Announcement from the dev, in the project GitHub and Patreon:
Friends, it seems that my digital signature has been exposed. This signature protects the app from fake and malicious updates, so there is a risk that someone may try to release counterfeit versions under my name.
To completely eliminate any threats, I’ve decided to stop using the current signature and switch to a new one. Because of this, the app’s identifier will also change. You don’t need to delete the old app (but it will no longer receive updates) — the new one will install as a separate app and will need to be configured again.
Thank you for your understanding and attention to security.[1][2]
---------------
There aren't any new apk releases on GitHub yet. However, concerningly, the SmartTube website (which I won't link directly) still offers undated "Stable" and "Beta" downloads.
It sucks to deal with security breaches as an indie or solo dev, but I'll be waiting for a more detailed postmortem before assessing whether to install a future release... Hopefully one that details new security procedures to guard both the dev's key and the production build environment.
Factory resetting my Shield as a precaution, but nothing sensitive was really on there, and Android's security model did exactly what it was supposed to and limited the damage. When using a third party app like this, it's prudent to use it signed out or else with a purpose specific Google/YouTube account which is connected to nothing else critical.
> To completely eliminate any threats, I’ve decided to stop using the current signature and switch to a new one. Because of this, the app’s identifier will also change. You don’t need to delete the old app (but it will no longer receive updates)
I'm curious if this is the best idea? Like, if you don't read all the GitHub releases thoroughly or miss the HN material, and instead you just auto-install updates, you downloaded a malware-infested version which will be on your device until you learn otherwise?
> SmartTube’s developer told me that the computer used to create the APKs for the project’s official GitHub page was compromised by malware. As a result, some official SmartTube releases were unintentionally released with malware.
Seems it's lacking in information about how a malware manages to compromise supposedly signed releases? Do authors not have the production signing keys behind a password or similar, and review 100% of the changes before they deploy stuff?
I swear the more time goes on, the more I'm loosing faith in the entire ecosystem. People running random binaries on the same device they do banking on always surprised me, but now developers manages to get malware on their developer machine and are publishing random binaries to other strangers???
the malware need not actively create a release like a worm, it can just infect every build and if you don't check carefully, your next regular release will contain it.
is one of the reason we fight holy wars for SSO and strict login rules even for Dev or QA environments -- if you can get in during a dev build you can get stuff in there that carries through.
maybe QA will find it... but they're testing X number of JIRA tickets based on Y epics and if it's not on the list they're not looking...
Blocking file-based installations was never planned. It's fake news and always has been. It's all about requiring code signing for all code so that malware-spreading authors can be easily blocked by adding their signing key fingerprint to the blocklist.
It doesn't matter whether the app is installed via Play Store, Huawei's or Samsung's store etc., or from APK.
I am currently in process of "verifying" my identity with Android Developer console.
In addition to proof of identity (e.g. passport/driver license) Google is demanding a proof of address, government registration, this month's rental agreement, foreign passport... The process is stuck in limbo because months-old documents are deemed "outdated", and I am constantly threatened that my verification request (!) will be denied because of "exceeding allowed number of attempts" (!!)
It shares the same principle as silent Discord account bans and other "verification" harassment schemes, such as Upwork account verification. The excess developers — Google's potential competitors — need to be banished from platform as quickly and cheaply as possible, so that Google can peddle their own spyware unimpeded.
This is a drastic misrepresentation of the situation. All Android apps already have code signing, you cannot install an app unless it has a signature, and any future updates are blocked unless the signature matches. This is how it's been practically since the start of Android, it's part of the security model to prevent something like a malicious Firefox APK stealing your cookies.
What's new is that they were gonna block installations outside of Google Play, unless the developer has signed up for Google Play Console and has gone through a verification process there, whitelisting their signing key fingerprint. However, they've walked back on this and said they'll create a new "advanced flow" for "advanced users" that's "designed to resist coercion" to bypass this restriction. Door in the face technique IMO, the existing 12-step process to installing an app was already complicated enough.
