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72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

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Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#531

Post by rndgermandude »

jon-wood wrote: post #10

I’m responsible for a bunch of IoT hardware, and every firmware spec I write includes a note on not using the DNS servers provided via DHCP. While sure there are companies explicitly doing this to avoid filtering, at least in my case it’s because a significant proportion of DHCP servers are configured to send DNS to your ISP, and ISP provided DNS is almost universally terrible. They’ll ignore TTLs, rewrite NXDOMAIN r…

I'd think most of IoT interfaces have some form of user-definable configuration. So most of the time it should be possible to make DNS user-configurable (hidden in some "advanced settings" area). Of course, it might lead to some more support calls eventually and requires a little more money (as in paid work) to implement, but you'd be playing nice and have a balanced compromise of default-hardcoded-DNS with an option to appease power users and/or orgs+corps, and you'd also avoid angry-me calling your support hotline and ranting at your people :P

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#532

Post by kzrdude »

scarface74 wrote: post #505
LeoPanthera wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN not liking something doesn't make it a bad choice. Kodi running on a Pi or some other low power computer is probably HN-friendly, although the usability isn't even close to as good as the Apple TV.

By saying I “have a couple” of Apple TV’s, isn’t kind of obvious that I don’t think it’s a bad choice? As far as usability, look at all of the comments mentioning hacks solutions instead of just ordering a commercial product and plugging it in. I went one step further with my parents. I just bought them a Roku TV and called it a day.

A raspberry pi media centre obviously is not the simplest solution. But for someone who feels they just want a "dumb" tv and a box they can control, it's perfect. It's a good choice for those who can set it up and that get peace of mind and satisfaction from having a box that is on their side.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#533

Post by Avamander »

foxtrottbravo wrote: post #263
jon-wood wrote: post #10

I’m responsible for a bunch of IoT hardware, and every firmware spec I write includes a note on not using the DNS servers provided via DHCP. While sure there are companies explicitly doing this to avoid filtering, at least in my case it’s because a significant proportion of DHCP servers are configured to send DNS to your ISP, and ISP provided DNS is almost universally terrible. They’ll ignore TTLs, rewrite NXDOMAIN r…

Wow, thanks for breaking established standards then...

Go beat your ISP first.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#534

Post by sbarre »

Bjartr wrote: post #327
sbarre wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah as others have said, the TV can't get online by itself, so you simply don't configure the "Smart" features and it should work just fine (although perhaps that is something to confirm before purchase).

IIRC, some will attempt to get online by themselves by connecting to open access points, but I don't have a source for that.

Yes someone else linked to a story where TVs were hopping onto open Wifi, but honestly if a TV I owned ever did that, I would probably toss it and boycott that manufacturer forever.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#535

Post by Nacdor »

Why did the HN mods arbitrarily change the title of this article?

It's not the correct title and it's harder for the uninformed user to understand. If you told me about hard-coded DNS settings I would say "Ok, what does that mean and why does it matter?". If you said "Smart TVs ignore piholes" (the original title) I would know exactly why that's important.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#536

Post by recursive »

Nacdor wrote: post #535

Why did the HN mods arbitrarily change the title of this article? It's not the correct title and it's harder for the uninformed user to understand. If you told me about hard-coded DNS settings I would say "Ok, what does that mean and why does it matter?". If you said "Smart TVs ignore piholes" (the original title) I would know exactly why that's important.

The new title seems more descriptive to me. How many people know what a pihole is, but not DNS? I understand DNS a lot better than pihole, which I've barely heard of.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#538

Post by OJFord »

I use OpenWRT, (not pfSense as in TFA) struggle with both its UI and `iptables`, but I figured it out eventually... In case it's of use to anyone else:

    pihole_addr='YOUR.IP.GOES.HERE'
    for p in tcp udp; do

      iptables -t nat -A prerouting_lan_rule -p "$p" ! --source "$pihole_addr" ! --destination "$pihole_addr" --dport 53 -j DNAT --to "$pihole_addr"

    done
in http://openwrt.lan/cgi-bin/luci/admin/network/firewall/custo..., or whatever file it saves to, /etc/firewall/something I think.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#539

Post by Nacdor »

recursive wrote: post #536
Nacdor wrote: post #535

Why did the HN mods arbitrarily change the title of this article? It's not the correct title and it's harder for the uninformed user to understand. If you told me about hard-coded DNS settings I would say "Ok, what does that mean and why does it matter?". If you said "Smart TVs ignore piholes" (the original title) I would know exactly why that's important.

The new title seems more descriptive to me. How many people know what a pihole is, but not DNS? I understand DNS a lot better than pihole, which I've barely heard of.

I see pihole recommended constantly as a way to block ads.

> I understand DNS a lot better than pihole

Unless the mods did a survey this doesn't justify the title change. It's just as likely that more people are familiar with pihole than DNS, and if the mods don't know (which they don't) then they should leave the title as the author wrote it.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#540

Post by judge2020 »

rsync wrote: post #484
acdha wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By establishing my own recursive resolver I can act as a chokepoint (and monitoring point) for their behavior online. It's a very elegant solution, actually, and I have created a nice integration between my datacenter-hosted resolver and nextdns.io as the adblocking upstream DNS. This only works for the subset of devices which use the local DNS. If they use any of the well-known techniques to avoid that filtering i…

"This only works for the subset of devices which use the local DNS. If they use any of the well-known techniques to avoid that filtering it's completely ineffective." If you also block all port 53 after allowing your own resolver ... you may have some headaches with devices that refuse to use the DHCP provided resolvers but you know they aren't going to other resolvers. That kind of control is what DoH breaks and I'd…

DNS over HTTPS has been a thing since before IETF standardized it, the technique was just in the form of a non-standardized API running on some benign domain.
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