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LG to ban residential proxies from smart TV apps(krebsonsecurity.com)
177 points by DemiGuru 4 hours ago | 134 comments
jbverschoor a minute ago | parent | next [-]

Thanks for the heads up, LG.

Those cheap/discount tv brands make soo much sense these days

12_throw_away 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

42% of the apps on LG's platform have these quasi-malware SDKs in them? Seems kinda bad, whether it's due to negligence or just pure incompetence? You'd think there might be legal consequences for a corporation that lets their app store turn into a malware delivery system?

drnick1 9 minutes ago | parent [-]

It's not "quasi-malware," it is malware.

gblargg 3 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So does this mean that using a proxy will cause all of the "smart" features to stop working? Win-win.

s1ncere 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Stop hooking up your LG tv to any network

5kg 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Stop hooking up your LG: https://www.theverge.com/tech/967983/lg-monitors-mcafee-adwa...

ahartmetz 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Fine with Linux though :)

LG's behavior isn't fine, but their monitors don't install crapware on Linux.

drnick1 32 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Another win for the Linux security model (software installed and updated manually from vetted repos only).

gblargg a minute ago | parent | next [-]

Wait, you're saying a monitor can just advertise a URL over the video connection for its driver and then Windows will blindly install it, without user confirmation? I thought that LG had submitted these "drivers" (adware) to Microsoft and they approved it.

krige 16 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Surely you mean Linux security model (not relevant enough to be targeted by big tech)?

meta-level 23 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

yet?

I guess with more and more consumer devices running Linux based OSes (SteamOS, Android, Bazzite, Silverblue, ..) that becomes more and more interesting.

And unfortunately the "I'm safe on my non-windows-system" argument doesn't count for long, as the 99% muggle crowd justifies a shift to a world where our non-certified (=> 'insecure') systems are not supported by big companies anymore, as it's currently happening on Android.

ahartmetz 11 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

"Fortunately", agent Poettering is on the case, implementing remote attestation for Linux so we can all be secure. Barf.

Gigachad 11 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

The LG scandal specifically relies on the fact windows will auto install OEM crapware as soon as you plug it in. No other OS does that.

michaelchisari an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Never once had a problem with an LG because I've never given it internet access. A trustworthy set top box handles everything instead. Concerned that might not be an option in the future.

gblargg a few seconds ago | parent | next [-]

LG now installs adware when you merely connect one of their monitors to a Windows PC.

jmward01 26 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

That is my problem. What can you trust anymore? Is there an appliance out there that can do the basics and not be a malware gateway?

mapt 23 minutes ago | parent [-]

Smart TVs replaced dumb TVs not out of consumer demand, but out of subsidy from commercial databrokers and streaming services. Despite adding $100 of hardware they were priced $100 cheaper.

userbinator 29 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

13 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6759426

mikepurvis 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm mostly very happy with my LG C4 as a home theatre centerpiece, and I did have it online so that I could use the apps for YouTube and Jellyfin. However, the lack of support for modern 4k rips (HEVC+DTS) ended up being a dealbreaker and I finally ditched the built in software for a fire stick instead.

No transcoding, no weird codec issues, just the raw files direct streamed from the underpowered Unraid box, into the back of the AVR where the audio is handled correctly and the video is sent to the screen.

MiddleEndian 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My LG DualUp monitors (with no internet access) recently triggered some LG Adware Bullshit to install on my Windows laptop. So I'd say stop using LG anything (or Windows anything since they're voluntarily in on the scam too lol). If you want the 2560x2880, maybe buy the knock-off INNOCN vertical monitors.

https://old.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1v1pkbs/lg_sp... ← examples of others who ran into the same shit

marssaxman 19 minutes ago | parent [-]

I would probably have a DualUp by now if I could find one available anywhere: it's a very appealing form factor. I looked at the INNOCN site, but only see normal-looking monitors there; do you have a model name or any pointers I could search for?

