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We purchased a Chinese-made projector from Amazon, which was surprisingly inexpensive (~40 USD). Upon connecting it to the internet, it placed a constantly runn
by simojo 2mo ago
We purchased a Chinese-made projector from Amazon, which was surprisingly inexpensive (~40 USD). Upon connecting it to the internet, it placed a constantly running feed of ads on the corner of the screen, even while movies were playing. There was no way to disable it either. Even though it's not a stick, it's a similar principle.
- Pxtl 2mo agoI mean, did you have to connect it to the internet though? Did it not just have a dp/hdmi port?
- mikestew 2mo agoUpon connecting it to the internet… I hesitate to blame the victim here, but why on earth would you do that? “$40 Chinese-made” didn’t give you pause?
- bigmattystyles 2mo agoTo be fair, everything is Chinese made. I would be even the Apple TV and NVIDIA Shield are made in China and if a state actor is determined to get a malicious payload in....
- miladyincontrol 2mo agoTo play devil's advocate, when someone says "Chinese made" they're usually well aware of your point, and are more using it as a common way to describe product mills spitting out countless devices with dubious quality or configuration. Of course theres good products made in China, and plenty of entirely Chinese brands killing it doing their thing.
- 8note 2mo agoits pretty straight racism though. its US software companies that are the worst of the worst in terms of adware and malware being shipped under monopoly control
- Eisenstein 2mo agoIts based on the most common heuristic people have developed in regards to the phenomenon. What do you think about 'alphabet soup company' instead, referring to the tendency for names to be a mix of random letters? Otherwise, you can try and create a better term for 'unaccountable third parties using US platforms to dodge liability for their product made out of the cheapest components and software possible' and see if that catches on. Yes it is also the US companies that are a problem but these are two separate problems and need different terms.
- SecretDreams 2mo agoThere's enough evil malware provider blame to go around.
- wvh 2mo agoIt's not racism at all to be weary of (any) political system, its overreach and the incentives of the people living in it, be it China or America or Russia. The word racism is vastly overused these days.
- parineum 2mo ago> its pretty straight racism though. It's not. Firstly, because countries aren't races. Second, because it's just a leftover from a time where that was a good heuristic.
- handle584 2mo ago[dead]
- fc417fc802 2mo agoThis isn't about state actors though. There's a world of difference between a name brand (possibly even a Chinese one) versus what I would term "chineseum". It's nothing to do with China per se and everything to do with purchasing from the extreme low end of the market. It just so happens that the vast majority of that segment is manufactured in China at present.
- worik 2mo ago> To be fair, everything is Chinese made Yes. Chinese manufacturing is quite a phenomenon, useful and everywhere But to be completely fair, a $40 video projector has a warning label. The price
- a96 2mo agoYou can put a bigger price tag over it. It won't be any better.
- speerer 2mo agoI think normally when people say Chinese made in this way, what they're really communicating is that there's no (meaningful) brand. All they know about it is that it is from China.
- r_lee 2mo agoMade in China and random Chinese brands are two very different things
- ChrisRR 2mo agoOften they're exactly the same things
- ponector 2mo agoMy Samsung phone is made in Vietnam.
- SiempreViernes 2mo agoThis is an age where even teacups demand internet connectivity to fetch firmware updates
- contravariant 2mo agoI mean I get why my cups need frequent java updates, but still.
- histriosum 2mo agoFinally, a legitimate use case for HTTP 418…
- red-iron-pine 2mo agoand they thought it was an April Fools joke, hah!
- Ballas 2mo agoAnd then what happens if someone accidentally pushes the saucer firmware to the cup update? https://hackaday.com/2022/03/18/welcome-to-the-future-where-your-microwave-thinks-its-a-steam-oven/ https://hackaday.com/2022/03/18/welcome-to-the-future-where-...
- earleybird 2mo agoYou get a Saucerfull of Secrets :-)
- yencabulator 2mo agoI believe the correct behavior can be inferred from the RFC: https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2324/#section-2.3.2 https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2324/#section-2.3.2
- tollgategit 2mo agoAnd yet, it is now still just as stupid to do it as it was before we arrived here.
- handle584 2mo ago[dead]
- xyx0826 2mo agoI remember reading an analysis on one of those projectors; the author found a residential proxy running on their device. I would recommend keeping these things off the internet.
- simojo 2mo agoI'd be very interested to see it if you still have access to it.
- dhruvrrp 2mo agoDunno if this is the same issue, but someone found malware in their projector. I'm not sure about the accuracy since the report is blatantly AI generated: https://github.com/jrm360seclab/aodin-vo1d-malware https://github.com/jrm360seclab/aodin-vo1d-malware
- mrloopex 2mo agoYes that’s what the article is about.
- dboreham 2mo agoCapitalism!
- azan_ 2mo agoAbsolutely, there's no scam outside capitalism!
- jkahrs595 2mo agoOutside of capitalism is outer space, so your snarky comment is actually true.
- ColdStream 2mo agoGet the sarcasm, but of course there is scam outside of capitalism. Its just that the capitalistic model almost turns it from an inconvenient bug into a mainline feature. Not saying there is an absolute perfect alternative, anyone who says that is usually shoveling smoke, but there are flaws with this economic model to be addressed.
- azan_ 2mo agoNot true at all. I'm from Poland which was occupied by communist for a long time, and I can guarantee you - the amount of scam we had under that rule was orders of magnitude larger than what we have now.
- qmr 2mo ago...firewall it then?
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- __turbobrew__ 2mo agoYou forgot to drink a verification can
- throwa356262 2mo agoIf the hardware is good and cheap, it should be a fun project to replace the OS with a custom Android build that is clean of adware. Do you have a link to the projector?
- simojo 2mo agohttps://a.co/d/0fnDxZAG https://a.co/d/0fnDxZAG
- tollgategit 2mo ago> Upon connecting it to the internet, I dare not ask why you would do such a thing, instead, I will simply ask if you now think the reason was good, and I will hint at you that if the reason was "convenience", then you should answer "No".
- breppp 2mo agoYou assume a lot of things, sometimes you have to connect it to the internet for it to work (such as robovacuums)
- GJim 2mo agoWhy in the name of all that is holy would you need to connect a projector or vacuum cleaner to the internet in order for it to work? Seriously, why do you think this is normal or acceptable? This is bullshit needs to stop (and the scummy AdTech industry has a lot to answer for).
- themaninthedark 2mo agoVacuum for "convenience" of being able to turn it on with a phone. I could actually see hooking up a projector to wifi to allow it to stream videos.
- breppp 2mo agoAs far as I remember they mandate you connect to it in order for you to operate it. We all know why, which is Adtech, but like cars or smart TVs, you as a customer either skip the entire segment or yield.
- dspillett 2mo agoThe streaming sticks the article is discussing basically need network access to function. They might support streaming from local media sources and file shares too, but that is also done over WiFi. Unless you have a properly firewall controlled home (very few people do, I'm pretty nerdy and most devices on my network can just NAT to the outside these days) then just giving it a WiFi connection gives it access to the wider network from your location. You'll probably find the projectors are pretty much the same hardware and OS as the sticks except with the projection device added where the stick just has an HDMI output. It might have HDMI-in too so it can just be used as a screen for another device, but there are definitely some units out there that are network-play-only. You aren't wrong about giving cheap crap like this access to your network (and via that the public network) is risky, but that convenience you (and I) would say no to is exactly what they are bought for.
- ubermonkey 2mo agoI'm still trying to figure out why you didn't see that coming.