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Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#61

Post by ghostly_s »

ocd wrote: post #52
Mistletoe wrote: post #32

I recently got an Apple TV 4K and have been really enjoying the ad free experience. Worth every penny. Our smart tv had turned into a Christmas tree of ads.

As much as I hate Apple for what they've done to the average consumer in regards to computing, it would be just impossible and dishonest to say anything other than Apple is the outright winner in streaming devices. The experience is so smooth.

Considering their recent decision to give up on building Apple Maps into a serious contender and instead enshittify it with ads, I don't have much faith Apple TV will be far behind.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#62

Post by arjie »

codedokode wrote: post #26

I do not see problems with fake ad clicks and have no sympathy for ad companies. Also pre-installed adware is not a surprise, I found adware in the official firmware image of a certain Chinese tablet. What worries me much more is backdoors from the foreign companies and governments that can be pre-installed at the factory to collect intelligence information. For example, I became aware that a certain maker of a popul…

Oh this was a failed device that Mozilla offered. I had a couple back in the day. It was called Matchstick. Sick t shirts. Basically an OSS chromecast.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#63

Post by ssl-3 »

alistairSH wrote: post #42
glitchc wrote: post #4

Defrauding ad networks doesn't seem like a bad thing, although using my internet connection as a proxy is obviously terrible. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that my connection is being sold as a VPN service by the vendor.

It'll be a marginal effect, but fake clicks impacts the ad buyer, which then impacts their financials and pricing. The only winner here is the scammers running the fake affiliate sites on which these sticks are "clicking". Or, am I missing some facet of this enterprise?

Another winner is the person who gets to watch cheap digital TV, without putting together a usable antenna and limiting their reception to the broadcast channels that are nearby.

I mean: They just pay the money, plug the thing in, push some buttons, and: TV happens. Right?

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#64

Post by codedokode »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #34
codedokode wrote: post #26

I do not see problems with fake ad clicks and have no sympathy for ad companies. Also pre-installed adware is not a surprise, I found adware in the official firmware image of a certain Chinese tablet. What worries me much more is backdoors from the foreign companies and governments that can be pre-installed at the factory to collect intelligence information. For example, I became aware that a certain maker of a popul…

> Obviously they collect this information to be able to guide missiles and drones when GPS signal is jammed Are there a lot of missiles that travel slowly enough to be able to guide themselves via watching for nearby wifi signals? > for every imported device having a CPU and Internet connectivity Why limit this to imported devices?

In some areas GPS is spoofed and the displayed location is wrong. If, for example, a "smart" car gets a task from its manufacturer to film some secret object, it would fail if it relied only on GPS and did not use cell towers and WiFi points for determining its location. So knowing their location determines whether the mission would fail or succeed. So foreign devices should not be allowed to collect such information.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#66

Post by yumraj »

Any way to identify or block these proxy and ad click services in the router? Say a Ubiquiti or even pfsense?

I’m not using any of these boxes for especially this reason, but about 10-15 years ago had noticed my treadmill pinging a Chinese portal. I removed the WiFi access from the treadmill but am curious if there might be other devices.

Any specific ports, etc these guys use or are they mostly impossible to distinguish from regular internet traffic?

My another worry has been if these can monitor other Internet traffic, though I think HTTPS should mostly prevent that.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#67

Post by utopiah »

I bet this is much broader than we all realized because just earlier today I was reading on https://gist.github.com/probonopd/3ad6b7777caea1503f00d5fe77... in order to tinker with a cheap (like really cheap) Android video projector : "Device: Magcubic HY300 Pro Android Projector (ui_Veng.projector) Issue: Device was being used as a residential proxy node without consent, causing thousands of suspicious DNS requests and bandwidth usage." linked in there just few months ago.

It's not present on mine (AFAICT) which lead me to think either it was a genuine mistake or their bailed on that benefit or they upgraded to a harder to detect technique.

An acquaintance mentioned they also bought a similar device few months ago. I believe there will be a lot MORE of these so we should soon be able to witness if it's an innocent mistake or the new normal.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#68

Post by stronglikedan »

> But a groundbreaking new analysis finds these devices also routinely spoof themselves as mobile phones clicking ads on AI-generated websites as part of sprawling operation that seeks to defraud online merchants and advertising networks.

You had me at "But"! ::swoon::

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#69

Post by giantg2 »

ghostly_s wrote: post #58
giantg2 wrote: post #19

So where can I get an actual privacy focused streaming box, even if the apps (Neflix etc) running on it are not?

These are not "streaming boxes" in the sense you are talking about. Their appeal is that they come preloaded with chinese pirate streaming apps. Traditional streaming boxes - Apple TV, Fire stick, Roku - are not affected by this, though if you want privacy-focused Apple TV is the only remaining contender, and with Apple's continued descent into advertising vendor I'd guess that one is not long for this world, either.

My understanding is that Roku bypasses DNS blocking with hardcoded tables so it can report back on various data they track on you.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#70

Post by brainwad »

yunnpp wrote: post #65

And which part of "ad fraud" is the fraud? As far as I can tell, ad networks and advertisers are the fraud and they are also part of the increasing surveillance state. Didn't know Krebs was a mainstream news puppet.

It's called fraud because the ad host colludes with (or directly controls) the botnet to get lots of clicks on ads hosted on their sites, making them money at the expense of advertisers.

If you just want to spam clicks on ads you don't financially be edit from, go for it.

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