So effectively the result is that file based installations will be blocked unless Google has specifically whitelisted their key through the Google Play Console verification process, or the user goes through this "advanced flow" which we're yet to see any details of
It's not just cost and ads. It's having the possibility to reduce attempts to manipulate my inner reptile brain. With various clients, you can disable shorts, recommended, you have sponsorblock, you can replace youtube-face-thumbs with actual thumbs and get crowd-sourced titles that better reflect the contents.
I also don't need to manually go set speed to 1.75x and enable subs in english, it's a one-time setting. _Further_ I can download a video locally, for whatever reason (later viewing, bw throttling, risk of deletion, etc).
As if that weren't enough, I don't have to watch videos logged in, my client is just set up to download my select channels.
Its such a good client. With the YT Roku app, if you change playback speed, quality will drop to 720p or lower. SmartTube lets me watch at full 1080p with 1.5x speed.
Is $14 dollars for ad-free, unlimited access to literally billions of videos really a steep price? Personally if I were to get rid of all but one of my media subscriptions I would stick with this one, since it's got everything - entertainment, education, inspiration, you name it.
$14 is two days worth of living in my country for your average man on the street, among many other similar places. Imagine if you had to pay $200 to watch YouTube, that's how much these services cost for us.
They refuse to correct for purchasing power parity and are left with nothing in the end. Steam seems to do very well in comparison.
(I don't watch YouTube even for free, but practically everybody I know does without paying anything, and it makes a lot of sense).
There are a lot of things in this world besides YouTube Premium, which cost $14 or more. That some people in the world are very poor is no kind of argument as to how companies should price their products.
"Purchasing power parity" is a non-concept for almost 100% of companies and products. But YouTube Premium is priced differently in different regions. Sometimes much cheaper than $14.
The person you're responding to is not debating that the companies are setting the wrong prices, so no need to try to convince them that the companies are already setting prices "the right way".
They're explaining for people who don't seem to understand, why people are fine signing in to these kind of 3rd party apps in the first place, because the subscription price ends up being what these people earn in days, not hours.
essentially every YouTuber I've watched who discussed their financials said that their sponsorships brought in several times more money than all forms of YouTube money.
which is a very niche slice, and I have no idea how representative it is in aggregate. but sponsorships happen because they pay well enough to annoy every viewer, not just ones that aren't using the better-paying Premium - they generally are not cheap, to say the least.
If you look at Premium, it's about 100x more lucrative than regular views. So I'm pretty sure I'm providing more money to creators than the skipped ads.
YouTube is 10x the quality and 10x the quantity than any other video service.
As for the ads, YouTube Premium now has built-in sponsor skip. They can't really block sponsored segments, as that is a freedom of speech issue and also something they can't easily determine. Creators can just omit that some product is sponsored.
> YouTube is 10x the quality and 10x the quantity than any other video service.
I guess you could say YouTube surfaces a larger span of quality, from really shit quality to incredible high quality, which I guess is cool. But since they provide zero tools to actually discover the really high quality, and on top of that decide they know better what I want to watch than me (like the subscriptions page not starting with the last published video), does that really matter?
> as that is a freedom of speech issue
It isn't. Freedom of speech in the US (since Google is based there, and maybe you too?) is about the government placing restrictions, not companies or individuals. As a individual (or company), you're free to limit the speech of anyone who want on your platform, for any reason. You might face public outcry, but it isn't a freedom of speech issue as it's on a private platform in the first place.
They provide all the tools to discover high quality videos and channels. It's called "like and subscribe". If you use those features, it doesn't take long before YouTube shows you only high quality videos. And there's also the dislike button and "Do not recommend this channel again", if you need.
> Freedom of speech in the US...
Freedom of speech is a subject which is much larger than the US constitution. I'm not saying YouTube isn't legally allowed to block sponsored segments. I'm saying that they might not want to because they don't want to limit their creators' speech in that matter. Especially considering how easy it would be to side-step. What would be their reason? They've already made it easy to skip sponsored segments.
>Creators can just omit that some product is sponsored.
Not true in the US, where the FTC requires (and has required for decades) disclosure by the creator to the viewer whenever a payment has been made to the creator to promote anything. On Youtube, this is typically done by the creator's saying (in the video) "this video is sponsored by Foo Corporation", or, "I wish to thank the sponsor of this video, Foo Corporation".
