Clampdown on TV 'Dodgy Boxes'

What in the AI nonsense is this?

But why always the big conspiracy?

Why do you assume GT are in the pocket of Sky ?

As I said the main thrust of the GT piece was IOT devices around the house, not dodgy boxes.

Everyone who knows anything about dodgy boxes knows that Firesticks are the main devices used.

If GT were doing Sky's bidding surely they would come up with something about Firesticks being compromised.

As for Wrckler he has to walk a tight line, he can't be seen to promote or condone the use of illegal streaming, he has to err on the side of caution and that means pointing out the problems with it rather than the advantages of it.

I'm a dodgy box user. I absolutely love it.

But I don't care if Weckler or GT point out the dangers, I don't care if there is talk of a crack down, I don't care if Sky are working the media to disuade people from using them or if Sky are spreading FUD about them. They are well within their rights to do that.

Why are the dodgy box evangelists so worked up about people in the mainstream media saying they are dodgy?

This gave me a good chuckle. Top work @Boggles

You are really hung up on the existence or otherwise of a report.

I don't know or care if one exists.

All I know is that the media have been talking about advice from GT about IOT devices including dodgy boxes.

any chance of the details, could do with a better server!

better pull the plug so, thankfully ive far greater addictions to keep me going though

we ll be grand, dont believe everything you read either

about bloody time, tis probably too late though

is that for 30 a month?

"The number of households in Ireland who possess “dodgy boxes” are estimated anywhere between 320,000 and 400,000, according to Sky Ireland."

That's the actual quote from the Indo paywalled article.

Would you not just be better off signing up to those seperately without the 12-24 month contract sky will tie you into.

I thought the main selling point of the streamers was the rolling contract option.

You subscribe when the shows you like get released and hop around the other streamers doing similar.

Surely cheaper then 360 euro per year or whatever it will be.

myp2p was fantastic

Generally accurate is not good enough. They should have checked out the story.

Advertising revenue is important and dodgybox networks don't advertise. There are also legal issues with a mainstream publication endorsing piracy. Ideally, from a PR point of view, it would be more effective to target the technology journalists with any media campaign as the general public might think that they had a clue about technology. Such a campaign exploits their credibility with the public. A few well-worded press releases with sensational claims about numbers that sound "official" can be quite effective. (There has still been no satisfactory explanation of MUSO's methodology and claims. I am even more cynical about claims relating to domain names and IP addresses made without data to support them.)

RTE's piece was a good effort. (It has actually improved dramatically and that piece on mobile phone tracking was excellent for a non-technical audience.) RTE accepted those MUSO figures without question. The pieces from the legacy media tend to be of a consistently lower quality (they have to be produced rapidly and there is little or no time for deeper research) and seem to rely on press releases. People who have never worked in the media don't realise how much of the content that they read is actually based on press releases. They are free content for the publications and with an issue like dodgyboxes, they are guaranteed to get coverage for the broadcasters and revenue for the publications.

Warning about the risks of default passwords is all well and good. It is basic cybersecuriy precautions and it should be taught at a primary school level.

As for the low-end devices. Read this:

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/01/the-kimwolf-botnet-is-stalking-your-local-network/

Potential malware on these devices is only part of the problem. Some devices are shipped in a compromised state.

This is a more technical explanation of Kimwolf and its operation.

https://synthient.com/blog/a-broken-system-fueling-botnets

The reason why piracy has changed since the days of the streaming websites is because technology has evolved. In the past, accessing a Pay TV broadcast either required a pirate decoder or a modified official decoder, or an official decoder and a pirate smartcard. All of these hacks had a limited operational lifetime as the system providers were generally working on countermeasures to stop the hacks working. One of the worst decisions was a common platform for digital satellite TV Conditional Access Modules. It happened in the 1990s and provided a common system for multiple systems. Sky and News Datacom decided to stay of of it and kept their CAM proprietary. That avoided some problems because a genuine Sky settop box was needed to pirate the service. That changed when it became possible to emulate Sky's CAM in software. That removed one limiting factor on Sky's system. The availability of settop boxes that could be used like this increased when a major broadcaster went bust and a lot of cheap boxes flooded on to the market. The boxes were known as DBox or DBox2 and it was possible to modify the operating system of these devices. They were also ideal for card sharing. It still limited some forms of piracy because of the cost. The technology, at the time, was still not viable for ordinary end-users to connect up a TV cheaply. Fast forward twenty five years or so and the technology is cheaper, the public is more technologically adept due to the use of smartphones, tablets, laptops etc. That combined with lower cost made dodgybox networks a perfect storm for broadcasters. That's the thing that RTE's acedemic didn't even mention. It is not surprising because it is an Pay TV idustry issue. The only thing that the broadcasters can rely upon is detecting subscriptions that may be fraudulent. That may not work well where the rights for content is licenced to multiple broadcasters. Does the Irish media realise this or even know about these issues? It is highly unlikely. They just concentrate on covering detected dodgybox neworks, court cases and press releases.

Streaming websites are also more easily detected due to their reliance on domain names. As they become more well-known, even MUSO and others can find them. Apps can be more effective though reverse-engineering them might provide the domain name (if any) being used. The problem with that is that is that it requires a copy of the app and the people who create the app might have taken some precautions. It is electronic warfare and describing it as a "cat and mouse" game is a grossly inaccurate simplification.

All Pay TV operators expect to have an acceptable level of losses due to various forms of piracy and fraud. The problem isthat they have effectively lost control of their model where a subscription and a dedicated settop box was required to access their service. Streaming sites were not a major problem and neither was card sharing because both had inherent limiting factors. Dodgybox networks are a much greater problem than either. And legislation, as suggested by others, will simply not work on its own. The journalists in the Irish media might think that it would. The Pay TV industry knows that it doesn't and never did.

You do know that Sky own NOW don't you?

You may no longer be tied to a contract but you are not rid of Sky.