CivBase 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Stop buying LG TVs.

smcleod 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Unfortunately they make arguably the best OLEDs and webOS is pretty decent to use (especially compared to the terrible OS that Samsung and Sony run). I think the best thing people can do is update their firmware then disconnect it from the internet. Using an AppleTV or similar provides a better experience than any TVs built in apps anyway.

cosmic_cheese an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I don’t ever use their “smart” functionality (that’s what my Apple TV is for) but I’ve never had any issues with the Google TV (Android) build that Sony ships. It doesn’t nag me about being kept offline, is reasonably fast, and doesn’t even show its home screen unless I specifically summon it, so it checks my boxes.

mey 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How important is "the best" OLED vs the second best or 100th best OLED? I am personally ok not buying the bleeding edge to not get malware onto my OS.

notatoad 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

reasonably important, if you're never connecting your lg tv to any network, and just connecting it to an AppleTV or something and letting HDMI-CEC control it so you never even see their OS.

StumpChunkman 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Exactly this. And with an Apple TV 4K Ethernet, you've got a bonus Thread border router for smart home devices. I actually didn't even realize that initially, but was very pleased when I found IKEAs latest round of Matter over Thread devices paired nicely with it and my existing Home Assistant + Hue setup.

drnick1 28 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I would suggest a mini-PC running Linux and Plasma Bigscreen instead of an AppleTV if you want something 100% private and user-controlled.

theplumber 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you care about malware you do not plug it into the internet. I think windows computers are pretty mallwareish as well or at least spyware. People who buy Oled buy them because they care about PQ.

globular-toast an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Exactly. If you get the best today it'll be the second best tomorrow anyway. Absolute position is undetectable, you can only perceive change. Use that to your advantage and stay off the treadmill.

jedberg 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I haven’t looked recently but last I checked Samsung made the best panels. Has that changed recently?

dodslaser an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Samsung is good, except:

- No Dolby Vision support, only HDR10+ - Issues with judder/micro stutter - History of nerfing TVs via OTA updates - HDMI ports randomly failing - Bad HDMI-CEC implementation - Selling completely different panel generations under the exact same model names.

nvme0n1p1 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Samsung scored highest on https://www.rtings.com/ for my criteria, and I'm happy with the purchase. I didn't connect it to the network, of course. (I had to stop my handyman from connecting it and he seemed to think I was crazy for insisting.)

ahartmetz 2 hours ago | parent [-]

"I work in software. I have seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate..."

smcleod 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Their panels are often over-saturated with that fake HDR like look, similar to their phones.

ahartmetz an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Most screens come with "showroom settings" out of the box. You need to configure them to something more neutral once and then it's fine.

smcleod an hour ago | parent [-]

I'm aware of that setting, but this is the Samsung baseline. The panels they export for OEMs / other manufacturers don't seem to have the same hyper saturation. Even just standing next to someone using a Samsung phone or tablet you can often spot it straight away we know you what to look for.

ahartmetz 19 minutes ago | parent [-]

Even phones have screen settings these days (much less detailed than monitors). On my Motorola phone, I turned off "vibrant colors" or something like that. Maybe the people you saw didn't bother or liked it. Maybe there is something that can't be turned off, who knows. I only have semi-regular experience with an older Samsung tablet which seems fine.

PowerElectronix 32 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

That goes away if you set them in filmaker mode.

PowerElectronix 33 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

No, qd-oled is still best, LG is closing the gap with tandem oled but is still the second best panel tech.

pjmlp an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Have to agree, WebOS is much better than Android TV OS, with ads on the dashboard.

Gigachad 10 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

As long as you keep it off the internet. Otherwise it’s absolute loaded with adverts everywhere.

Leonard_of_Q 35 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

You can replace the Android TV launcher with an alternative like Projectivy [1] to get rid of whatever nonsense the stock launcher tries to push. Add Flicky [2] to address F-Droid and you've got a nuisance-free Android TV.

[1] https://github.com/spocky/miproja1

[2] https://github.com/mlm-games/flicky

matheusmoreira 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Aren't they the only TVs that can be jailbroken?

bcraven 44 minutes ago | parent [-]

I decided there wasn't much to do if I did:

https://www.webosbrew.org/rooting/

kaelwd an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

And buy what? Smasnug? Sony? They're all uniquely shit.

yodon 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If other non-Android-based TV manufacturers follow, this will have a much bigger impact on the spread (and cost) of scraping than either Anubis or Cloudflare.

glimshe 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My TV doesn't know my router's wi-fi password.

declan_roberts 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My TV thinks it's January 1st 1970.

kazinator an hour ago | parent | next [-]

And so it thinks it is fairly new, then, and doesn't require any tubes replaced. Should that change, it will let you know.

mc3301 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Every time anything asks for a DOB or anything like that, I enter the earliest date their system allows. Been doing it for decades.

