More and more people are watching TV thanks to an IPTV box.
Most often illegal.
IPTV is not illegal
This is an error that is frequently seen when IPTVs are mentioned.
If indeed the name “IPTV” in everyday language designates access to several thousand channels for a handful of euros (which is illegal), the technology as such is perfectly legal.
It is thus possible and even frequent to find legal IPTV services, whether they are television channels which make their television channels accessible to their subscribers or else a list listing the channels accessible free of charge.
What is illegal, however, are the IPTV lists which give access to channels for which they do not have broadcasting rights.
Big Brother monitors your consumption habits
IPTV has huge advantages over “traditional” cable and satellite television. In the latter, the video stream is sent "blind" and continuously. Whether or not you are connected to the signal, the channel broadcasts its content indifferently. This creates another problem, the ephemeral aspect of these broadcasts. Once content has aired, it rarely returns to the screen. If you are not in front of your TV at this time, you will not be able to watch your program for a very long time.
For its part, IPTV allows you to pause, record or rewind content.
It is also possible to watch content on demand.
This interactivity and this availability make it very easy for the content provider to know precisely the consumption habits of its members, such as the viewing time, the type of content watched, etc. What was not so easy to understand. know with traditional television.
On illegal IPTV sites, this information is shamelessly used and sold to advertisers to force targeted and aggressive advertisements on users.
North Korea has its own IPTV
We spoke to you above about the legal services of IPTV, here is a particular example.
The Korean Central Television (KCTV) indeed introduced in 2016 a decoder called Manbang, a word which means in Korean "everywhere" or "in all directions".
This decoder would provide video on demand services in North Korea via “quasi-IPTV” (quasi-internet protocol television), don't forget that this is North Korea, and that the Internet is therefore not accessible to the population.
Manbang would allow happy viewers to watch up to five different TV channels!
You can not stop progress.
It would also make it possible to read articles from North Korean state-run news agencies and find political information about the Supreme Leader and his ideology.
Illegal IPTVs are full of malware
This point only concerns illegal IPTVs. Legal offers are of course not affected by this phenomenon. If you've ever come across a site offering dubious services to say the least, you've probably noticed that they are full of advertisements. If we mentioned earlier the recovery of personal data, it is important to know that a large number of the advertisements displayed on these sites are particularly malicious. Remember, these are not ads from Google Ads or a reputable advertising network. These ads target a bargain-hungry, questionable morality audience. The advertisements are therefore deliberately misleading, the downloadable elements are disguised as "Play" buttons or a window close icon.To access certain content, you have to close windows that move around the page and where advertisements are superimposed. One wrong click and you might inadvertently allow malware to gain access to your device.
The problem is not limited to websites.
Many services offer Android TV and Fire TV apps.
As they are not found on official stores, these applications are not subject to rigorous security checks.
They can therefore contain many malicious codes.
This absence of official stores also allows some malicious APKs to take the appearance of these services to infect devices.
The risks of conviction are real
While it is extremely difficult to put an end to all illegal IPTVs, the cases of dismantling are counted in spades.
Yet despite the many dismantling and arrests, illegal IPTVs are still surrounded by an aura of impunity.
Far from being untouchable however, IPTV users can be found and convicted. Same story for people who use a VPN to “protect themselves” while accessing these services. These connections may not have the necessary security protocols to protect hackers. In the event of an arrest, users' IPs can also end up in the hands of the courts.
“As far as the end user is concerned, the situation was once blurred,” lawyer Maud Cock told SudInfo.
“In 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union clarified the situation by specifying that viewing of illegal content and streaming could fall within the scope of the reproduction right which is subject to authorization.
And she equates streaming with downloading.
"
By watching content distributed illegally, users are therefore exposed to the risk of significant fines, with accusations of counterfeiting: “The Penal Code provides for imprisonment from one to five years at most.
And a fine included, if we take into account the additional decimes, between 3,000 euros and 600,000 euros.
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Finally, the use of these illegal streaming services can also cause your Internet connection to be deactivated by your ISP.
While it is more common in the case of downloading illegal torrents, it also happens with streaming services.
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