Youtube is both 10x and 0.1x the quality, and the official app has no way to filter it. They even removed the feature (downvotes) to let the user filter it.
And the proliferation of AI videoslop is only making the 0.1x side larger and larger
* $0.00 plus additional risk that the author of the alternative you are using is compromised, you end up using a malicious version of that alternative, and get pwned.
Obviously for some/many, that trade-off is totally cool. But it needs to be included in the analysis, otherwise you're being dishonest.
Not to mention included YouTube Music. It's one of the few subs I pay for, because I watch a _lot_ of YouTube on the TV. And also like to have it in the background for "Podcast" style videos where the video is really only an accompaniment.
That's actually worse. They used to have a separate YouTube subscription. I don't want (to pay for) YouTube Music, because I already have Apple Music and Tidal, which I prefer.
I'm the opposite. With YouTube Music, I don't need Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, or any other service. For me, YouTube Premium is a good deal, and other than Fubo TV it's the only streaming media subscription I have.
Also, since Youtube Music is just a skin over Youtube, it's not true that your subscription must necessarily be cheaper if there were no Youtube Music.
It's >12x the ad revenue they bring in per monthly-active YouTube user (suggesting they'd still be happy with a much lower price), and the price has increased 75% in the last decade (compared to the 40% real inflation over that period, suggesting they intend to continue increasing the price till public backlash or other effects reduce their total revenue). Plus they're boiling the frog, slowly adding ads back in to music and shorts for premium users, and we'll see how far that initiative goes.
> Plus they're boiling the frog, slowly adding ads back in to music and shorts for premium users
Do you have a source for this?
I do value watching unlimited youtube videos without ads, but if they're gonna add the ads back in, I'd easily stop paying for the one google product I currently pay for (and honestly the only reason I haven't already done this is laziness and convenience)
It launched at $9.99[1] and is now $13.99[2] which I believe to be a 40% increase, i.e. flat in real dollars. If like most people you subscribe for a year, it's only $11.67/mo.
This suggests that you initially subscribed to Google Play Music at their launch special price, and were later grandfathered into getting YouTube Premium at the same price, or that you used YouTube Music Key (yes, more product roadmap confusion!) with the same outcome, or that you signed up with a student account (this is still $7.99 today).
That's extremely subjective, but I'd rather save that $14 a month towards retirement. And if YouTube was only available with ads... well, that's no videos for me, maybe for the better, I would waste less time.
In high school I knew a kid who would go around looting loose change from unlocked cars. He'd pull the driver side door open like it was his car, hop in, loot the center console, then hop out like nothing happened. He wouldn't take valuables (as far as I knew), just change, so maybe a few bucks per car.
His rationale? "Nobody will cry over a few missing quarters and they are free to lock their doors anyway."
Insane hyperbole here, this guy's adblock = risking humanity losing it's 2nd most important platform owned by one of the most profitable companies in the world
OpenAI thought of it first, should YouTube get a government backstop too?
I am dubious about the importance of Youtube. If it disappeared tomorrow how long would it take for most videos to reappear elsewhere? Some of the creators I watch do have the videos available elsewhere. Veritasium is on Odysee, lots of people are on Nebula (and release videos there that are not on Youtube), etc.
I think there is a good argument that having a single dominant platform has been harmful.
Imo, most videos would never be re-uploaded somewhere else. Currently-active creators that choose to keep a backup copy of their videos are probably the minority of creators.
Let’s not get too hasty comparing YouTube to Wikipedia. Maybe what you watch on YouTube is interesting and educational, but let’s not forget it’s also a major platform for misinformation, propaganda, conspiracy theories, radicalisation, scams…
basically, yeah. there's a white fast forward button that appears during frequently fast forwarded sections, which unsurprisingly happens to be sponsor sections.
That's a very generous characterization of what most YouTube content is.
My experience is that you are basically paying to remove the official ads from your disguised ads.
The various algorithm tweaks for engagement these past few years and the introduction of shorts have significantly degraded the content quality and many good channels have just thrown the towel.