I guess that might make me more trackable?

ahartmetz an hour ago | parent [-]

At least you could get some interesting ads. Do you want to participate in a longevity study?

charles_f an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

My TV isn't even connected to power

amazingman 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Hope you don't have any open WiFi networks nearby. IMO it's better to put it on one of your networks and isolate it from the internet and other devices.

tyre 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yes. I bought a Samsung TV and there isn’t a way to set up Art Mode without the internet. So first you have to get a raspberry pi, install pi hole, then switch your router’s DNS.

What a wild experience 2026 is. But I do feel like a wizard.

drnick1 21 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> So first you have to get a raspberry pi, install pi hole, then switch your router’s DNS.

This does not provide any meaningful protection against data exfiltration. The TV is very possibly using public DNS or outright phoning home through stable IPs.

walrus01 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You don't need an actual physical raspberry pi to temporarily run pihole on your LAN, you can, for instance, install a barebones debian VM inside any common hypervisor on your laptop like virtualbox or qemu, then install pihole on that basic debian x86-64 system.

entropie 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They might hardcode DNS. It's not certain that this will work.

slau 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is why I’m a bit conflicted about DoH and ODoH. Firefox and Chrome have defaulted to DoH for years if I’m not mistaken (although I’m in Europe so I believe my FF still uses regular DNS instead of DoH by default).

This also means that DoH effectively sends all your queries to CloudFlare on FF. Chrome is slightly smarter and tries to map your DNS provider to a DoH implementation if known.

tkel 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I have my router set with iptables rules to block/redirect all port 53 and you can also add known DoH to a blocklist to try and force LAN devices to use your router DNS.

CyberDildonics 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You can intercept normal DNS with iptables rules.

The best way to deal with a TV you don't trust is what no one wants to hear.

Open up the back and disconnect the wifi antenna. It is easy to open them up and everything is pretty simple and obvious once you do.

drnick1 19 minutes ago | parent [-]

> Open up the back and disconnect the wifi antenna.

Upvoted. This is precisely the kind of thing I expect to read on HN.

MrDrMcCoy 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If it connects to another network, it's somebody else's problem. Unless of course, it has a built in webcam or microphone.

stvltvs 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It does, at least for any media played through the device. Read up on automatic content recognition.

https://www.howtogeek.com/its-not-just-streaming-content-you...

RiverCrochet 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I haven't seen any open WiFi networks around me in years. I don't think it's a thing anymore; it's definitely not something a TV company can rely on.

baby_souffle 2 hours ago | parent [-]

They're not unheard of in cities. Hotels and shopping malls have them. Some residential ISPs will also broadcast a public access point using a slice of each customer's bandwidth allocation...

drnick1 16 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Another reason not to use ISP hardware. That's on top of a well-known backdoor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-069).

prmoustache 16 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They all have captive portal for regulatory reasons though.

dhosek 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

When I had Comcast internet, I could get on those, but it required a network profile to actually connect to the internet. That said, I wouldn’t put it past TV makers and Comcast to collude on using this to allow backdoor network exfiltration.

Hamuko 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I have an open guest network with a captive portal, and not once have I seen my LG TV try to connect to it.

walrus01 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've said it before on HN a long time ago but I'll repeat myself, I have about a thousand times more confidence that Sony and/or Microsoft will keep their PS5 and Xbox operating systems secure and not crapped up with stuff like this, than I do that random TV manufacturers will not result in a cybersecurity or privacy disaster.

Yeah, the PS and Xbox OSes show you ads, and they have telemetry. But both companies also have an extremely important core functional need of keeping them secure, because possible fuckery with the OS could result in game piracy/DRM bypasses and a direct threat to their revenue models.

thewebguyd an hour ago | parent [-]

The gaming consoles aren't subsidized via the data collection like smart TVs are via content recognition (selling everything on your screen to advertisers).

Consoles are sometimes sold at a loss, but the revenue model is different. Playstation plus/game pass, a cut of game sales and microtransactions, exclusives, and accessories.

