Sky to launch Sky Q without dish by Xmas based on Xfinity X1 box

[TimmyBGood]

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@Q-tips wrote:

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I get that but I haven't read any reports of ISPs pursuing consumers of pirated material with much diligence - and this is a new scenario where, for the first time, one company could own the content, the delivery mechanism and the display method. New rules and new tech could apply. 

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ISPs already block source IPs or domains where required to by court order.  Yes, pattern matching could probably detect if a Glass TV is displaying, say, F1 live when the address doesn't have a Sky F1 subscription: throw enough processing power at such a job and almost anything is possible.  As I said, if someone is sufficiently paranoid to think that's a realistic prospect, they might be advised not to seek out dubious content sources in the first place - choosing to rob a bank in the era of ubiquitous CCTV is an equally unwise lifestyle choice.

[Khushba]

@Q-tips I personally think it would be practically impossible for Sky to develop anything close to reliable enough to detect illegal content being played on their TV when the source of from a HDMI connected device. 

Take Premier League football for example. If a customer chose not to subscribe to Sky Sports via their Sky Glass package and instead legally subscribed to a day pass on now tv via say an Apple TV box. How can any TV distinguish this over an illegal stream from a "hacked" FireTV stick?

[Q-tips]

No idea, @Khushba but the whole concept of a watching/listening/smart communications centre in the living room needs to be delivered with full transparency. I don't want anyone spying on me and telling the DWP that I can walk after all.

[stereohaven]

@Q-tips 🤣

[Khushba]

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

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@Q-tips wrote:

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I get that but I haven't read any reports of ISPs pursuing consumers of pirated material with much diligence - and this is a new scenario where, for the first time, one company could own the content, the delivery mechanism and the display method. New rules and new tech could apply. 

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ISPs already block source IPs or domains where required to by court order.  Yes, pattern matching could probably detect if a Glass TV is displaying, say, F1 live when the address doesn't have a Sky F1 subscription: throw enough processing power at such a job and almost anything is possible.  As I said, if someone is sufficiently paranoid to think that's a realistic prospect, they might be advised not to seek out dubious content sources in the first place - choosing to rob a bank in the era of ubiquitous CCTV is an equally unwise lifestyle choice.

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No amount of pattern matching can help, Sky or anyone else who manufacture TV, determine whether or not the picture being displayed on screen was sourced legally when the feed is coming from an external device connected via HDMI.

F1 can be legally streamed from other providers and Sky would not be allowed to block this.

[CyberFriday]

@Khushba  Unless I have missed something Sky Glass tvs connect via WiFi to enable the streaming of content. And look to be locking down which apps the tv allows you to use. Not sure whether there are any specific usb devices that they would be be able to block when you plugged those in to watch dodgy content. And over hdmi. Well not sure whether if they have Ethernet support on the hdmi (HEC).  So, if there is equipment specific ids passed over the hdmi channel then Sky could you HEC to check whether your hdmi connected device is on their banned list, assuming your hdmi connected kit has internet connectivity. 

[Khushba]

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@CyberFriday wrote:

@Khushba  Unless I have missed something Sky Glass tvs connect via WiFi to enable the streaming of content. And look to be locking down which apps the tv allows you to use. Not sure whether there are any specific usb devices that they would be be able to block when you plugged those in to watch dodgy content. And over hdmi. Well not sure whether if they have Ethernet support on the hdmi (HEC).  So, if there is equipment specific ids passed over the hdmi channel then Sky could you HEC to check whether your hdmi connected device is on their banned list, assuming your hdmi connected kit has internet connectivity. 

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With Sky Glass, like any other TV, you can hook up upto 3 devices via HDMI (e.g. games console, Apple TV, Fire TV etc).  Each of these devices have wifi and/or ethernet to connect to the internet.  Fire TV is widely known to be "hackable" but cannot be put on any banned list by Sky or any TV manufacturer for that matter.

[Doc5907]

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@Q-tips wrote:

No idea, @Khushba but the whole concept of a watching/listening/smart communications centre in the living room needs to be delivered with full transparency. I don't want anyone spying on me and telling the DWP that I can walk after all.

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@Q-tips  Well the Sky glass panel is made by TP Vision and a quick search of them reveals the following...

In 2012, Philips and TP Vision made statements about their monitoring the use of Philips branded smart TVs in the Netherlands, such as "60% of our active users switch on their television more than 50 times a month".

The Dutch Data Protection Authority (nl) started an investigation into TP Visions collection and handling of usage data in 2012, and in 2013 reported these are not conforming to law in the Netherlands. Through the use of cookies and logfiles, TP Vision was found to be able to monitor when a Philips smart TV is switched on, which programmes are being watched, which websites are being visited and which apps are being used, without clearly informing their customers and asking their prior permission.

