Amazon has launched a major global crackdown on Fire Stick piracy | Hacker News Reader

Amazon has launched a major global crackdown on Fire Stick piracy

the-sun.com

95 pointsswat53549 comments

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

that, plus the downgrade and lock option

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.

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.

Like what?

Xiaomi TV Box

Onn devices from Walmart

https://old.reddit.com/r/cordcutters/comments/1l7iozl/onn_st...

A computer and an hdmi cable.

Just the HDMI cable would be like at least 25% of that budget, what $10-$15 computer handles displaying 4K for example?

Chromecast w/ GoogleTV, can even install LineageOS and their new shiny TV launcher on the thing

Isn't Chromecast dead? It seems to be out of stock too.

Oh wow you're right, they discontinued CCwGTV for a new device Google TV Streamer 4K. Too bad it was a nice little dongle and not too expensive.

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?

I would try KDE connect to do keyboard or mouse input.

You have USB receivers that respond to regular remote controls.

I use one of these, very convenient. You can even buy multiple of them and place them around the room. https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Keyboard-Touchpad-P...

All I need in a remote, though, is a direction pad and about 6 buttons: power, select, back, home, volume up & down. And those power and volume buttons need to be routed to the display (projector in my case) and sound bar respectively.

I bought an "air mouse" remote from AliExpress. There's a lot around.

On the back it has a little keyboard for typing.

Can you give some more details? I have a few old laptops which I can re-purpose for this.

Place the laptop behind/below the TV, hook it up via HDMI, install whatever software you want on it (I use plain linux and VLC, but you can install Jellyfin and use the web interface if you want to), use a bluetooth keyboard/mouse combo to control it. You can enable USB wakeup if you want to minimize power usage, but you have to make sure the keyboard is plugged into a USB port that's powered when shutdown then (if that's even possible given your config).

I had an Asus TP500Ln that I only just retried, it lasted me 10 years as a TV box, always more powerful than fire sticks/actual tv boxes.

Replaced it recently with a 4 year old laptop.

I simply install Ubuntu, plug in the TV through HDMI and keep the charger plugged in all the time.

Then I can install stremio, Kodi and any other streaming apps I like. Technically I could also set up some retro games.

[dupe] Fire TV: Amazon to block piracy apps in the future

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45774284

So what’s the alternative android stick that users will soon be purchasing instead?

Some backdoored piece of shit from China

As opposed to this obviously backdoored piece of sh*t from America (that was made in China)

Nvidia Shield is a really good device.

It's pretty expensive. And didn't Nvidia started pushing ads?

nvidia doesn’t push ads. shield runs androidtv and with the default stock launcher, you will see the ads google wants you to. but you can easily change the launcher to something like flauncher and have a streamlined experience.

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.

Fun note - Walmart already started region locking the ONN sticks to US and Puerto Rico.

Interesting. I’m using mine in Europe now with no problems.

Welp! There goes stremio

Is there any non-tabloid source for any of this?

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.

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.

Right, and security is regularly used to justify starting down a path that's really about profit.

Don’t disagree but these aren’t harmless programs. They’re explicitly designed to exploit users. I am not sympathetic to a crackdown on them even if I want to keep an eye out on how they are cracked down on.

They're sideloaded by users accepting that risk for themselves.

I'm really not looking forward to the day I can only install sanctioned software from a walled garden on all of the devices I "own." For security reasons, of course…

No disagreement there. I’m just pointing out the nuances.

I would rather have the freedom and whatever risk comes with it, I'm an adult and don't need any part of tech giant paternalism. Even if their overall interests were aligned with mine.

Just Jellyfin. Plex, being a for-profit corporation, will pay for FireTV app store placement.

> 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.

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.

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