No one should ever connect their TV to the internet. There just isn't any reason to, get access to your streaming apps another way.

gboss 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Pretty sure they can get internet through the HDMI cord from Roku or similar device

MrDrMcCoy 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Source? HDMI includes Ethernet in the spec, but I've never heard of any devices actually implementing it.

RiverCrochet 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That would require the Roku to specifically be set up to act as a router. You can't just connect to a random device that's not specifically a router/AP and use its internet connection.

Since Roku like other smart TV companies makes money off of user data captur, it's not incentivized to enable those conditions for a downstream device, especially if not specifically advertised as a feature.

toast0 31 minutes ago | parent [-]

If this was a feature they wanted to provide, it would simplest to set the Roku up as a bridge. No dhcp, no nat, just a virtual switch. Roku devices run on Linux, if their HDMI chip supports Ethernet and that's plumbed to a Linux supported MAC (probably not), it might take an hour to build and test the feature. Longer if the wifi interface doesn't like being bridged (I've seen that on some openwrt devices).

There's esp-idf examples from espressif for doing bridging on an esp32 if you have one with a MAC and a PHY and/or spi mac+phy.

Or for wired ethernet, they could include a three port switch IC.

toast0 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

E-Arc uses the wires intended for Ethernet. Hook your Roku up to an earc port if you're seriously concerned about it.

mikestew 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This again? Yes, it’s in the spec. No, no one has been shown to have actually implemented it. No streaming box is going to allow random devices to use their connection.

walrus01 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

does a roku provide a dhcp server, issue a dhcp lease, do NAT and routing to things that are plugged into it over the 100M ethernet built into a current gen HDMI link?

aussieguy1234 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is the best approach

jmward01 28 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Honestly I have nothing but anger for all parties involved here. We need to treat any appliance as hostile. Vote for people that will stop this stuff. Don't buy it. This is digital assault and should be treated as such.

If any of the HN crowd reading this are tech reviewers, make privacy and security a first class feature of the things you review. If it has a network connection then ask hard questions of the manufacturer about how they are managing that massive responsibility and what promises they have about how they will, and won't, use it. Ask what qualifies a 'trusted partner' and get a list of them so you can dig into them and report on how much those partners can or can't be trusted.

I really don't care how bright the screen is if this type of stuff happens. I'd rather watch nothing.

akersten 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

is this some kind of tactical distraction from the other LG headlines this week?

I thought residential proxies are already banned from SmartTV apps by virtue of practically every APK under the sun being subject to the Google Play terms of service.

Marsymars 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> I thought residential proxies are already banned from SmartTV apps by virtue of practically every APK under the sun being subject to the Google Play terms of service.

The platforms in question here are webOS and Tizen, neither of which are Android or use the Google Play Store.

ssl-3 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That only applies to the subset of TVs that use Google TV/Android TV.

Not so much for the rest of them that have operating systems with names like Roku TV OS, Tizen, WebOS, and Fire TV OS. They do their own things.

ranger_danger 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

LG webOS is not Android though, it's from the old Palm/HP devices of the early 2010s. And I'm pretty sure there are still tons of play store apps with these proxy SDKs in them, advertised/consented or not.

ram_rattle 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Apparently all these vendors did nothing to prevent this, a nice article from spur intelligence

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/video/how-smart-tvs-may-be-s...

iugtmkbdfil834 40 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Heh. tinfoil hat on I always suspected that the AI gods would manifest themselves through TV. Hat stays on from this point on. It is not like LG suddenly found it in their heart to stop the money flow from the offending apps. Not when combined with recent security incident at frontier labs and current admin freaking out over open models.

0xblinq 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm very worried with all this bullshit around TVs.

I've been running the same Samsung UE40C6530 since 2010. It's 16 f'ng years and the thing works flawlessly like the first day. No other electronic device in my life worked so well, during so long.

But I'm about to move to a new home, and it feels like it's about time to get something more modern, at least a 4k TV.

But I'm honestly totally lost at what to buy. I do not want a "Smart" tv that's slow to start, bloated with crap, installing updates every day, and maybe even spying on me.

I want a plain, old, normal TV. If possible without Android or any advanced operating system. Just a TV. I'll plug external content myself, either via a Chromecast device, or something similar. I don't want my TV to be a full fledged computer.

