Safest Space
  • Communities
  • Create Post
  • Create Community
  • heart
    Support Lemmy
  • search
    Search
  • Login
  • Sign Up
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish · 1 day ago

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

www.theverge.com

external-link
message-square
32
link
fedilink
290
external-link

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 · 1 day ago
message-square
32
link
fedilink
A manufacturer intentionally hijacked its Android TV devices.
alert-triangle
You must log in or register to comment.
  • danielfm123@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    7 hours ago

    So basically the devices where doing what Google does, but Google was not in the loop, so it’s illegal.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    12 hours ago

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

  • zebidiah@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    8 hours ago

    Is this my my hands get clammy whenever I look and the Walmart onn stuff??

  • banana_pie@piefed.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    12 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
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    29
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    19 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!

  • lemming741@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    11 hours ago

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

  • grapefruittrouble@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    46
    ·
    23 hours ago

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

    • OctopusNemeses@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      20 hours ago

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

      • JonEFive@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        20 hours ago

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

        • barnacles@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          18 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

          • rhythmisaprancer@quokk.au
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            4 hours ago

            A comedian had a whole bit about something like this.

        • mysticalone@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          19 hours ago

          Out of curiosity, who won the argument?

          • Junkers_Klunker@feddit.dk
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            16 hours ago

            The microwave, it refused to change.

  • [object Object]@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    76
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 day 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
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    28
    ·
    23 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
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      8 hours ago

      I can’t even find dumb TVs anymore

      • mrnngglry@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        7 hours ago

        Digital signage.

  • kalman@dboft.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    19 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.

    • gigaqps@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      7 hours ago

      I build my own TV stack to replace my NVidia Shield. It’s way better… has a kick ass weather app

      You’ve reached that age, huh

      • kalman@dboft.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 hours ago

        Yeh, I’m allergic to wilfully being exploited and squeezed for any and all reasons.

    • Bernd@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      16 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.

    • RogueBanana@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      12 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.

      • kalman@dboft.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 hours ago

        MINISFORUM Mars Series MC560 … I will try to get around to provide a writeup and github. !remindme 1w

    • moonshadow@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      19 hours ago

      You got a git repo or what?

      • taxon@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        24
        ·
        18 hours ago

    • neo2478@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      13 hours ago

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

  • finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    edit-2
    21 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
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    1 day ago

    Paywall removed

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

    • guycls@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      1 day ago

      Mobile friendly:

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

    • Clambake0351@piefed.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      21 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
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    23 hours ago

    This why I don’t buy cheap Chinese devices anymore

  • mrnngglry@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    7 hours ago

    I wouldn’t trust most streaming devices out of the box. Definitely no generic Android streamer but Roku and Nvidia Shield are terrible for privacy too.

Technology@lemmy.world

technology@lemmy.world

Subscribe from Remote Instance

Create a post
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !technology@lemmy.world

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


  • @L4s@lemmy.world
  • @autotldr@lemmings.world
  • @PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks
  • @wikibot@lemmy.world
Visibility: Public
globe

This community can be federated to other instances and be posted/commented in by their users.

  • 4.4K users / day
  • 9.8K users / week
  • 15.3K users / month
  • 29.9K users / 6 months
  • 1 local subscriber
  • 89.4K subscribers
  • 9.07K Posts
  • 297K Comments
  • Modlog
  • mods:
  • L3s@lemmy.world
  • enu@lemmy.world
  • Technopagan@lemmy.world
  • L4sBot@lemmy.worldB
  • L3s@hackingne.ws
  • BE: 0.19.20
  • Modlog
  • Instances
  • Docs
  • Code
  • join-lemmy.org