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My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

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Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#411

Post by kstrauser »

beezle wrote: post #382
kstrauser wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have a "Smart TV" from any brand ...you should turn that crap off and replace it with a Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, or anything else external. The Amazon app on our Vizio was so out of date that it literally couldn't connect to Amazon's API. Later updates fixed Amazon but enabled some flat-out 1984 level spying: https://consumerist.com/2015/11/09/vizio-smart-tvs-are-watch... . That's when I hard reset the TV, b…

I really do not know why you (and other commenters later) place such great faith in the add on devices, Roku in particular. Just from a couple months ago: "And that’s where streaming TV company Roku comes in. Today, the company is introducing a new measurement suite called Roku Ad Insights that lets brands and agencies measure how effective their marketing is on OTT in four ways." You really should assume that any ap…

I said that I don't. I definitely mistrust them less than I mistrust any given TV manufacturer, though.

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#412

Post by nkantar »

sokoloff wrote: post #387
mr_toad wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t give it the Wifi password?

Not giving it your WiFi password doesn’t make it immune from a nearby open/Mifi/phone access point that may allow the TV to exfiltrate data or become exposed.

Maybe give it a password to a honeypot network of yours?

I realize it's a bad solution, but that might work…unless it's "smart" enough to realize it has no connection and try other networks regardless…

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#414

Post by pjmlp »

dep_b wrote: post #350
pjmlp wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. There a plenty of dumb 4K Blaupunkt TVs sold in Germany pretty much everywhere.

Interesting, what model(s)? Also UHD OLED?

No, they are not OLED, just LCD and LED.

Specific models I don't know by heart.

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#415

Post by friedman23 »

majewsky wrote: post #262
friedman23 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to understand how people believed all these services worked previously for example, did you know that when you purchase an ebook using kindle software amazon knows exactly what page you've read to and how long you've stayed on each page. They also know exactly what books you have purchased. Or Did you know that whenever you use a smart tv app that every time you "hover" over a tv show an event is logged t…

> these services could not function without this information Why does Kindle NEED to know how long I've stayed on each page? Why does a smart TV NEED to store hover events in a persistent DB?

>Why does Kindle NEED to know how long I've stayed on each page?

It doesn't, but every page turn event has a time stamp. Using that info it's pretty easy to know how long someone has been on a page.

>Why does a smart TV NEED to store hover events in a persistent DB?

When the company is doing AB testing to decide on the optimal page layout this information is important.

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#416

Post by friedman23 »

jacquesm wrote: post #284
fipple wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR only increases engineering and compliance costs. It doesn’t have any consumer-side impact since to a first approximation, zero consumers take advantage of data privacy laws.

> since to a first approximation, zero consumers take advantage of data privacy laws. That's where that nice multiplier of 250,000 gets going. See, even if to a first approximation zero consumers take advantage of these laws if it turns out that 'approximately zero' out of 100 million is say 10,000 you're still fucked if you decide to play dumb. So round off all you want, but keep in mind the multiplier.

multiplier?

anyway, a company like google or apple could hardly care less about a number like 250,000 but a small European startup is hopelessly screwed.

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#418

Post by PeterStuer »

userbinator wrote: post #228
buro9 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try it. I did. I couldn't find a non-smart TV. They are everywhere. If you want the 4k, then you have a smart TV. The best alternatives were super large monitors (way over the price of a TV, and with no decent sound built in), or corporate display panels (for advertising, signage, etc) whose prices are also way above a TV and include no sound system at all.

The best alternatives were super large monitors (way over the price of a TV, and with no decent sound built in), or corporate display panels (for advertising, signage, etc) whose prices are also way above a TV and include no sound system at all. I wonder how big the market is for "dumb" TVs priced lower than smart ones --- given that the development costs, if any, for one would be much lower since you're basically ju…

They would be more expensive, same as buying a laptop with no bloatware is more expensive than its loaded equivalent. Manufacturers/Labels/distributors get kickbacks from the bloatware companies per install so they can afford to reduce the price of the machine vs a 'clean' system.

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#419

Post by dragonwriter »

buro9 wrote: post #76
pwg wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solution: don't ever purchase a smart TV. Preferably, no one would ever purchase a smart TV. When smart TV sales go to zero, the makers would get the message. Sadly, too many folks don't know, or if they do know, they don't care.

Try it. I did. I couldn't find a non-smart TV. They are everywhere. If you want the 4k, then you have a smart TV. The best alternatives were super large monitors (way over the price of a TV, and with no decent sound built in), or corporate display panels (for advertising, signage, etc) whose prices are also way above a TV and include no sound system at all.

You can find non-smart panels or monitors in most common TV sizes, but they aren't TVs because they lack TV tuners. Of course, unless you are doing OTA or no-box cable (is that even a thing anymore?) you aren't going to use a builtin TV tuner anyway.

Prices, though, are usually higher than TVs.

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#420

Post by fipple »

jacquesm wrote: post #284
fipple wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR only increases engineering and compliance costs. It doesn’t have any consumer-side impact since to a first approximation, zero consumers take advantage of data privacy laws.

> since to a first approximation, zero consumers take advantage of data privacy laws. That's where that nice multiplier of 250,000 gets going. See, even if to a first approximation zero consumers take advantage of these laws if it turns out that 'approximately zero' out of 100 million is say 10,000 you're still fucked if you decide to play dumb. So round off all you want, but keep in mind the multiplier.

No, because of that multiplier all companies are coming into compliance and it's costing all of them a lot of money. But it isn't going to affect their revenue or advertising business models at all because nobody uses the tool. I've done GDPR work at one of the biggest tech companies in the world. They had an existing (pre-GDPR) privacy tool that literally less than 100 people had ever used. This is a company with hundreds of millions of users.
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