But most likely these residential proxy services are more valuable for scraping, DDoS and manipulation plays on social media so they might not actually be used for things that draw direct attention. Using them to download illegal materials would be a waste of resources when a VPN does the job just as well.

This didn't particularly surprise me (unfortunately). Your average phone is loaded with spyware from "legit" American companies but plenty of them come with carrier spyware, adware or shady apps that auto install. Most people seem to be apathetic about this or have given up so the Chinese botnet device (that reliably delivers lots of illegal media) is just making the same kind of trade they're already making. Look at all the shit about smart TVs in the news recently that people have hardly stopped buying, those don't even come with free pirate NFL games. They've been told they were being spied on for years already and their response was that you're a tin foil hatter for bringing it up, they have nothing to hide or they don't care.

You almost can't blame them though. Even you put a lot of effort into protecting yourself from this stuff you're exposed anyway. Why should they do without their free streaming services when government agencies and companies that they don't even have a direct relationship with lose all their PII a dozen times a year and the DMV legally sells a dossier on them for 1.5cents?

This just isn't true. People could stop buying new TVs altogether, we aren't talking about food or blood pressure medication. This is a luxury item. If I had to guess I'd say most people purchased their last TV because it was bigger than their old one which still worked.

-In-laws or other visitors "finishing setup" to use their netflix while I'm at work or something.

-Future TVs including 5G modems.

-TVs demanding internet access to work at all or worse working but with a hidden time out that waits until after the return period to activate and disable the TV until I give in and let it on the internet.

Most TVs seem to have removable wifi modules, or at least they did. But throwing away the warranty removing it on day one doesn't sit great with me. And that doesn't protect me from point 3b.

The bright side was this helped me convince her to get rid of the POTS as the benefit she wanted was larger already gone anyway.

But if there's an open model available then they might choose that instead of either of them. Even if the Chinese models aren't used they will bring down profit margin just by existing. They wouldn't have the control the hosted American models give but that wasn't even on the table. But denying America control is a worthwhile strategic goal in and of itself. And they don't even need to expend extra resources to do it, they needed to develop their own models for security reasons anyway.

The worst part is I've seen search other video sites that used to surface exact titles stop working around the same time. I'm not sure how to reliably find things I know are there anymore.

Why was this not a problem in the past? I know covid and tariffs have changed the supply picture a lot but I was vaguely under the impression there was some kind of parts availability requirement for manufacturers.

https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/issues/10407#iss...

https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/issues/10406

"The unfortunate piece is that your product choices can have both positive and negative impacts on the ecosystem as a whole. I've already heard rumblings that KeepassXC is likely to be featured in a few industry presentations that highlight security challenges with passkey providers, the need for functional and security certification, and the lack of identifying passkey provider attestation (which would allow RPs to block you, and something that I have previously rallied against but rethinking as of late because of these situations)."

"This implementation is not spec compliant and has the potential to be blocked by relying parties."

Proponents keep trying to hand wave away the attestation lock-in problem as some vague faraway threat that we may never encounter. It isn't. It's the actual plan.

https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/issues/10407#iss...

https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/issues/10406

"Once certification and attestation goes live, there will be a minimum functional and security bar for providers."

https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/issues/10406

You don't get to decide how to use your passkeys, some on else does.