Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse • Hacker News Board

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#521

Post by michaelmrose » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 1:23 AM UTC

alacritas0 wrote: post #458

lp0_on_fire wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Color TVs superseded black and white because it was objectively an improvement for the customer. There wasn't any benefit to the manufacturer besides selling a new unit. the "Smart" TVs of today are riddled with spyware and telemetry that provides a second revenue stream to the manufacture since 95% of the population is too lazy or uninformed or doesn't have the time to turn it off. Yes, there benefits to the consume…

The average customer doesn't even know what spyware or telemetry is. I'd even argue that broadcast TV is dying making some form of video streaming service necessary which the smart TV accomplishes in a nice form factor.

They know what ads are, they know what poorly designed laggy interfaces are, and they know about TVs that weirdly behave slowly if you load to many apps without rebooting your TV.

It really makes more sense for smart functionality to be a different box so you can pick it independently

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#522

Post by tshaddox » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 1:26 AM UTC

MereInterest wrote: post #431

tshaddox wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It stretches credulity to suggest that the lack of non-smart TVs on the market causes the popularity of smart TVs. Would you also suggest that the lack of black and white TVs on the market causes the popularity of color TVs?

Does it similarly stretch credulity to suggest that the lack of commercial-free cable channels on the market causes the popularity of cable channels with commercials. Something may be "popular" because it's the only game in town.

I challenge the premise. At least in the United States, the number of subscribers to commercial-free cable channels has decreased significantly in the last 10 years, during which time the number of subscribers to streaming services which show fewer or no ads has increased significantly.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#523

Post by squarefoot » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 1:27 AM UTC

RulerOf wrote: post #499

Johnny555 wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never wanted one because I was afraid that one or the other would break, then it would be half-useless. My parents had one where the TV part stopped working, but the VCR still worked. It had video/audio out jacks so dad plugged it into their other TV, so they had a dead TV sitting next to their working TV for use as a VCR.

Smart TVs from at least the last 5 years have a similar problem. You update the software and they become excruciatingly slow, or you can't update the software and they gradually become useless. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. But I can replace an old Roku for $39.

They work exactly as intended, too bad that among the intended features there is also their planned obsolescence.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#524

Post by grosswait » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 1:30 AM UTC

arriu wrote: post #519

lmilcin wrote: post #455

I worked for Samsung. Let's just say, I am not letting any "smart" TVs in my home. Given choice of "smart" TV vs no TV, I choose no TV. Currently I have an old 30" monitor filling the function of the TV. I would love to have nice shiny screen, but the price is just too high.

Can you block samsung.com at the DNS level and be alright or do the issues go deeper than that? Honest question as I don't have a Samsung tv...

How about never connecting it to a network?

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#525

Post by tshaddox » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 1:30 AM UTC

lp0_on_fire wrote: post #437

tshaddox wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It stretches credulity to suggest that the lack of non-smart TVs on the market causes the popularity of smart TVs. Would you also suggest that the lack of black and white TVs on the market causes the popularity of color TVs?

Color TVs superseded black and white because it was objectively an improvement for the customer. There wasn't any benefit to the manufacturer besides selling a new unit. the "Smart" TVs of today are riddled with spyware and telemetry that provides a second revenue stream to the manufacture since 95% of the population is too lazy or uninformed or doesn't have the time to turn it off. Yes, there benefits to the consume…

> Maybe I'm just cynical but I have a hard time believing that it was because everyone just _had_ to have a TV with a buggy UI (in many cases) and/or loaded with spyware.

As you indicated, dumb TVs did compete against smart TVs for many years. The options were more like:

1. Buy a smart TV that might contain spyware and bugs.

2. Buy a dumb TV, and also buy another device to play content which can just as easily contain spyware and bugs. Oh, and the dumb TV already costs the same as the smart TV, because the "smart" hardware is extremely cheap at scale even without any secondary revenue streams.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#526

Post by paranoidrobot » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 1:31 AM UTC

hellbannedguy wrote: post #267

jandrese wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ice makers are notoriously flimsy. Serious race to the bottom by the manufacturers. The good news is that they're easy to replace (undo a couple of bolts and unplug a cable and they usually come right out), bad news is the replacements are ridiculously expensive, like $100 each and come with all of the same design flaws the original had. There is also surprisingly little standardization which makes the replacements e…

Most were up to a few years ago, but the big players went out of their way to make dependable ice makers--I thought. The last two refrigerators I bought had dependable ice makers. I just overheard an installer talking to a neighbor while installing his refrigerator. The tech said most modern refrigerations only last 10 years at best though.

