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

Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

us.community.samsung.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 580 posts

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#111

Post by bmicraft »

OtherShrezzing wrote: post #43
mytailorisrich wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed a golden factory firmware version that will be booted automatically if all else fails and that provides minimum connectivity is crucial.

I wonder if that opens a threat vector from a security point of view? If an attacker knows that the golden firmware has some critical vulnerability which they can exploit easily, they can activate it at will by bricking the device and waiting for it to restart.

Attackers aren't usually in a position to reset firmware, and if they are they might as well do a whole host of other things like replace the device with a compromised one. I don't think there is much of a point to trying to protect from that.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#112

Post by widerporst »

X-Istence wrote: post #64

This is one of those cases where I am glad I don't have my soundbar connected to the internet...

True, that would be preferable, but alas Samsung is bent on making their products as big of a pain in the arse as possible.

At least with my Samsung soundbar, the remote can change the volume, the subwoofer volume and change between modes (standard, surround, game). But if I want to enable night mode, I have to use the SmartThings app. There's no way to enable it using the remote. What's worse, the app often hangs when connecting to the soundbar, requiring me to force stop and restart it. So sometimes toggling a feature that should be a single button on the remote takes me over a minute.

Samsung is right next to HP on my list of brands I will never ever buy in my entire life.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#113

Post by LoganDark »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #6

If the damage is actually as bad as it sounds, Samsung is probably talking with their lawyers and is being instructed to maintain radio silence so as to better prepare for the class-action lawsuit.

That is at least, if their ToS doesn't contain the all-too-common provision that you are simply not allowed to sue.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#114

Post by tomstokes »

JimDabell wrote: post #106
tomstokes wrote: post #18

Two important features I insist on for products I develop: 1. Staged rollout of firmware updates. It’s common practice for apps and software but for some reason it’s less common with firmware. Rolling out to 1% (or less, depending on scale) of devices and waiting a day is cheap insurance. Side note: Build a good relationship with customer service people so you hear about these things immediately. 2. A failsafe firmwa…

Reverting to factory state seems riskier than last known good state. You could run into things like TLS root authorities not being recognised, deprecated cipher suites, etc. Just because that version worked a decade ago, it doesn’t mean it’s compatible with the world today.

> Reverting to factory state seems riskier than last known good state.

Reverting to factory state is the last resort. You don't have users do it unless there is no other good state to return to on the device.

> Just because that version worked a decade ago, it doesn’t mean it’s compatible with the world today.

That's why I said you have to include this in your test procedures.

When you're planning for the long term you can accommodate for these things on your servers.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#115

Post by zamalek »

tmpz22 wrote: post #20
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #6

If the damage is actually as bad as it sounds, Samsung is probably talking with their lawyers and is being instructed to maintain radio silence so as to better prepare for the class-action lawsuit.

Wouldn’t radio silence increase damages to customers and result in increased liability?

Law is not logical and rarely makes sense. I'm not suggesting at all that they are doing the morally correct thing, but there are a bunch of ways that you can legally admit liability without meaning to.

For example, little life pro-tip, never directly pay for a loan that you aren't liable for. Proxy it through the debtor, or not at all and get a lawyer if the debtor is deceased.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#116

Post by jimt1234 »

reverendsteveii wrote: post #97

Do you guys miss owning things and they were just...yours? Like, you paid money for them and then you had them and you had full control over them and someone half a world away wasn't able to reach into your house and break them or make them do evil things?

I drive a 30-year-old Nissan pickup truck for this exact reason. Not sure why, but I get a small sense of joy knowing that the corporate overlords aren't "watching" me drive. Of course they're "watching" me on my phone (as I drive the beater truck), but that's a different story.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#117

Post by gwerbret »

tomstokes wrote: post #18

Two important features I insist on for products I develop: 1. Staged rollout of firmware updates. It’s common practice for apps and software but for some reason it’s less common with firmware. Rolling out to 1% (or less, depending on scale) of devices and waiting a day is cheap insurance. Side note: Build a good relationship with customer service people so you hear about these things immediately. 2. A failsafe firmwa…

Both are very reasonable features, of course. Here are (some of) the real-world challenges to their implementation:

#1: Requires competence, and/or management that isn't too focused on velocity and features to listen to their engineers' warnings about exactly the sort of problem being discussed here.

#2: Many firmware updates explicitly and specifically want to strip away features that the hardware shipped with (by introducing DRM, paywalls, etc.), so see the comment about management above.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#118

Post by jauntywundrkind »

Side note, it's frustrating that this link tries to open in an app on my Samsung phone.

I installed the GitHub app a long time ago, and that had similar behaviors that kept me from the web-based experience I know & love & which is more URL based. Finding that disappointing, I uninstalled the app. But still, GitHub results in Google don't show the URL, they just say "app installed" where the URL would be. What a colossal regression.

More to the topic, we are on day 4 of Google Chromecast Audio & 2nd generation being broken. Supposedly an expired cert. Amazing neglect, ya'll.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#119

Post by ChuckMcM »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #94
tomstokes wrote: post #18

Two important features I insist on for products I develop: 1. Staged rollout of firmware updates. It’s common practice for apps and software but for some reason it’s less common with firmware. Rolling out to 1% (or less, depending on scale) of devices and waiting a day is cheap insurance. Side note: Build a good relationship with customer service people so you hear about these things immediately. 2. A failsafe firmwa…

> A failsafe firmware reset back to factory state. This doesn't work if your threat model includes denying rollbacks to prevent exploiting bugs in old firmware. I'd love to be able to roll-back firmware on some of my devices to allow me to "jailbreak" them using old firmware. In some cases your newer firmware may be blowing e-fuses that prevent old firmware from functioning. See the Nintendo Switch, for an example. T…

This doesn't get enough attention, waaaay too many of these issues are traced back to the vendor trying to "prevent" someone from using their product in a way that they don't like.

Re: Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update

#120

Post by jisnsm »

ziddoap wrote: post #10
tylerflick wrote: post #8

I have one of these systems. Not sure why anyone would ever leave it connected to the internet though.

> Not sure why anyone would ever leave it connected to the internet though. Most people aren't techies. They buy the thing, and use it as instructed.

If you don’t know how to operate some piece of technology you shouldn’t be using it. Same as you wouldn’t operate a car without knowing how to drive.
Post reply on HN