Write it and submit it to the NYT and that crowd would just call it mass media lies. Whatever happened to all the walled gardens Comcast and others were working on? If you see this traffic just cut the connection based on the customer bumming free tv with a knockoff Chinese device, if not for the malware. --srs ________________________________ From: Mel Beckman via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2026 9:41:54 AM To: Tim Burke <tim@mid.net> Cc: nanog@lists.nanog.org <nanog@lists.nanog.org>; Corey Smith <cosmith80001@gmail.com>; Roland Dobbins <Roland.Dobbins@netscout.com>; Mel Beckman <mel@beckman.org> Subject: Re: ISP Operators AISURU/Kimwolf botnet You should write the article and submit it to the New York Times technology group. I believe David Pogue still works there, and he is a tech guy, so maybe he would be a good vehicle to get it published. I used to work with DAVID at Macworld magazine. But it’s not the job for an ISP, or even something an ISP could get the major media to publish. -mel via cell
On Jan 17, 2026, at 4:50 PM, Tim Burke <tim@mid.net> wrote:
The problem I see is that an article like this is intended for an IT/security professional audience.
These TV piracy boxes are often used by uneducated folks that would not read such an article. They just want their sports and $cableNewsChannel, and if you tell them it’s illegal or full of malware, they will just tell you you’re wrong, keep using it, and let it cause their 1Gbps circuit to get saturated by botnet traffic, all in the name of “free television”.
I have joined a few social media groups about these devices out of sheer curiosity, and have seen a number of threads from folks that ask why an ISPs security offering (typically Comcast’s “XFi Security” or AT&T’s “Active Armor”) would be complaining about traffic coming from the device… the common trend is to tell people to disable the security services, as “Infinity [SIC] is just trying to force you to buy their cable”.
Hooray for Stockholm syndrome.
On Jan 16, 2026, at 20:10, Mel Beckman via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
Roland,
The Krebs article you cite is even better than the one I linked, because it shows pictures of the many consumer devices that can be infiltrated. People are likely to immediately recognize any they own, which will drive home the point that this is their problem.
-mel
On Jan 16, 2026, at 5:43 PM, Dobbins, Roland via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
On Jan 16, 2026, at 22:16, Benjamin Hatton via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
As a smaller ISP, I think the biggest thing that would help us would be a 'mainstream' media outlet covering some of it so we have something to show customers who call in about their internet being bad, us telling them it is their android streaming box that is taking up their entire connection moving TBs of data a day, and them responding with "but I bought it from Walmart/Amazon" or "you are just trying to get me to sign up for your cable" and refusing to do anything about it because 'free TV'.
<https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/01/the-kimwolf-botnet-is-stalking-your-local-network/> The Kimwolf Botnet is Stalking Your Local Network<https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/01/the-kimwolf-botnet-is-stalking-your-local-network/> krebsonsecurity.com<https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/01/the-kimwolf-botnet-is-stalking-your-local-network/> [favicon.ico]<https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/01/the-kimwolf-botnet-is-stalking-your-local-network/>
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