Optical media these days has a horribly intrusive DRM system, which prevents you from watching the content on most of PCs (see AACS 2.0 on Blu-Ray drives). Ripping them is pretty much impossible unless you do some very DMCA illegal firmware patching... and even that doesn't always work.
It's mind boggling that they continue to make life so difficult for paying customers when it's possible to go to a site like Pirate Bay and get a bit-perfect rip in less than 15 minutes without Hollywood making a single penny.
Just let me buy DRM-free movies and download them to my NAS - and without all the tracking bullshit!
Advertisement works because most people do not feel this way and are ok with metrics and adds as long as they get something back. Is that ok, or is there a rational argument why everyone should feel bad about being subject to metrics?
Advertising works because people have little choice in the matter. It's exploiting that people value "consumption with ads" more than "no consumption at all", and most are not skilled enough to remove the ads themselves.
(It's not like they wouldn't do it if they knew how; remember the popularity of VCRs? Their main use case was that on a recorded show, you could fast-forward through ads.)
People are not OK with metrics; most population has no understanding about the extent to which they're being surveilled or measured. There's also a growing feeling of helplessness, because the more the snooping is becoming known, the more apparent it seems that it's the same as with advertising - unless you're a tech-savvy person, you have no choice at all.
EDIT:
A big part of the problems are the constant lies of omission. I believe much fewer people would be willing to connect their TVs to the Internet if on the box, next to "you can watch Netflix from your couch", there would be text saying "we'll spy on you as much as we can, and this data might wind up at your insurance provider". Or an asterisk next to "Netflix" explaining that "the service will work until we get bored or they change their API, i.e. for about two to three years".
Ignorance and acceptance aren't the same thing. Many people would be and regularly become disturbed by the amount of tracking, but it is complex and difficult to understand on purpose. GPDR tried to make it obvious but missed the mark, making everybody accept cookies is just a blind annoyance.
The rational argument against tracking is the enormous power it enables. Humans aren't aware enough of how easily they can be manipulated, more information means more and easier manipulation. More information also enables actual power for the abuse of the population.
The power assymetry can only be abused and it will gradually grow until it will be very difficult to remove.
It is ok if that is their decision and they have the ability to choose. I would contest that this is realized for modern devices.
There are so numerous "rational" arguments against it, that it is not even funny. And I doubt that many people like the current situation. The trick is to not ask.
Many people I know don't connect their TV to the net at all. They may would use its features, but not wanting to be spied upon is one of the big reasons.
That said, even the older generation starts to use TV less or have devices that record the program and cut out advertising while not connecting their "smart" TV.
Don't know why you're getting downed for this, sample size of two:
My dad's response to "smart TVs send back everything you watch and Samsung are the worst" was "I expected as much..." <— he owns a Samsung smart tv
Person who works for civil service who is not yet even 30
"our government is crazy inefficient, each service and their data are siloed and cannot talk to each other, so we can't know that Joe Bloggs in HMRC is the Joe Bloggs in the NHS and Joe Bloggs on this council tax register... Why can't everything be connected like it is with Google/Facebook. I find myself connecting things up so I get better suggestions"
In my opinion the surveillance economy is one bad leader away from a 1984 hell on earth but that opinion isn't nearly as prevalent as people in tech would hope. But it's also not constructive to patronize people with the opinion "oh it's because they don't know how bad it is..." etc
I think some people don't care. Some people see some of the value the metrics driven approaches can bring. Some people don't agree that the road to hell can be paved with good intentions.
After all I find it hard to believe that all those devs at Facebook and Google are categorically amoral - life isn't black and white like that
> Running with a Pi-hole helps, but still misses about 27% of A ID leaks, and 45% of serial number leaks.
and
> Our measurements showed that tracking is prevalent on the OTT platforms we studied, with traffic to known trackers present on 69% of Roku channels and 89% of Amazon Fire TV channels… Our analysis of the available privacy countermeasures showed that they are ineffective at preventing tracking.
the fact that pihole is ineffective is troublesome.
You can improve that stat. If you have a router that allows it, make a rule that allows port 53 out if it’s from the Pihole, and redirects it back to the Pihole if it isn’t. You’ll catch more of the sneaky crap that way.
I do this, any traffic to port 53 gets re-directed using IP masquerading to my local DNS server which uses the blocklists from https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts.
By coincidence since I did that I need to do a hard reboot of my Mi Box android tv device everyday as when you turn it on from standby and open Youtube / Netflix it goes in to a frozen state.
I only checked one of the listed urls (the tables are images???) but found 15 hits in my pi-hole. I’m using the “safe” (as in marked likely to not break things) set of lists from wally3k’s github. So the standard set of lists won’t catch many things, but it is prudent to add more. There are currently nearly a million domains being filtered in my pi-hole and 13.0% of http/https requests are filtered out.
It is an arms race. It started like it normally does. Pihole guys were dismissed as not a threat since setup required user setup and maintenance. Clearly, there was a miscalculation of sentiment since adtech seems to be actively working on subverting it.
I hope pihole can keep up. I am at a point, where I would pay for it ( donation may no longer be viable ).
Surprised that apple TV isn't included in this analysis at all. I'd be interested to see that, especially using a short list of the 'most common' apple TV apps -- eg Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, HBO.
I have a Roku and it's a targeted advertising machine. Great if you're a marketer but kinda iffy if you're just an ordinary consumer. I see ads for debit card purchases within a matter of hours. I don't mind because I'm into marketing and might leverage the adtech at some point. But if you're concerned about privacy, stay far away.
Presumably an AppleTV is only as good as the apps you choose to run on it. I'd love to see some analysis of YouTubeTV. I recently saw a stat which claimed YouTubeTV only had 2M subscribers, which seemed critically low to me.
I did not see a list of domains on that site. I thought they talk about using a pihole in general. If you saw, or recommend specific lists - please do - and thank you in advance.
Readit News
I don't want my entertainment to be tied up with advertising. I don't want my whole life to be subject to metrics.
Just let me buy DRM-free movies and download them to my NAS - and without all the tracking bullshit!
That seems very risky given the regular unannounced firmware audits by the DMCA police.
edit: skimming their forum I see mentions of firmware flashing/patching so I believe that's answered my question.
(It's not like they wouldn't do it if they knew how; remember the popularity of VCRs? Their main use case was that on a recorded show, you could fast-forward through ads.)
People are not OK with metrics; most population has no understanding about the extent to which they're being surveilled or measured. There's also a growing feeling of helplessness, because the more the snooping is becoming known, the more apparent it seems that it's the same as with advertising - unless you're a tech-savvy person, you have no choice at all.
EDIT:
A big part of the problems are the constant lies of omission. I believe much fewer people would be willing to connect their TVs to the Internet if on the box, next to "you can watch Netflix from your couch", there would be text saying "we'll spy on you as much as we can, and this data might wind up at your insurance provider". Or an asterisk next to "Netflix" explaining that "the service will work until we get bored or they change their API, i.e. for about two to three years".
The rational argument against tracking is the enormous power it enables. Humans aren't aware enough of how easily they can be manipulated, more information means more and easier manipulation. More information also enables actual power for the abuse of the population.
The power assymetry can only be abused and it will gradually grow until it will be very difficult to remove.
There are so numerous "rational" arguments against it, that it is not even funny. And I doubt that many people like the current situation. The trick is to not ask.
Many people I know don't connect their TV to the net at all. They may would use its features, but not wanting to be spied upon is one of the big reasons.
That said, even the older generation starts to use TV less or have devices that record the program and cut out advertising while not connecting their "smart" TV.
My dad's response to "smart TVs send back everything you watch and Samsung are the worst" was "I expected as much..." <— he owns a Samsung smart tv
Person who works for civil service who is not yet even 30 "our government is crazy inefficient, each service and their data are siloed and cannot talk to each other, so we can't know that Joe Bloggs in HMRC is the Joe Bloggs in the NHS and Joe Bloggs on this council tax register... Why can't everything be connected like it is with Google/Facebook. I find myself connecting things up so I get better suggestions"
In my opinion the surveillance economy is one bad leader away from a 1984 hell on earth but that opinion isn't nearly as prevalent as people in tech would hope. But it's also not constructive to patronize people with the opinion "oh it's because they don't know how bad it is..." etc
I think some people don't care. Some people see some of the value the metrics driven approaches can bring. Some people don't agree that the road to hell can be paved with good intentions.
After all I find it hard to believe that all those devs at Facebook and Google are categorically amoral - life isn't black and white like that
Sometimes I wonder if the whole pervasive advertisement racket isn’t a case of the emperor with no clothes, if not a front for more nefarious ends.
Where did you get this information? I suspect most people have no idea what goes on behind the curtain.
> Running with a Pi-hole helps, but still misses about 27% of A ID leaks, and 45% of serial number leaks.
and
> Our measurements showed that tracking is prevalent on the OTT platforms we studied, with traffic to known trackers present on 69% of Roku channels and 89% of Amazon Fire TV channels… Our analysis of the available privacy countermeasures showed that they are ineffective at preventing tracking.
the fact that pihole is ineffective is troublesome.
By coincidence since I did that I need to do a hard reboot of my Mi Box android tv device everyday as when you turn it on from standby and open Youtube / Netflix it goes in to a frozen state.
Deleted Comment
I hope pihole can keep up. I am at a point, where I would pay for it ( donation may no longer be viable ).
It's basically the OpenWRT equivalent of streaming devices.
https://www.walmart.com/browse/electronics/sceptre-tvs/3944_...
This link used to have better results, but Amazon must have changed something: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=4k+-smart&rh=n%3A1266092011