Clampdown on TV 'Dodgy Boxes'

I really don't see it being driven at a State level, but could see the EU issuing a directive forcing the State's hand. Realistically, this is like road traffic enforcement - not popular so there is no political will, so it will take EU to force their hand imo.

Could quite easily be done with fines from Coimisiún na Meán rather than revenue or gardai. Fines are issued already in this State by non-gardai - for example road tolls which can ultimately lead to prosecution for non payment.

I say this as someone who is considering my options, given Irish users once again frozen out from accessing content legally via HBO Max, which is mirroring the TNT Sports restrictions - no TNT 5-8 available, no app access, so no legal route to lots of sports like cycling!

Pedantic much?

It's common to refer to someone with expertise in an area to be referred to as "an authority" in that area.

That's an option alright however even at EU level, with all their is to deal with, I'd think this was well well down the list of priorities.

Any issuance of fines is ultimately backed up by the courts system, no matter who issues them also - it would take a long long time to enforce leglislation in this area that would lead to enough people dropping these services.

The rights holders really need to stop paying over the top money for sporting rights, reduce and condense their overall packages and supply a good affordable product to those that want to watch it.

The Krebs link that I posted upthread. It has links to the research and details of devices potentially affected.

As I said, no more than the scramblers and many other things, the leglislation is there already - at most it can be "strengthened" but without a full path to enforcement or a change in behaviour of the rights holders, it's not going to have any significant effect.

No it is not. There's a difference between someone from a company being quoted and an acknowledged expert being quoted. An acknowledged expert is generally considered an authority on their subject. The problem is that when it comes to Technology and other specialist fields, journalists will use all sorts of terms to make their quotes sounds more authoritative.An authority does sound more impressive than a mere expert.

Even if you ended up with a compromised android box, couldn't you set up a 2nd router as an access point, put it as the only device connected to it and stop outbound traffic from the device?

I'm not 100% sure of this by my own admission.

BTW - as somebody who has worked with - and companies who employed - companies like GT, any assumption that these people are all experts in their field needs to be tempered with the fact that they are huge bums on seats factories with big teams and for every 1 expert there's 5-10 absolutely useless jobs worths who cost a fortune despite their uselessness.

I'd say a few more token raids and prosecutions will take place - and a few Joe Bloggs customers will be prosecuted too, to take the bad look off it.

Do you really think that in the event of a blanket shutdown of these streaming services, that all the dodgy customers are going to instantly sign up to legitimate services?

Not a hope, and then, what do you think the advertising agencies (who dont give a damn how the consumer views their ads) will say to the TV company when said TV company wants to charge the same for carrying said ads - without the 6 million odd spurious viewers across Ireland and the UK.

In my line of work, things would actually be a lot easier if they did all vanish in the morning - how people pay money for the utter crap service on most of those restreaming services is beyond me - but people do.

You obviously have problems with comprehension. This is what I wrote above and I have not disgreed with him:

" Listened to the Newstalk clip and it was generally accurate and simplified for a non-technical audience.

https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/highlights-from-newstalk-breakfast/dodgy-boxes-are-even-dodgier-than-you-might-think

Grant Thornton didn't do the research on Kimwolf. An important point was missed that some of these low-end Chinese boxes are shipped in a compromised state. At least it wasn't a "technology" journalist being interviewed."

The point about low-end Chinese devices being shipped in a compromised state is important and it was not made in the interview.

This is the issue though. The service from a lot of these providers is wholly adequate for the person who is paying for it.

Do the want full 4k with X and y bells and whistles on it, most likely not. They want a relatively stable picture, options for many many different content types at a low cost.

i am not triggered by anything called.I'm been sneered at all the time but I am the one that gets called out for it.

I am saying anything that is untrue but people seemed to be triggered by what I say.

No skin in the game at all.

IPTV is here to stay and will be the future of TV. Illegal IPTV maybe not.

But people are delusional if they think the SKY can afford to reduce prices to IPTV levels when IPTV pirates don't have to produce any of the material they steal and rebroadcast.

The main focus of what Grant Thornton were saying was related to cheap IOT devices people have around the house and that are becoming more popular.

It's the media that focused on the dodgy box element of it because they know that's a click driver.

So I doubt that the cyber security division of Grant Thornton are being contracted by Sky or some other vested Interest.

Maybe their independent expertise in the area came to the conclusions they came up with.