Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

news.samsung.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 727 posts

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#111

Post by gruez »

imglorp wrote: post #107
notyourwork wrote: post #100

I'm on the fence here, I sort of like the premise that looters don't get their booty. I do agree though I don't like the idea that a corporation can remotely disable a piece of hardware I bought.

Really? How about this? Your social media $POST critical of $PARTY is incompatible with Samsung's vision of community. We have therefore disabled your $PHONE, $WATCH, $TV, $DISHWASHER, and $PC. Contact serv.manager@samsung.com or click here for more information" Does that possibility change your position?

But if you reached that level of tyranny, shouldn't you be more worried about the state sending Men With Guns to your residence, or blocking you from receiving government services (eg. welfare, healthcare, renewing drivers license)? Not being able to netflix and chill seems like the least of your worries.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#112

Post by plussed_reader »

drewg123 wrote: post #65
dthul wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that it's hard to find any not-too-smart TVs with up to date technology (4k, OLED, HDR etc). Unless you spend a fortune on a luxury brand like Bang and Olufsen.

One alternative is the Gigabyte AORUS FO48U 48" 4K OLED. This essentially an LG OLED, minus the smart TV stuff, plus better inputs. It seems to have a ~15% price premium over the TV.

Gigabyte does not do business in good faith. I am extremely leery of anything related to them now; they are not a safe brand.

https://www.windowscentral.com/gigabyte-allows-returns-or-ex...

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#113

Post by nicolas_t »

ok123456 wrote: post #106
drewg123 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a high-end Samsung 4K tv in 2015 or so for about $3000. I picked it after a week of research that showed it had the highest quality panel. After taking delivery of the TV, we noticed it had bright lower left and right corners that we later found out were due to new packaging that pinched the TV and caused most of the TVs in that batch to be ruined. Samsung claimed that the corners were "in spec" and refused…

Samsung's appliances have a pretty bad reputation in general, especially the refrigerators and side loading washing machines.

Anecdotal but I've had very good experience with Samsung front loading washing machine, might depend on regions of the world though, I've had one in Asia and one in Europe.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#114

Post by _aamv »

Santosh83 wrote: post #56

The larger question for society is do we even want smart everything? I rarely see this issue debated. Undoubtedly, software enables complex/rich functionality for what were hitherto relatively "dumb" devices, but the same flexibility can also lead to exploits, backdoors, bugs and place too much control in the hands of the manufacturers and many other nameless parties. The most important aspect here is remote connecti…

Best I can figure is companies not eating their own dog food. Clever engineers forced in directions the clueless set and enforced.

IMO, we lost the TV and car entertainment system battle long ago. It all just went south. And those two are leading symptoms of dumb smartification.

Car entertainment systems: lure of reprogrammable "somethings" replaced tactile buttons, distracting drivers. And then the programmable interface became a sequence of terrible things, features and partnerships, completely disconnected from how you use a radio.

TV: we went from hundreds of channels modulated on a single coax cable where you can flip instantly and get immediate signal to layers of slow interfaced descrambling and streaming, ... "please wait, updating" ... "please wait, cannot connect to service" ... "service status ok, 4/4" and of course, slow loading interfaces, > 1+ minute time-to-play experiences, audio lipsync issues and balkanization of content streaming, and market juggling of rights.

Yes, I'm whining, but why couldn't evolution of at least these two have gone ... better?

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#115

Post by criddell »

ollien wrote: post #44
wait_a_minute wrote: post #36

I bought one of Samsung's smart televisions a couple years ago. I think I paid $1500 for it. Anyway, it started showing me ads and the TV eventually became sluggish less than a month after owning it. Returned it as defective. Ever since that experience, I swore of all smart televisions and will never buy another Samsung television or smartphone again if I can help it.

