[dpoloncsak]

> Major US ISPs (Comcast, AT&T) should detect clearly suspicious activity coming from customer IPs and warn them to scan their computers, check their TV apps, and find whatever is turning their internet into a proxy. It's very bad for the customers too (slows things down, gets their IP banned, etc)

Is there incentive for them to? If anything, you might be paying extra for the data use and not even know it, right? They would lose money

[kotaKat]

frmr ISP call center nerd here that took calls for hundreds of rural ISPs in North America, ranging from little rural fiber coops to as large as the former Hargray of South Carolina:

The support costs of malware remediation fucking suck. The moment you try to implement some kind of blocker in place like this is the moment you flood your call center(s) with thousands of ignorant consumers that have zero clue what you're trying to tell them, can't comprehend that they have "a virus problem", and are not going to calmly listen to a support rep try to suddenly train them on what the issue is and how to fix it.

(Bonus points for liability on what we direct a customer to do or not do.)

all Jimbob knows is that "comcast has blocked me from getting to my pornhub" and is very angry at the rep they have on the phone.

There's a reason we used to be told to blow people off with a 'contact your local computer shop' and it's time and money and liability.

[jacobgold]

It may actually be costing them money through higher peak usage (requiring more capacity). I'm not sure but either way the government should have a role if market incentives aren't sufficient.

[justcool393]

yeah no, this isn't a good take imo. we already have way too much of ISPs doing bad things to internet shaping and random governmental overreach (from state govts no less!) on domains and such.

if someone wants to knowingly host a proxy they should. stuffing it along with other apps is shady and if LG wants to disallow those apps from their store than w/e but like we don't need governmental stuff encroaching on this stuff. if LG wants to do moderation on those apps than whatever.

there was a lot of fighting over this stuff back in the early 2010s because the alternative was effectively a balkanized corponet.

smart TVs, by virtue of being devices you can write apps for, have morphed into more general purpose computing devices and keeping it as open as it can be is important. the backsliding from stuff like Android has been horrible for the ecosystem and that shouldn't be normalized, let alone as a legal requirement geez