"I deleted keys generated by our TV for 5 straight minutes. 5 Minutes of like 200BPM clicking. I restarted. Everything worked again. I laughed so hard I cried. I felt like I'd solved a murder."
Tech people, THIS IS A GREAT FANTASIC READ!!!
The title is, "DO NOT BUY HISENSE TV'S"
https://cohost.org/ghoulnoise/post/5286766-do-not-buy-hisense-t
#Tech #Android #TV #Debug
@pixel @davemark If I understood the post correctly, the problem happens because Windows is doing something with all those UUIDs, which stalls the UI.
First of all, Task Manager should never be affected by that – its purpose is to manage tasks, most commonly used to kill whatever program got stuck.
Taskbar likewise shouldn't deal with those things, at least not unless you specifically click on the flyout to project your screen somewhere (I'm assuming this is where it needs the list of UPnP devices), and even then the projection task shouldn't freeze the whole taskbar.
Settings is a problem, though I don't know why it can't process this asynchronously, like it does with everything else, including stuff that it shouldn't (I regularly have it seemingly not react to a click, then I navigate somewhere else, when the popup from that earlier click finally opens; while this is awful UX, it's exactly what would've helped with the problem at hand).
Plus, if it can't handle a few thousand devices efficiently, maybe the list should be limited in size, and only show eg. last 100 encountered devices.
My guess is that it's allocating some internal resource for each UUID--launching a process or thread, maybe, and/or opening some handles--and what the poster is seeing is the fallout of the OS running out of them and going into firefighting mode.
This is absolutely a Windows bug. They made the classic mistake of trusting data on the network. But, tbf, it's an easy thing to miss.
@suetanvil @pixel @jernej__s @davemark This is effectively a DOS (Denial Of Service) issue, i.e. in that way it's something that's not necessarily a bug (you just have not enough RAM/CPU power to handle all those apparent devices on your network!) but should be resolved in Windows, indeed.
Also, curses to the programmer who didn't read the docs on how to do SSDP/UPnP (I am currently writing a SSDP browser app and am having my own fun with it).
Whoa. Please, everyone, put all of your IoT devices on a separate network than your secured devices. All IoT devices need to be considered as unsecured backdoors into your network.
@ashhobbit @davemark yup. Came here to talk about this.
It’s sad that the default way common things are sold today (like TVs) require fairly sophisticated knowledge of networking. My family wouldn’t figure out the solution nor the preventative measures in a million years. They would just give up.
@tomk @linux_mclinuxface @davemark
It depends on the device. Some devices can be controlled from a different network (my TP-Link smart switches and outlets can do this). Other devices can only be controlled from the same network (my soundbar is this way).
If you have to connect to an IoT device on the same network, switch your controlling device over to the IoT network and switch back to your secured network when you're done.
@linux_mclinuxface @tomk @davemark
Yeah, I think separate networks are the way to go for most inexperienced users. It's not convenient for some devices, but convenience is the enemy of security.
A separate IoT or guest network can be enabled on many modern routers. If it's not available on your router, get a new router that has it available.
Otherwise, if you have extra routers available, you can use the "3 dumb routers" method, but you'll be maintaining 3 routers. I've been using 3 dumb routers for probably 8 years now, and I almost never take a secure device over to the IoT network.
(Edited to add that a guest network could be used, if your router doesn't have an IoT network option.)
@tomk @linux_mclinuxface @davemark
I'm not familiar with the AirPorts, but yes, you can do this with 3 routers, with your ISP modem/router as the base router with wifi turned off. Plug your other two routers into the base router. One router would be for your secure network - for your computers, phones, and tablets (any device that gets regular security updates). The other is for IoT devices - your TVs, smart plugs, streaming devices, light bulbs.
The two networks need to be named differently. Make sure all routers have up-to-date firmware.
If you can't control an IoT device from a separate network, do you have an old phone or tablet that you can leave connected to the IoT network, just for controlling the IoT devices? As an alternate, you could also switch your phone over to the IoT network when you need to control an IoT device, then switch back to the secure network when you're done.
If you have a lot of devices, it could be a real pain to set everything up right.
@stevesebban @linux_mclinuxface @tomk @davemark
Sorry, I don't know anything about HomeKit. I don't trust IoT devices on the same network as my computers, tablets, and cell phones.
Me, a plebe, "people have secured devices?"
Heh.
I'm calling secured devices anything that gets regular security updates. These are typically computers, phones, and tablets. They're devices that you use to log into your bank account, use for email, or for 2-factor authentication (2FA). Anything you don't want to give strangers access to, or allow them to "look over your shoulder" while using.
@davemark what most strikes me about this story is how Windows is still so unstable (and unscrutable), that the solution comes about as a surprise and not as a natural consequence of the gathered evidence. Granted, the author is not an expert on these tools, but I'm pretty sure even an expert (not me, I haven't used Windows in too many years) would have been stumped.
I also wonder how the original solver find out the source of the issue.
@davemark This is why I don`t own a smart TV.
Those things usually get shipped with already outdated operating systems, the software quality is often reprehensible and they are loaded with unnecessary junk software.
And they are of course spying on you. A year ago I read an article about a smart TV, that sent several thousand requests to hundreds of different web adresses a day. All that while beeing idle.
@davemark Better than a thriller. What the actual ⸺ was that though??? Also, that's some great writing.
PS.: RIP Guts.
@huitema @davemark Jup. I'm not sure how critical it is, because UPnP is in theory only enabled on private networks, but I wonder whether Windows still enumerates them in public or even accepts them remotely and only does the distinction private/public later-on.
That being said, my mom's ISP provided router literally has the same problem but not with UPnP but MAC addresses in the home network: Since I use GrapheneOS which (by default) randomizes per-connection MAC it fills up that list quite quickly... which makes the settings panel almost impossible to open but also the general network performance tank lol.
@huitema @davemark The UPnP UUID is unrelated to IP address privacy extensions. The UPnP UUID doesn't leave the local subnet, so there's no privacy need to rotate it. It also doesn't need to be changed if the IP address changes, the device can just multicast from the new IP with the same UUID to notify the rest of the network, and devices implementing privacy extensions are supposed to keep recognizing the previous IP for a while anyway.
This is the TV software being garbage. I don't let my TV connect to the network because Android TV is so awful, it ends up interrupting movies and TV shows with dialog boxes.
That said, Windows should be smarter about having a limit on the number of devices it keeps in cache and how long it keeps them for.
@huitema @davemark yeah this. It's usually a privacy feature for smartphones and tablets. Can argue how much sense it makes on a stationary TV but hey it's usually an option in the settings.
I know because I had to manually disable this for the kids. Unknown devices get no internet and the devices for the kids get a daily time limit. This can't be done when they change IDs all the time.
@davemark So... I can DoS any Windows box on my network with a trivial script?
Nice.
@poleguy @davemark UPnP isn't a hard protocol. Utterly braindead, which is no surprise given where it came from, and simple enough to implement the important bits (for this use-case as described) in a reasonably small amount of code.
Windows should not be DoSable from the network in this way. It's just stupid.
I'd write it, but the only Windows machine here is t'other half's work laptop. DoSsing that wouldn't go down well...
@davemark @chris See, THIS is why I don’t own a TV. 👴🏻 (squats stark naked in front of gramophone)
(Edit: kidding, of course. I own three Hisense TVs and multiple windows boxes and none of them are experiencing any issues whatsoever.)
Edit2: followed the process anyway. I had about 50 dafuqpnp entries, elevated RegistryWorkshop as SYSTEM user, deleted all of them in a couple of clicks just for the heck of it. Sure won’t stop me recommending Hisense TVs.
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