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

Nearly half of LG smart TV apps contain residential proxy SDKs

spur.us

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 189 posts

Re: Nearly half of LG smart TV apps contain residential proxy SDKs

#71

Post by Barbing »

afavour wrote: post #63
gruez wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is it the OMG BEST? no. But I Disabled wifi, and even the channel display. Why not just get a (presumably subsidized) smart TV instead, and skipping the premium? It'd also be not disconnected from the internet, and despite vague HN/reddit speculation that TVs have cell modems in them, that has yet to be confirmed.

I have a TCL Roku TV that I use disconnected and with an Apple TV. It still has annoyances here and there, like pausing for three seconds or so on every startup before it switches inputs. I’d pay a mild premium to not have that.

Same. Our data is worth a lot I guess (not the whole differential but):

$627 - commercial display

~$200 - comparable invasive options

Re: Nearly half of LG smart TV apps contain residential proxy SDKs

#72

Post by tadfisher »

gruez wrote: post #18
201984 wrote: post #7

This needs to be illegal.

Why? The only thing that's vaguely objectionable is the fact the consent screen's wording of "download public web data from the internet" omits important information on what's actually happening and the associated risks. Otherwise I'm not sure how you can come up with a principled justification of the ban beyond just "AI scrapers bad" or "hiding identity". Tor relays and VPNs are basically doing the same thing, excep…

Does there need to be a principled justification beyond that? I used to be on the side of the traffic, as in, it does not matter where traffic originates as long as it's not abusive. But the fact is that too many scrapers exist which are, in fact, bad. Their behavior is bad, their programming is bad, and they result in way too high costs for free infrastructure, thus they are morally bad.

I expect AT&T and Comcast to offer a residential proxy service any day now.

Re: Nearly half of LG smart TV apps contain residential proxy SDKs

#74

Post by popcornricecake »

rustcleaner wrote: post #44

Never ever connect your "Smart"-TV to your network, or if you have an incurable impulse to then make sure it's on a firewalled gateway-less VLAN. Take the money you save buying the thing (compared to what a profitable "dumb" version would cost) and buy a surplus corporate mini-workstation system, and slap LibreELEC/Kodi or whatever on it, and use that device as your "smart" device. No good for you can ever come from…

The only time mine were ever connected to the internet was to update the software, and for that the easiest thing I thought was to host a temporary wifi hotspot (using a phone).

Re: Nearly half of LG smart TV apps contain residential proxy SDKs

#75

Post by p0wn »

lbotos wrote: post #47

I'll get on my high horse and say you can get solid "DID/Commercial" TVs for not that much more: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1788343-REG/samsung_q... I got this a few months ago -- 4k, solid brightness, and ok color. Is it the OMG BEST? no. But I Disabled wifi, and even the channel display. I use it with an apple TV with CEC on the TV -- I turn on the apple tv, TV turns on straight to apple interface. I tu…

Begs the question - why has apple never come out with a TV.

Re: Nearly half of LG smart TV apps contain residential proxy SDKs

#76

Post by Barbing »

gruez wrote: post #50
lbotos wrote: post #47

I'll get on my high horse and say you can get solid "DID/Commercial" TVs for not that much more: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1788343-REG/samsung_q... I got this a few months ago -- 4k, solid brightness, and ok color. Is it the OMG BEST? no. But I Disabled wifi, and even the channel display. I use it with an apple TV with CEC on the TV -- I turn on the apple tv, TV turns on straight to apple interface. I tu…

>Is it the OMG BEST? no. But I Disabled wifi, and even the channel display. Why not just get a (presumably subsidized) smart TV instead, and skipping the premium? It'd also be not disconnected from the internet, and despite vague HN/reddit speculation that TVs have cell modems in them, that has yet to be confirmed.

Some instead assert TVs might connect to the first open network available, like if a neighbor briefly opened a hotspot, which sounds more believable.

Re: Nearly half of LG smart TV apps contain residential proxy SDKs

#78

Post by MBCook »

p0wn wrote: post #75
lbotos wrote: post #47

I'll get on my high horse and say you can get solid "DID/Commercial" TVs for not that much more: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1788343-REG/samsung_q... I got this a few months ago -- 4k, solid brightness, and ok color. Is it the OMG BEST? no. But I Disabled wifi, and even the channel display. I use it with an apple TV with CEC on the TV -- I turn on the apple tv, TV turns on straight to apple interface. I tu…

Begs the question - why has apple never come out with a TV.

Why should they? It’s an absolute cutthroat business with next to no profit margin.

All you gotta do is add an Apple TV and you got everything they would give you. And they make nice margins.

Apple seems to have next to no interest in making displays at all. We are lucky whenever a new one gets announced.

Re: Nearly half of LG smart TV apps contain residential proxy SDKs

#79

Post by 05 »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #53
gruez wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is it the OMG BEST? no. But I Disabled wifi, and even the channel display. Why not just get a (presumably subsidized) smart TV instead, and skipping the premium? It'd also be not disconnected from the internet, and despite vague HN/reddit speculation that TVs have cell modems in them, that has yet to be confirmed.

If you do this, connect it to the internet at least once, because most smart TVs ship with missing features that aren't activated until you do a firmware update.

Were I an enterprising enshittificator, I would certainly make sure to force being online as a prerequisite for basic functionality for any TV that has ever been seen online since that proves that it's capable of connecting. So.. be careful upgrading the shitware, you might get more functionality that you've bargained for. Functionality that you can't downgrade because you don't own the TV.

Re: Nearly half of LG smart TV apps contain residential proxy SDKs

#80

Post by microcode »

drnick1 wrote: post #70
thewebguyd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, but for "smart" anything in the home that requires an internet connection and does not let me set it up or run it LAN only. People forget the reasons TVs got cheaper is because smart TVs are heavily subsidized with ads and your watch data. I have the most "low tech" home of any of my peers, intentionally.

This. The only "smart" things allowed in my home are those under my control. This means devices that work over Zigbee, or that that run free firmware natively (like ESP32-based devices), or that can be hacked to run free firmware. Everything is orchestrated via Home Assistant and in its own VLAN. It's surprising how far you can get. For example, I recently set up a voice assistant by wiring together a few Home Assist…

The experience with this is so much better. Hacking most Tuya based devices has become extremely easy when you use https://docs.libretiny.eu/ Replacing MyQ with ratgdo was one of the best IoT decisions I have ever made.
Post reply on HN