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Made in China and random Chinese brands are two very different things
Often they're exactly the same things
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.
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.
consumers are however happy to buy a cheaper stick with an overall public bad
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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?
No, and that's is the root of the problem. The buyer is happy and so is the seller. They don't care to understand what they're allowing and everyone is allowing it to happen.
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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 might damage Google's reputation with advertisers in the long term. I'm not convinced Google would even care about it, given their other behavior.
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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?
Maybe they wouldn't care about the ads but the residential proxy is another story. I'm sure lots of problematic stuff goes through that and you take the risk of being associated with it.
> 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 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,…
A familly member had one of those (he had to pay a yearly subscription in addition to the stick). Network would be unusable as soon as it was on for anyone else, and it also tried to scan things on the local network. It was indeed connecting to all kind of services all over the world (and saturating some tables in the router doing so which blocked other clients). Definitely evil, definitely on purpose.
A familly member had one of those (he had to pay a yearly subscription in addition to the stick). Network would be unusable as soon as it was on for anyone else, and it also tried to scan things on the local network. It was indeed connecting to all kind of services all over the world (and saturating some tables in the router doing so which blocked other clients). Definitely evil, definitely on purpose.
Reading this, I caught myself wondering how we distill what's in this excellent write up into something the average consumer understands, including the dangers from buying and using devices like this. Is it a graphic that's shared? Something else? I am sure we all know or have heard of people with these devices that promise free streaming.
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Reading this, I caught myself wondering how we distill what's in this excellent write up into something the average consumer understands, including the dangers from buying and using devices like this. Is it a graphic that's shared? Something else? I am sure we all know or have heard of people with these devices that promise free streaming.
You can't. This is a legitimate thing the government needs to step in and deal with on behalf of their people via legislation because their people cannot be reasonably taught to protect themselves.