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Samsung TVs May Upload Screenshots for Automatic Content Recognition

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341–350 of 711 posts

Re: Samsung TVs May Upload Screenshots for Automatic Content Recognition

#341
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandate transparent disclosure. Consumers don't care about these schemes because they largely don't know the details. There should be clear, tobacco-esque disclosure requirements of this sort of thing on the product packaging . If Samsung et al. want to data mine their customers in exchange for lower pricing, they're welcome to do so. What should not be legal is doing so and appearing the same as a company who does n…

Transparent disclosure doesn't mean shit when the company can honestly say what it's doing and there's zero repercussions for it.

I think it would make a difference if some TVs came with large stickers mandated on the box, advertising, and included within, that said:

"THIS TELEVISION MONITORS ALL OF YOUR VIEWING HABITS AND THE DATA IS SOLD FOR PROFIT. ANY TIME IT IS USED, THE PROGRAM BEING WATCHED IS SENT TO THE MANUFACTURER. IF YOU DECLINE TO BE MONITORED, YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO RETURN IT FOR 30 DAYS FROM DATE OF PURCHASE AT NO CHARGE TO YOU."

and some did not.

Re: Samsung TVs May Upload Screenshots for Automatic Content Recognition

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking to a few people in a slack channel the other day about the potential market for a whole set of "dumb" appliances. At the end of the day, we came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be a able to reach mass market because the mass consumers seem to care more about price than security.

Make cars too, please. Manual transmission (actual stick and clutch, not silly paddles), minimal ECUs, disableable seatbelt chime, cigar lighter, and so forth. You know, less cyber.

Somebody should buy the tooling for early 90's Camry's/ES300's and sell them indefinitely. You could get a reliable, brand new car for a couple grand.

Sort of like the original VW Beetle sales model.

Re: Samsung TVs May Upload Screenshots for Automatic Content Recognition

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>what happens if iot LTE connections get cheap enough that the choice is removed altogether. Narrowband IoT is the target market for that. T-Mobile has a plan where a certified module costs $5 (There is a min order to get that price, but for a large vendor that's not going to be an issue) then $6 p/year as long as you can keep below 12MB per year. But you can keep bw down by shipping the fingerprinting software with…

$25 is hugely expensive. This is an industry that removes $0.02 bypass capacitors by trial and error to save a few pennies.

True, but bypass capacitors don't produce ad revenue.

Re: Samsung TVs May Upload Screenshots for Automatic Content Recognition

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t that make it almost impossible to meet emission regulations? I’m not a fan of how opaque cars have gotten, but I’ll accept some loss of control for cleaner air.

Automatics are still too dumb to keep the clutch engaged while braking. Officially automatics and manuals are a wash for mileage, but I think driving style can make manuals the winner. All that kinetic energy getting dissipated by brakes instead of turning the engine and all of its accessories in autos. I’m quite surprised auto manufacturers haven’t implemented engine braking for émissions, reducing brake wear, and q…

Typical automatics have comfortably passed out manuals for mileage on average, some time in the 2010s. Driving style "can" theoretically still make a given manual more efficient, but it requires an unusual attention to mileage by the manual driver and/or an unusually aggressive driver on the automatic.

Re: Samsung TVs May Upload Screenshots for Automatic Content Recognition

#345
post #62

Unfortunately all vendors do it. Here is how to disable it, for most brands: https://www.flatpanelshd.com/focus.php?subaction=showfull&id...

Thanks for sharing this! I had to go disable this "feature" on the "Smart TV" my family has. Turned off "Viewing Information Services" and "Interest Based Advertising". It was on by default!?

Re: Samsung TVs May Upload Screenshots for Automatic Content Recognition

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the trick will be to convince my TV that I’m in EU.

The TV would know where you are by knowing what phone masts are in your area. But if you are in the US then ain't California pushing for tighter data collection regs? But I get what your trying to say. Time to spin up a Software Defined Radio and start faking cell towers so your TV thinks it's in the EU :-P

Hopefully we can just tap into the serial interface.

Re: Samsung TVs May Upload Screenshots for Automatic Content Recognition

#347
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking to a few people in a slack channel the other day about the potential market for a whole set of "dumb" appliances. At the end of the day, we came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be a able to reach mass market because the mass consumers seem to care more about price than security.

perhaps a pihole of some sort can be built my major concern is that the digital parts may be connection dependent for function

if it has an e-sim and data connection or iot without requiring your wifi or ethernet there is not much you can do i guess... faraday cage? hardware and software hacks?

Re: Samsung TVs May Upload Screenshots for Automatic Content Recognition

#348
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which dumb 4K TV(s) should I buy?

I’ll go for this one when my plasma dies: https://ironcast.tv/

If your plasma dies, and it's not a problem with the panel itself, open the back and look at the various boards. Most flat panel TVs have 2-4 circuit boards in the back that are relatively easy to access and replace.

I had a top end 4K TV die last year just after the warranty ran out. It was going to be almost $100 to have the company repair guy look at it, then parts and potentially additional labor to fix it. I opened the back, did a bit of research and made an educated guess about which board was the problem (which was pretty easy based on the symptoms) and it turned out to be a $130 part that I found on ebay for $25 and I swapped it out within a few minutes.

It turns out there are half a dozen companies that strip down broken TVs and sell off the boards that are still good. That board had actually been through a few revisions since the original one I had, so now it runs even better than new. hehe

Re: Samsung TVs May Upload Screenshots for Automatic Content Recognition

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make cars too, please. Manual transmission (actual stick and clutch, not silly paddles), minimal ECUs, disableable seatbelt chime, cigar lighter, and so forth. You know, less cyber.

Wouldn’t that make it almost impossible to meet emission regulations? I’m not a fan of how opaque cars have gotten, but I’ll accept some loss of control for cleaner air.

There are still plenty of brand new cars using old school 4 speed autos which are significantly worse for efficiency than a manual.

Re: Samsung TVs May Upload Screenshots for Automatic Content Recognition

#350
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The video rental records were used to compromise a congressman from the ruling party. That's the only reason there is a specific privacy law for them. If you want a TV privacy law, you'll have compromise a congressman.

I mean, that's pretty much how the system is _supposed_ to work, right? You want a law passed, you convince one of your duly elected representative to propose the law, get it passed through both houses and signed by the president. Now maybe actively attacking members of congress isn't the most forthright way of convincing them that a law against that specific attack is a good idea, but assuming you can do it legally…

You don't really need to do anything illegal. Just wait for the next data leak from hacked Samsung servers and the member of congress' data may just show up among millions of records on a torrent site.

That's the clear and present danger here, not that businesses and their data scientists are having a field day with your personal life, but that they are sloppy and you, your data and your community are vulnerable to irreparable damage being inflicted by bad actors downstream.

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