Tech support at Western Digital has responded and stated that they only use Geobytes as part of the registration process of HD Live Plus to confirm what country the device is in, and the registration is optional.

Since I registered my unit online, this point is moot, but it would have been nice to have a disclaimer at start up or for the unit to try a couple of times and then give up, unlike what this unit does which is continue to try over and over to register with Geobytes.

Hopefully this will be removed in teh next version.

Re: Firewall taking hits from WDTV Live

12 hours ago – last edited 12 hours ago

I’ve got an answer for you guys. Geobytes.com is being used to check the country you’re in for the device registration process. This registration is optional – if you don’t register, the country information is not used for anything. Sorry it took so long to figure this out.

So let’s understand this… if you drive from California to Arizona or from southern Arizona to Tucson you have to stop at a mandatory Border Patrol Checkpoint, be asked what your nationality is and prove citizenship and this is OK.

It’s not OK however for Arizona to have a law that let’s local police do the same, and this was decided by a Federal judge?

We are doomed as a nation!