In response, TP Vision stated it would change its practices to conform to the law.

[Q-tips]

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@Doc5907 wrote:

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@Q-tips wrote:

No idea, @Khushba but the whole concept of a watching/listening/smart communications centre in the living room needs to be delivered with full transparency. I don't want anyone spying on me and telling the DWP that I can walk after all.

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@Q-tips  Well the Sky glass panel is made by TP Vision and a quick search of them reveals the following...

In 2012, Philips and TP Vision made statements about their monitoring the use of Philips branded smart TVs in the Netherlands, such as "60% of our active users switch on their television more than 50 times a month".

The Dutch Data Protection Authority (nl) started an investigation into TP Visions collection and handling of usage data in 2012, and in 2013 reported these are not conforming to law in the Netherlands. Through the use of cookies and logfiles, TP Vision was found to be able to monitor when a Philips smart TV is switched on, which programmes are being watched, which websites are being visited and which apps are being used, without clearly informing their customers and asking their prior permission.

In response, TP Vision stated it would change its practices to conform to the law.

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Good find. TBH, I would be surprised if SkyQ were not already gathering this kind of data and I wouldn't mind about it as long as they told me what they were doing - and specifically what they were NOT doing.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Q-tips wrote:

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Good find. TBH, I would be surprised if SkyQ were not already gathering this kind of data and I wouldn't mind about it as long as they told me what they were doing - and specifically what they were NOT doing.

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That's what GDPR declarations are for...

Types of information we process and where it comes from

• Information, uploads, user generated content, and comments you make about, or generate, in accessing the shows, channels, programmes, advertisements, products and services you use, for example, how you or your household access, view, share, contribute to, communicate with, record or fast forward, download or interact with them.

• Information from the devices you use to receive Sky content, products and services, about your household's use of Sky, and/or third party content, products and services. This includes information about your device, machine or browser.

• IP addresses, MAC addresses, unique identification numbers, online identifiers (including device IDs and advertising IDs), browser information, location data port information, logical network address, and other similar identifying information required for your devices to communicate with websites and applications on the internet.

• Technical information from the devices you use to receive Sky content, products and services, for example, the collection of diagnostic and traffic or location information. Note that devices and applications have their own privacy settings and notices under which they collect your information, so please check and manage your device and application settings.

[Vegeta]

And let us know how it goes @Deedee36 becuase many of us want to know this.

I'm super interested to see on launch if anyone is managing to knock sky down in price. 

[Q-tips]

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

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@Q-tips wrote:

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Good find. TBH, I would be surprised if SkyQ were not already gathering this kind of data and I wouldn't mind about it as long as they told me what they were doing - and specifically what they were NOT doing.

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That's what GDPR declarations are for...

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Yep, I'm fine with that. But it doesn't yet cover Glass, and more specifically the imminent webcam, two-way comms, auto-sensing etc. I presume they will be updating/expanding this section before they sell any.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Q-tips wrote:

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Yep, I'm fine with that. But it doesn't yet cover Glass, and more specifically the imminent webcam, two-way comms, auto-sensing etc. I presume they will be updating/expanding this section before they sell any.

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Maybe, but their highly-paid lawyers might just advise that the current wording covers those too.

Webcams are interesting in this context: a webcam data stream isn't necessarily covered by GDPR if it's never retained, but an image used for facial recognition is, unless that's just used to generate a hash, which isn't...

[Silver+Surfer+64]

I've started the process of leaving Sky now and going back to TalkTalk. To be honest, I have been getting rather dissatisfied with Sky for a while and was already thinking of leaving them before but I basically held on to see if they would produce an internet TV box like TalkTalk have, which might have made their other shortcomings more bearable.

Then they go and drop this 'Sky Glass' nonsense after nearly 4 years of promising a box, it's the final straw for me. I've enjoyed the discussions on here, despite all the banter and sarcasm that some of you guys come out with when replying to posts 🤣.

But seriously though, I have been with Sky for a few years and obviously it can be a bit of a pain having to change things when moving to another internet provider, so I didn't really want to but in a twisted kind of a way, I guess this was the incentive I needed to make the switch. Best wishes.

[Q-tips]

I wish you well @Silver+Surfer+64 but I would be fairly confident that your long-awaited Sky box will come within 6-12 months. Once they have taken the initial wave of Glass orders I'm sure they will find that they need a Glass solution for folk who don't want or need the Glass TV. 

If you can bear to hang on a while longer, you may get your wish. As a compromise, you could switch ISP in the meantime so that you are ready to make the final move if you still want to. But with Sky buying a chunk of Virgin Media, you might eventually get a better broadband service from them too.