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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

#331

Post by wildzzz »

crote wrote: post #301
mschild wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't this ultimately make money FOR Google and only cost money to the company that placed the ad? Sure, Google's paying but they get their money regardless.

It reduces the value of their ads. Let's say you are an ad buyer. Previously 1M clicks resulted in 1000 sales, now 2M clicks result in the same 1000 sales. If you previously paid $1000 for 1M clicks, you paid $1/sale. If they are now asking you to pay the same $1000 / M clicks you'd be paying $2/sale, so Google would have to drop to $500 / M clicks to offer the same value to advertisers. But the same applies to ad se…

Sure but for the ad network, it means they can brag to new clients about how many clicks they can get them. If the ad clicker isn't buying, that's the client's problem, you already did your job by getting them to click. Maybe the client needs a more direct campaign (which costs more) or needs to change their website/prices, people are walking into the store but they just aren't buying.

Its either the ad network running these click botnets or contracting someone to do it. If it was just impressions getting boosted, that just looks shady, those are barely worth anything.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#332

Post by maxerickson »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #291
newAccount2025 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Mine is great. And light. And QUIET.

They really aren't particularly quiet imo. Yes, there's no motor, but it turns out that the whirring sound of blades rotating and cutting grass is quite loud even without a motor. I would say mine is perhaps 3/4 as loud as a gas mower, which isn't a very impressive reduction in noise.

With logarithmic perception, it's about a 50% reduction in sound energy.

My battery mower is quiet enough that I don't feel terribly rude mowing at twilight.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#333

Post by scottydelta »

0manrho wrote: post #278
scottydelta wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are literally new and only available in Barcelona at the moment which I mentioned in my comment as well. Not sure what's eww about that?

I believe they're referring to the friction point of this company/website not publicly listing a price. That's a huge barrier/red flag to a lot of people. Myself included. Last thing I want to do is waste time bouncing emails back and forth between sales just to figure out if the price range is even remotely in my wheelhouse. However, if your target is B2B (Business to Business) as opposed to B2C/D2C (Business to Cli…

We are working on figuring out payments, logistics, hardware compliance (different countries have different requirements), state-level tax handling, customs clearance, etc. for D2C.

Also right now we are focusing on B2B here in Spain like you guessed, and once we have the other things figured out, we will start shipping to the US and Europe. And after that we plan on rolling out to the rest of the countries.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#334

Post by scottydelta »

cryptoegorophy wrote: post #304
scottydelta wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No worries. If you message me via the contact form or chat support on the website, I will try my best to provide you with one. The more feedback I can get, the better. Thanks for liking my product enough to want to buy it right away :)

Sales friction is how you lose sales. Make your website one click purchase product page. One button - apply pay, customer pays with preset shipping and then you handle everything from there.

Trust me, I really wish it were that easy. We're based out of Spain, so to sell in the US (or other countries) we either need to figure out assembly of the device there, or we need to solve cross-border payments, logistics, customs clearance, tax remittance to individual states, and hardware compliance. That said, we're working hard on all of it and plan to go D2C as soon as possible.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#335

Post by Eisenstein »

8note wrote: post #281
miladyincontrol wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Its based on the most common heuristic people have developed in regards to the phenomenon. What do you think about 'alphabet soup company' instead, referring to the tendency for names to be a mix of random letters? Otherwise, you can try and create a better term for 'unaccountable third parties using US platforms to dodge liability for their product made out of the cheapest components and software possible' and see if that catches on.

Yes it is also the US companies that are a problem but these are two separate problems and need different terms.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#336

Post by scottydelta »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #296
scottydelta wrote: post #205

After getting tired of ads on my PAID smart TV, 6 months ago I started building a casting device using raspberry pi for myself. A couple of months later one of my friends who is an AV technician ended up using it at the largest convention venue in Barcelona to play content on loop, here's a video of that: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FF3I9EOs4AA . Fast forward to last month, now I have started selling these in Barc…

your product looks cool, but why do I need to contact sales to buy that device? can't you just open like a shopify shop and redirect end customers to that? Also showing the retail price on the page would be a plus one

Thank you for your kind words. I am pasting one of the comments I made on this thread regarding challenges with online sales at the moment:

> Trust me, I really wish it were that easy. We're based out of Spain, so to sell in the US (or other countries) we either need to figure out assembly of the device there, or we need to solve cross-border payments, logistics, customs clearance, tax remittance to individual states, and hardware compliance. That said, we're working hard on all of it and plan to go D2C as soon as possible.

For the pricing part, I am still trying to figure out the pricing for retail consumers. It was relatively easier to do for B2B but for retail, there are a lot of factors and moving parts such as import duties, taxes, shipping etc.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#337

Post by femto »

onionisafruit wrote: post #321
femto wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Thanks for that informative link. I looked to see if there was any data beyond the ABC article and didn't find it. Some of the truthful brands listed in the BBC article are available where I live. Kudos to the US that their labels match their contents.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#338

Post by femto »

p-e-w wrote: post #323
femto wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

It's about trust.

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#339

Post by tclancy »

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…

This is one of those things where I, as a suburban white kid, am so happy I discovered Public Enemy and similar bands as a kid.

"Money talks. And bullshit brothers walk a marathon."

Re: Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick

#340

Post by scottydelta »

crote wrote: post #306
scottydelta wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No worries. If you message me via the contact form or chat support on the website, I will try my best to provide you with one. The more feedback I can get, the better. Thanks for liking my product enough to want to buy it right away :)

Your device seems to be an off-the-shelf Raspberry Pi running custom software. Have you considered making the platform available in a BYOD form, either for fulltime use or for evaluation?

Yes, we're using an off-the-shelf Raspberry Pi for v1. We are working on figuring out a custom board for v2, because we can't scale with Raspberry Pi as a dependency, especially with RPi prices constantly rising due to the RAM shortage.

Also, we want to test our OS extensively before we release it to be used with a BYOD model. We are launching soon and after that we will try to offer BYOD model as well.

If you are interested in trying it out and helping me in evaluation, please reach out to me via email on my HN profile. Thank you

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