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some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish · 18 hours ago

One of Google’s Android partners turned 1.3 million set-top boxes into a botnet

www.theverge.com

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One of Google’s Android partners turned 1.3 million set-top boxes into a botnet

www.theverge.com

some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish · 18 hours ago
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A manufacturer intentionally hijacked its Android TV devices.
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  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
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    5 hours ago

    So the whole Android certification program is just a lock-in procedure, not really to “improve security”? Who’d have thought.

  • lemming741@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    So i should be able to get one cheap and put coreelec on it??

  • banana_pie@piefed.zip
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    4 hours ago

    Wasn’t botnet as a service a longtime monetization strategy for some ad sdk’s on Android?

    Everything that Google makes is lowest grade shit hiding beneath the rounded corners and their dev outreach.

  • artyom@piefed.social
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    11 hours ago

    But it’s so important to Google that you can’t install your apps on Android, you need them to keep you safe and secure!

  • kalman@dboft.com
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    11 hours ago

    I build my own TV stack to replace my NVidia Shield. It’s way better… has a kick ass weather app with radar and wind lines. I can push notifications from any home assist or integrate with any api… integrates with Jellyfin… a photo sharing app I built… youtube is awesome. Super snappy. I gave one to my 80 year old Dad and it’s now his d daily driver. The only thing I cant do is get streaming 4k from Apple and HBOMax due to their drm.

    • RogueBanana@lemmy.zip
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      4 hours ago

      Whats the hardware? I have been meaning to try kde plasma on tv but it’s on a pause for a while till the prices normalise.

    • Bernd@lemmy.zip
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      8 hours ago

      Well at least with jellyfin the DRM problem should be solved… “simply” add a secure source of entertainment and pre-load all the apple and hbo shows haha.

    • neo2478@sh.itjust.works
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      5 hours ago

      Would you mind sharing how you did it with the rest of the class?

    • moonshadow@sh.itjust.works
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      11 hours ago

      You got a git repo or what?

      • taxon@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

  • grapefruittrouble@lemmy.zip
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    15 hours ago

    Seems like this is the main purpose of all IoT devices at the end of the day

    • OctopusNemeses@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      The odds are non-zero that someone has argued with their own toaster.

      • JonEFive@piefed.social
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        12 hours ago

        Dude, I’ve argued with my microwave and it isn’t even smart.

        • barnacles@lemmy.zip
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          10 hours ago

          I argue with my breadmaker. It beeps ten times when it’s finished making pizza dough. Fucking ten! Dumb clanker has no right to talk to me that way

        • mysticalone@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          Out of curiosity, who won the argument?

          • Junkers_Klunker@feddit.dk
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            8 hours ago

            The microwave, it refused to change.

  • [object Object]@lemmy.ca
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    17 hours ago

    This is the tip of the iceberg.

    I wait for the day LG and Samsung are held responsible for their practices that 100x worse than this. Sure, the default apps aren’t so bad, but their app ecosystem is tainted.

    My estimates are over 1/3 US households have residential proxies installed, and they’re operated by homogeneous groups that are able to make guarantees to their clients about address uniqueness. This bother isn’t even 1% of the problem. Realistically the number of infected devices is actually higher, probably more than half of residential connections have at least one infected device — I was only able to establish a floor.

    I’m not a malware researcher though, I was only doing this for a one-off job earlier this year.

  • pelya@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    Smart TV are trash of the trashiest sort. Cheapest components, painfully slow, 4 GB flash stuffed with outdated buggy Android and preinstalled adware, with 200 MB free space for anything usable, zero chance of updates, tons of security holes, and pretty much abandoned by Google.

    • FenrirIII@lemmy.world
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      32 minutes ago

      I can’t even find dumb TVs anymore

  • finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    13 hours ago

    Is there a list of known affected models? It wasn’t clear from the article whether they were a contract manufacturer for Google’s own devices or if they were a 3rd party brand option.

  • liffeyman@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    Paywall removed

    https://archive.is/20261102210449/https://www.theverge.com/1024807/google-botnet-android-tv-shut-down

    • guycls@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      Mobile friendly:

      https://periscope.corsfix.com/?https://www.theverge.com/1024807/google-botnet-android-tv-shut-down

    • Clambake0351@piefed.zip
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      13 hours ago

      Paywall removed:

      https://raw.githubusercontent.com/liamengland1/miscfilters/refs/heads/master/antipaywall.txt

      https://codeberg.org/Mahogany0330/BeautifyingPageCleaner/raw/branch/main/bpc-filter.txt

      https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DandelionSprout/adfilt/master/BrowseWebsitesWithoutLoggingIn.txt

      https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yokoffing/filterlists/refs/heads/main/antipaywall_filters_without_element_hiding.txt

  • DonJefe@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    This why I don’t buy cheap Chinese devices anymore

  • mrnngglry@sh.itjust.works
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    15 hours ago

    I wouldn’t trust most streaming devices out of the box. Definitely any Android streamer but Roku and Nvidia Shield are terrible for privacy too.

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