451–460 of 575 posts
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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.
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.
> Upon connecting it to the internet, I dare not ask why you would do such a thing, instead, I will simply ask if you now think the reason was good, and I will hint at you that if the reason was "convenience", then you should answer "No".
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You can flash yourself GrapheneOS with your own keys for the bootloader. Then again "I can't make sure all manufacturers aren't in collusion" when FBI sues Apple and others (and fails) over suspects' phone access is quite different from "every device sold in the country must have government malware", as it is in China.
I can't find a device in the USA that doesn't come with government malware. Is this another instance of the USA accusing China of everything the USA is doing (like with the credit scores)?
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I can't find a device in the USA that doesn't come with government malware. Is this another instance of the USA accusing China of everything the USA is doing (like with the credit scores)?
You'd have to be a bit more specific of which government malware you found in Android/iOS devices, cause that would be interesting
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To play devil's advocate, when someone says "Chinese made" they're usually well aware of your point, and are more using it as a common way to describe product mills spitting out countless devices with dubious quality or configuration. Of course theres good products made in China, and plenty of entirely Chinese brands killing it doing their thing.
its pretty straight racism though. its US software companies that are the worst of the worst in terms of adware and malware being shipped under monopoly control
The word racism is vastly overused these days.
This is why Google/Meta is pushing for "age verification". 1. They want more as targeting data on you 2. They want to reduce bot clicks It's an unholy alliance with governments who want to know who writes what online.
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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…
I recall the “free to air” receivers being pretty easy to configure. My main pita was getting a cheap ftdi usb->serial adapter because that’s how old the underlying tech was. Still easier than jtagging an official receiver. I migrated into it from the earlier days involving iso7816 card programming and mitm cards so I guess I didn’t have trouble finding which sites to get the fta files. I have good memories of those…
Feels fitting recently to discover the Dish Network "Pirate TV" recordings. I should run my own in-home IPTV station and use the Pirate TV bug as the logo...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVXSxJ357pw
You're watching Dish Network's Pirate TV channel!... ... if you're watching me, you're a SATELLITE PIRATE!
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One of the main value propositions for retailers in a world of endless cheap garbage being sold online, is to vet products so customers can trust that what their buying is from a legitimate company and not junk or stuff like these streaming sticks. This is the problem with being an “everything store”. “Everything” includes a lot of things most consumers would like to be protected from, and assume they are due to the…
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.
We bought a different model from Costco and it’s been rock solid. I expect I will never buy a major appliance from any other retailer as long as Costco continues to care like they do today.
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I know a few people who buy these, and they kind of know what they're doing. They just try and not think about it too hard. It reminds me of the saying: "It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It". If these people thought about it for a few minutes, they would understand, but they choose not to, as ignoring it is too advantageous. I admit I was tempted,…
On what grounds would they choose not to?
My point was, their ethics WOULD have prevented them from doing the thing. But they chose not to think about it too hard. Perhaps subconsciously. I'm not above doing this sort of thing either. We all do it for various things.
I've added code that is bad for the user (overbearing telemetry for instance) because my salary depended on it. At the time I tried not to think about it too much, as it would cause cognitive dissonance.
Generally, it's advisable to create a dedicated wifi network for all potentially hostile devices. This dedicated wifi network can just be connecting your devices to your guest wifi while you figure it out, and limiting the rate of speed as needed. That can be cameras, tv's, thermostats, tv sticks and anything else that might not only call home, but actively scope what you have in your home network when it's none of i…
> That can be cameras, tv's, thermostats, tv sticks and anything else that might not only call home That is not enough. You need to air gap devices that have legitimately no business communicating with anyone or anything outside the house. TVs, thermostats, and other Internet-of-Crap gadgets do not need "firmware updates." Either they work out of the box, offline or within the LAN, or they get sent back for a refund…