Device-metrics-us.amazon.com requests like crazy

General
21

Good question.

I've got half a dozen Echo Dots in my house. I'd like to know if there's any benefit to whitelisting this domain (or whatever the cleanest way to un-blacklist it is).

22

I thought I'd try to ask once more... a few times we've asked in this thread why 'device-metrics-us.amazon.com' in on the list.0.raw.githubusercontent.com blocklist. Any one know?

23

Hi,

first, list.0.raw.githubusercontent.com is not the real url of the blacklist containing this query, but a placeholder that says that this query is found in the first active entry of your blacklists.
So list.0... is the first, list.1... the second and so on...

So to get back to your question, this query is used by the Steven Black list, also by Arielle and Quidsub lists.
As you can see, not all lists are containig this query.
Why? Because not all developers of "tracking-blacklists" want to block this domain, but some do. It's a metrics url which is used by several other companies tracking your using behaviour while using their products.

Example:
...
0.0.0.0 metrics.sky.com
# 0.0.0.0 metrics.skype.com
0.0.0.0 metrics.slate.com
0.0.0.0 metrics.speedousa.com
0.0.0.0 metrics.solarwinds.com
0.0.0.0 metrics.sony.com
0.0.0.0 metrics.southwest.com
# 0.0.0.0 metrics.sprint.com #[affects login]
...

So feel free to whitelist this query if you have no problems with user tracking, or block it when there are no disadvantages in user experience using Amazon products...

24

Frank, thanks I appreciate the education on both points.

25

I got this disabled on a Kindle Fire HD 10 by going to Settings -> Apps&Games

then Disable Collect App usage Data.

1 Like
26

Thanks. That worked well for disabling the tens thousands of requests per day for that address.

27

As we've accrued more devices that are constantly sending information about us, the ads and targeted marketing, along with robo calls have just gotten damned creepy and overwhelming. So, I decided to install pi-hole. Very impressed. Nearly 30% of all requests, and a high margin of traffic is just our devices tracking our kids and us. It's been very interested to watch. We can see the data flow when we turn on devices, turn them off pick them up, tap, turn, set down, lights on, lights off, walk out of range, walk in range, stand up, sit down, login, logout. It's been fun just testing things and seeing how insanely tracked we are. Anyhow to point. iPads with Amazon Prime Video immediately started discharging, and I could see in the pi-hole query logs the culprit. device-metrics-us.amazon.com requests every few seconds.

So, here's what I did.

  1. Setup a certificate authority. I'm a developer so I already had this.
  2. Generate a valid certificate for device-metrics-us.amazon.com
  3. Setup RESTful service to handle requests to POST /metricsBatch
  4. Study the posts. (You'll need a root trusted cert and a proxy for you devices setup) There is a lot of data being sent each time you interact with Amazon Prime Video. Including, your top level LAN info (eg. 192.0.0.1), device model, customer id, ram available, disk available, app version, device id, wifi identifier of some sort, region, platform, etc.
  5. Study the response. It's empty. Just a status 200.
  6. Revise /etc/hosts on your pi-hole machine to point to your secure RESTful service that eats and logs all the requests, respond with status 200
  7. Whitelist device-metrics-us.amazon.com, and observe that your service is intercepting responses. The requests should not be happening every few seconds now. Instead, they happen each time you interact with prime, and approximately 1 time per minute.
  8. Delete Amazon Video from your device and cancel Amazon. Observe that battery life is better than before and bank account has more money each month.

I'm honestly surprised that with all media that Apple is putting out about protecting users' privacy, that they are permitting apps to send so much with absolutely no controls for the user to stop it or even be aware. If anything, pi-hole has made it very clear, which services and devices I want to use. I'm in the process of identifying invasive apps and services now. What I can't control directly or via pi-hole and similar technology, I'm just purging.

4 Likes
28

nice work.

29

Old thread I know, but some sort of Docker would be nice and helpful to all users which are struggeling with that