Top
Best
New

Posted by speckx 5 hours ago

Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick(krebsonsecurity.com)
361 points | 197 commentspage 3
hn_submit 2 hours ago|
I already suggested the U.S. government ban all Chinese products which have a computer in them that's connected to the internet.

Instead they're banning stuff willy nilly left and right without really solving the problem.

But there's good stuff coming out of China as well. I recently bought a cheap e-reader which has no WiFi or internet connection and it works stellar. And I bought some cheap Chinese sport cams which also lack internet and work great.

autoexec 1 hour ago|
> I already suggested the U.S. government ban all Chinese products which have a computer in them that's connected to the internet.

Personally, I think every other country should ban any product made by Google, Amazon, and Microsoft since they all spy on the users of their products too.

hn_submit 1 hour ago||
I've suggested legislation which would ban the sale of customer information to third-parties.

These companies could use the info they gather on customers for their own use but they cannot (re)sell it to anyone, not even the government. The reason being that the information eventually ends up abroad after which you lose all control over it.

giantg2 4 hours ago||
So where can I get an actual privacy focused streaming box, even if the apps (Neflix etc) running on it are not?
ghostly_s 3 hours ago||
These are not "streaming boxes" in the sense you are talking about. Their appeal is that they come preloaded with chinese pirate streaming apps. Traditional streaming boxes - Apple TV, Fire stick, Roku - are not affected by this, though if you want privacy-focused Apple TV is the only remaining contender, and with Apple's continued descent into advertising vendor I'd guess that one is not long for this world, either.
giantg2 3 hours ago||
My understanding is that Roku bypasses DNS blocking with hardcoded tables so it can report back on various data they track on you.
autoexec 41 minutes ago|||
Roku collects an insane amount of data on users. Basically everything that they can get their hands on

> Roughly twice per second, a Roku TV captures video “snapshots” in 4K resolution. These snapshots are scanned through a database of content and ads, which allows the exposure to be matched to what is airing. For example, if a streamer is watching an NFL football game and sees an ad for a hard seltzer, Roku’s ACR will know that the ad has appeared on the TV being watched at that time. In this way, the content on screen is automatically recognized, as the technology’s name indicates. The data then is paired with user profile data to link the account watching with the content they’re watching. https://advertising.roku.com/learn/resources/acr-the-future-...

timbit42 3 hours ago|||
Can you monitor its traffic and block by IP?
mikestew 2 hours ago|||
I’m sure you could. At what point do you just rip out the thing that is trying so hard to work around your control of your network? An Apple TV doesn’t cost that much.
kube-system 1 hour ago||||
The door is slowly closing on all of these blocking schemes by moving ad content to the same domains as the primary content.

This is already a common feature for analytics toolkits.

giantg2 2 hours ago|||
I probably could, but haven't done so yet.
MattTheRealOne 4 hours ago|||
Apple TV is currently the best balance of privacy and convenience. The only way to get more private is using a PC, but that limits the resolution for most streaming services to 720p or 1080p.
drnick1 2 hours ago|||
If you want actual privacy (rather than promises from Apple or Google), what you need is a mini-PC running Linux with the Plasma Bigscreen DE. You then use a Web browser rather than invasive "apps" for your streaming. For Youtube, there is VacuumTube (an improved Youtube Leanback client). The main limitation is capped resolution on some commercial streaming services. I believe Windows does not have that restriction, so a VM could presumably be used for streaming (I have not tried).
PcChip 4 hours ago|||
I assume apple TV doesn’t do malicious things like this, and we love the interface and it “just works” with HDR
noboostforyou 3 hours ago|||
Besides setting up your own device, Apple TV would be the best bet from any of the large manufacturers.
cogman10 4 hours ago|||
I'm increasingly being convinced the only way to do that is you do a media pc nuc. The problem, of course, is you probably won't have the netflix app. It's painful to setup such a box to stream from various services.
Tepix 3 hours ago|||
What's wrong with Apple TV? It runs VLC if you want to stream something from your NAS.
giantg2 2 hours ago||||
I tried to look at setting up an stripped down privacy-focused Android based box for Netflix, but ran into issues. Seems like you need to be spied on to run Netflix.
mbmbn 4 hours ago|||
I tried going that route, but most apps for streaming are Android. And that was only one of the issues.

It was a rabbit hole and in the end I got back using my NVIDIA Shield. This is about 10 years now, but it’s actually still the best option.

knowaveragejoe 1 hour ago|||
The Onn TV devices from walmart seem fine, baseline google tracking not-withstanding... but no residential proxy or botnet participation without you knowing! You can just block them at the router and stream content locally.
Pxtl 2 hours ago|||
kodi on an rpi5?
haunter 3 hours ago||
[dead]
stuaxo 2 hours ago||
How hard is it to get something else on these ?

Looks like cheap small computer with a remote control.

burgreblast 1 hour ago||
Google clutches pearls and is shocked! Shocked! That anyone would violate its policies (while it pockets 30% of the fraudulent revenue). Shocked!

And they would have caught them but those crafty criminals spoofed the user-agent. So how _could_ they know?

phendrenad2 1 hour ago||
On the other hand, these are great little devices to root and put Linux on.
Mistletoe 4 hours ago||
I recently got an Apple TV 4K and have been really enjoying the ad free experience. Worth every penny. Our smart tv had turned into a Christmas tree of ads.
wewtyflakes 2 hours ago||
There are plenty of ads on Apple TV; huge banners right at the top of the UI, and ads that launch before you get to see the content of a show with no way to automatically disable them (you have to manually click through or just wait it out). It is infuriating (to me).
ls612 1 hour ago||
Apple TV the app has ads for Apple TV shows. Apple TV the device doesn’t have ads built in.
ocd 3 hours ago||
As much as I hate Apple for what they've done to the average consumer in regards to computing, it would be just impossible and dishonest to say anything other than Apple is the outright winner in streaming devices. The experience is so smooth.
trouve_search 1 hour ago|||
The nvidia shield is pretty damn good as well, even if old at this point.
ghostly_s 3 hours ago|||
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.
dhosek 3 hours ago||
One hopes that the new CEO will realize the turn towards ads is ruining the Apple brand and pull back on that front.
cryo32 4 hours ago||
A better solution is just leech the content and stick it on a generic USB flash stick.
harvey9 2 hours ago|
These are popular for illegal live sports streams.
cryo32 3 minutes ago||
I just go down the pub.
kazinator 3 hours ago||
> But a groundbreaking new analysis finds these devices also routinely spoof themselves as mobile phones clicking ads ...

Compromised (or malicious from the factory) devices being recruited into bot farms for click fraud is ... a groundbreaking discovery in 2026?

> on AI-generated websites as part of sprawling operation that seeks to defraud online merchants and advertising networks.

To hell with AI-generated websites and advertising networks.

Say, where can I get the most effective malicious TV stick for click-frauding the fuck out of that shit? I will take fifteen! :)

snickerbockers 2 hours ago|
I'm imaging a largescale distributed project like folding@home except instead of doing scientific research everybody is working together to fuck with advertisers, tracking cookies, etc.
gxs 3 hours ago|
No mention of Roku

I use one but only when traveling at hotels - it’s one of the only sticks that can connect to captive WiFi networks at hotels

I’ve got barely anything on it so privacy be damned - but at this point this is why I just buy apple products

I have two apple tv’s which probably do shady things too, but I’m willing to play the probabilities and assume it’s the least bad of my options short of tinkering with flashing hardware and all that stuff that used to be fun in my teens (emphasis on used to)

More comments...