Latest update removing dev mode

[Anonymous User]

Originally by JaBuzzard: (Post 1 page 49)

SeeMoreDigital wrote:
What???

A NOW TV branded box retails at just £15. 00. The Roku boxes cost signi��cantly more! Somebodies
taking a hit for the differences!

Yes Roku are not making a pro��t. There is a large difference between zero pro��t and a subsidy. The bill
of materials for a NowTV box is most likely well under £15, and my bet is most of the NowTV boxes sold
are not the £15 ones either , because wait a bit and you can get one with a pass for the same amount of
money or even less, to the point where people who never sideloaded anything have draw fulls of the
boxes, because even an offer of £20 for a box with a 3 month entertainment pass (and there have been
lots of better offers) is cheaper than buying three months of passes which would cost you £21 and you
get a spare remote too.

Originally by Wufflebonk: (Post 2 Page 49)

jabuzzard wrote:
SeeMoreDigital wrote:
What???

A NOW TV branded box retails at just £15. 00. The Roku boxes cost signi��cantly more!
Somebodies taking a hit for the differences!

Yes Roku are not making a pro��t. There is a large difference between zero pro��t and a subsidy. The
bill of materials for a NowTV box is most likely well under £15, and my bet is most of the NowTV
boxes sold are not the £15 ones either , because wait a bit and you can get one with a pass for the
same amount of money or even less, to the point where people who never sideloaded anything
have draw fulls of the boxes, because even an offer of £20 for a box with a 3 month entertainment
pass (and there have been lots of better offers) is cheaper than buying three months of passes
which would cost you £21 and you get a spare remote too.

I'll let you carry on with this one 🙂

I'm busy doing other things....

Besides I see @SeeMoreDigital and co have gotten out the vinyl's again... damn they must be so
scratched and broken now the amount of times they've been played. I think Violins are probably all but
worn out too...

Originally by ukbobboy:

@SeeMoreDigital

Hi again SMD

Unfortunately, your answer shows that you have made an assumption based on another assumption,
i.e. if a Roku 3 retail cost £70. 00 and a NowTV black box is £15. 00 then someone is loosing out
somewhere.

However , my experience is somewhat different, remember when video VHS recorder , way back when,
cost on average £400. 00 retail. Did you know that they only cost £71. 00 to manufacture, package and
ship from Japan to the UK, the additional costs were mainly just "mark-up", i.e. what the market will
bear .

Since retail economics has not changed since then, just the products sold, I would suggest you rethink
your "highly subsidised" mantra, unless you can prove otherwise.


UK Bob

Originally by 4268:

@ukbobboy have you considered that there is such a thing as a loss leader .

Originally by Eddie-M (NowTV Team):

Hi @Anonymous User


Thanks for raising your concerns to us here on the Community, In relation to what a Now TV agent has
said about Plex being illegal your correct it is not however the content available to use with in Plex and
other Apps like it can be seen as illegal and therefore puts Now TV in a difficult position with Studios
and Record companies and therefore the decision was made to remove the Dev Mode which enabled
the ability to install Plex via Sideloading due to Plex not being available in the Now TV app store. Also if
apps are being used via the Now T v box that are not available in the App store provided and are
installed by other means i.e Sideloading then Now TV have the right to remove that functionallity if we
wish to do so. If your complaint relates to official apps in the app store available via the Now TV box
then please do raise those concerns with us and we will do what we can can to rectify them. However if
it only relates to an app not offically available on the Now TV box then we cannot do anything further
and there would be no legal basis for us to put that function back as it is against our terms of use. I
hope this clears it up for you and if you have any further questions please do ask away and we will do
our best to answer or at least get the answer for you.


Thanks
Eddie

Originally by DessieB:

Hi Eddie,

I wonder if you could take a moment to explain how customers using Plex on a NOW TV box puts Now
TV in a difficult position with Studios and Record companies, but Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Roku
all provide Plex for their Streaming boxes and Google provide Plex for android TV boxes without this
putting them in a difficult position with Studios and Record companies?

Thanks
DessieB

Originally by Eddie-M (Official NowTV Team)

Hi @Anonymous User

This would come down to legal notices Now TV have received and therefore have had to remove the
fuction due to some Customers using Plex to watch Pirated Content. So the Dev Mode has been
disabled to prevent Pirated content in the future which in turn has disabled Plex which again can be
used to access Content which can be seen as illegal. This is the steps we found nessecerry to take to
prevent this from happening. If others have not done this then we cannot speak for them we feel this
was the best step to take.


Cheers

Originally by DessieB

Hi Eddie,

So are you suggesting that Apple, Amazon, Roku and Google have not received similar legal notices, or
that they have received similar notices but have chosen to ignore them?

