, no software beyond that necessary to do basic setup of how that screen works: brightness, input selection, etc.

The one exception... it is really convenient to be able to use my phone to control the tv, even if it is only to change inputs. And that's how they get you.

There's no reason any phone shouldn't be able to control any TV, except that IR ports are no longer popular on handheld devices. Back in the 90s there were wristwatches that could control any TV.