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- Hacker News
- Good. Think of the media industry. If those people weren't able to do their work for millions they'd be doing it for tens on street corners.by mieses
- > Flix Vision has been shown to use resource monetizing services that pay app developers in exchange for using the device CPU and network traffic while their app is running. Live NetTV has been criticized for doing the same. These kinds of proxy monetization services have been classified as Riskware and accused of giving cybercriminals access to devices and residential IPs for malicious operations.
> It seems far more likely that Amazon targeted and disabled these two apps because they functioned as residential proxy providers, rather than due to any role in facilitating unauthorized access to copyrighted content. For over a decade, Amazon has shown through inaction that it is unwilling to combat piracy outside of its appstore by endlessly disabling third-party piracy apps. However, the possibility of a network of unknowingly compromised Fire TV devices being used as gateways for cybercrimes appears to have been sufficient motivation for Amazon to take action and block the apps.
Sigh. Yeah no. This is a good thing. I'm sure they're not worried about stuff like Jellyfin or SmartTubeTV.
- This year piracy apps, next year Plex/Jellyfin? Or will they call those piracy apps already?
- You should check out the details on the apps in the article. They’re pretty clearly malware at best.by Forgeties79
- Just Jellyfin. Plex, being a for-profit corporation, will pay for FireTV app store placement.by nerdsniper
- Is there any non-tabloid source for any of this?by utf_8x
- I guess this is as close to the dragons mouth as it gets: https://www.fact-uk.org.uk/latest-crackdown-on-illegal-iptv-...
I think the previous events/arrests/sentences they're referring to are all related to people selling "dodgy Fire sticks" or whatever they call it.
- Welp! There goes stremioby dpacmittal
- So what’s the alternative android stick that users will soon be purchasing instead?by daft_pink
- Some backdoored piece of shit from China
- Nvidia Shield is a really good device.by 6ak74rfy
- I purchased an Onn TV from Walmart for $25 and am very happy with it after 2 years of using it.
Amazon is sentencing the Fire TV to irrelevance with these dumb decisions, just like the Fire Phone.
by nekitamo - [dupe] Fire TV: Amazon to block piracy apps in the future
- I keep my old laptops mainly for use as tv boxes.
Even for a 5 year old laptop, my current tv laptop has much more power than a fire stick and I can run whatever I like.
- How do you control them?by para_parolu
- Can you give some more details? I have a few old laptops which I can re-purpose for this.by thunderbong
- Fortunately when it comes to the $20-30 TV devices there are plenty of options that can be made mostly bloat free that you can install anything you want on.by dexterdog
- Like what?by ciupicri
- Only source is the Sun and there has been no official response from Amazon?
I'll wait till this can be confirmed before deciding what to think of it.
by rs186 - that, plus the downgrade and lock optionby woleium
- The organization behind the "crackdown" have made a press-release themselves: https://www.fact-uk.org.uk/latest-crackdown-on-illegal-iptv-...
Follow the links in that and it seems to mostly be about people selling Firesticks with software on it that allows purchasers to view piracy streams without doing anything but plug in the device.
- > but the real issue appears to have been the apps’ use of resource-monetization services that grant cybercriminals access to devices and residential IPs for malicious activity.
So the apps are malware that function as residential proxies.
Way to bury the lede.
- It's pretty incredible how many apps have this kind of functionality. There are some sketch af sites that sell access to these proxies. I took a look to do some web scraping a while ago. In the end, I just ended up using TOR with a Rust API and that worked a lot better and made me feel a lot less dirty, in addition to being free.by leoh
- RTFA. That was for the previous round of blocks, and those apps were restored after the offending behavior was removed.
The current round of blocks is targeting apps that support piracy even if they don’t have any other malicious behavior.
by parsimo2010