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The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

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Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#101

Post by neilv »

test6554 wrote: post #87
jmalkin wrote: post #73

I've gotten nothing out of my Smart TV that I couldn't have gotten from a Chromecast, or preferably, a laptop hooked up to a TV. And I've lost a lot. My TV is slow. When I try to control the volume, sometimes I have to wait multiple seconds. And things stop working all the time and require a reboot. I hate the damn thing. It even comes with bloatware for some reason, games I'll never play that it insists on updating…

I have resisted the urge to buy a new tv for 11 years. I own the same 48" non-smart Sony I've always had. I have always felt like the grass would be greener if I were to buy one of those 65" LG OLED tvs, but thank you for setting me straight. This old TV is 5 inches thick, but it turns on in 2 seconds. I hooked an amazon fire tv into one HDMI port. I also have a sonos "connect" hooked up to the audio-out so that I ca…

I managed to score a similar Sony TV on CraigsList a couple years ago. I plugged it into a DVD-1080p-upscaling Blu-ray player without WiFi. My local public library has a better catalog than Netflix, on disc, so I canceled Netflix. The TV chassis looks a little dated, but the picture and sound are great, and, on principle, I'm violated slightly less than before (by my own "tech" industry).

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#103

Post by meruru »

pessimizer wrote: post #54
dsl wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just extreme whataboutism. There is a vast difference between China spying on and locking people up for being the wrong religion, and the CIA secretly recording a conversation about the planning of a bombing.

That's true, but there's also a vast difference between the CIA spying on and locking people up for being the wrong religion, and China secretly recording a conversation about the planning of a bombing. Similarities between the two governments are that they would both characterize their spying on, imprisoning, and torture of religious minorities as preventing potential bombings, and characterize their counterparts as…

I'm glad we can all agree that mass surveillance is bad.

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#104

Post by mulmen »

I have not been excited about the release of a new consumer product in well over 5 years. The last real improvement in a consumer device for me was the iPhone 6s and even then I preferred the older form factor.

I no longer look forward to the release of any new device or expect it to make my life better in any way. I just assume it will spy on me and/or exploit some weakness in my subconscious.

When my current TV dies I might just go back to having no TV at all.

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#105

Post by narnianal »

The question is how much this matters if you already have 2-5 active microphones listening in when there are two normal people in the room. I bet if the CIA wants they can get enough data from the audio alone to even say who looked at whom during a conversation.

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#106

Post by rrix2 »

majia wrote: post #99
w7 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make sense to me. Especially given the GHCQ's break down of Huawei gear finding that Huawei can't even do version control right (they had revisions of firmware with the same version id for the same hardware with different build characteristics), and magically reintroducing vulnerabilities from 2006. Personally I feel that Huawei gear would be ripe for exploitation and then misdirection. I don't get why p…

> I don't get why people are so hung up on proof though. The reason you look for proof is not that it gives you 100% security. It is the process of finding proof that helps us understand how secure a product is and what vulnerabilities need to be addressed. GHCQ's through examination of Huawei devices found problems with version control, and Huawei promised to fix those problems. This is how security could improve. I…

These also sound like the sort of problems that could be solved without a global sales ban, people seem to really like the Hand of the Market for stuff like this when it's not down nationalist lines.

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#107

Post by sib »

bduerst wrote: post #36
sib wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also see this Amazon patent related to intentionally removing PII from speech transmitted to the cloud. http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H... In case the link doesn't work, it's US Patent 9922646.

Did you link the right patent? That claim is only for locating a user in a room based on multi-room voice input.

Grrr - wrong link:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#108

Post by stevesimmons »

I hate my Samsung Smart TV too. It auto-installed a Rakuten TV app that several times a week would switch from the only channel we watch (BBC News) to channel 4000 showing trailers for its video-on-demand pay per view service.

Samsung makes it very hard to uninstall this 'feature' and even kills threads about it on its web site support forum.

I had to got back to the shop I bought it from and threaten to return the TV as defective unless they sent instructions for permanently removing it.

Samsung, you should be ashamed of yourself, taking such an obviously anti-customer stance. My next TV certainly won't be a Samsung.

And hopefully several other people reading this won't buy a Samsung either. Vote with your wallet, folks!

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#109

Post by 9HZZRfNlpR »

CIA is able to spy but Samsung doesn't even get screen mirroring work on my TV. Thankfully, I disabled the internet connectivity and forget about it, it turned out to be a good thing maybe.

Where to get modern TVs screen wise but dumb ones? Monitors go up to only somewhat limited dimension's. Anyone have ideas? Buy the screen from LG and build yourself?

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#110

Post by IntelMiner »

elvecinodeabajo wrote: post #92
voltagex_ wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Older TVs also use more power (and put out more heat). You'll eventually find your game consoles, Blu ray players etc no longer function with the TV as it doesn't support whatever the latest HDCP standard is.

There are LED 'dumb' TV's.

Where? Are they cost and quality competitive with "Smart" TV's?
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