Sometimes people download it because there's no alternative. E.g. the YT app is not available in the play store in their country on that specific hardware, so the only way to be able to view YT is to use an alternative app like this one.
Technically correct but somewhat misleading. The app in question only asked for the following Google account permissions:
1. Manage your YouTube account
View and manage your videos and playlists
View and manage your YouTube activity, including posting public comments
2. View and manage your [YouTube] rental and purchase history
Your rental and purchase history may be displayed and accessible on this device.
I can't help but think that this is a "I have nothing to hide" argument. It's quite sisyphean to keep accounts perfectly segregated, therefore there's always a chance that personal information can be traced back and pieced together; which, in turn, has "boring-old security" implications: i.e., now someone possibly knows your habbits and times when you are at work
Many people have had multiple gmail accounts since 2004.
I have a gmail account used solely for google store and Android TV related verifications that's unlike other business, personal, registration, or spam email accounts.
The TV's in the house, smart wifi devices, and guest wifi accounts are on separate subnets, the NAS hosted media has limited read only keyhole access accounts for TV apps to use.
Whether it's SmartTube or any other app (iView, SBSOnline, Netflix, etc) it's wise to assume that anyone can be comprised by malware to sniff traffic for (say) bank account passwords, host bots for DDOS or mining, etc.
You risk losing your entire Google account along with all documents, photos, mail, and whatever else you have there. Enough stories of this happening if you look around.
If you're just a normal user the risk is very low. This almost always happens when someone using Google APIs for business purposes trips a fraud or spam detector.
> Also are you really using same account for gmail, your personal pictures/docs and youtube?
Most people use "sign in with Google" and tie their Google account to services well beyond the Google ecosystem, just to avoid creating a new entry in their password manager (lol). You think people are making new Google accounts for each Google service? That's hard for me to believe.
This will inevitably be used as ammunition against sideloading, but it’s really a lesson in supply chain trust.
When we move away from walled gardens (which I support), the burden of verifying the "chain of custody" shifts to the user. Installing an APK that auto-updates with root/system privileges is essentially giving a single developer the keys to your living room.
We need better intermediate trust models—like reproducible builds signed by a quorum of maintainers—rather than just "trust this GitHub release."
The official announcement is very sparse on details. If the developer doesn't know how his digital signature (and update infrastructure?) was compromised, how does switching to a new signature help? It could get compromised in the exact same way.
The article linked here brings some more details, but also, the official statement doesn't use the word "compromised". If it did, well it would be a statement with different meaning than the one that was released for us to read.
A lot of people installed malware and, to be honest, nothing really happened. They might have had to change their passwords, but it could have been much much worse if Android didn't have good sandboxing.
I hope that Flatpak and similar technologies are adopted more widely on desktop computers. With such security technology existing, giving every application full access to the system is no longer appropriate.
You don't, but as far as I know, Flatpak or Snap are the only practical, low-effort ways to do it on standard distros. There's nothing stopping flatpak-like security from being combined with traditional package management and shared libraries. Perhaps we will see this in the future, but I don't see much activity in this area at the moment.
> Do not download SmartTube from any app store, APK websites or blogs; these were uploaded by other people and may contain malware or ads. SmartTube is not officially published on any app store. Sadly, the Google PlayStore does not allow ad-free Youtube apps using unofficial APIs.
Maybe should actually switch to releasing via F-Droid.
That's exactly why I didn't want to trust this app with a google account, it's mandatory to use it. SmartTube also requires permission to install applications for it's updater feature so it's also possible if the attack was targeted for the malware to install another app to get persistance.
Although it's very unfortunate this happened, and it shows a lack of security practices, this could happen to any all developer. Compromising other apps you do install.
On my TV the app vanished and after some searching, it was disabled. I was kinda afraid Google had finally (ab)used it's Play Services power to ban it. But luckily it was because the developer marked it as compromised. All and all impact was minimised this way.
I doubt your statement about requiring a Google account to be connected, as you can also import subscriptions instead of granting access to your account.
