Comment by duskwuff
1 day ago
These have been a thing for a while - check your local Craigslist for "fully loaded" Fire sticks or other streaming TV devices. I wouldn't be surprised at all if you're correct - these devices are marketed to technically unsophisticated users, by vendors who have every incentive to maximize profit.
They’re generally not selling a million of these or even tens of thousands of these, so setting up residential proxy software on the boxes would almost certainly not be worth the time spent.
I wouldn't expect the installers to be setting a proxy network themselves, but rather acting as an affiliate for an existing network and collecting commissions from that.
Alternatively, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the apps installed on these devices have their own embedded malware - the operators of the pirate TV networks are looking to get paid, too.
The affiliate fees paid per install by the proxy networks are very small.
I've also seen these marketed as "Kodi boxes".