DessieB

Originally by Eddie-M (Official NowTV Team):

No at all @Anonymous User


I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. I am telling you what Now TV have received and what we have
done to rectify it if other companies have recieved the same notices then i'm sure they are taking the
Steps nessecerry to rectify that however we at Now TV are not privy to that information and therefore
cannot discuss what other companies intend to do if anything or if they have recieved the same
notices we can only discuss what Now TV have recieved and what we have done to ��x it. At the end of
the day Plex is not an offical app in the App store via the Now TV box therefore Now TV have no
legal obligation to provide that app and therefore can remove any means of accessing it.


Cheers

Originally by MattPenfold:

Eddie-M wrote:
Hi @Anonymous User


Thanks for raising your concerns to us here on the Community, In relation to what a Now TV agent
has said about Plex being illegal your correct it is not however the content available to use with in
Plex and other Apps like it can be seen as illegal and therefore puts Now TV in a difficult position
with Studios and Record companies and therefore the decision was made to remove the Dev Mode
which enabled the ability to install Plex via Sideloading due to Plex not being available in the Now
TV app store. Also if apps are being used via the Now T v box that are not available in the App store
provided and are installed by other means i.e Sideloading then Now TV have the right to remove
that functionallity if we wish to do so. If your complaint relates to official apps in the app store
available via the Now TV box then please do raise those concerns with us and we will do what we
can can to rectify them. However if it only relates to an app not offically available on the Now TV box
then we cannot do anything further and there would be no legal basis for us to put that function
back as it is against our terms of use. I hope this clears it up for you and if you have any further
questions please do ask away and we will do our best to answer or at least get the answer for you.


Thanks
Eddie
So why was I told Plex is illegal Eddie? You admit is untrue, yet that did not stop your colleagues from
say Plex is illegal software. What do you intend to do about their lack of honesty?

You claim you have the right to remove side-loaded apps, but you failed to offer any evidence you have
that right. Since you offered no evidence I can dismiss your claim you have that rigjt as baseless. You
have a choice. You can either offer that evidence, or accept you lied to me.

Originally by MattPenfold: (Post 1 on page 50)

Eddie,
You have admitted that Not TV altered my box. The law, in the form of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 is
clear in this regard. Unless you can show Now TV were authorized to access my box and make
alterations NOW TV have committed a criminal offence under Section 35 of that act. It is possible that
Now TV could be considered to have committed an offence under Section 37 , if there was intend to
impair use of the computer . A Section 35 offence carries a maximum sentence of 2 years
imprisonment, and a Section 37 offence carries a maximum of 10 years. Both offences can also carry
an unlimited Ƭne.
So you can only claim that Now TV have not comitted an offence under either Section 35 or 37 if you
can show you had authorisation to access my Now TV box. If you cannot do so, you will be admitting
that NOW TV commited a criminal offence.

Originally by WuffleBonk: (Post 2 on page 50)

@Anonymous User from NowTV, I think there's an age old addidge here that relates to Digging holes and knowing
when to stop 😄

From what I can see, your just not doing ANYTHING to help here, except making up what looks like
semi plausible explanations and hoping that we'll all buy into it.

I have to tip my hat and give you points for trying though. As myself and my co-conspiritors have
recently discovered, we can actually use the official, authourized apps that ARE in the NowTV store,
and pre installed on the box, INCLUDING YOUR VERY OWN NOWTV APP , to play ANY CONTENT we
want, including pirated content should we so wish, I wonder what the recording industry and
music/movie producers that sent NowTV those cease and desist plex letters would do if they found out
about that fact???

I think you'd be forced to remove your own apps, and every official app from the box, IF what your
trying to spin to us all, is actually true....

[Miketurn]

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@Anonymous User wrote:

Have sideloaded apps been removed from the smart box too? Mine still has Plex on it.

---

Not yet, but you'd think they probably will with a future update. I guess that with far less people having the Smart box it's not quite so urgent to disbable dev mode.

Nice to still have use of my USB media player app for now though.

[Anonymous User]

The smart box isn't attractive to the pirates as it costs more than streaming sticks so there's no profit in them selling them with plex on.

[Anonymous User]

I sent a complaint to Now TV over two weeks ago, asking what legal authority they had to remove Plex from my Now TV box.

They have not replied. So it seems they cannot say what legal authority they had. I am sure if they knew they would have let me know. Their silence seems to be an admission they know they have no defence. 

[Anonymous User]

This is about Now TV updating our NOW TV boxes without legal authority. They have been asked to cite the legal authority they had, but have not done so. I am sure if they knew the legal basis on which they were acting they would have let us know. Instead it has been two weeks of silence. 

That weakens their legal defence, as the courts expect a legal defence to be offered as soon as possible. It would take two weeks of silence as being a mark against NOW TV. 

[Miketurn]

Matt, every Now tv box comes with a pamphlet inside labelled 'the nitty gritty'. Have a read if you're bored as it clearly states the position between the consumer and Now tv regarding the box, software and updates.

In short, you own the box, but not the software, and they can update the software as and when required. How legal this all is, I wouldn't know, but it's there in black and white.

