S’poreans Are Testing the System By Changing DNS to Use Illegal TV Box Apps

If you’ve been keeping up with the Goody-shians, you’ll know that just two days ago, an old-time in-house writer with a particularly quirky sense of humour penned an article on the impending ban of TV Box apps.

Here, take a look.

In case you’re wondering, the article’s a full-blown explanation on how illegal tv box apps will soon be banned, what led to it, why, and all the misc. stuff you really don’t need to care about but I just incorporated anyway. 

But if you’re still interested, here’s the link to the article (Take note that it’s an app preview. Download the app to view the whole article. Damn Goody Feed.).

It seems that old habits die hard

In the army, we have a phrase called “testing the system”, and it’s exactly as it sounds: recruits will try to siam duties and stuff, and while it does work once in a while, they just get caught in the act most of the time.

But if you thought that Singaporeans would’ve graduated from that mindset since their army days, you’ll be sorely mistaken. For apparently…

They’re still testing systems, albeit now with TV box applications.

Domain Name System (DNS)

According to Channel News Asia, shops in Sim Lim Square are still selling TV boxes, despite the High Court ordering Internet service providers to block streaming applications that come pre-loaded in these boxes.

But rather than being mere folly, it seems that there’s a good reason for it.

In a spy gesture out of the movies, the news-reporting site sent a reporter over in the guise of a customer to inquire about some TV box apps all in the name of investigative reporting. And according to the friendly folk over at Sim Lim, the UBTV app, that’s supposedly one of the apps due to be banned, is not just operational, but entirely usable.

“It’s blocked by your network provider, but it can still work,” the sales assistant said.

To further elaborate, she started touching on a pre-loaded app that can alter users’ Domain Name System (DNS) settings.

“You always have to run this first,” she added, before demonstrating how to install the app (which proceeded to show the user’s new DNS setting). “As long as you have this information, it shows that it’s already linked.”

Thereafter, the sales assistant installed other streaming apps which managed to play live premium TV channels successfully. Some were even capable of downloading Hollywood movies released as recently as this year.

Well, guess the pirates win again.

And Netizens were pretty DNS-smart too

While access to UBTV has certainly been blocked, netizens seem to have a ‘never say die’ attitude.

According to our Facebook scrolling pals CNA, there’s a New TV Box SG Facebook group on the net, and members are pretty keen on it.

The circumventing part anyway.

But perhaps there’s a reason for all these desperate measures in place, as another member has commented that he would rather pay for an alternative way to view premium content.

“Telcos are marking up their cable TV packages way too much,” he said.

Which is kind of true? Which leads to the all-important question.

Would we still support piracy, if legal ways were well within ‘affordable’ range?

Hmmmmmm….. what do you think?

Or maybe it’s just excuses, since Netflix has almost everything you need?