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Engadget and others are reporting that contrary to the very spirit of the set-top box DVR, TiVo says all subscribers with select devices will see ads prior to playing recorded shows after a software update rolls out. TiVo says subscribers will be able to skip the ads coming in the next 90 days, but did not elaborate on this as a user says they had to fast forward through the ads. Many subscribers are angry and threatening to cancel, calling the ads a feature that devalues the service as they pay for the ability to skip ads altogether.
This prompts the question: will cable companies, losing subscribers and looking to replace that revenue, do the same with their DVRs?
Original article: https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/21/tivo-pre-roll-dvr-ads-for-all-users/.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday September 23 2019, @09:04PM (2 children)
Right. Plex spies on what you do, even when it's all internal to your home.
If it were just a CA/certificate issue, such certificates would be automatically installed at server/clients install time and there would be no need to send back megabytes of data (and not CRL requests, but lots of https encrypted data) to the Plex domain when using data exclusively on *internal* resources.
You can provide other apologia for them too if you want. But streaming content from one *internal* device to another shouldn't require any external connections. I tried blocking their domain and their software refused to function. that's unacceptable. Full stop.
If you are okay with that, go for it. Personally, I'd rather have my tonsils extracted through my ears.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday September 24 2019, @11:49AM (1 child)
And renewed every 60-90 days, correct? And who would pay for the domain name and DNS zone hosting? Currently Plex does, but that's probably ultimately related to ad revenue derived from telemetry data, which I agree is excessive.
I don't ask this to defend Plex. I ask this to determine whether there's a good way for a different platform, one built on free software, to obtain certificates for devices internal to a home LAN without opening client devices to social engineering by those who would want to MITM all of a user's external traffic.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday September 24 2019, @09:29PM
Even if that were really necessary for applications that are not web browsers like Plex, regular software/security updates could handle that pretty seamlessly.
I agree that's an issue. Every three weeks or so, I have to pay a burly thug who comes to my house and forces me to install public certs on all my internal devices, even though they don't access the internet.
More seriously, if your use case includes wanting to stream media to locations outside your internal network, to your phone (ewww), the homes of others, etc. then you don't have much choice other than to utilize TLS, and in many cases, DNS.
It's true that the vast majority of folks don't have the knowledge or inclination to set up and host such services.
I'm not one of those folks. I do have my own domain names and host my DNS zones locally and with secondary providers. However, my use case does not include streaming media outside my internal network.
Fair enough. Given that external *streaming* traffic isn't my use case, I haven't put much thought into that. Off the top of my head, I'd start with something that integrates platforms like Nextcloud [nextcloud.com], OpenVPN and Cloudns [cloudns.net] (dynamic dns hosting, assuming you don't have static IPv4 or a block of ipv6 addresses).
Securing access for external devices really obviates the need for certs on internal *client* devices. However, that can be done with OpenVPN's private CA as well.
The rub is supporting *arbitrary* devices. As long as you know which devices will require access, installing private certs/appropriate configs (even without DNS if you have static IPs) on OpenVPN clients is relatively simple and can be automated pretty easily.
But even in the case where you're at your sister's brother in-law's godmother's house and want to stream media there, there are tools [techadvisor.co.uk] (not sure about the FOSS bit, as this is definitely not my use case) which can allow you to redirect those streams from a configured device to another, un-configured one.
I'd note that there are turnkey solutions for Nextcloud and OpenVPN.
It's entirely possible that there are other, more seamless solutions out there.
So, yes. It's possible to do this with FOSS and without spying scumbags.
I'd also expect that utilizing GPG or similar to securely transfer certs and configurations to arbitrary devices could resolve the distribution issue as well.
Is that a workable solution? I'd say yes, especially if someone were to script server configuration/setup tools specifically for this use case.
Does that exist right now? I have no idea. However, if it did I'd probably have run across it while researching a replacement for Tivo.
Note that there may well be holes in this as I just pulled it out of my hat. However, as long as all external access would be through OpenVPN, the only thorny issue would be secure cert/config distribution for arbitrary devices.
Thanks for asking about this. It's an interesting problem with a fairly simple solution. But it made me think, and I like when that happens. I suspect that the only reason something like this hasn't been done as a public project is that there's no way to monetize it.
Here's an interesting take [smarthomebeginner.com] on such integration. Note that this is just one of the results from a web search for "Nextcloud plus openvpn media streaming". I have no idea who the poster is, nor do I have any interest in them, their site or any software they recommend. It also isn't clear (based on the skim of the post I did) whether it resolves the arbitrary device problem.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr