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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

#241

Post by morrbo »

xcgfhgjbjhb wrote: post #193
obmelvin wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 posi…

And yet I still can't fast forward/rewind when using Roku media player and dlna.

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

#242

Post by chrisweekly »

sjwright wrote: post #223
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.

Maybe insurance companies could be our ally here. Warn them of the risks and get them to ensure all hospital TVs do not get internet access.

There go the already-terrible tv options in hospital rooms.

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

#243

Post by jchrome »

reilly3000 wrote: post #226
xcgfhgjbjhb wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 posi…

Is that mainly for ad attribution purposes?

Not for attribution. It’s for exposure. If Pepsi buys $1M in ads on NBC, it only knows the DMA and time slot/programs it bought the ads on. It doesn’t know the households it bought the ads on. With ACR data, it will know that you were exposed. From there, they can do a few different things. Audience studies (like they reached 2000 households with a certain income etc). Or they can run attribution studies. A company called Data+Math looks at exposure of these kinds of ads, understands which households weren’t exposed (as a control) and gives statistically significance calculations on linear TV ads to understand lift of sales (one example).

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

#245

Post by reificator »

cortesoft wrote: post #144
LynxInLA wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is surprising. I've had my Kindles on airplane mode for up to a year and haven't received any notices like that.

Do you have the ad supported version?

I have the ad supported version and leave airplane mode on at all times. I don't believe it has ever exited airplane mode without my consent.

Kindle Voyage 1st generation, if that's relevant.

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

#246

Post by dontbenebby »

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…

>This data is becoming a huge mechanism for subsidizing TV sales and the interactivity is being looked at as a huge opportunity to recoup some of the ad spend being lost via streaming and fewer 30 second spots

So what are the options for a consumer willing to pay for privacy? Will console manufacturers be more respectful for example? (I've considered a console to serve as a bluray player / host OS for streaming apps that also plays games).

Or are we stuck using dumb tvs and connecting out laptops to them via HDMI? (And thus no 4K iirc)

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

#248

Post by tzs »

vlozko wrote: post #10
kminehart wrote: post #3

When can I buy a TV without smart features? I don't doubt that my smart TV is reporting some data about my usage, but I barely have a choice in the matter.

It’s pretty simple: don’t connect it to the internet. Use something like AppleTV or your own box that you trust to show your streaming services.

One problem I have with that approach is I'm very confused about how sound works.

Consider three ways to play a movie:

1. From a source device (AppleTV, Blu-ray player, etc) connected to an A/V receiver.

2. From an app on your Smart TV, with the TV passing sound over ARC or optical to the A/V receiver.

3. From a source device, as in #1, but with the device connected to one of the TV's HDMI inputs instead of to the receiver. Sound going from the TV to the A/V receiver via ARC or optical.

Everything I've found seems to agree that #1 can handle anything, with the only limit being formats that are newer than your A/V receiver understands. Mine doesn't know about Dolby Atmos, for example, so wouldn't be able to do that.

For #2, the limit seems to be the bandwidth of ARC or optical. Optical can't do 5.1 or higher PCM, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, or a view others. It can only do stereo PCM, or matrix surround formats.

ARC, if your TV and A/V receiver implement a new enough version of the HDMI spec, has the bandwidth for all those formats.

For #3, some sources say that there are licensing limits, enforced by HDCP, that disallow the TV from passing a high bandwidth audio signal directly from an HDMI input to an HDMI output. Instead, the TV has to do the Dolby or DTS decoding itself, and then re-encode to a lower bandwidth Dolby or DTS format, and send that on.

I think that the very latest version of HDCP will remove that restriction, if both the TV and the the A/V receiver support it (not sure if it also needs to be on the source). But I don't think that is expected to start showing up on consumer equipment until next year.

Unfortunately, my receiver is not 4K, and I really don't want to get a new receiver until that latest HDCP is out, to maximize future proofing. So for now I have to choose between #2 and #3 when I want to watch something in 4K. I think the ARC supported by my TV and/or my receiver probably only has enough bandwidth to support matrix formats for surround sound, but with #2 I think it will be using a matrix encoded bitstream from the source, just passing it through. With #3, it's going to be going through decoding and re-encoding on the TV, to then be decoded again on the receiver. #2 seems better, then.

This is all WAY too freaking complicated.

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

#249

Post by flukus »

paxys wrote: post #100
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…

Not even a secret. A TV manufacturer publicly said a while ago that a TV without "smart" features is more expensive for the company (even if sold at the same retail price) because they cannot make any money from selling usage data.

How much do they make per user? I would have have thought it was in the $10-$20 range and not enough to trigger any price sensitivity. I'm a tightass with an aldi TV but wouldn't have cared if it cost $10 more.

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

#250

Post by Retric »

saagarjha wrote: post #172
Retric wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WiFi standard password protects encrypted networks. If the router can’t login and you don’t connect Ethernet it’s not connected to the internet.

Not every network requires a password.

Encrypted ones do, at least every commercial version these TV’s would be able to use. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Protected_Setup Is the closest thing to an exception that I know of but still required user action to connect, and it’s been deprecated for a long time.

Some enterprise systems don’t require users to enter passwords, but the software still uses them internally when talking to the network.

PS: Unless you know of some other exception?

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