A pirate TV box from China presents a security threat?
This is my surprised face.
Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick
71–80 of 575 posts
Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick
#72Defrauding 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.
why is running a proxy a bad thing? someone profiting off it could be bad maybe, but even that is good if it pays for my subscription. but compare running tor nodes, and especially exit nodes. that surely would be a good thing, so at least if you think tor is good then running a proxy should be the same and it should be normalized. doing it in secret without the user knowing is what's bad
Indeed without my permission is implied. Without it, you have no idea what traffic is being routed and could be on the hook for something nasty like CSAM.
Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
They should ask the permission from device owner and local government before collecting the data.
They do ask the device owner - if you review the location services description on android[1] you will see they explicitly say they collect this information from your device. I strongly disagree that they need to get government permission for this - they are simply recording signals that reach the device, akin to making notes about what kinds of cars you see. This is not a thing a government should have control over p…
In the article you refer to, I see no mention of asking user's permission. However, I remember, when using an old version of Android, there indeed was a popup nagging me to allow sharing location data with Google every time I enabled GPS. Very annoying, makes you want to never enable GPS in the first place.
Regarding the government, the problem is that many people do not fully understand the mechanism of collecting the data. I remember the case when members of US military disclosed the location of secret objects through fitness tracker app. And they were probably smarter than average smartphone user. Obviously it would be better if enabling GPS required an approval from their commander.
Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick
#74No mention of Roku
I use one but only when traveling at hotels - it’s one of the only sticks that can connect to captive WiFi networks at hotels
I’ve got barely anything on it so privacy be damned - but at this point this is why I just buy apple products
I have two apple tv’s which probably do shady things too, but I’m willing to play the probabilities and assume it’s the least bad of my options short of tinkering with flashing hardware and all that stuff that used to be fun in my teens (emphasis on used to)
Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick
#75I 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…
> I do not see problems with fake ad clicks and have no sympathy for ad companies. I am not shedding any tears for the ad companies, but I don't exactly expect or want a consumer device to be doing this in the background without the owner's knowledge.
Sure. And you'll quite literally never be able to get any meaningful reduction in this practice unless you attack it at the level of big, publically known companies; the warnings about these local dinky things I suppose are not harmful and help individuals a bit -- but I'm concerned they give the entirely false impression that the extremely similar stuff coming from the big boys is definitely a-ok.
Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
One hopes that the new CEO will realize the turn towards ads is ruining the Apple brand and pull back on that front.
Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick
#77So where can I get an actual privacy focused streaming box, even if the apps (Neflix etc) running on it are not?
I'm increasingly being convinced the only way to do that is you do a media pc nuc. The problem, of course, is you probably won't have the netflix app. It's painful to setup such a box to stream from various services.
What's wrong with Apple TV? It runs VLC if you want to stream something from your NAS.
Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick
#78> But a groundbreaking new analysis finds these devices also routinely spoof themselves as mobile phones clicking ads ...
Compromised (or malicious from the factory) devices being recruited into bot farms for click fraud is ... a groundbreaking discovery in 2026?
> on AI-generated websites as part of sprawling operation that seeks to defraud online merchants and advertising networks.
To hell with AI-generated websites and advertising networks.
Say, where can I get the most effective malicious TV stick for click-frauding the fuck out of that shit? I will take fifteen! :)
Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Can you monitor its traffic and block by IP?
Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick
#80The best solution to this problem is to block GeoIP traffic and monitor bandwidth consumption on a per-domain basis. If something is sending data during the night, it becomes much easier to identify suspicious activity.