Unofortunately some manufacturers are now implementing DRM to control your use of the ice maker function.

See: https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgxpjy/hacker-bypasses-ges-r... and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22129801

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#527

Post by mbesto » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 1:38 AM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #422

pessimizer wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is everyone so confused that smart TVs are popular? Also the real reason that they're popular: there are no non-smart TVs available.

It stretches credulity to suggest that the lack of non-smart TVs on the market causes the popularity of smart TVs. Would you also suggest that the lack of black and white TVs on the market causes the popularity of color TVs?

> the lack of non-smart TVs on the market causes the popularity of smart TVs.

Consumers buying TVs are driven by prices. Prices of smart TVs are artificially low...to the tune of either slim margins ( monster cable margins).

In other words - it's not that simple - the demand for smartTVs is driven partially by an artificially set price point.

source - my dad was a sales rep that sold TVs for 15 years late 90's-early 2000's.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#528

Post by p1necone » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 1:39 AM UTC

arduinomancer wrote: post #287

This thread feels very...Hacker News Bubble? Why is everyone so confused that smart TVs are popular? Being able to just turn on your TV and open Netflix without messing around with inputs/other devices is a huge benefit for non-technological people. And it probably costs <$50 for the manufacturer to include whatever chip is running linux in the TV, its a no-brainer.

I'd love to use a smart TV as designed (assuming half decent UX), but because I can't trust manufacturers to not push an update that starts showing me ads I instead never give them internet access and use a chromecast or my PS4 for smart functionality instead.

I do also prefer the incremental upgradeability you get by keeping display tech and software separate. I can avoid spending 4/5 digit $s on my big dumb screen for way longer when I can just upgrade a $50 dongle periodically (although it turns out google is way better at supporting old chromecasts than most smart TV manufacturers are at supporting software on old TVs).

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#529

Post by gorbypark » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 1:46 AM UTC

grosswait wrote: post #524

arriu wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you block samsung.com at the DNS level and be alright or do the issues go deeper than that? Honest question as I don't have a Samsung tv...

How about never connecting it to a network?

I once had a Samsung smart TV that was on the lower end of the price scale. It had Ethernet but no Wi-Fi (this was back in 2014ish so wifi was a “premium” feature). I didn’t have an Ethernet drop near the TV so I bought a USB wifi dongle and used that. A year or two later I was messing around with a Raspberry Pi and needed a wifi dongle, so I took the one from the TV. Lo and behold the smart tv features kept working. It must have had wifi hardware that was disabled in software and the wifi dongle somehow tricked it into working…long story to say that I bet with 5G TVs will start phoning home and nothing short of a faraday cage will be able to stop it.

Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

#530

Post by kodah » Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 1:53 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #304

kodah wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company has to coordinate it because otherwise I would need to have a server that supports some remote locking protocol and my phone configured for it. Who initiates it matters because if a TV vendor can arbitrarily brick your TV for something after you've paid cash for it, then that smells of theft. The same thing if a TelCo could or would arbitrarily brick a device I paid for. The distinction is that I'm tellin…

>Who initiates it matters because if a TV vendor can arbitrarily brick your TV for something after you've paid cash for it, then that smells of theft. The same thing if a TelCo could or would arbitrarily brick a device I paid for. The distinction is that I'm telling them to do this to my phone. What happened in south africa: * TVs are sitting inside a factory * TVs are owned by samsung * factory gets robbed * the own…

> 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

This statement is from the source: https://news.samsung.com/za/samsung-supports-retailers-affec...

That means the Samsung TV's call home. How do they know when to stop calling home? The answer is they don't. That's one layer of the problem.

The second layer being that they can "incorrectly" brick someone's TV. Remote device administration when done by a TelCo requires a whole ton of validation, your eSIM goes through a fairly extensive validation check when it logs onto a network, which is why it has this capability in the first place. They are not the same thing in this way either. If TelCo's started accidentally bricking peoples phones I think you'd see similar criticism of the practice.

The third layer, as mentioned in other threads, is that most people don't keep receipts. A TelCo knows you went through an activation process with a certain phone number. It's a little easier to target at that point. You don't need to dig up a receipt from months or years ago.