Kodi Add-On Gaia Raises Security Concerns With “Phoning Home” Feature

• A popular Kodi add-on pushed out a new feature dubbed “Orion” which can phone homes with streaming links pushed by end-users.
• The feature was first introduced to the app as a paid feature and allows users to stream links from a universal database and is currently free.
• The feature poses security risks as it allows users to scrape external websites which can pose serious security risks from both lawmakers and hackers.

A feature in popular Kodi add-on Gaia is causing a lot of security concerns amongst users. Marketed as ‘Orion,’ the feature started off as a paid add-on for Gaia, and it allows users to retrieve streaming links form a database owned by the add-on developers. Paid users were able to start up the streaming links from any location, and it would play the video content on their Kodi devices.

A free version of the Orion feature has popped up on Gaia. It allows users to sign up for the service for free and stream their favorite TV shows and movies without paying a dime. However, the developer chose to leave out a large number of security risks that it poses.

Till date add-ons like Gaia and users were completely separated when it comes to legal matters and copyright infringement. However, with the add-on developers directly promoting copyright infringement and piracy, it poses the risk of users being sued by copyright holders. Thousands of users have signed up for the service without being aware of the legal complications it carries.

End users directly contributing to piracy have never been targeted by copyright bullies outside of ISP notices and soft bans. Using features like 'Orion' on the Gaia add-on can open up the legal openings for copyright holders to directly sue users even if they download a single torrent file which breaches copyrights.

While Gaia does not seem to have any malicious intent, the team behind Orion should have been more transparent about the feature. Moreover, if the servers of the add-on were to be breached, it could lead to personal information being leaked as users actively provide their information to upload streaming links to illegal content.

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