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

571–580 of 1001 posts

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

#571

Post by Animats »

Here are LG's contract terms for appliances.[1] They are awful.

Not only can they listen in. You have a contractual requirement to tell everyone in range of an appliance that they may be eavesdropped upon.

CONSENT REQUIREMENT: You acknowledge and agree that it is your sole responsibility to obtain all necessary consents from any third parties whose voices may be captured by the Product and to notify household members and guests that their voices may be captured and processed, in compliance with applicable wiretapping, eavesdropping, and privacy laws. If anyone does not consent, you should disable the microphone or voice features in the settings. LGE disclaims any liability for your failure to obtain such consent or provide such notification.

[1] https://www.lg.com/us/terms

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

#573

Post by FractalParadigm »

godelski wrote: post #540
ticulatedspline wrote: post #524

I'm surprised this hasn't run afoul of all-party wiretap laws. Even if you could waive your own rights via ToS other people in the house may not have agreed. Theoretically I could see LG or even the TV's owner being culpable. I'd love to see that case hit the media. Average citizen jailed over wiretap violations because they let their TV record a guest.

On top of that, the first few minutes of the video suggests it captures your neighbors' device and IP information. I'm sure the ToS has some BS about you being required to inform any guests, but what if your TV is just recording your neighbors because they are close enough? Just wait, I'm sure the "solution" will be that TVs start displaying reminders that you're being recorded... Is our inability to innovate in tech…

Re. The last paragraph, that's what confuses me the most about all of this. LG has virtually held a monopoly of the entire OLED TV market for the past ~15 years, selling (arguably) one of the TVs on the market and being the only thing I've recommended people buy in about as long. They could have done literally nothing but update the hardware every other year with a newer SoC, HDMI version, etc. and done just fine. Now, I don't think I could see myself buying or even recommending any LG products going forward.

There *has* to be some complex math involved. It's insane that there's more profit in duping your users to spy on them and sell their data/information, than there is just making and selling a great product.

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

#574

Post by ololobus »

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!

Same, disabled internet access on my LG years ago using the router config. It’s good that it at least doesn’t stop working without internet

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

#575

Post by [deleted] »

bigyabai wrote: post #480
bichiliad wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that you use to show stuff on your tv is gonna have this problem. Apple is a little higher on the trust spectrum than, say, Roku. You’re paying Apple in part for the convenience of not doing a homebrew setup, and in part for the trust.

Not anything - you can use XBMC or Jellyfin and have a certain degree of control over your frontend. Apple's big problem is that whatever they say, goes. If they decide to partner with Hulu for advertisements, you have no escape hatch to install a respectful UX.

[deleted]

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

#576

Post by upboundspiral »

hypfer wrote: post #122

I'm practically certain that there was no ill-intent by LG when conceiving this feature. It was most likely just a convenience thing. But I am also practically certain, that, eventually, any pile of data will attract ideas you do not want attracted.

There are multiple recordings of LG executives saying "we own the glass (the TV)", referring to the "LG household", and how they can serve targeted ads by recognizing every device on the network. Just watch the video...

The head of LG ads was banned from serving in a public company for 10 years by the SEC for fraud...

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

#577

Post by drewg123 »

wavesplash wrote: post #270
soleveloper wrote: post #247

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

Worse, if you watch the GN video this article is based on you'll find the TV can figure out how to leverage other non obvious networks (threads, etc) to reach LG servers. Worth a watch to see how bad this is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IFVTcM28KA

Its a 2+ hour video. Do you have a timestamp for this?

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

#578

Post by tavavex »

pixel_popping wrote: post #376
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…

It's insane, but it's not like it's not known, personally, each time we have a party at home with friends, we always unplug the TV for this reason, it's out of doubt but it's normal to doubt as it's proprietary and has a microphone, so it's a bit obvious that it might be recording and processing data somewhere. The same as I would never trust an average phone around if I'm having a private conversation. Blackbox+Mic…

> it's not like it's not known

It's not known. Ask the average person that owns a smart TV if they think they're being listened in on. Or even what kinds of data they think their smart TV collects. I could bet you anything that for nearly all people, their answers would be "I never thought about that", "I didn't know they collected data" or "I thought it was only what I watched".

It's highly insidious - our society was reshaped to normalize data collection like this by adtech. At the same time, these invasive technologies were quietly integrated into existing devices people assumed they knew. TVs look like the same black rectangles they were 15 years ago. Cars today are similar to cars from the early 2010s. The average person doesn't understand how adding internet connectivity to some device exposes them to this until it's explained to them. To them, the notion that they record everything sounds as cospiratorial as "your microwave is secretly recording you on camera". If technological limitations required TVs with mics to have a huge studio microphone protrude on top of it with a flashing red light, a lot more people would suddenly care.

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

#579

Post by andrepd »

sbarre wrote: post #558
rpdillon wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

> my conclusion after dealing with them for many years is they will lie, cheat, and steal to get whatever they want Honestly, it's not even that extreme in most cases. I think it's usually not malice, it's incompetence. That's why I don't trust big companies with my data. Nothing to do with some CEO's evil plans, but more to do with the hundreds/thousands of mid-level "not my job" or "doing my best" workers who are a…

Pardon my French but bull-fucking-shit! A CEO _should_ take responsibility for what their subordinates do. It's preposterous to simple throw up our arms and say "oh well, some employees were sloppy so we lost some 100 million user IDs and other sensitive information that we promised not to store but we lied. Oopsie, silly me, pardon my wee incompetence tee-hee". No no no NO NO!

At some level, and certainly at the level where you get paychecks of 10 million a year for the "huge responsibility you are bearing", then incompetence IS malice!

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

#580

Post by ProllyInfamous »

opello wrote: post #533
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still nervously holding my breath for the first disclosure that a TV manufacturer is using Amazon's distributed Sidewalk Network (or perhaps mobile vehicles, cell-SIMs, LoRa) to remotely gather all that viewing data they've subsidized into your artificially-low TV purchase price . But they've been calling "crazy?" for decades.

This exactly. Surely some sort of IoT mesh networking will allow exfiltration of data even without having configured your own device. I'm hopeful that there will be sufficient distrust that "jailbreaking" or "rooting" TV controller boards will be turnkey enough to move to something like OpenWrt or GrapheneOS but for TVs.

>IoT mesh networking

I'll bet there is already a manufacturer whose TVs can all communicate intratelevisually (non-standard proprietary frequencies) – and then, if even one of them is online... they're all relaying within their private intra-TV spyware meshnets to their various relays.

----

In unrelated news, my 2012 Sony Bravia is still fantastic, even if not for (4K) high-refresh games (the image quality remains fantastic for casual usage).

Post reply on HN