I recently bought a TCL TV specifically because I trust Roku to maintain their software more than someone like Samsung. The ads drive me insane, even if they're relatively unobtrusive. At least in that case the TV was much cheaper (~$500 for a 55" TV)

Roku watches what you are watching and shares that data with their trusted partners. Same as Android TV (whatever it's called now) and Amazon Fire.

AFAIK, the only mainstream streaming device that doesn't do this is Apple TV.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#116

Post by gruez »

Lammy wrote: post #85
itsyaboi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that smart TVs are a cancer, I'm confused by your take. Do you have the same opinion towards locking stolen iPhones? If not, why? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-is-reportedly-disabl...

You don't usually carry your smart TV around with you in your pocket

But TV sets are targets of burglars.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#117

Post by cronix »

wait_a_minute wrote: post #36

I bought one of Samsung's smart televisions a couple years ago. I think I paid $1500 for it. Anyway, it started showing me ads and the TV eventually became sluggish less than a month after owning it. Returned it as defective. Ever since that experience, I swore of all smart televisions and will never buy another Samsung television or smartphone again if I can help it.

Samsung has some of the best displays. I use 0 "smart" features and just use it as a big dumb 4k monitor for a dedicated Home Theater PC. My wireless keyboard with built in track pad is way better than any smart features they offer, or having to wave a dumb remote around in the air to get their "air mouse" feature offset just right from where you're actually pointing so it doesn't mess up. The TV itself is not connected to the internet and doesn't receive firmware updates beyond the initial one to set the TV up. When I still subscribed to cable TV I used cable cards and windows media center to get all the HDTV stations. Sweet DVR functionality.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#118

Post by gruez »

kazinator wrote: post #43
anonuser123456 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh the tyranny of having to pay…

Some people will pay, not knowing the TV was stolen. A batch of stolen TV's could end up in the ends of a legit distributors; someone could end up with that by walking into some established brick-and-mortar discount TV warehouse type place. Gee, I hope that everything you own that you got off Craigslist in good faith and paid for is remotely disabled if it had been stolen, while the thieves enjoy the money. Because y…

>Gee, I hope that everything you own that you got off Craigslist in good faith and paid for is remotely disabled if it had been stolen, while the thieves enjoy the money. Because you're the bad guy!

You're not the bad guy, but you're also not entitled to keep the stolen goods. It has to go back to its original owner. I'd be pretty pissed if someone stole my bike, sold it, and I'm not able to recover my bike because somebody "bought" it at 80% off.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#119

Post by superice »

aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote: post #101
bellyfullofbac wrote: post #40

I guess this will just greatly inconvenience people who bought the TV from the bandits. But well, if this press release is well-distributed among the public, then they will know to avoid buying Samsung TVs from the backs of vans, and the thieves will avoid Samsung warehouses. Alternatively maybe Samsung should just offer the innocent buyers a e.g. 5% discount to "legitimize" their TVs, so if they bought the TV from t…

> greatly inconvenience people who bought the TV from the bandits It’s stolen property. The subsequent buyers cannot legally own it.

Under Dutch law: sure they can. As long as you had no reason to suspect it was a stolen TV (super low price, no receipt even though it was basically new, stuff like that) a party that bought the TV second hand is now the legal owner even if the initial owner gets ahold of the current owner.

Under Dutch law the most common thing this applies to is second hand bicycles. If you bought it off a junkie at the train station for 10 bucks, it's probably not yours to keep. Showing up to a house through a Facebook-group and paying something like 100 bucks for a second hand bike would totally qualify though, even if that bike turned out to be stolen.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#120

Post by nate_meurer »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #83
cyckl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh the tyranny of having a product which you purchase and think you own have all functionality be remotely disabled—effectively becoming a multi thousand dollar paperweight—at the whim of a large international corporation with no real recourse...

You have recourse by showing proof of purchase. Or you sue them.

> You have recourse by showing proof of purchase

How does that help when the product is out of warranty?

> Or you sue them.

How exactly would you go about suing Samsung. Figure that out and let us know if it would be worth it for a TV.

Post reply on HN