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Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

news.samsung.com

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Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#221

Post by criddell »

ollien wrote: post #164
criddell wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That doesn't surprise me at all. I just also know Roku has been around forever, so I trust that if a new service is added, it will be there. I don't know that I can say the same about other manufacturers (not that they _don't_, I just don't have the same level of trust there).

Eventually it should be there. For example, it took a long time for HBOMax to make it to Roku because they couldn't agree on how much of a cut of the subscription fees Roku should get.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#222

Post by e40 »

scns wrote: post #156
plussed_reader wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Hm, don't want to side with with Gigabyte here, but drawing a conclusion from a test of a PSU enduring 120% load for an extended period of time failing would not make me dismiss all their products.

Not to mention said test is in a general purpose computer and we're talking about a monitor here, with a fixed load.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#223

Post by walrus01 »

jsjohnst wrote: post #218
walrus01 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a high-end Samsung smart TV in 2017 and simply never gave it the wifi password and never connected it to ethernet. I use it as a dumb screen connected to two consoles and a living room PC for movies. Thankfully we're not yet at the point where my xbox one or PS4 will give it a DHCP lease, NAT and default route/gateway outbound and 100Mbps ethernet over the HDMI cable .

> simply never gave it the wifi password and never connected it to ethernet I worked on the team who built Samsung’s initial smart TV experience back in 2009 and yet I’m the exact same as you with every TV I own. If I could get the same quality panel and video processing without “smart TV” functionality for a reasonable price, I would, but they generally are much more expensive. My choice of panel is intended to last…

Unless I win the lottery or something I don't see myself buying a 'professional' flat panel display that has zero smart features, and things like RS232/RS485 based control, as they are more than double the price... The same $1700 smart TV would be easily $3500+ as a professional/industrial display.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#224

Post by scns »

deergomoo wrote: post #130

I’ve wondered about the feasibility of jailbreaking Tizen. Ads aside, my 2019 HDR TV has a bug where HDR10+ content will drop to 1/2 brightness every 6 minutes to the second, until I open the menu. That will reset the 6 minute counter, but it never stops. It’s infuriating. It affects the 2020 models too, but by the looks of a very long forum thread it seems to have been fixed with a software update. They have no inte…

Search the thread for the Gigabyte oled monitor FO48 IIRC.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#225

Post by dev_tty01 »

mrkramer wrote: post #19

"Should a customer’s TV be incorrectly blocked, the functionality can be reinstated once proof of purchase and a valid TV license is shared to serv.manager@samsung.com or click here for more information" Fuck off. This is a wake up call for us to make free and open source Smart TV operating system so we can stop this tyranny.

Never ever connect the TV to the internet. If it won't operate without an internet connection, take it back to the store.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#226

Post by [deleted] »

walrus01 wrote: post #214
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 bought a high-end Samsung smart TV in 2017 and simply never gave it the wifi password and never connected it to ethernet. I use it as a dumb screen connected to two consoles and a living room PC for movies. Thankfully we're not yet at the point where my xbox one or PS4 will give it a DHCP lease, NAT and default route/gateway outbound and 100Mbps ethernet over the HDMI cable .

[deleted]

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#227

Post by rad_gruchalski »

chaircher wrote: post #193
rad_gruchalski wrote: post #163

Many comments here going on about "I do not have a proof of purchase for X". Well, good luck claiming insurances if your property ever gets burgled.

you only have to prove ownership not purchase for insurance

How do you otherwise prove an ownership of an item you have purchased?

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#228

Post by meowster »

meowster wrote: post #95
ren_engineer wrote: post #50

forget smart TVs, I want somebody to just make a decent dumb TV. Same thing goes for cars, I feel like there is a huge market for "dumb" products. Manufacturers feel the need to keep adding features for some reason

From the albeit little feedback I've heard, I hear the Spectre 4K dumb TVs are decent enough. They go up to 75" and Walmart sells them. But yes, I want a bigger market for "dumb" products such as cars, and other consumer appliances such as TVs.

Sceptre* brand

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#229

Post by chmod775 »

mminer237 wrote: post #185
chmod775 wrote: post #139

Overall I'm not against such a thing because at the end of the day this makes theft less attractive and thus protects consumers. However not like this: "Should a customer’s TV be incorrectly blocked, the functionality can be reinstated once proof of purchase and a valid TV license is shared to serv.manager@samsung.com [...]". That's flipping the burden of proof around. Clearly not the way to go about this. Also of co…

They've all been reported stolen. That already satisfies the burden of proof in Samsung's view. What more proof do you want Samsung to have? They can't prove customers don't have a receipt. It's up to the potential legitimate customer to overcome Samsung's evidence.

Then having that avenue would not be necessary, would it?

It's likely Samsung only has a rough idea which serial numbers were stolen, or there is at least considerable room for mistakes. As a company you don't set up a process for a few outliers.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#230

Post by kazinator »

gruez wrote: post #118
kazinator wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

No, you aren't; it called "possession of stolen property".

However, Samsung is not the law, first of all. (If they have a court order to disable the equipment, that's fine, I suppose.)

Second of all, these TV's won't be recovered; they will probably just end up in the landfill.

You're not catching the thieves this way.

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