Is there such a thing? What would you buy nowadays? It seems you're forced to get yet another computer to maintain and be worried about whatever you buy.

geor9e 8 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

If you hook an Apple TV (or similar) up to any 4k TV, and turn CEC on (to let the Apple TV control it), and never set it up otherwise, it becomes a dumb monitor.

orly01 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've heard you are not forced to connect to wifi, and on most of them you can connect make it default certain HDMI input. Latency to turn on/off might be less good than the 2010 one, but other than that this might be a very good way to do it.

Fantosism an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You buy a commercial panel used for advertising/signage that's 3x the price of the "Smart" consumer panels.

kaelwd 37 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Are there even any OLED commercial panels with HDR and VRR?

thewebguyd an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

the smart consumer panels would also be more expensive if they weren't subsidized via the spyware.

jdmarble an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

If you’re fine with “okay” picture quality, try a Sceptre. You can get them on Amazon. I’ve had good success with them. I heard you can still disable some smart features on Sony TVs.

kh2engab 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is there a (technical) difference between a residential proxy and bot network node?

Nursie an hour ago | parent [-]

A figleaf of "We gave ourselves permission on page 247, paragraph 3 of your user agreement"

xena 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is the best news I've heard all week. Finally good news for once!

spudlyo 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

One day there will be a decent TV that can be relatively easily hacked to run on open source firmware. My wife and I are moving soon, and I'm happy we've decided not to have a TV in the new place. Neither of our current LG TV's have ever been connected to the network, but it will feel good when I sell or give the cursed things away.

4rt 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

lg's had a good run of being a monitor, their software was a bit shit but the hardware supported e-arc etc.

i've got 2 expensive lg tvs and i bought them because you don't need to use their remote, it just turns on and shows the picture.

BrenBarn an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The messed up thing is that we need to rely on LG to stop allowing it rather than just making it illegal.

jchw 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

None of my TVs are connected to the Internet. That said, I could really do with a better open source fullscreen UI, especially since I mainly just want a web browser that works good. I'm just using KDE Plasma with a custom daemon to control the TV power state over an HDMI CEC adapter plus an old K830 keyboard.

I'm, frankly, a bit annoyed by this whole thing; I'd rather have USB adapter RF wireless because it is simpler to deal with vs Bluetooth, but actually I can't even find other Bluetooth keyboards that are as compelling as this K830 and worse yet, they don't even make the K830 anymore. I don't really mind KDE Plasma with just some minor customizations but I don't really like any of the options like Kodi. Maybe Plasma BigScreen will eventually be what I want for that. And finally, HDMI CEC is a pain in the ass. For reasons, I actually use an adapter to get CEC support on a normal PC platform, because most PC HDMI ports can't do it. And also, it's just a bizarre and overly complicated thing. I have it working reliably, but it took some time to iron out all the kinks, particularly because my TV responds quite differently depending on how recently it was powered off.

I really just want a big monitor and to basically just use DPMS... Like a computer does, but large computer monitors tend to be expensive and don't always have remote controls, which admittedly are handy.

saint_yossarian 2 hours ago | parent [-]

K400+ user here, you might be interested in the upcoming Framework Wireless Touchpad Keyboard.

charcircuit an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>“The risk is amplified when consent comes from individuals within the household who use the device but shouldn’t give consent, such as minors.”

Note that the same applies for the other privacy invasive webos features. But since that doesn't harm big tech's monopoly they will conveniently avoid mentioning it.

pixl97 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I mean, why didn't they do that from the start?

steele 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Honeypot for more logos

symfoniq 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is madness.

Only LG themselves should be able to have this kind of invasive control over your television.

cognitiveinline 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sharing a slice of your internet in a privacy preserving way in exchange for something of value, seems fair, no?

walrus01 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Grey market residential proxy service providers are one of the most common methods of implementing bot spam, social media manipulation and plenty of straight-out fraud.

