Live data from Hacker News

216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]

youtube.com

321–330 of 1001 posts

Re: 216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]

#321
post #139

Funny, published on a site with 1745 'partners' who fully respect our privacy of course

I believe we should push for legislation that prohibits the sale of customer data to third parties. Websites can use the data on their customers but they cannot share it with anyone else. Because aggregators are selling it cross-border after which you lose track and all control over it.

They shouldn't be able to collect it in the first place. The big companies have 10 page agreements that say they "value" your privacy and that they don't sell your data to third parties. They do value it, highly. And they don't sell it--they just hoard it, mine it, and sell increasingly accurate targeting. Why would they give it up? I mean, besides coughing it up with little objection to national security letters.

Re: 216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Why would you even connect TV to the network? It is well known for like 5 years. Smsrt TVs go through your movies library, and upload screenshots and filenames to internet. Some will start showing ads after firmware upgrade.

Did you know that ethernet can run over HDMI? It's called HDMI Ethernet Channel (HEC).

Surely it still needs to be connected to something that has a network connection, though? Doesn't really mean much here.

Re: 216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]

#323
post #172

Okay. This is insane. First the monitor that uses a windows feature to automatically install a small helper tool with root permissions and then starts showing adds in certain regions. Now a tv that is actually actively snooping around on top of the known fingerprinting. What else is next? In the previous topic I got ridiculed for not wanting to buy LG anymore because I could use an agent to modify to strip out the of…

>But there must be something better than just keeping to buy things that invade our privacy and homes further and further. Which brands aren’t doing this? Sony? They also announced a partnership for the lower end TVs IIRC.

Smart people need to band together to advocate their state governments to make commercial mass surveillance for any purpose a criminal offense (not just banning, making it a crime).

Re: 216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]

#324
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then your neighbor spins up an unprotected network or something like xfinity which they could have a deal with and it connects there and phones home anyways.

I hear this a lot “TVs will just connect to a nearby unprotected WiFi network!” But I ve never seen any evidence of it. It appears to just be speculation, unless you have an actual source?

They could also use something like Amazon Sidewalk or ATSC 3.0's dedicated return channel.

Re: 216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]

#325
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a list of all LG tracking services and external DNS endpoints? I'd just block them - and keep local streaming and remote control working edit: just found out WebOS doesn't support DoH/DoT so nextdns won't work. I wonder if one of the public dns providers got LG blocklisted natively with specific IP

Oh, by the way, these things spoof MAC addresses too, so you can't rely on DHCP.

[citation needed]

Re: 216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]

#326

I've bought an LG Smart TV 5 years ago, read t&c where I was supposed to grant them any data they wanted, decided to disagree and kept all network functions disabled. I was ridiculed by my friends for that. At some point, I thought - maybe I'm really crazy to do so? Who am I, a caveman, a luddite? Oh well, I'm not. Not a bad tv though, many HDMI ports!

Nah, you're not crazy. I'm also someone who actually reads terms documents, because I find that they're often the only thing that will be truthful about a company's intentions. And keeping it completely disconnected from the internet should be the default, in my opinion.

I never understood why any of the smartness had to be built into the TV in the first place. Sure, it's useful for the first year, and then the seriously underpowered hardware they installed into it will have trouble with just about anything.

I bought a Philips Ambilight OLED TV probably over 8 years now. Brilliant tv, great quality, I still see no reason to replace it at all. But its built in AndroidTV is garbage.

Re: 216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]

#327
Well that's it. No more LG stuff for me. I bought the C1 OLED TV years ago, great TV, but with this BS, they lost me forever. And yes I connect the tv the wifi for YouTube and for my local media server. No, I do not want other intermediate devices , I want my TV to not spy on me.

Re: 216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]

#328
I commented this only a few days ago on a different LG related thread. What LG are doing is indefensible and we should all vote with our wallets when considering a new TV... but for those who already own an LG TV you really owe it to yourself to jailbreak it and make it "yours", so to speak.

  > OpenLGTV[1] is a collective, non-commercial project for legal reverse engineering and research of LG (Smart and non Smart) TVs firmware, which is partially Open Source.
  > The main goal of the project is to improve the functionality of the TVs by adding new features, fixing bugs and providing new software.
[1] https://openlgtv.github.io

Re: 216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]

#329
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but support in devices and cables is very limited.

How much would support increase when manufacturers realise how few of their TVs don't get connected to the network?

Proportion of HN users whose TVs don't connect to the internet? Significant

Proportion of non-HN users whose TVs don't connect to the internet? Negligible

Re: 216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]

#330
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then your neighbor spins up an unprotected network or something like xfinity which they could have a deal with and it connects there and phones home anyways.

I hear this a lot “TVs will just connect to a nearby unprotected WiFi network!” But I ve never seen any evidence of it. It appears to just be speculation, unless you have an actual source?

Its always speculation that would be trivial to actually test.

1. Do not connect to network 2. Create unauthenticated WiFi network 3. Monitor WiFi network

Strange no one has ever done this simple af test to backup their claims

Post reply on HN