Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

krebsonsecurity.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 575 posts

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#501

Post by bell-cot »

ChoGGi wrote: post #483
bell-cot wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to the big e-commerce retailers, Costco's total number of sku's isn't even a rounding error. And most of Costco's sku's are food, clothing, housewares, bulk consumables, and such - vastly easier to test and vet than computer & internet-connected electronics.

Sounds like you're agreeing that Costco is well curated?

Compared to Amazon and other e-tailers with hundreds of thousands of sku's of computer & internet-connected electronic stuff, 99% of which they do nothing whatever to curate? Yes.

But that's kinda like saying that Random Pond is safer for swimming than a lava lake.

Do I just assume nothing can go wrong when I myself shop at Costco? NO.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#502

Post by contagiousflow »

_RPM wrote: post #467
riddlemethat wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We bought a Bosch dishwasher from Costco in January. It was defective and wouldn’t start after 10 days. Costco replaced it. The replacement came with a big gash on the front off the truck so we refused it and Costco sent a third replacement. Again, it was the same model and again it wouldn’t start after another 30 days. Costco took it back. No cost to us for any of these delivery or install attempts. We bought a diff…

> I will never buy a major appliance from any other retailer That's called stinking thinking.

What is the alternative? Trust has been built, as long as the trust is not eroded it is safer than any other retailer?

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#503

Post by tomjen3 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #145

> Despite repeated warnings from the FBI and security industry leaders about the security and privacy risks of using these streaming devices, major e-commerce providers like Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg and others continue to sell hundreds of different models and brands I scanned the comments and I didn't see anyone suggesting that these companies should share any responsibility for selling these harmful products. Why is…

Probably because doing so would mean a lot fewer product categories. It's a trade-off, to be sure. But if you need that odd thing — a screw of a certain type, a power supply that's 56 volt DC or whatever — then if there's only going to be sold, say, a few thousand of those a year, if Amazon was required to do product safety testing on them, they probably wouldn't be able to sell that category at all. And so the trade-off is they are not required to.

Now that's very different from "we are selling things that we know, or have good reason to know, specifically are dangerous" — here they might very well be liable.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#504

Post by breppp »

inigyou wrote: post #454
breppp wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to be a bit more specific of which government malware you found in Android/iOS devices, cause that would be interesting

Android comes with something called Google Play Services, and iOS has a thing called iCloud. You may have heard of them.

I have, I still have not heard how the US government uses these as malware, but I would love to learn something new

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#505

Post by tomjen3 »

fred_is_fred wrote: post #13
pavel_lishin wrote: post #6

> generic TV boxes that promise unlimited content streaming for a one-time fee I don't want to blame the purchasers of these things - who are some of the victims - but at the same time, it does seem like a Too Good To Be True situation.

If you offered most people free streaming for a $37 USB stick but directly told them it would be faking ad clicks when the TV is off, would any of them really care?

There are probably quite a few others who consider that a bonus. I'm not going to support illegal actions, but it's also not one of the things I would really lose sleep over if I found out that it have been doing that.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#506

Post by breppp »

GJim wrote: post #484
breppp wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume a lot of things, sometimes you have to connect it to the internet for it to work (such as robovacuums)

Why in the name of all that is holy would you need to connect a projector or vacuum cleaner to the internet in order for it to work? Seriously, why do you think this is normal or acceptable? This is bullshit needs to stop (and the scummy AdTech industry has a lot to answer for).

As far as I remember they mandate you connect to it in order for you to operate it.

We all know why, which is Adtech, but like cars or smart TVs, you as a customer either skip the entire segment or yield.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#507

Post by iamnothere »

inigyou wrote: post #443
glitchc wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Has that ever actually happened? Has anyone gone to court for downloading child porn that was actually through a residential proxy?

No. You would not be “on the hook” for this as they implied. They are fearmongering. Even if a statute could somehow be stretched to cover it, it would be a nightmare to prosecute something like this. The media would jump all over it.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#508

Post by elzbardico »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #6

> generic TV boxes that promise unlimited content streaming for a one-time fee I don't want to blame the purchasers of these things - who are some of the victims - but at the same time, it does seem like a Too Good To Be True situation.

I don't care about free streaming. But fucking advertisers? Humm... just found a reason to buy one of those boxes.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#509

Post by jrm4 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #179
jrm4 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Reduction in what practice? Are there big companies doing ad fraud? I want big companies to stop spying on me, which is a completely different issue.

They're not at all "completely different issues."

Both are well within the category of

"If you buy a device to do a thing, then the device does something else that is not readily apparent to the user that user would find objectionable if they had clearer knowledge."

This is immoral and harmful regardless of precise vector/action.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#510

Post by elzbardico »

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.

Exactly. I consider defrauding ad networks even a civic duty of legitimate resistance. The issue I see with those boxes is the risk of being involved in actual crimes due to the residencial proxy.
Post reply on HN