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Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

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Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#191

Post by bryan_w »

throwaway122378 wrote: post #103
slivanes wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple cares about privacy enough to make Google their default search provider for many billions each year. Apple pays lip service to your privacy and obviously cares more about money just like any other corporation.

You can make DuckDuckGo your default search engine on all Apple devices. Apple is definitely a for profit business and they charge for their products instead of subsidizing with data aggregation or theft.

Still doesn't change the fact that if Apple was principled on privacy, they would refuse google's billions in spy money and wouldn't, by default, send their customers to Google search engine to be harvested

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#192

Post by cyanbane »

ceejayoz wrote: post #171
cyanbane wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do Doctor's that use TVs like this in meeting rooms get around HIPAA? or other places with PII, etc? With so much stuff being thrown to TVs now, a lot of times they are inheriently monitors, and there are very few people who think taking a screenshot of a monitor is not invasive.

The article cites things like location, IP addresses, and the content being watched. That's a far cry from relaying an audio recording of a surgical conference containing HIPAA-sensitive data.

No, the above comment (not article) mentions screenshots. If I have an x-ray of someone on my screen along with patient name then how is that not personal information that could be screen shotted and sent to some endpoint?

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#193

Post by xcgfhgjbjhb »

obmelvin wrote: post #117
mikeryan wrote: post #50

This is a pretty open secret within the industry. Geographic data can be provided via setup (a lot of TV's ask for a zip code on setup) or usually simply via GeoIP lookup. Dig a bit deeper and you get into service provided by Samba TV and or Inscape and you can find that they're sending back frames of video in a lot of cases to track what you're watching. This data is becoming a huge mechanism for subsidizing TV sale…

Roku enabled TVs very clearly send back frames of what you are watching. I've been watching YouTube casted via chromecast plugged into HDMI (NOT the built in chromecast, I have verified multiple times) and the Roku will give me a full width toast saying to press `*` to watch the full movie or some similar contextual option I was pretty put off the first time this happened. That said, I don't even know if I looked thr…

I worked on that.

It sends audio and/or video fingerprints (not frames, for privacy and bandwidth reasons), which are matched against a fingerprint database. Whatever people see on TV is usually 10 to 60 seconds behind the real live stream at the broadcaster (which is where the reference fingerprinting happens). GeoIP data can be used to roughly deduce where the TV is located, in order to better filter out false positives out of multiple matches (e.g. in the US where lots of programming on east/west side is just shifted by ~3 hours due to time difference).

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#195

Post by U8dcN7vx »

c13u wrote: post #157
diminoten wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, how dare they, you barely got out of there with your life... Seriously, the melodrama people treat their privacy with is frequently astounding.

I don't understand your criticism. If the TV were given close to free and then subsidized by ads, sure. But I'm paying >$500 for the TV, why should I get ads too?

Because they can. Alternatively, perhaps it would be more like >$2000 to avoid the advertising.

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#197

Post by dangrover »

freeone3000 wrote: post #161
dangrover wrote: post #154

It is not clear why we should necessarily be suspicious of smart TVs based on the findings here. The lines seem to be blurred between what data is being sent by the TV OS itself versus a third party app that someone may have decided to use during the period that the researchers watched outbound network connections. If someone is using the Netflix app, this necessitates that the TV must communicate with Netflix. How e…

Because it interferes with the idea of a TV being a display. A TV should not have apps. If it does have apps, these apps should not communicate data to the manufacturer. It shouldn't send back data about the operating system because a TV shouldn't have an operating system.

I agree having an OS on a TV is gratuitous. But that doesn't change that the claims the headline made are not actually proven by the evidence presented.

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#198

Post by fitzroy »

PSA: If you mostly like to watch movies and/or cinematic TV (with the lights off, or in a dimly lit room), consider a home theater projector instead of a TV. In a dark room (even with white walls) the image is fanatic in cinema mode, and nearly as good (and quite a bit brighter) in "living room" mode. Best of all, they have absolutely zero "smart" features.

I bought an Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 8345 Projector refurbished for around $470 a couple years ago to replace my 720p Panasonic AX200U. The Epsons have a solid warranty and will easily project a 100"+ image in a dark room on a basic (This 3100 is basically the newer (and better) version of mine for $684, and the one I'd get if I was buying today. https://epson.com/Clearance-Center/Home-Entertainment/Home-C...

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#199

Post by profquail »

macNchz wrote: post #189
BowBun wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck in 5 years, there will likely only be an option or two left and they will be as shitty as today's flip-phones. A few years ago I was in the market for a TV and was flabbergasted as to why I couldn't get a nice, big, 'dumb' TV.

Yeah I intentionally bought a dumb TV instead of a smart TV five years ago... recently started thinking about whether it might be interesting to upgrade to a 4k and/or OLED model before discovering that they’re ALL smart.

You can get dumb TV’s, they’re just called “digital signage”. For example: https://www.lg.com/us/business/digital-signage/lg-60UL3E
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