There's all kinds of things that malicious actors want to do where they value coming from an ordinary (comcast, charter, centurylink, shaw cable, whatever) residential IP.

cognitiveinline 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You make a good point. I've reassessed and agree this is shady, and not a good pattern. And should be disabled/abolished.

hokumguru 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I mean, some of us have legitimate business needs to get past cloudflares frankly somewhat bs gatekeeping business model, however

walrus01 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Sure, I do as well, I have my own VPN into my home office that lets me run traffic outbound through its default gateway while I'm somewhere else. But letting random third parties I don't know run traffic through my house is another thing entirely.

charcircuit 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Just because others abuse privacy doesn't mean that we should remove privacy from everyone else. They also let you get around geoblocking.

nvme0n1p1 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You're free to let strangers download illegal images from a proxy running on your IP, but I sure as hell won't.

charcircuit an hour ago | parent [-]

If you don't want to share your internet with others, that is your choice, but please don't make seem like you are only sharing the internet with criminals. That is a harmful belief to spread.

ryandrake 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Only if the app provides 1. prominently-displayed, informed consent, 2. an option to opt-out without losing app functionality, or 3. joining the botnet provides some kind of actual benefit to the user, besides just money to the developer.

mirashii 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Add to that list respecting the TOS of the user's ISP so that the user does not get banned, and providing some sort of remuneration if illicit activity through the proxy causes problems for the primary user, and then _maybe_ you could call this all not shady as fuck.

ryandrake 3 hours ago | parent [-]

If only ISPs would actually crack down on (usually unwitting) users whose systems are participating in a malicious botnet or otherwise have their networks compromised. They could offer temporary disconnection + anti-malware support to get the user cleaned up, if they actually gave a shit.

walrus01 3 hours ago | parent [-]

No residential last mile broadband ISP at the scale of hundreds of thousands or millions of customers is presently willing to spend the salary/benefits/fully loaded employee cost on the massive teams of (somewhat technically clued in, not low wage) people it would take to effectively implement this.

krackers 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Apparently at least one of the apps mentioned does that. From the article

>A Pac-Man smart TV app from Bright Data offers users the choice between viewing ads in the game or agreeing to allow their TV to serve as a residential proxy node.

ryandrake 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I wonder how informed the end user actually is, and if it's disclosed to them what kind of content might pass through their network as a result of agreeing.

charcircuit 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Most traffic is normal scraping like checking amazon prices.

cognitiveinline 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No need of (2) and (3) - the user can choose to not install/use the app. (1) is the right fair boundary.

ryandrake 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Those apps just shouldn't exist.

I don't know how "join your users to a botnet" became some kind of legitimized monetization scheme. Ads are bad enough. What's next? "Participate in a DDOS in order to use our app?"

Dylan16807 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Sometimes it's botnet, sometimes it's just accessing netflix without hitting big IP range bans.

If there are proxy apps that only do the latter sort of work than I'm actually in favor of them existing and being widespread.

NopIdoN 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"train our machine to identify traffic lights" or something

LoganDark 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Some residential proxy providers offer a few cents for the use of your network.

oasisbob 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No.

I'm surprised Comcast or some other ISP doesn't step in with a claim of tortious interference. Reselling or granting access to the ISPs services like this is almost always against the ISPs terms of service.

The consumer is in no place to consent to this exchange.

Dylan16807 2 hours ago | parent [-]

On the other hand if you want to resell 2% of your bandwidth the ISP shouldn't have any say in that.

ButlerianJihad an hour ago | parent [-]

Oh yes they can. If I'm a consumer, I pay for my connection that is sold to me and held in my name. I have no right to "resell" or "sublet" part of that. It is usually spelled out in the Terms of Service or Acceptable Use Policy.

At the very least, consumer connections explicitly disallow "Commercial Use". That means that you can't use them to run a business. You can't use them to turn a profit. You can't use them to generate revenue. That means no running servers, and that means no "reselling 2% of your bandwidth" for a few pennies because some Euro-Trash-Stranger wants to borrow it!

Dylan16807 9 minutes ago | parent [-]

> At the very least, consumer connections explicitly disallow "Commercial Use".

And that's really bad! Far more than reselling, you should very much be able to run a website from home!

ButlerianJihad 2 minutes ago | parent [-]

> And that's really bad!

No, it’s fair, and probably federally regulated.

You wanna run a business? Then get a business license, pay your business taxes, and sign up for a business Internet connection. That’s what they’re made for. Then run your servers to your heart’s content.

boredatoms 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Tell your relatives, buy an apple tv

amlib 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't think apple makes actual tvs

boredatoms an hour ago | parent [-]

Whats your point exactly? Are you purposely being obtuse?

Plenty of uninformed people let their tv on the network, they shouldn’t. A separate box should instead. Tell me I'm wrong?