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

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

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 1001 posts

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

#391

Post by para_parolu »

korzinka wrote: post #107

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!

I didn’t care much about data collected but I found that with every update it becomes worse and worse objectively. I had to cut it from in internet so doesn’t get completely unusable

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

#392

Post by dillutedfixer »

para_parolu wrote: post #388
dillutedfixer wrote: post #383

As an owner of 2 LG OLEDs, I am not surprised at all. I neutered these things the first day I was past the return policy. Opened the back and unplugged the WiFi/BT chip, bought a cheap dumb universal remote with no mic in it, disagreed to all T&C in the TV, updated the firmware via USB and just use an AppleTV over HDMI for streaming. Kind of silly to have to go through all of this but hey thats where we are in 2026 i…

Why not just disconnect it from internet?

It's not connected to the internet. The AppleTV is.

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

#393

Post by DudeOpotomus »

Ad Tech is a cancer that is / has destroyed society. It is responsible for almost everything that is awful today. Conflating attention for interest and rewarding sensationalism has created a giant stinking hole in our lives.

It must be eradicated.

Do everything in your power to destroy these companies and their immoral business practices.

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

#394

Post by imglorp »

imglorp wrote: post #259
Sophira wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is absolutely no reason to read those contracts any more. As Louis Rossman keeps pointing out, most of them now include the ability for them to change terms at any time. That's basically the null contract. Since the legal system has once again failed to protect users from corporations, it's up to users to use technical means for self defense.

PS, my technical means are keeping my TV off the internet.

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

#395

Post by kolinko »

imglorp wrote: post #259
Sophira wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is absolutely no reason to read those contracts any more. As Louis Rossman keeps pointing out, most of them now include the ability for them to change terms at any time. That's basically the null contract. Since the legal system has once again failed to protect users from corporations, it's up to users to use technical means for self defense.

Depends on jurisdiction, just because someone wrote something in a contract doesn’t mean it’s binding.

In Poland/EU we have an (ever growing) list of forbidden clauses that even when written and signed by consumer are null and void. And I think these can be enacted retroactively - when corporations invent new shady clauses, government steps in and tells them these are invalid.

This helps to even out the consumer-corporation field.

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

#396

Post by ungreased0675 »

spockz wrote: 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…

I would like to send vast amounts of garbage data to the LG servers. They aren’t being respectful of our bandwidth and data, we don’t need to be respectful of theirs.

This also applies incentives in the correct direction. Their database of customer information becomes less valuable if there’s bad information in it. Disconnecting your TV from the internet doesn’t affect LG, feeding them bad data does.

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

#397

Post by howunfortunate »

DudeOpotomus wrote: post #393

Ad Tech is a cancer that is / has destroyed society. It is responsible for almost everything that is awful today. Conflating attention for interest and rewarding sensationalism has created a giant stinking hole in our lives. It must be eradicated. Do everything in your power to destroy these companies and their immoral business practices.

This seems quite hyperbolic to me.

Newspapers were leveraging sensationalism and attempting to capture attention by any means long long before targeted ads were a driver of revenue.

I'd guess there are plenty of pre-newspaper examples as well.

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

#398

Post by noir_lord »

para_parolu wrote: post #388
dillutedfixer wrote: post #383

As an owner of 2 LG OLEDs, I am not surprised at all. I neutered these things the first day I was past the return policy. Opened the back and unplugged the WiFi/BT chip, bought a cheap dumb universal remote with no mic in it, disagreed to all T&C in the TV, updated the firmware via USB and just use an AppleTV over HDMI for streaming. Kind of silly to have to go through all of this but hey thats where we are in 2026 i…

Why not just disconnect it from internet?

Works til they put a 5g modem in the damn things.

My Samsung asked for internet access and I just laughed and said nope.

It exists to displays pixels from a Linux box, utterly sick of living in a world where "is my TV manufacturer bugging our house?" Is a thing anyone has to ask.

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

#399

Post by rpdillon »

korzinka wrote: post #107

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!

I have a similar reaction from folks when I don't trust services/devices. Most telling moment was when I refused to upload my license to LinkedIn because I lost 2FA (token on phone, phone destroyed). Microsoft assured me they would "delete the license as soon as it was verified". I've written too many software systems for too many companies, and I do not believe them.

Of course, they'd outsourced to AU10TIX, which did retain the licenses, and got hacked: https://www.404media.co/id-verification-service-for-tiktok-u...

That's from 2024, but we just had a larger breach with IDScan this week.

Sorry for the digression, but the common thread is how much to trust these companies, and my conclusion after dealing with them for many years is they will lie, cheat, and steal to get whatever they want. Some paranoia is warranted, I think.

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

#400

Post by micromacrofoot »

howunfortunate wrote: post #397
DudeOpotomus wrote: post #393

Ad Tech is a cancer that is / has destroyed society. It is responsible for almost everything that is awful today. Conflating attention for interest and rewarding sensationalism has created a giant stinking hole in our lives. It must be eradicated. Do everything in your power to destroy these companies and their immoral business practices.

This seems quite hyperbolic to me. Newspapers were leveraging sensationalism and attempting to capture attention by any means long long before targeted ads were a driver of revenue. I'd guess there are plenty of pre-newspaper examples as well.

newspapers didn't follow you and your friends everywhere you went to feed all your metadata back into an addiction algorithm

people massively underestimate how insidious having millions of data points about a person is, these companies are literally modeling your behavior

Post reply on HN