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Get Paid $30.00 for Sharing Your nbn Performance for Four Weeks @ Nielsen Panel

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Sign up to Nielsen's new "Broadband Panel", install their 'white box' device (plug in to your router via Ethernet), and install an app on your phone, then earn $30 if you stay connected for four weeks, and then $2.50 a month after that. And also each month after the first month you get a ticket in their monthly $1000 prize draw.

Note.. from their FAQ: "The Whitebox measures a wide range of network and application-specific properties, including download speed, upload speed, video streaming, online gaming stability, latency, and packet loss, to name just a few. We will not be able to view what you are “looking at” or viewing online, i.e. we won’t collect information about the content viewed by you. We will only collect the results of network testing. This does not include any packet data, which means no data is collected that reveals what websites you are looking at or the content of your down and uploads. We do not collect any of your private information, such as account passwords or banking information. As part of the contractual obligations, we are not permitted to share specific details with our client about our participants. In addition, our client will not seek to re-identify any de-identified information and, thereby, reveal the participants’ identities."

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closed Comments

  • Can't wait to get my box so I can strip it down for SMD components…

    • +4

      "I returned your whitebox, yes… what do you mean, in one piece?"

    • wondering how much they'll charge you by then???

  • +2

    I'll provide any data necessary to prompt NBNCo to fix the shitty fixed wireless service that we have to live with! It's raining today so there's been a lot of buffering.

    I'll put the box in a DMZ vlan, just-in-case Nielsen get compromised, but I trust that they legally can't harvest any tinfoil data.

  • That white box perhaps uses some electricity, subtract that from your profit.

    • And space.

      I don't know about you all but space to me is a big commodity I don't just like to give away freely.

      If I wanted to make money then I'd maybe hire a room out as storage but that has its owns problems and issues in and of itself.

  • Any basic Linux box could easily be plugged into a switch port on a router and using arp-poisoning techniques, port forwarding and MiTM attacks (ie mitmproxy) be used to capture any and all network traffic including https. Not that I think they are doing that with this "whitebox", but it could easily be done.

  • +5

    This is a device you plug into your router for speedtests. It is not a MITM device you plug between your router.

    Yes they can try to mitm haxx you, but everything is TLS/SSL these days so it would be trivially detectable. Your browser will be throwing up warnings. It does NOT intercept traffic.

    More likely, this is something they're doing to do real edge speedtests against a variety of networks, CDNs, etc; in real world usage conditions:

    The Whitebox only runs tests when you're not online, or are using the internet at such a low level that running the tests won't make an impact. We'll hold off until you've finished that box office movie!

    The Whitebox is a dedicated device for measuring your internet performance. The Whitebox does not directly improve your internet. It provides you with the data to help you improve your internet performance.

    It is a tool for you to test your internet connection, whether at home or out and about - so your WiFi and 3G/4G data.

    Basically they want to run speedtests to arbitrary hosts from your residential network so that they can see what speeds people are actually getting. This is not about snooping in your traffic, you can not use the internet if you want.

    If you are really paranoid use a VPN, but Nielsen is a large publicly traded company. If they spy on you, enjoy making $$$ from a class action lawsuit.

    • Pretty much this but it is always good to see the worst case scenario of any situation and do the pros and cons of it.

      If I renting I would do it probably but do a bit more poking to really know and see what it is doing exactly and not just airy fairy head in the clouds guessing but that's just me.

  • +1

    anyone got more popcorn?

    If you don't want to use it, because you don't trust it, then don't use it. No one is forcing you.

    • It does sit inline - the request is to put the "whitebox" inline of any fixed connections so that it can see when you are using the internet connection or not. It doesn't need you to move your wifi over though, as it passively checks for wifi traffic (although I suspect that it assumes that wifi traffic = internet access which may not be the case)
    • It doesn't monitor your traffic except to see when it is quiet enough to do a bunch of pre-scripted tests.

    https://samknows.com/technology/agents/samknows-whitebox
    https://samknows.com/technology/tests/metrics

    • Interesting.. good find

      "Whiteboxes are typically installed in-line (i.e. “man in the middle”) in the user’s home network. This is required in order to identify the presence of cross-traffic. Modern versions of the Whitebox utilise a hardware switch internally, with the SamKnows applications only having access to port counters via the switch’s API. User-generated cross-traffic does not pass across the CPU, so is unavailable to packet capture applications.

      In some cases it is possible (through cooperation with the ISP/client) to deploy the Whitebox out-of-band, i.e. as a regular network client. In this scenario an alternative mechanism is used to capture the presence of cross-traffic (e.g. UPnP, HTTP or SNMP polling of the router)."

      So we don't really know yet until someone gets one whether it's installed 'in-line' or not.

  • The whitebox consumes $2.50 worth of electricity per month. I'd be all over this otherwise.

    • Source?

    • +1

      Month or week?

      So you're not all over this because you're getting $27.50 as opposed to $30?

    • https://www.makeitcheaper.com.au/news/how-much-energy-is-you…

      Yours could consume anything from 2 to 20 watts, although the average is around 6. Taking a standard rate of 21.63 cents per kilowatt hour, you can therefore expect your Wi-Fi router to cost around $0.0311 per day to operate.

      so replacing the standard rate for the energy charges..

      in Perth, WA. 26.2026 cents per KWH + GST

      0.041442 x 30 = $1.25/month.

  • Has anyone received their verification phone call?

    • Not yet.

    • Received the call yesterday.

  • guys, can pls share info for people that go ahead???

    interested to find out the progress…

    cheers

    • I got a call from Nielsen and they basically asked a bunch of questions about your experience with getting the nbn, standard market research stuff, and then they said they'd send the white box out within about a week. I haven't received mine yet but it probably hasn't quite been a week yet.

      • thanks mate…

        wondering what they're actually trying to find out and study… (i've read t&c but still interested to find out the truth)

        what if you watch a lot of free piracy movies/drama series online… will this get into trouble?

  • Received the box, it's tplink Archer C7. Not connect it yet, but I believe it should be running a customized version of os

  • I received the box too today, will look into it. To be honest I wasn't expecting it to be this big device.

  • +1

    Received, connected, earning credits.

    I have mine on a separated VLAN, nothing plugged into it.

    Router stats shows that it runs it's speed test on the hour, most hours of the day maybe 6 to 10 times per day (all over the day). Downloads 250MB, uploads 25MB or so.

  • Do we have access to speed tests from SamKnows?

    • https://samknows.com/realspeed/ will run a speedtest.

      • I want the history.

        • Just asked Nielsen support and we don't get individual data. I'll be exiting the program at the end of a month because of this. I wanted access to Sam knows data.

  • Has anyone else been able to contact Nielsen recently?
    I've filled out the Contact form, and emailed [email protected] separately and I'm not getting any response?
    Anyone got a number for the NBN panel?

    • I raised one through the form and got support. They eventually resolved my issue, where it wasn't giving me any points despite me setting up everything correctly.
      How long have you been waiting?

      • Thanks for your response. I've been waiting weeks. Can you tell me the email address that Support sends from? I can use it to make sure its not in my Inbox/Junk folder

        • +1

          Yep it's [email protected]

          I emailed their support first, then submitted a request though their form. Only got a response from them using the form.

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