A decade ago my LG plasma TV had a serial port for using it as digital signage (I think). If I spammed the serial port during boot I could interrupt U-Boot but they had disabled echoing out. I never figured out if I could do something useful or not.
Ask HN: Tips for hacking a TV?
61–70 of 75 posts
Re: Ask HN: Tips for hacking a TV?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
The UN24H4500 is an LED monitor. The big risk in old TVs was the enormous voltages in the CRTs (which acted as a capacitor and stored energy even when off, and even pick up energy from background sources)
Aren't a lot of old TVs 'live chassis' as well as using very high voltages?
For faster startup, yes.
Re: Ask HN: Tips for hacking a TV?
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
And they will provide it as required per law. Note that the law does not require them to provide that in a form that would be usable for anything practical without doing moderate to heavy amount of reverse engineering (e.g. here's the source, here's the toolchain that was released in approximately same period of time, go figure out if this can even be built without recreating part of their internal build system, miss…
See the blog post, the GPLv2 goes further than what you suggest.
So if my Toyota head unit has FOSS they can provide that source code to me if I ask?
Re: Ask HN: Tips for hacking a TV?
#64First step would be to contact Samsung and ask for the Linux kernel and other open source code for your TV. Without it you won't be able to replace the original OS properly. Also mention to them that they have to allow you to update Linux on the TV or they have to stop using Linux on their TVs. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/
And how many times has this worked?
Re: Ask HN: Tips for hacking a TV?
#65A decade ago my LG plasma TV had a serial port for using it as digital signage (I think). If I spammed the serial port during boot I could interrupt U-Boot but they had disabled echoing out. I never figured out if I could do something useful or not.
Serial ports on tv are usually for screen control, as in turn on/off, change input, set volume... Like what you can do with the OSD and the remote
Re: Ask HN: Tips for hacking a TV?
#66you could try spamming/brute-forcing the IR spectrum with a IR diode in the hope of finding a debug access: https://hackaday.com/tag/smart-tv-hacks/
Oh hey, now there's an interesting thought! Thank you!
Re: Ask HN: Tips for hacking a TV?
#67This is probably obvious, but so important that I feel it's worth saying: do not connect it to the internet! The last thing you want right now is up-to-date software, and chances are very good that if it goes online it will update its software and install all the latest security patches. You will need to connect it to a network in order to scan it for vulnerabilities, but make that a network that has no internet acce…
Thank you so much for writing all this up! It'll take me a bit to get to it, but if you'd like I'll keep you posted on if I have any luck!
Re: Ask HN: Tips for hacking a TV?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
See the blog post, the GPLv2 goes further than what you suggest.
So if my Toyota head unit has FOSS they can provide that source code to me if I ask?
For the parts covered under GPL, yes, which includes the kernel (if it uses Linux).
If they're covered under a more permissive license (e.g. Apache, MIT) you're out of luck as these don't require redistribution of derivative work source code, only attribution.
Re: Ask HN: Tips for hacking a TV?
#69[flagged]
Re: Ask HN: Tips for hacking a TV?
#70Try xda forum.
[dead]