Sony is thinking of a radical way to block illegal streams

The Japanese company has filed a patent for technology capable of blocking or limiting the performance of IPTV applications on connected TVs and streaming boxes. Problem: This solution looks a lot like spyware.

Not the last when it comes to fighting piracy, Sony has a new idea to prevent internet users from accessing illegal streams. as spotted torrentfreak, the Japanese company has just filed a new invention with the US Patent Office. And reading the document carefully, one wonders what the engineers had in mind… who simply plan to spy on all the apps you install on your TV or streaming device… in order to block potential pirate IPTV streams.

baptized Anti-hacking monitoring based on blacklist functionality The patent already describes, in necessarily vague terms, a solution that installs by default on electronic devices. It will be able to monitor what other software is doing and block any pirated apps based on a “blacklist” of content.

Permanent monitoring of your activity

The application, integrated for example into the Android operating system of your TV, can scan in real time other programs running on the device. It is written in the foreground, in black and white: The monitoring application has system privileges to scan code and execute third-party software installed on the electronic device.” This program, which would be logically hidden from the user, could constantly monitor network requests made by all third-party applications, such as access to a specific IP address, for example.

Then, the powerful monitoring tool will compare these requests against a blacklist of IP addresses or URLs leading to pirated content, regularly updated on a cloud service that it communicates with constantly. If there is a match, it may block the implementation of the IPTV application.

But Sony goes further than that. And imagine more vicious scenarios, which might mislead the user into thinking that their ‘pirate’ application is a victim of a bug rather than an anti-piracy measure. ” electronic device (Television, for example, editor’s note) can reduce the bandwidth allocated to the third-party application to reduce content quality, increase cache time […] where Take irregular pauses while reading. Clever, right?

Unnamed spyware

The software invented by Sony ticks almost all the boxes for… spyware. Like spyware, it will be able to collect data and pass it on to a third party, without the user of the device really being aware of it. With the possibility of changing the work of other programs installed on the device.

Moreover, such a system can cause thorny security issues, since the program will have privileged access to the system, while it is online. If poorly programmed, it can quickly become a prime target for unscrupulous hackers.

Let’s not immediately panic: this invention is – for now – only a patent, and it is not certain, far from it, that Sony will one day integrate it into TVs connected to it.

We hope so, even if, over the past decades, Sony has shown on several occasions that it does not hesitate to go to great lengths to try to curb piracy. The eldest among you may remember the XCP scandal, this rootkit who settled down quietly When we inserted some Sony-BMG audio CDs into a computer… in order to prohibit copying them. Or even DRM Cinavia, which is built into the PS3, which automatically cuts audio for pirated content. Sony clearly still has an imagination running wild.

Source :

torrentfreak