TVU Player - crashes and security issue in TV over IP http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20414145 en Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:31:57 EDT Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:31:57 EDT Re: TVU Player - crashes and security issue http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20718019 SipSizzurp :
said by koam See Profile :

What do you make of that?
Password protect your e-mail profile. :hmm:]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20718019 Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:14:18 EDT Re: TVU Player - crashes and security issue http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20717731 koam : Here's what TVU says:

Hello Ken,



Thank you for your email.

We do not access any Outlook contacts. However, the behavior described will occur. When TVUPlayer crashes, there is the crash catcher, which in turns will attempt to open the users email client, and send the crash report.



Best,

Angela

TVUnetworks

What do you make of that?
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]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20717731 Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:58:05 EDT Re: TVU Player - crashes and security issue http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20711793 koam : It is...the other office is in Shanghai and half the content is in Chinese. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20711793 Sat, 28 Jun 2008 08:05:38 EDT Re: TVU Player - crashes and security issue http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20711343 anon : I thought TVU Networks was located in Mountain View, CA.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20711343 Sat, 28 Jun 2008 02:00:36 EDT Security issue, malware, and TVoIP http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20706763 DracoFelis :
said by koam See Profile :

TVU appears to be based in China and the repeated warnings that it was trying to access my email addresses (and we know that those are buried in hidden subfolders, not something it would have just happened to stumble across,) makes me suspicious.
Not good to hear, but not totally unexpected either.

I know I've been hesitant to install 3rd party TVoIP software from companies I don't know/trust (which mostly limits me to NetFlix and flash/java based browser offerings) precisely because I know how easy it would be to embed spyware (or worse yet, "remote control" type tools) into such applications. And such malware (if it was present) would even be able to use the large TVoIP bandwidth as a cover/disguise for its (malicious) activities.

Of course, that means I'm pretty much limited to the flash and/or java/javascript TVoIP offerings (including HULU), that you watch within your own browser. While flash/java/javascript aren't without their security risks either (since they are full programming languages, controlled by the TVoIP sites after all), they at least have security features built into those languages specifically designed to limit the kinds of "hacking" that the remote site can do to your PC (via those programming languages). And BTW that's one key reason why you want to keep your browser and plugins patched (up to date), as you don't want (known) security holes in such browser tools remaining for malicious web sites to exploit.

Of course, if a TVoIP tool is known to come from a "trusted source" (i.e. I honestly think the company doing that code is unlikely to embed nasty stuff in the tool itself), I would happily scan it for viruses first, and then install it on a PC (assuming it passed the virus scan). And in fact I did do exactly that with the NetFlix streaming client, before I got my stand alone NetFlix Player device (because I trusted NetFlix to not embed malware in their player). However, when the software comes from potentially shady sources, I'm very suspicious of the software even if/when it passes virus scans, as I know (from working in the computer industry) just how much malware is missed by virus scanners these days (due to the huge volume and active development of the malware overwhelming the anti-virus companies ability to quickly enough update their software to detect it).

i.e. yes anti-virus (and anti-spyware) tools are good, and should be used, but they shouldn't be your only line of defense. As sad as it is, more and more malware is slipping past these tools, than did in the past. And this trend is only accelerating, due (in large part) to the volume of malware out there these days.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20706763 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:42:22 EDT Re: TVU Player - crashes and security issue http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20706622 koam : Outlook was not running at the time. But as TVU Player was frequently crashing, a small pop up window would eventually appear on the screen warning me that an application, TVU Player, was attempting to access my email contacts in Outlook...I believe that it gave me the option to grant permission to the application for a variable (pulldown) period of time (if I recall correctly) or to deny it access to my email contacts folder.

Again, after uninstalling TVU Player and at some later time reinstalling it, (after reformatting and reinstalling my OS) the whole process repeated itself.

My post at this link: »Re: [request] Streaming live TV - CNBC & MSNBC says that the warning had the TVU icon in the task bar.

TVU appears to be based in China and the repeated warnings that it was trying to access my email addresses (and we know that those are buried in hidden subfolders, not something it would have just happened to stumble across,) makes me suspicious.
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YOU can help reduce poverty, sustainably.
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]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20706622 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 07:57:59 EDT Re: TVU Player - crashes and security issue http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20705001 SipSizzurp : What specifically notified you of the attempted access ?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20705001 Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:13:14 EDT TVU Player - crashes and security issue http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20414145 koam : I had TVU Player running on XP a few months ago and it worked well at first. Eventually it started crashing a lot. During it's crashing, I would get a popup warning that TVU Player was attempting to access my email contacts folder in Outlook.

»Re: [request] Streaming live TV - CNBC & MSNBC

I eventually uninstalled TVU Player...and subsequently and coincidentally wiped and reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled the OS.

Again I installed TVU Player and the same as above eventually started to happen. Frequent crashes and the warning that it is trying to access my Outlook email contacts. (Outlook is not running)

TVU Player may be China-based...it has a lot of Chinese TV (about half).

Has anyone heard this problem of TVU trying to grab your email addresses?
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YOU can help reduce poverty, sustainably.
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]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20414145 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:42:43 EDT