Most likely load arbitrary binary code and execute it. Which also makes it really hard to figure out what it actually did.
Among the options of what could be pushed:
- proxyware, turning your network into a residential proxy that can then be sold to anyone willing to pay for them to commit crimes, send spam, scrape, ... with your IP [I believe this is the primary suspect here]
- other standard botnet crap like DDoS bots
- exploits that try to break out of the sandbox to establish persistence, steal other data, or steal your Google account token
- code that steals all data/tokens that the app itself has access to
- adware that shows ad notifications etc.
- ransomware that tries to prevent you from leaving the app (of course this works best if they get a sandbox escape first, but I'm sure you can get pretty close with just aggressive creative use of existing APIs)
The internal auto updater of the app directly use github as source, was this also compromised ? If malware was only on some random apkmirror upload then it should probably be fine for most users.
I think this comment relates to the fact that article mentions AFTNews Updater app as a way to install SmartTube... not yet released version of software?
Friends, it seems that my digital signature has been exposed. This signature protects the app from fake and malicious updates, so there is a risk that someone may try to release counterfeit versions under my name.
To completely eliminate any threats, I’ve decided to stop using the current signature and switch to a new one. Because of this, the app’s identifier will also change. You don’t need to delete the old app (but it will no longer receive updates) — the new one will install as a separate app and will need to be configured again.
Thank you for your understanding and attention to security.[1][2]
---------------
There aren't any new apk releases on GitHub yet. However, concerningly, the SmartTube website (which I won't link directly) still offers undated "Stable" and "Beta" downloads.
It sucks to deal with security breaches as an indie or solo dev, but I'll be waiting for a more detailed postmortem before assessing whether to install a future release... Hopefully one that details new security procedures to guard both the dev's key and the production build environment.
Factory resetting my Shield as a precaution, but nothing sensitive was really on there, and Android's security model did exactly what it was supposed to and limited the damage. When using a third party app like this, it's prudent to use it signed out or else with a purpose specific Google/YouTube account which is connected to nothing else critical.
[1]: https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube/releases/tag/notificat...
[2]: https://www.patreon.com/posts/important-144473602
I'm curious if this is the best idea? Like, if you don't read all the GitHub releases thoroughly or miss the HN material, and instead you just auto-install updates, you downloaded a malware-infested version which will be on your device until you learn otherwise?
Seems it's lacking in information about how a malware manages to compromise supposedly signed releases? Do authors not have the production signing keys behind a password or similar, and review 100% of the changes before they deploy stuff?
I swear the more time goes on, the more I'm loosing faith in the entire ecosystem. People running random binaries on the same device they do banking on always surprised me, but now developers manages to get malware on their developer machine and are publishing random binaries to other strangers???
maybe QA will find it... but they're testing X number of JIRA tickets based on Y epics and if it's not on the list they're not looking...
It doesn't matter whether the app is installed via Play Store, Huawei's or Samsung's store etc., or from APK.
I am currently in process of "verifying" my identity with Android Developer console.
In addition to proof of identity (e.g. passport/driver license) Google is demanding a proof of address, government registration, this month's rental agreement, foreign passport... The process is stuck in limbo because months-old documents are deemed "outdated", and I am constantly threatened that my verification request (!) will be denied because of "exceeding allowed number of attempts" (!!)
It shares the same principle as silent Discord account bans and other "verification" harassment schemes, such as Upwork account verification. The excess developers — Google's potential competitors — need to be banished from platform as quickly and cheaply as possible, so that Google can peddle their own spyware unimpeded.
What's new is that they were gonna block installations outside of Google Play, unless the developer has signed up for Google Play Console and has gone through a verification process there, whitelisting their signing key fingerprint. However, they've walked back on this and said they'll create a new "advanced flow" for "advanced users" that's "designed to resist coercion" to bypass this restriction. Door in the face technique IMO, the existing 12-step process to installing an app was already complicated enough.
So effectively the result is that file based installations will be blocked unless Google has specifically whitelisted their key through the Google Play Console verification process, or the user goes through this "advanced flow" which we're yet to see any details of
I also don't need to manually go set speed to 1.75x and enable subs in english, it's a one-time setting. _Further_ I can download a video locally, for whatever reason (later viewing, bw throttling, risk of deletion, etc).
As if that weren't enough, I don't have to watch videos logged in, my client is just set up to download my select channels.
I now see zero use of a youtube account.
My wife has YT Premium, and we find ourselves watching YT in SmartTube just because the interface is so much better.
Even with YouTube Premium you don’t get the feature set you get with SmartTube. The sponsor block integration on my TV is brilliant.
No ads is of course a big plus too.
They refuse to correct for purchasing power parity and are left with nothing in the end. Steam seems to do very well in comparison.
(I don't watch YouTube even for free, but practically everybody I know does without paying anything, and it makes a lot of sense).
"Purchasing power parity" is a non-concept for almost 100% of companies and products. But YouTube Premium is priced differently in different regions. Sometimes much cheaper than $14.
They're explaining for people who don't seem to understand, why people are fine signing in to these kind of 3rd party apps in the first place, because the subscription price ends up being what these people earn in days, not hours.
Its not entirely ad free, just fewer ads, AFAIK sponsored segments remain so there are still ads, sometimes quite lengthy ones.
$14/month is $168 an year, and if you subscribe to multiple other video services the annual total is going to be quite high.
which is a very niche slice, and I have no idea how representative it is in aggregate. but sponsorships happen because they pay well enough to annoy every viewer, not just ones that aren't using the better-paying Premium - they generally are not cheap, to say the least.
If you look at Premium, it's about 100x more lucrative than regular views. So I'm pretty sure I'm providing more money to creators than the skipped ads.
As for the ads, YouTube Premium now has built-in sponsor skip. They can't really block sponsored segments, as that is a freedom of speech issue and also something they can't easily determine. Creators can just omit that some product is sponsored.
I guess you could say YouTube surfaces a larger span of quality, from really shit quality to incredible high quality, which I guess is cool. But since they provide zero tools to actually discover the really high quality, and on top of that decide they know better what I want to watch than me (like the subscriptions page not starting with the last published video), does that really matter?
> as that is a freedom of speech issue
It isn't. Freedom of speech in the US (since Google is based there, and maybe you too?) is about the government placing restrictions, not companies or individuals. As a individual (or company), you're free to limit the speech of anyone who want on your platform, for any reason. You might face public outcry, but it isn't a freedom of speech issue as it's on a private platform in the first place.
> Freedom of speech in the US...
Freedom of speech is a subject which is much larger than the US constitution. I'm not saying YouTube isn't legally allowed to block sponsored segments. I'm saying that they might not want to because they don't want to limit their creators' speech in that matter. Especially considering how easy it would be to side-step. What would be their reason? They've already made it easy to skip sponsored segments.
Not true in the US, where the FTC requires (and has required for decades) disclosure by the creator to the viewer whenever a payment has been made to the creator to promote anything. On Youtube, this is typically done by the creator's saying (in the video) "this video is sponsored by Foo Corporation", or, "I wish to thank the sponsor of this video, Foo Corporation".
And the proliferation of AI videoslop is only making the 0.1x side larger and larger
* $0.00 plus additional risk that the author of the alternative you are using is compromised, you end up using a malicious version of that alternative, and get pwned.
Obviously for some/many, that trade-off is totally cool. But it needs to be included in the analysis, otherwise you're being dishonest.
Do you have a source for this?
I do value watching unlimited youtube videos without ads, but if they're gonna add the ads back in, I'd easily stop paying for the one google product I currently pay for (and honestly the only reason I haven't already done this is laziness and convenience)
It launched at $9.99[1] and is now $13.99[2] which I believe to be a 40% increase, i.e. flat in real dollars. If like most people you subscribe for a year, it's only $11.67/mo.
1: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/youtube-free...
2: https://www.youtube.com/premium
1. Save $14 for retirement and not watch Youtube
2. Save $14 for retirement and watch Youtube with ads
3. Pay $14 a month for Youtube without ads
The only option that's not fair is expecting private companies and creators to give you entertainment and its delivery with nothing in return
His rationale? "Nobody will cry over a few missing quarters and they are free to lock their doors anyway."
