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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

#311

Post by voltagex_ »

cybergoat wrote: post #250
voltagex_ wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they're pretty rare in Australia due to our reliance on ADSL - unless you flash with DD-WRT. It's still not something everyone does. OpenWRT and DD-WRT's UIs are pretty rough (although, most commercial UIs are, too)

I'm running OpenWRT on a TP-Link TL-WR841N/ND v8 and the LuCI interface that comes out of box is vastly better (cleaner and more feature-full) than the majority of consumer router interfaces I've encountered. In particular, the realtime graph of current connections! You can likely set your ADSL modem into "bridge mode" and put a user-flashable device between that and your network. Once you get NBN you just connect th…

I'm on the NBN now. Configuring OpenWRT had been a pretty steep learning curve but it's worth it in the end.

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#312

Post by edaemon »

criley2 wrote: post #291

Just further confirms that "Smart" TV's are a ripoff at best and a scam at worst. Never, ever, ever buy a television described as smart. For any reason at all. All of the solutions are miserably pathetic. All of the solutions are riddled with bugs, design omissions and potentially nasty security zero days. All implementations have little to no update support from major third parties. And, in many cases from many comp…

It's going to get more and more difficult to find a "dumb" TV. Almost all medium and high quality TVs are "smart" TVs now. It costs TV manufacturers very little to add "smart" functionality and it brings in a lot of customers.

I think it's more pragmatic to look for a TV that suits your needs, including any tracking, advertising, etc. Some platforms let you turn it off and others don't -- e.g. Samsung's smart TVs show ads in the menus that you can't disable. I would never buy a TV like that. I just bought a Vizio recently, but I knew about their tracking software so I knew how to disable it during initial setup. Far from ideal, but I wanted a quality 4k display so I was pretty much stuck with "smart" TVs.

Also, for what it's worth, Vizio changed their "smart" platform to just be a built-in Chromecast which isn't as terrible as most smart TV platforms. I have an HTPC hooked up to my TV but 4k content is mostly limited to "approved platforms", meaning I have to use some kind of device to stream it.

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#313

Post by jjawssd »

mirkules wrote: post #294
scient wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By using FB, you consent to them using the information about you that others and you yourself provide. Dont like it? Dont use FB.

By that logic, we shouldn't buy or use Vizio TVs either. But the issue here with the FTC complaint is that there was not a prominent warning that the data was being collected or used in such a way. I certainly never read or even saw any warning about facial matching in all my photos or my children's photos. Besides all that, people with shadow profiles who never even used Facebook or agreed to their TOS are being tra…

> By that logic, we shouldn't buy or use Vizio TVs either.

Burn it all. Facebook and Vizio.

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#314

Post by compuguy »

chris_wot wrote: post #159
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'm amazed you can access Netflix behind a VPN.

Heck if your using a tunnel broker for ipv6, it thinks your using a vpn, sigh.

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#315

Post by tomc1985 »

scient wrote: post #263
mirkules wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to bring about a similar complaint against Facebook with the FTC? Or, if the FTC is the wrong agency, what would be the right one? Of particular concern are "shadow profiles" - dossiers on people who have never even used or consented to using Facebook[1]. I'm no lawyer, but there could be precedent per this Vizio case. In my opinion Facebook is hugely overstepping people's privacy bounds, even if they…

By using FB, you consent to them using the information about you that others and you yourself provide. Dont like it? Dont use FB.

Except a lot of people are forced to use FB either for work or by friends/family. Without the right IRL social network these people are very disadvantaged given that practically everything social (as in, real life people hanging out, not "social" media) is on FB nowadays

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#316

Post by logfromblammo »

xanderstrike wrote: post #44
kevin_b_er wrote: post #25

This is why you do not use a smart TV: Nefarious data collection on what you watch and Samsungs are known to demand to show ads or else. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13585132 https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/241500-samsung-smart... http://www.techtimes.com/articles/190222/20161227/samsung-sm... I'm also, for political reasons, suspicious of the FTC's willingness to pursue such cases in the future.

Can you recommend a 50" 1080p tv that isn't "smart"? I've been shopping for a new one and I strongly suspect they don't exist.

Last time around, I elected to buy a smaller "dumb" TV, and just sit closer to it. I learned my lesson very early, with LG as my teacher.

If I really had to get a large display, I'd just make it a big computer monitor and add a separate sound setup, or I'd spend the gratuitous extra markup on a commercial "digital signage" display. Either way, I'd probably have to route all TV-related functions through a set-top box with HDMI output, like a DVR, cable/satellite box, or HTPC.

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#317

Post by sib »

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…

No - as a general rule, Netflix pays a fixed royalty for the content that they license from third parties, regardless of how many people watch it. This is why the quality of their predictive models is so important; the better they can forecast, the better they can determine whether the price they would have to pay is worth it.

(Of course, the royalty is different for every piece of content, but the amount is negotiated ahead of time; it is not on a per-usage basis.)

This is different from iTunes movies, Amazon (non-Prime) Video, Vudu, Google Play, etc., which license on a revenue share basis.

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#318

Post by AgentME »

webXL wrote: post #279
spangry wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rea…

Someone would really, really have to have it out for diabetic geeks for this to be plausible. The scary stuff I worry about is what an evil scientist, like the one from 12 monkeys, could do with a deadly virus. This type of evil gets more far more "bang for the buck". I guess both are equally plausible. I might worry more about your scenario if I were diabetic!

>Someone would really, really have to have it out for diabetic geeks for this to be plausible.

It only takes someone having it out for any specific individual who depends on the device. The OneTouch pump is a convenient murder weapon that could make the death look like an accident. (Or the possibility of many collateral casualties could be a plus to some.)

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#319

Post by criley2 »

edaemon wrote: post #312
criley2 wrote: post #291

Just further confirms that "Smart" TV's are a ripoff at best and a scam at worst. Never, ever, ever buy a television described as smart. For any reason at all. All of the solutions are miserably pathetic. All of the solutions are riddled with bugs, design omissions and potentially nasty security zero days. All implementations have little to no update support from major third parties. And, in many cases from many comp…

It's going to get more and more difficult to find a "dumb" TV. Almost all medium and high quality TVs are "smart" TVs now. It costs TV manufacturers very little to add "smart" functionality and it brings in a lot of customers. I think it's more pragmatic to look for a TV that suits your needs, including any tracking, advertising, etc. Some platforms let you turn it off and others don't -- e.g. Samsung's smart TVs sho…

Harder but certainly not impossible.

IMO you and others choosing to patronize overpriced and pointless smart systems is why it is becoming harder to find.

If even the people who care don't care, then sure, they'll surcharge $100+ on every model happily.

For what it's worth, my dumb Vizio was found in a stack of 20+ at a local Target during Black Friday. They were literally stacked at the entrance to the store. I couldn't miss it. It wasn't that hard to find.

Re: What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

#320

Post by Shorel »

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.

Don't blame the consumer.

It is the industry the ones who try to force that on us.

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