this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 120 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Worth pointing out this isn't any proper Android TV devices, but rather those cheap boxes that are often basically SBCs with AOSP installed on them which are predominantly sold as easy piracy boxes.

Edit: in fact, the article doesn't currently have TV in the title

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Leaving out the TV makes it less precise and more clickbaity because then it sounds like Android phones are affected.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I guess the problem is that "Android TV" is a specific thing that none of these devices actually are, they're just dodgy boxes running Android that can be plugged into a TV.

For me it's more clickbaity because Android TV isn't actually involved here at all.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd say it would be more clickbaity if you just removed the "TV", because it'd make you think of smartphones, and those would be much more concerning

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 1 year ago (10 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (10 children)

If I don't connect it to the internet they don't get to sell ur data innit

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

LOL I'm still using an old CRT TV because it just won't die and I barely watch TV

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Walmart sells Sceptre 4k tvs which are dumb, sure they aren't OLED or have amazing refresh rates but they are the perfect TV for most people, it's much easier to chuck and buy a new $20 streaming device when updates make it crawl to a near stop than it is to do the same with a $600+ TV.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm annoyed that they don't sell them and that even if you don't connect a smart tv to wifi to keep it dumb it'll still not just be a display and it'll try to shove stuff in your face

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago (25 children)

That's why you should build your own media center from an old machine. Much safer and more private.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (15 children)
  1. Connect old PC to TV. Both can be 15 years old.
  2. (optional) For better performance, get a small SSD alongside the big HDD (a 64GB / partition will do), maybe have a homemade NAS ready too
  3. Install Lubuntu, Mint XFCE, Puppy Linux or any other distro of choice
  4. Set up KDE Connect, qBittorrent and VLC
  5. Enjoy
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Cheers, I'm using this as a jump off point for a weekend project maybe. Would anything change if I was interested in casting content too?

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Look into Plex servers, that should keep you busy for the next six months till you get it up and running.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (11 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Is jellyfin a better alternative?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yeah, it's free and open source. I just pointed it at a few folders of TV, movies and music that I downloaded years ago, and it catalogued them all, downloaded all the blurbs and posters.

Like a mini Netflix that you host yourself.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (5 children)

The problem is that YouTube app and F1 app are Android only so having a Linux media box won't help. It needs to run Android to run Android apps.

Plus I like to use Chromecast, we use it all the time to send YouTube videos from our phones to the big screen.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Wait, smart devices might not be secure?! I'm shocked!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Are non smart TVs even still a thing nowadays? I don't own or watch any TV so I honestly don't know how the market currently looks like.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yes. They are sold for commercial use, e.g., McD’s menu, and are quite pricey.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think you meant to say not subsidized by ad tracking lol

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Depends on your definition of "quite pricey." There's no equivalent of a $250 50" Insignia FireTV, but I've seen Samsung signage displays on Amazon for about a $75-$100 premium over their comparable Smart TVs. They also don't come with a stand, so if you weren't already buying a VESA mount you'll need to add another $40-80. There is a significant premium, but it's not necessarily orders of magnitude.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Apparently "smartness" has not invaded projectors...per a comment I read here on kbin a while back from a projector owner. This really encourages me to buy one.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It did though, last time I went to a tech store, there was a samsung smart projector that had all the capabilities of a smart tv

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

They're harder to find, for sure. Especially if you want a large screen.

When I was shopping around a few years ago, the only 65" TV I could find without smart features was a Sceptre, which is Walmart's electronics brand. Speakers so bad that I had to buy a sound bar, and the display isn't that great, but it gets the job done and I don't need to worry about it being an attack vector.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They get called “monitors” a lot (depending whether you need them to pick up cable/airwaves of course)

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

These are just generic Android TV devices that use Allwinner board. Allwinner made these kind of generic boards for Android TV and Android Auto head unit and sell them to OEMs. The OEMs then "customize" it by adding their APKs into the ROM provided by Allwinner. I doubt the malware come from Allwinner. Maybe it's just one (or more) OEM that include whatever APK they found on the internet without checking.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Linus just recently did a whole episode on a few Android TV boxes from China. Very concernig findings

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Who? The guy with questionable "methodology"?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

In total the researchers confirmed eight devices with backdoors installed—seven TV boxes, the T95, T95Z, T95MAX, X88, Q9, X12PLUS, and MXQ Pro 5G, and a tablet J5-W.

The other thing discussed is fraudulent android apps that have been removed from the play store.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


This week, cybersecurity firm Human Security is revealing new details about the scope of the infected devices and the hidden, interconnected web of fraud schemes linked to the streaming boxes.

“They’re like a Swiss Army knife of doing bad things on the Internet,” says Gavin Reid, the CISO at Human Security who leads the company’s Satori Threat Intelligence and Research team.

“This is a truly distributed way of doing fraud.” Reid says the company has shared details of facilities where the devices may have been manufactured with law enforcement agencies.

In the second half of 2022, Human Security says in its report, its researchers spotted an Android app that appeared to be linked to inauthentic traffic and connected to the domain flyermobi.com.

When Milisic posted his initial findings about the T95 Android box in January, the research also pointed to the flyermobi domain.

The company’s report, which has data scientist Marion Habiby as its lead author, says Human Security spotted at least 74,000 Android devices showing signs of a Badbox infection around the world—including some in schools across the US.


The original article contains 455 words, the summary contains 180 words. Saved 60%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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