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Sharing a slice of your internet in a privacy preserving way in exchange for something of value, seems fair, no?
by cognitiveinline 2mo ago
Sharing a slice of your internet in a privacy preserving way in exchange for something of value, seems fair, no?
- ryandrake 2mo agoOnly 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.
- cognitiveinline 2mo agoNo need of (2) and (3) - the user can choose to not install/use the app. (1) is the right fair boundary.
- ryandrake 2mo agoThose 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?"
- NopIdoN 2mo ago"train our machine to identify traffic lights" or something
- Dylan16807 2mo agoSometimes 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.
- account42 2mo agoExactly. If there is a legitimate use case for sharing your connection it should be a separate apps users intentionally install.
- xacky 2mo agoIt is the same as when javascript was used to mine cryptocurrency before web browsers blocked it, exploiting other users computers for unfair gain.
- inigyou 2mo agoWhat's the definition of a botnet?
- LoganDark 2mo agoSome residential proxy providers offer a few cents for the use of your network.
- krackers 2mo agoApparently 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 2mo agoI 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 2mo agoMost traffic is normal scraping like checking amazon prices.
- mirashii 2mo agoAdd 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 2mo agoIf 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 2mo agoNo 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.
- account42 2mo agoThey would be willing if they were themselves held liable for the illicit activity originating from their network otherwise.
- justcool393 2mo agoexcept we need ISPs to be treated as relatively neutral parties. we don't hold the water company liable if someone uses water to cook up meth
- account42 2mo agoThere is really not good excuse to bundle this functionality with an unrelated app in the first place.
- walrus01 2mo agoGrey 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.
- hokumguru 2mo agoI mean, some of us have legitimate business needs to get past cloudflares frankly somewhat bs gatekeeping business model, however
- walrus01 2mo agoSure, 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.
- inigyou 2mo agoIf it meant you got to run your traffic through other people's houses, would that be a good trade?
- nikanj 2mo agoTo be clear, bot spam and social media manipulation are legitimate business needs for the business selling said services.
- JoshTriplett 2mo agoYou can't have legitimate business needs if you're not a legitimate business in the first place. Ban them all.
- inigyou 2mo ago
- nullsanity 2mo ago[dead]
- oasisbob 2mo agoNo. 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 2mo agoOn the other hand if you want to resell 2% of your bandwidth the ISP shouldn't have any say in that.
- ButlerianJihad 2mo agoOh 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 2mo ago> 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 2mo ago> 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.
- account42 2mo agoWe have this invention called money so that individuals don't need to wrangle complex swap trades and instead sell the things (usually their time) that they are OK with selling with informed consent and buy the things they want without having to give up things they don't want to or don't understand. If selling your internet connection was a reasonable thing to do there would be dedicated apps/boxes for that instead of this being packaged into random apps.
- inigyou 2mo agoThere are dedicated apps for that. For example ByteLixir.