Data collected on me by ROKU

Correction:
I meant to say “The Pi-hole on the Rpi…”

1 Like

That may not be valid - because DNS lookups that are made from the DNS server itself may or may not go through the local DNS server (depending on how things are configured).

In other words, try doing any DNS lookups on another computer on your LAN, not the Roku (because presumably that is not possible - no shell access) and not the Raspberry Pi (Pi-hole / DNS server). Your Librem 5 should be fine for the purpose (although nslookup won’t be installed by default, I think, and if not then you need to install the package dnsutils - or(?) use dig instead of nslookup with appropriate syntax change).

Even so, the Pi itself won’t use Pi-hole unless you have set that up. (If that’s intentional that the Pi does not use itself for DNS lookups then you should be careful to avoid doing any web surfing from the Pi itself.)

(For example, on my DNS server, the DNS server on the ethernet connection is set to 127.0.0.1 so that the local DNS server will be used when the DNS server itself wants to resolve something e.g. get software updates from a repo.

And to add even more complication, it is using systemd-resolved on 127.0.0.53 as the actual server for local DNS clients but this will eventually wind up at 127.0.0.1 so all is good. Basically systemd-resolved is handling the connection-specific DNS server IP addresses, as individual network interfaces come up and go down, by presenting a single static DNS server IP address.)

Put another way, you are presumably getting the whole LAN to use Pi-hole for DNS resolution by handing that DNS server IP address out via DHCP - but the DNS server itself typically does not use DHCP to get an IP address and so the DNS server IP address would be configured statically on the DNS server.

This is doubly so with Pi-hole because, I think, it can act as the DHCP server and you certainly don’t set a DHCP server up to get an IP address via DHCP!

If you run your own DNS server (in this case Pi-hole), it may be safer to configure the DNS server to do lookups itself by traversing from the DNS root, rather than by relaying to an external provider (even a trusted one) - providing that your DNS server has that functionality - but there are trade-offs with that and so you would only make that decision are careful consideration.

Yes, well, we haven’t even got near sorting that out yet - because we are still trying to see whether the TTL is being sent correctly.

Maybe at some point in the future, Purism could start their own competitive offering to replace Roku. The service could run on a bare-bones Librem Mini running Kodi. A part of the value in the Roku is in how quickly and easily you can just plug it in, answer a few questions, and then you’re all ready to go with little to no techie configurations needed.

Purism could do the same and send push-outs to the boxes, if/when needed. And just like the AwSim service, Purism could own the subscribers accounts and keep them private from all providers and their affiliates. No programming provider would know anything about any subscriber this way. All they would know is the sum totals of programming that they sold through Purism while the subscriber remains fully anonymous as far as the provider is concerned. Purism could collect a small fee (maybe 10%) on every transaction, to make it profitable to them. This could also give Purism a potentially large new recurring income stream.

As a side benefit to the subscribers, Purism could have a version of Kodi that is customized to run on the Librem 5 and handle the authentication of customers and their paid multimedia streaming accounts. No need to build and support a Windows version. Make it run only on Librem products, or at least require some Linux distro to run.

A Librem media/streaming device would be great, and I would definitely buy one, but there would be no service to pay Purism for. Any subscription fees would be paid to the individual channels, e.g. Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, etc. And you can already just install Kodi yourself on a RaspberryPi, for instance. Some channels, such as internet radio or ad-supported film channels, you don’t even have to pay for. (Of course, even on a libre device, you have to prevent commercial channels from collecting your data.)

But definitely :+1: for a Librem streaming device.

Purism could stand in the middle, between the content provider and the customer. On a Roku, when I subscribe to Netflix through Roku, Roku charges me monthly for Netflix, on behalf of Netflix. So Purism’s job would be to collect money from me, pay Netflix, and tell Netflix that it’s none of their damned business who I am. Netflix would be paid by Purism for me, and would not be paid by me directly. The same would go for all other paid streaming services. None of them would ever know who their customer is, nor would they know anything about their customers. The Purism streaming device would store only a very minimal amount of data, only enough to give you an account that contains no profiling information. And the streaming provider would never get any of that information.

1 Like

I subscribe to whatever paid service directly on their website, then link the account when I add the channel to Roku.

They know who you are and everything that that Google and their affiliates know about you.

Well, yeah. They’re collecting data on you whether you’re paying the bill through Roku or through the providers directly. Hopefully it’s not entirely futile to set stricter account privacy with a given service, especially if you’re covered by a jurisdiction with more strident consumer protections. (It has already been demonstrated that Roku and loaded channels are not exactly privacy-respecting, even with the “Limit Personalized Advertising” box checked.)

But I get what you’re saying about a Purism-controlled middleman-service a la AweSIM.

Growing up, the Yakov Smirnoff joke was, “In Soviet-Russia - TV WATCHES YOU!!” Perhaps the country needs to be updated to reflect current affairs.

Yes, updated to be the whole world (give or take).

Here Free-To-Air providers would rather that you watch the exact same program on catch-up TV because then they know whether you are watching, what you are watching, how you are watching, …

Then add a TV that has voice command capability so that the TV is not only watching you but also listening to you …