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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)

#161

Post by raxxorrax »

w7 wrote: post #47
sirmoveon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with technical knowledge at this point shouldn't doubt this perspective anymore. No evidence of wrong doing was published, and the claim of the possibility of the Chinese government making Huawei do their bidding at some point, is no different from what other governments have been doing, including the U.S. (and getting caught in the wrong doing). There's no shame in the hypocresy. It's a blatant attempt to dam…

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 think GCHQ is a reliable source, but from what they have reported here, they paint a very realistic picture on your average tech company.

I don't like the idea of having important infrastructure like this in the hands of any foreign manufacturer. Not while there is indeed evidence that government try to enforce backdoors in tech equipment.

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

#162

Post by tptacek »

throwaway743 wrote: post #78
tptacek wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know what those other agencies do, and how they're staffed, and which functions they serve, as compared to the CIA? For that matter, how well do you feel you understand the high-level functions of the CIA?

Seeing that your posts throughout this thread whole heartedly defend their practices and ignore mentioning them taking any amount of accountability for their actions, would you care to provide your insights as a means of sharing knowledge with those of us you imply are ignorant regarding the matters of this topic?

I think you've responded to the wrong commenter. Check your links; it happens to me sometimes too!

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

#163

Post by T3OU-736 »

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…

Panasonic, back in the plasma days, used to have a "professional" line. Those were plasma monitors (no built-in tuner, no sound processing at all), and it had modular inputs. There are 3 slots for I/O cards. Can still find the cards on ebay under the "Panasonic HDMI TV Boards" search results.

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

#164

Post by pwodhouse »

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 might prefer 4x detention time if I got to choose a US prison over China. I'd certainly prefer the freedom of thought and speech in the US.

https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/jun/22/inside-chin...

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

#165

Post by pwodhouse »

tptacek wrote: post #98
pm90 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there's no possibility of abolishing the function of intelligence analysis and clandestine service, nor should you want there to be: net-net, the CIA might in fact prevent more armed conflicts than it contributes to, and in any case no major power will ever unilaterally disarm. This is a very interesting perspective. Using this kind of perspective, you can argue for any bad thing, can't you? How can you possibl…

Just be mindful of what I'm defending. It's not the CIA; it's the concept of intelligence and intelligence analysis.

Then you should not refer to CIA twice in your defense, with its well documented history of war crimes and nation-breaking.

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

#166

Post by tptacek »

pwodhouse wrote: post #165
tptacek wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just be mindful of what I'm defending. It's not the CIA; it's the concept of intelligence and intelligence analysis.

Then you should not refer to CIA twice in your defense, with its well documented history of war crimes and nation-breaking.

I'm not sure how one can defend the concept of foreign intelligence in the US and not mention the CIA. The premise of my comment is that they're separable, but that it's difficult to separate them as a practical matter.

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

#167

Post by Tistel »

I bought a Philips 4k tv which works ok. But, when I plug it into my ethernet and hit the software update button it says it can't find the host. So I am guessing they hard coded the wrong IP/URL into the firmware. I am sure are there is some USB firmware patch I can do, but, I don't want to risk turning it into a giant doorstop/brick.

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

#168

Post by decoyworker »

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…

The only smart feature that I love is the ability to play 4k HDR videos from a USB drive. With that said, I will never connect the thing to my network.

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

#169

Post by stoobs »

osamagirl69 wrote: post #93
test6554 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Just wanted to chime in since you specifically mentioned the "65" LG OLED", which is the same TV I have (specifically the OLED65B6P). When plugged into the internet it has all of the usual unfeatures (including ads displayed over hdmi input), however if you leave it unplugged from the internet it works great and boots up almost instantly to the last input selected without any fuss. Furthermore, the HDMI CEC commands…

(including ads displayed over hdmi input)

What the hell?

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

#170

Post by ChicagoBoy11 »

Isn't the most obvious fix for this never connecting the TV to the internet in the first place? If your TV works the day you buy it, why do you need to connect it so it gets "firmware" updates? in some respect, isn't the user still capable of making their SmartTV a "dumb" TV?
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