TorrentFreak Amazon Remote Disables Piracy Apps Sideloaded on Fire TV Devices

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Always sold at highly competitive prices that almost anyone can afford, Amazon’s Fire TV Stick has enjoyed more than a decade of success, driving millions to the company’s video and online retail platforms.

Popular all year round and at times selling out in the run-up to Christmas, the Fire TV Stick became a household brand, assisted in no small part by its Android-based operating system allowing sideloading of apps from third-party sources. With function and affordability balanced to perfection, popularity seemed almost inevitable.

Infamy, on the other hand, is more difficult to predict, much less relied upon as part of a business plan reliant on sales of licensed media and other legitimate products.

Pressure Mounts on Amazon​

When enduring popularity among pirates, on whom not a single marketing penny had ever been spent, was combined with a targeted campaign in the media that successfully reached millions of pirates, Fire TV’s infamy received yet another boost.

Media reports openly linking affordable Fire TV devices with free, pirated media were intended to act as a deterrent.

In June 2023, Google searches for the term ‘Fire TV’ were at their lowest point in four years. By November 2023, searches had reached an all-time high, surpassing a peak last seen in November 2019.

Private pressure on Amazon to act eventually broke through into the public domain, with calls for the company to do something – anything – to stop Fire TV devices being used by millions of pirate users.

Amazon didn’t bow to the pressure but had it done so, any countermeasures wouldn’t have remained effective for long. Even in the event Amazon was somehow capable of delivering a crippling blow, leading to millions of Firesticks being dumped in trash cans, Chinese variants would’ve been queuing up to fill the void before the abandoned devices hit the bottom.

Whether the company’s approach will change when Fire OS gives way to the all-new Vega operating system, is still unknown. Yet in a surprise move this week, Amazon demonstrated that when the circumstances demand action, all things are possible.

Amazon Remote Disables Pirate Apps​

First reported by popular YouTuber TechDoctorUK, it emerged that two piracy apps – Flix Vision and Live NetTV – were no longer welcome on Amazon devices, despite being sideloaded from third-party sources technically outside Amazon’s control.

Users with these apps already installed were given little choice; Amazon disabled both remotely with an option to follow-up with a full delete.

Apps Declared ‘Potentially Harmful’​

Fire TV device users who installed the apps for the first time this week, didn’t have to wait long before Amazon stepped in with the same action and the following on-screen message:

App disabled – Uninstall potentially harmful app?
App name: FLIX VISION [or Live NetTV]

This app has been disabled because it can put your device or personal data at risk. You can keep the app on your device but you will be unable to use it. To remove the app and recover storage space on your device, select ‘Uninstall’ below.

The warning from Amazon mirrors similar warnings in current anti-piracy campaigns; apps offering pirated content often contain malware or expose users to other risks including exfiltration of their personal data.

This isn’t the first time that Amazon has taken this type of action but with its targeting of two well-known piracy apps, was the action taken purely on security grounds or was piracy part of the equation?

Disabling Piracy Apps is New​

Elias Saba at AFTVNews believes that targeting piracy apps is a first for Amazon. However, he’s not convinced that piracy was the main motivation behind Amazon’s decision to disable the apps.

With hundreds of piracy apps experiencing no problems, a more compelling reason must lie elsewhere. Indeed, the mechanisms allegedly used by both of these apps to generate revenue, may have been considered perfect candidates for an aggressive response.

Supported by credible evidence posted to GitHub, one of the main allegations is that while enjoying the latest movies and TV shows, users’ devices become exit nodes in a proxy network. Access to that network is apparently sold to whoever might benefit from a large supply of devices, connected to the internet via residential IP addresses, in locations all over the world.

While that sounds like a major security concern, context is everything. Residential proxy networks aren’t illegal by default; on paper they provide the means to carry out a wide range of perfectly legitimate tasks. For this reason, online virus or malware scanners are less likely to identify similar code as a threat.

Drawing a line between what is legal and what is not, often turns on whether consent was obtained first. No anti-virus or malware service offers that level of detail. In this case, the GitHub entry claims that permission isn’t obtained from users when they install the app.

That changes everything and confirms the existence of a major security risk, one with the ability to silently turn a Fire TV Stick into the world’s clunkiest media device, for which Amazon would surely face the blame.

And Then Amazon Blocks Two More Apps…​

Additional reports indicate that Amazon isn’t quite finished and more apps are currently falling in much the same fashion.

Another pair of pirate apps, Blink Streamz and Ocean Streamz, have also been blocked by Amazon, Elias Saba reports. Unconfirmed reports suggest other apps are affected too but without supporting evidence, it’s hard to confirm one way or another. What any of this means from rightsholders’ perspective, if anything at all, seems to turn on the circumstances that led to the apps being disabled.

On one hand, Amazon’s interventions may have prevented greater harms being inflicted later down the line, and users should appreciate that. Yet by providing precious little detail on the nature of the threat, users won’t be able to learn from their mistakes or share knowledge on how these specific apps behaved and why they presented such risk.

Without clarity and open discussion, many people will continue to install any piracy app made available online, regardless of warnings. If there’s a genuine determination to bring those numbers down, abusive apps will have to be called out by name, in credible reports containing specific details, on a very regular basis. A nation of amateur malware experts must be preferable to a nation infected by malware.

Until then, privacy implications aside, devices under Amazon control may offer an emergency safety net and a few extra benefits. They don’t come with malware embedded direct from the factory and are less likely to have poor security by default. Unless jailbreaking becomes necessary and root the new standard.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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