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What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

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Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#251

Post by chinathrow »

codedokode wrote: post #239
chinathrow wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: https://www.pehub.com/2015/05/avast-leads-22-mln-round-for-j... "Jumpshot also captures https clickstream data to reveal in-depth buying and social behavior above and beyond simple browsing." Capturing https clickstream data is only possible when you MITM the user - see Avast.

They could make a deal with browser extension developers to bundle a surveillance module. That is why I never install any browser extensions.

They could for sure - others already did that and bought well running extensions.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1vjj51/i_am_one_of_th...

At least, not all extension developers gave in to $$$.

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#252

Post by a3n »

I wonder how many of these Vizio TVs are in government offices, recording and selling their IPs, pixels, preferences and schedules.

Remember, it's not just broadcast, it's also from DVD players. Anything displayed.

And I wonder who's buying, and then correlating IPs and devices, besides the obvious advertisers. The potential for espionage and extortion is interesting.

"That's an interesting fetish you got there, Mr third or fourth down on the org chart who does the actual day to day running of the agency. It'd be a shame if it was to be ... exposed."

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#253

Post by shuntress »

Buge wrote: post #188
OkGoDoIt wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought Netflix and related services work the same way Spotify does: they pay content providers a small fee based on actual content viewing. If you pay Netflix a monthly subscription but never view any content on your account, I would assume Netflix keeps all of the revenue and doesn't pay out anything to the actual content providers. Just a guess, but it's possible your plan is backfiring by paying the company you…

Netflix also makes a lot of their own content. If he is pirating that content, then it's fair.

I think Netflix greenlights 3rd party content creator's projects, I'm not sure they have much if any in-house production.

Those deals probably include some combination of up-front payment as well as per-view payment.

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#255

Post by Shivetya »

mikeryan wrote: post #33

So I have a bit of intimate knowledge of this. Not sure what I can answer but for years my company worked on an Automatic Content Recognition project using tools from a team called Cognitive Networks who were bought by Vizio and makes up the tech that did this. If I understand correctly the founder of Vizio kept this tech for himself in the sale of Vizio. When developing this we would work directly with Cognitive che…

going to be really curious how siri/alexa/google voice activated devices in home are going to be treated in the future. eventually even these will likely have video in ability

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#256

Post by a3n »

ohyes wrote: post #120
AJ007 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting this. When I saw the original FTC story I recalled reading about this once or twice in the past but couldn't think of any key phrases or sources. In response to some of the other comments here, basically what they are guilty of isn't spying but failing to properly disclose and opt-in users. There is a particular major AV vendor who is selling raw clickstream data of millions of their user's interne…

> I had an interesting case with Instagram where after viewing enough pictures of women's butts it started also showing men's bare butts in my feed too.. at least until I never opened any of them, and they disappeared. This truly is technology run amok. "Welcome to buttstagram, for your butt viewing pleasure." When I think about this situation it makes me want to stay entirely away from social media and off the inter…

> Yet it's ubiquity in our lives makes it difficult to be integrated and participant in society without the technology.

Or: Yet the ubiquity in our lives of Stuff that was never built for us (pretty sure I never gave the billionaires at FB and Goog as much as a single dollar), but merely to lure us, makes it difficult to be integrated with and unwittingly enabling that Stuff without installing and using that Stuff.

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#257

Post by Nullabillity »

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #179
FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why i torrent behind a VPN despite being subscribed to HBO now, Netflix, and Amazon Video. My guilt is ameliorated and at least a sliver of ny privacy is maintained.

I thought Netflix and related services work the same way Spotify does: they pay content providers a small fee based on actual content viewing. If you pay Netflix a monthly subscription but never view any content on your account, I would assume Netflix keeps all of the revenue and doesn't pay out anything to the actual content providers. Just a guess, but it's possible your plan is backfiring by paying the company you…

Spotify, at least, pools all payments before paying royalties.

So his strategy does increase royalty payments, but doesn't "vote" for who should receive those royalties.

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#258

Post by spangry »

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #103
jasonwilk wrote: post #21

It's not worth buying any of these 'Smart' TVs. I don't know whether it is a shoddy developer experience provided by the likes of Samsung / Vizeo etc or if it's the developers themselves (Hulu I'm looking at you) who do not maintain their apps which are constantly bug filled. I much prefer my old dumb TV that has a Roku plugged into it. Oh yeah, and I know it's not WATCHING ME.

I don't understand the consumer infatuation with "smart", Internet connected devices, especially smart homes. Yes auto lighting and hvac systems are cool, but it introduces so many security vulnerabities that it's not worth it. I dont ever see myself using autonomous, internet connected cars. I cant think of a bigger hacking target for terrorists and mischief makers alike.

Me neither, but it seems like we haven't even come close to the limit of what people will tolerate. For example, Johnson & Johnson has/had an insulin pump on the market that could easily be triggered remotely (i.e. be used to remotely murder you): http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/05/animas_diabetes_pump...

And their response was basically "yeah, it's not that big of a deal, don't worry about it". Someone with really bad intentions could set up a few arduinos/rPIs in populated cities, set them to broadcast the 'inject insulin' command and then sit back and watch people drop dead if they wander within range.

Scary stuff.

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#259

Post by spangry »

mbesto wrote: post #96
Narkov wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"orders of magnitude more" ? As in, ~$200m? No chance. With a little bit of industry knowledge, I would posit that they made roughly the same quantum as the fine.

> Vizio collected a selection of pixels on the screen that it matched to a database of TV, movie, and commercial content. That type of technology alone would cost you at least $2M to build. So either your statement is incorrect or Vizio got a terrible ROI on this (sans fine).

I doubt it would cost nearly that much. I could build something similar in a couple of days, and I'm not even a developer by trade.

Just use something like pHash (e.g. https://github.com/JohannesBuchner/imagehash), screen cap the centre of the screen (say, a quarter of the screen in total) every minute, hash and then send the 8 byte hex string back to home base.

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