You are very intelligent.
To save $1680 I'd prefer to just use an adblocker (which I have done for the past decade)
- What happened to you?
- I figured that if I ran behind the bus, I'll save the $3 dollars the ticket costs-
The hacker father smacked his son hard on the head and cried:
- You fool! To run behind a bus like that! You should have ran behind a taxi instead and you would have saved at least $50 dollars!
Then they both watched YouTube together the rest of the evening, thinking eagerly about all the juicy money they would save over the next decade.
OpenAI thought of it first, should YouTube get a government backstop too?
I think there is a good argument that having a single dominant platform has been harmful.
Most youtube content being disguised ads, this cannot be true.
hasn't been in over a year
I just googled redtube and uh... are you sure?
My experience is that you are basically paying to remove the official ads from your disguised ads.
The various algorithm tweaks for engagement these past few years and the introduction of shorts have significantly degraded the content quality and many good channels have just thrown the towel.
Surely you can use a web browser?
TV and set-top box browsers tend to be slow and fiddly to use from a TV remote. (And often running on underpowered hardware).
Not Youtube account.
I have a gmail account used solely for google store and Android TV related verifications that's unlike other business, personal, registration, or spam email accounts.
The TV's in the house, smart wifi devices, and guest wifi accounts are on separate subnets, the NAS hosted media has limited read only keyhole access accounts for TV apps to use.
Whether it's SmartTube or any other app (iView, SBSOnline, Netflix, etc) it's wise to assume that anyone can be comprised by malware to sniff traffic for (say) bank account passwords, host bots for DDOS or mining, etc.
I can absolutely imagine my YT accounts at some point getting banned for using adblock, some stupid private upload or some comment.
Also are you really using same account for gmail, your personal pictures/docs and youtube?
Most people use "sign in with Google" and tie their Google account to services well beyond the Google ecosystem, just to avoid creating a new entry in their password manager (lol). You think people are making new Google accounts for each Google service? That's hard for me to believe.
When we move away from walled gardens (which I support), the burden of verifying the "chain of custody" shifts to the user. Installing an APK that auto-updates with root/system privileges is essentially giving a single developer the keys to your living room.
We need better intermediate trust models—like reproducible builds signed by a quorum of maintainers—rather than just "trust this GitHub release."
I hope that Flatpak and similar technologies are adopted more widely on desktop computers. With such security technology existing, giving every application full access to the system is no longer appropriate.
I really dislike Flatpak for installing multiple identical copies of the dependencies.
Just give me some easier to use tools to configure the access that each application has.
You don't, but as far as I know, Flatpak or Snap are the only practical, low-effort ways to do it on standard distros. There's nothing stopping flatpak-like security from being combined with traditional package management and shared libraries. Perhaps we will see this in the future, but I don't see much activity in this area at the moment.
Which channel distributed the compromised apk? What is the signature of the payload injected? What is the payload, what does it do?
Maybe should actually switch to releasing via F-Droid.
On my TV the app vanished and after some searching, it was disabled. I was kinda afraid Google had finally (ab)used it's Play Services power to ban it. But luckily it was because the developer marked it as compromised. All and all impact was minimised this way.
I doubt your statement about requiring a Google account to be connected, as you can also import subscriptions instead of granting access to your account.
I've been using it for years and I've never had to sign in.
Where can I read more about *unrequested uninstalls*? Google search only shows results about how impossible it is to remove phone default apps.
Among the options of what could be pushed:
- proxyware, turning your network into a residential proxy that can then be sold to anyone willing to pay for them to commit crimes, send spam, scrape, ... with your IP [I believe this is the primary suspect here]
- other standard botnet crap like DDoS bots
- exploits that try to break out of the sandbox to establish persistence, steal other data, or steal your Google account token
- code that steals all data/tokens that the app itself has access to
- adware that shows ad notifications etc.
- ransomware that tries to prevent you from leaving the app (of course this works best if they get a sandbox escape first, but I'm sure you can get pretty close with just aggressive creative use of existing APIs)
Yeah, I'll pass.