STB vendor uses free web API, gets burned when it shutdowns

[lamedude]

Don't you love it when businesses depend on the kindness of strangers. Long story short guy makes a web API to return IP addresses and hosts a demo version. STBs relies on said API and they stop working when he shuts it down. If only he had provided source they could've hosted it themselves if only. You'd think they would learn after Netgear and D-Link got burned for using someone else's NTP servers.

 

[brianmanahan]

lol, hopefully they can patch that

 

[Ichinisan]

"STB" = "set-top box" in this scenario, right?

[edit]

Yes.

 

[KB]

Thats a cool API. Talk about bad programming on the STB devs part. You always have to assume a service could go down and handle it as gracefully as possible.

 

[Markbnj]

One of those mails came from a set-top box manufacturer, stating that thousands of customers were unable to watch TV because their boxes crashed when Telize didn’t return any data

That right there is what we call an opportunity.

 

[brianmanahan]

That right there is what we call an opportunity.

that's kind of what i was thinking. there has to be a way to make money off of that.

 

[CZroe]

I wonder if this was Scientific Atlanta or Arris/Motorola. Gotta be one of those.

 

[ultimatebob]

Don't you love it when businesses depend on the kindness of strangers. Long story short guy makes a web API to return IP addresses and hosts a demo version. STBs relies on said API and they stop working when he shuts it down. If only he had provided source they could've hosted it themselves if only. You'd think they would learn after Netgear and D-Link got burned for using someone else's NTP servers.

Didn't Netgear and D-Link use time.nist.gov as an NTP server? Everyone uses those... I think that even Windows offers that as a time server option if you don't want to use time.windows.com.

Using that time server is like using the 8.8.8.8 Google DNS server. Sure, it's not guaranteed to be around forever, but it's pretty damn close to being a certainty.

 

[Imp]

Considering how shitty all of my set-top boxes have been... wouldn't surprise me they missed these "little" things. Oh look, it took me 30 seconds to change channels because the box took 5 seconds to not recognize the remote just now...

 

[KentState]

Wait, some guy offers up an API sample site and pays the bill on usage. Decides to shut down the site and some for profit business gets upset. Unless I was getting royalties, I wouldn't have even been as nice as he was.

 

[Markbnj]

Wait, some guy offers up an API sample site and pays the bill on usage. Decides to shut down the site and some for profit business gets upset. Unless I was getting royalties, I wouldn't have even been as nice as he was.

"Yes sir, I understand your customers are inconvenienced. Just looking at a rough back-of-the-envelope calculation I think we can make this problem go away and get service restored to your customers for a $1000000.00 up front license fee and quarterly maintenance fees of $150000.00. Will that be acceptable? We'd be looking for at least a two-year commitment."