Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data • Hacker News Board

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#31

Post by CWuestefeld » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 7:30 PM UTC

AznHisoka wrote: post #30

excalibur wrote: post #18

Does anybody here know a good alternative? A device you can connect to a dumb TV to play streaming content that doesn't spy on you? All of the commercially available options seem to be selecting a giant corporation to send all your data to. As a "small" company that does this and nothing else, you would think Roku would be a relatively privacy-focused option, but it appears to be the opposite. I feel like we're being…

"As a "small" company that does this and nothing else, you would think Roku would be a relatively privacy-focused option, but it appears to be the opposite." Roku is not just a physical device, or an OS. It's also in the advertising business. They stream video ads and display ads when you watch certain shows through Roku. Thus, they want to know a lot more about you to show you relevant ads.

Indeed. Judging from my PiHole logs, my Roku is trying to phone home quite a lot. Of course, the PiHole is preventing that...

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#32

Post by disposition2 » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 8:58 PM UTC

fluxsauce wrote: post #21

excalibur wrote: post #18

Does anybody here know a good alternative? A device you can connect to a dumb TV to play streaming content that doesn't spy on you? All of the commercially available options seem to be selecting a giant corporation to send all your data to. As a "small" company that does this and nothing else, you would think Roku would be a relatively privacy-focused option, but it appears to be the opposite. I feel like we're being…

I use an NVIDIA Shield TV and a Pi-Hole, which gives me the advantage / flexibility of the Android ecosystem and the ability to stop some tracking. All subscription streaming providers phone home while you're watching.

I second this while also mentioning that I have not let my TV connect to the internet. It came as a 'smart TV' but I just don't give it access to the internet so it is therefore just a 'dumb' screen with inputs

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#33

Post by pwinnski » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #14

pwinnski wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just last week I bought a TCL Roku TV. The price was right! During setup, I declined to connect to WiFi and then set the TV to automatically switch to HDMI 1 when it turns on, and to honor CEC over HDMI so that my external AppleTV box can power it on and off. Taught the AppleTV remote how to handle the volume on the TV, and that's it. The Roku remote is in a drawer, and the TV behaves as a dumb monitor. I'm not even…

>The price was right! In my opinion, a "right" price would not encourage the kind of behavior that puts bullshit software on a device in the first place. Also, your TV could be connected to mobile networks and you would not know, although I'm not sure what information they can divine from the TV being on or off, other than the times someone is home or not.

If the TV demanded a network connection to operate, I would have returned it the next day.

My TV could have a secret mobile chip, it's true. So could literally anything brought into my house larger than a chip+antenna. I don't think that a TV would be the first thing I'd suspect.

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#34

Post by pwinnski » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

MrMember wrote: post #15

pwinnski wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just last week I bought a TCL Roku TV. The price was right! During setup, I declined to connect to WiFi and then set the TV to automatically switch to HDMI 1 when it turns on, and to honor CEC over HDMI so that my external AppleTV box can power it on and off. Taught the AppleTV remote how to handle the volume on the TV, and that's it. The Roku remote is in a drawer, and the TV behaves as a dumb monitor. I'm not even…

I wonder how long not connecting it to wifi will be a viable option. I wouldn't be surprised if many devices today still attempt to connect to open networks even if you decline to connect it to your home network. Once cell modems are embedded in everything the only option to prevent it from phoning home will be to physically disable the modem or put it in a Faraday cage.

Fortunately, not connecting to wifi also means that my TV's software/firmware won't be updated, so for this particular device, I think it will be a viable option as long as it keeps operating.

Whether TCL will someday close that loophole for future models remains to be seen.

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#35

Post by sundayedition » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 12:24 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #25

The article doesn't explain one thing - what is Roku TV? I tried googling but the first result is the Facebook Portal device, and then their own website says it's a Hisense TV?

These appear to be different than "smart TVs" which offer Roku built-in as an optional app

Instead of spending all this time writing an article and on.the phone, they should have returned it and got another brand of TV

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#36

Post by unwiredben » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 2:29 PM UTC

pwinnski wrote: post #34

MrMember wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how long not connecting it to wifi will be a viable option. I wouldn't be surprised if many devices today still attempt to connect to open networks even if you decline to connect it to your home network. Once cell modems are embedded in everything the only option to prevent it from phoning home will be to physically disable the modem or put it in a Faraday cage.

Fortunately, not connecting to wifi also means that my TV's software/firmware won't be updated, so for this particular device, I think it will be a viable option as long as it keeps operating. Whether TCL will someday close that loophole for future models remains to be seen.

See tvupdate.roku.com; Roku posts USB-loadable firmware updates for all Roku TVs, although it's sometimes not as current as the network-delivered version.

Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data

#37

Post by unwiredben » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 2:31 PM UTC

During setup, you can choose to not connect to a network and you don't have to link the TV. Also, once you get to this screen, hitting star will bring up a help menu; asking for more help will let you factory reset the TV and start setup again where you can skip a network connection.