Firewall taking hits from WDTV Live [ Edited ]

[lombana]

I just got an alert on my firewall that my 2 live units were slamming my firewall port by port looking to talk to Geobytes.com

I would like to know from someone at WD, why your device is talking out to a server known to collect information from users over the internet. I filter Geobytes on my firewall but I'm highly annoyed to discover that this is going on. This is a privacy concern that I'd like to get an answer on.

Ip .51 and .53 are both of my WDTV Live Plus units.

Miguel

[TonyPh12345]

We can't see the picture until an Admin approves it.

I've set up a firewall rule for that...  I'll see if I'm getting that, too.

[lombana]

Didn't know about the admin approval on the pic posts, I may post this to my blog as well this doesn't sit well with me, check your router for hits from your Live units trying to talk out to 72.32.8.40 and running port by port, seems to be every 3 seconds ... on my .53 Live the pings to Geobytes fills page after page each ping increments the port by 1 (ex. 34923, 34924, 34925 etc)

Miguel

[TonyPh12345]

Ahh.  That's location-finding.

I'm guessing that this is one of the tools that the WD has in place to prevent things like NetFlix, Live365, etc. which aren't allowed in certain areas.

This tool takes an IP address (of the client) and returns information about WHERE that client is geographically (usually to about a city or larger territory. )

That said, I still agree that I'd like to see WD explain what it is, because it seems a bit shady if users discover this themselves....  

[lombana]

I see a much greater issue here ... let's say that I'm watching a copy of DIsney's Little Mermaid (a movie that I legally own) which I've ripped to my server for convenience or the main reason that I purchased the Live.

The live is makes a connection to the web and says here is Live Box # 123abc registered to Miguel who according to our records lives in Phoenix Arizona who at 3:40 pm was watching Little Mermaid.iso on his Live.

One part of that may be marketing, now that data mining company can get my information from WD and see that I like Disney movies and target me... BUT here is the bigger picture, that information may be sold to the RIAA or MPAA and they may be told that I have 500 MP3s or 200 movies which now can bring up another issue if you see where I'm coming from!

This is a huge privacy issue merely because this box may have the capability to send out much more information than just a geo location since up until yesterday we didn't even know this was going on! 

See where I'm coming from ...

Miguel

[mkelley]

Tony,

What kind of firewall rule did you set on your router to stop this?

[Guy_K]

I'm looking into this. I'll let you know when I find out more.

[lombana]

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mkelley wrote:

Tony,

What kind of firewall rule did you set on your router to stop this?

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I run an Untangle (Untangle.com) router and the Spyware module sets up automatically to look for stuff like this. 

[TonyPh12345]

I just put a "Domain Block" in my actiontec.   Anything trying to do http://*.geobytes.com is blocked.

[mkelley]

In the meantime I just blocked that URL and we'll see if that's adequate for now.

I don't mind if devices need to access the internet once when booting or, as you mention, in case they need to validate the region before they do a service that is tied to that region, but to continually check things behind the scenes is a little creepy.  I've blocked software that does this and there's no excuse for the Live to do it but perhaps Guy will give us an answer eventually.