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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

#321

Post by onionisafruit »

femto wrote: post #290
omilu wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Costco vets their products very well, if I see something at costco and its something I need I just buy it. No need to research and I've never been burned. They only sell good quality stuff.

Check their tomato paste. It turns out that nearly every tomato paste in Australia comes from Xinjiang in China, including those marked as Australian or Italian. Simplot (Leggos), the big US company, was the worst offender, so it's possible that tomato paste in Costco's US stores has been produced in Xinjiang using slave labour, irrespective of what the label says. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-27/australian-to…

According to this none of the samples tested from US retailers contained Chinese tomatoes. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crezlw4y152o It seems like the US ban on Xinjiang is working

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#322

Post by myself248 »

ghostly_s wrote: post #51
IncreasePosts wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but if they're a not-very-tech savvy older person buying this, they probably remember shows being free from over the air antennas and may think it is something like that.

> they probably remember shows being free from over the air antennas you are aware broadcast TV never ended?

An awful, awful, awful lot of consumers think their old antennas don't work now that everything's gone digital. And they've simply never tried.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#323

Post by p-e-w »

femto wrote: post #290
omilu wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Costco vets their products very well, if I see something at costco and its something I need I just buy it. No need to research and I've never been burned. They only sell good quality stuff.

Check their tomato paste. It turns out that nearly every tomato paste in Australia comes from Xinjiang in China, including those marked as Australian or Italian. Simplot (Leggos), the big US company, was the worst offender, so it's possible that tomato paste in Costco's US stores has been produced in Xinjiang using slave labour, irrespective of what the label says. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-27/australian-to…

The above thread was about quality issues, not ethical issues such as “slave labor” (a term somehow reserved for certain countries, even though most countries use unfree prison labor, including the US and much of the EU).

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#324

Post by wildzzz »

frollogaston wrote: post #125
mortenjorck wrote: post #3

In this case it’s actual malice, that the streaming stick is set up for residential proxy and ad fraud straight from the factory. But incompetence can lead to the same place if it’s a poorly engineered, un-maintained device with an old version of Android that will never be patched and is always one no-click exploit away from being commandeered into residential proxy and ad fraud.

Since these are poorly engineered, wonder how easy it'd be to reverse-engineer one and just get the free streaming on a non-scam device.

Best case, you can grab the credentials off the Kodi box and use them on a clean install.

Worst case, everything is packaged up in a single app so it's all or nothing. Although you could just wipe the box and find another pirate TV provider.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#325

Post by culi »

ColdStream wrote: post #302
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.

They took the idea of the 'Ad-nauseam' add-on for Firefox and used it for their own gains I see.

https://adnauseam.io/

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#326

Post by wildzzz »

bityard wrote: post #225
mmooss wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine many on HN having excited discussions about their satellite descramblers. > do it because they can get away with it. Lots of people on HN download and upload copyrighted materials. Is it really different?

Fine, you've nerd-sniped me. I tinkered with Dish Network descrambling 20 years ago. Not because I wanted to just watch a bunch of free TV (I hardly watched any TV anyway, we mostly watched DVDs from the video store and Netflix). More because it felt like an interesting rabbit hole. And it was pretty interesting! I picked a good (newer!) satellite dish and LNB from the trash and had a friend help with the installatio…

Your experience describes lots of the kinds of communities you can use to access pirated media. You either pay for the legit service, pay for pirate streaming services, pay with your privacy with the free, dodgy pirate streaming services, or pay with your sanity in dealing with nutjobs.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#327

Post by wildzzz »

mmooss wrote: post #196
havaloc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an elderly client who sends me links of stuff to buy all the time. One day it's one of these streaming sticks, the next day it's half-price stamps, and I tell her every time, please don't buy this stuff. And yet she does anyway, as if I was almost being mean and saying no just to say no. So yes, I do want to blame the purchasers of these things, sometimes. To prove her point that her stamps were legitimate, sh…

> half-price stamps Who is selling half-price stamps? #1 How big is your potential market? It's people still mailing things from home, who haven't figured out how to do postage on their computer. #2 Of the population in #1, it's those who find real stamps so expensive that it's worth bothering with discounts. #3 Of the population in #2, it's those who would want to buy something fraudulant (or not know better) and wh…

Its the grandmas still sending you a $5 check in the mail for your birthday

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#328

Post by tejohnso »

altruios wrote: post #262
omilu wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Costco vets their products very well, if I see something at costco and its something I need I just buy it. No need to research and I've never been burned. They only sell good quality stuff.

Costco isn't perfect, and things slip through still. For example: this is a minor annoyance, but comes readily to mind. https://www.costco.com/p/-/orgain-organic-protein-and-superf... The problem is labeling conventions leading to inaccurate assumptions of what's even IN that "protein powder"... you would think the protein, being the largest in print, is the primary ingredient but no. A serving is 51grams, and the pr…

A 51 g serving might contain 40 g of the protein blend, making it a protein powder as the primary ingredient is protein blend.

However, this is plant-based protein, not pure way isolate. A plant-based protein powder from mung beans for example isn't going to be 100% protein. Chickpea powder contains roughly 20% protein.

So I don't know if that helps at all, but it doesn't seem as bad as you and you might be suggesting.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#329

Post by DennisP »

acdha wrote: post #181
snickerbockers wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres the question of whether or not the fraudulent advertisement clicking is using enough traffic to inconvenience or impose fees upon the user but otherwise I agree with you and am tempted to buy one just to fuck with advertisers. Backdoors and spying are also a problem in theory except at this point you can't even trust "legitimate" companies on that front so it's a moot point.

> otherwise I agree with you and am tempted to buy one just to fuck with advertisers. How that actually works in practice is that your favorite sites make less money and your IP gets a bad reputation so you CAPTCHAs or outright blocked. There’s no “sticking it to the man” here, just contributing to the frictional grind making the internet worse for ordinary people.

They make less money, but they also notice lower conversion rates on ads, which might make them rethink their strategy.

(IP reputation keeps me from doing it though.)

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#330

Post by mrloopex »

xyx0826 wrote: post #130
simojo wrote: post #108

We purchased a Chinese-made projector from Amazon, which was surprisingly inexpensive (~40 USD). Upon connecting it to the internet, it placed a constantly running feed of ads on the corner of the screen, even while movies were playing. There was no way to disable it either. Even though it's not a stick, it's a similar principle.

I remember reading an analysis on one of those projectors; the author found a residential proxy running on their device. I would recommend keeping these things off the internet.

Yes that’s what the article is about.
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