[ukbobboy]

@Miketurn @Anonymous User

Hi Mike

I'm guessing that the legality in taking away a facility on your hardware that you have grown to depend on has to be tested in court but, I must say, I totally agree with the position Matt has taken because it cannot be right to disable your hardware without permission.

Let me quickly explain where I'm coming from, when I bought my first NowTV (white) box back in 2014 I realised that with Plex I could use it to play digital music. I then started my digital collection by downloading mp3 files I had previously purchased as physical CDs from  Amazon UK.

Since then I bought a sound system I could attach to my TV via an optical cable and basically started to re-buy all the music I used to enjoy when I was younger and also buy the songs that I had missed out on. And all this was and still is perfectly legal.

However,  now that I have nearly 200 digital albums, I find it incredulous that Sky/NowTV can reach into my home and rip the heart out of my entertainment system and then treat me, a long term customer (and the rest of us) like mushrooms. In other words, they lied, lied and lied again about their reasons for performing such an outrageous act. 

So, like Matt, I believe they have no legal reason for acting the way they did other than limiting choice on the NowTV boxes to NowTV and their selected partners only.  

And that's why I now believe NowTV will never, ever, host a UKPlayer app or allow anymore facilities on the NowTV boxes, despite the many requests from forum members, they do not want their customers to be distracted away from NowTV's offerings.

You know, I wish Sky/NowTV's actions could be tested in court but, I guess, it would take a long time to get a definitive legal ruling and by that time the technology would have moved on, also to challenge them in the courts would eat up a lot of resources.  

I've decided to cut my losses and buy a Roku 3, which I have already done. I've got my music back, access to the USB port and all it's extra functionality, as well as all the apps/channels I could ever wish to have. Plus, I've not decided what I am going to use the SD port for but I'll think of something.

Buying the Roku 3 is the best move I've made this year.

UK Bob

[Anonymous User]

Given unauthorised modification of a computer device is a criminal offense, the simple next step is report the crime to the police. Probably best done as a letter as the local plod probably won't understand what is going on. If the police choose not to investigate file a complaint.

[Anonymous User]

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@Miketurn wrote:

Matt, every Now tv box comes with a pamphlet inside labelled 'the nitty gritty'. Have a read if you're bored as it clearly states the position between the consumer and Now tv regarding the box, software and updates.

In short, you own the box, but not the software, and they can update the software as and when required. How legal this all is, I wouldn't know, but it's there in black and white.

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It is not legal at all. The consent must be explicit. 

[Anonymous User]

There is another solution rather than a long drawn out legal battle. If everyone stopped using their box and cancelled their subscripion (as I have done) I think we would see the sideload app suddenly re-appear, as if by magic !!!

[Anonymous User]

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@Anonymous User wrote:

I am pretty sure that just doing a DNS blackholeing on windsor.sw.roku.com would do the trick. This is where the box goes to work out what firmware to download. Well it's where the white box goes, I would have to double check for the black one. I get a round robbin DNS at the moment on 52.54.161.124 and 52.45.222.251. These are Amazon EC2 IP addresses, which is in line with everything else. It looks like Roku are fully vested in the cloud. The two IP addresses are both CentOS machines that are running Apache but only open for https connections. They appear to be using certificates that are self signed by Roku. Checking the certificate just now (only just thought of that) seems to indicate that it is valid for all these hostnames, which on checking are all doing roundrobin on the above two IP addresses at the moment.

amarillo.sw.roku.com
austin.sw.roku.com
bryan.sw.roku.com
camden.sw.roku.com
cooper.sw.roku.com
giga.sw.roku.com
gilbert.sw.roku.com
liberty.sw.roku.com
littlefield.sw.roku.com
longview.sw.roku.com
midland.sw.roku.com
paolo.sw.roku.com
richmond.sw.roku.com
rollingwood.sw.roku.com
sugarland.sw.roku.com
tyler.sw.roku.com
update.sw.roku.com
victoria.sw.roku.com
windsor.sw.roku.com

I know that doing a DNS redirect on windsor.sw.roku.com breaks the scan for latest firmware on the white box at least for me. Whether it blocks all sources of firmware update is a different question, though it would be reasonable to assume that a response policy zone in BIND with all the above to somewhere else would break the firmware update. I believe that other than "update" these are all codenames for the different boxes. No responsibility taken if your box updates however.

As far as I can tell the boxes will only talk to the *.sw.roku.com website if it is using a self signed certificate from Roku. Putting in a CNAME for another DNS name and the box goes to it but after establishing a connection it gives up without actually trying to do anything, even if the site has a proper certificate. That is redirect to roku.hacker.com which is your domain and roku.hacker.com has a proper certificate that the likes of Chrome, Firefox etc. recognize nothing happens, which is a shame.

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Not been doing much on this at the present (Got a large contract I'm in the middle of doing) however.....

"victoria" is where the black box (Or at least the one I have) goes for it's updates.  There also seems to be some logging servers where "Call Home" data of some kind is sent, in my case "victoria.logging.roku.com"