831–840 of 1001 posts
Most TV sets should not normally need microphones, and if they have that in some models (as long as there are models without), then there should be a hardware switch to disable them. However, "continuously sweep home networks, map secondary devices, and log microphone audio while appearing to be turned off" is also stealing and wasting your power.
Every speaker is also a microphone
What would the HN crowd recommend for a good linux streaming box + hardware with decent TV UX and remote? My LG is completely offline and I'm using an nvidia shield to display any content, but I'm thinking maybe I need to go the extra mile, there nothing preventing an android tv box to do the same.
I have a rooted LG C4. Beyond blocking things at the DNS level, not accepting terms, not using AI, I wonder if there’s some existing software solution or a documented step-by-step to remove this bloatware/spyware.
It'll be difficult. It's webos of which there's very little custom development. You'd be better off with an android tv which you can poke at using adb and disable services. Maybe even root it. And install alternative software like smarttubenext. Unfortunately there very few Android based TVs left. Phillips recently switched to Titanos, Samsung has tizen, Amazon has a new OS. I think it's just Sony that's left on andr…
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The point is: which brands still respect user privacy? If I were to buy a new TV today, which brands-models should I prioritize? Also, are there brands-models that in which it is possible to sideload a different OS like with mobile phones (LineageOS, GrapheneOS, etc.)
> which brands still respect user privacy? does anyone know of a reputable site which rates companies by things such as trustworthiness? are any companies at all trustworthy anymore? like literally any?
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There are limits. You can’t waive certain rights, and you can’t overwrite certain laws. The issue is that we haven’t made this shit against the law yet.
Ask LG who has agreed to their wiretapping. They can't tell you if some guest in front of a TV has agreed or not. How can that be concent?
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…
It just reads as legal boilerplate. How else can voice recognition listen for a wake word without being able to process everything it hears.
Somehow feels like it might be used for more than just wake word detection.
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Obviously, as an advertising company, Google should have your utmost scrutiny. But as far as I know, their TV boxes don't ACR your content. If they were the only two options, sticking with your smart TV software instead of using a Google TV box would be a privacy mistake.
Typically you will get sambatv or such installed, and technicians for whatever reason tend to click accept/approve during installations. Happened to me n my Google TV thing
I chose one over the Apple TV because I knew I wouldn't able to stand any limitations on sideloading. For a while I was running a custom build of Wholphin with patched libmpv/libplacebo to work around a bug before the fix was upstreamed. A device without the freedom to do that sort of thing would drive me nuts.
> During bench tests, they found the TV could capture clean microphone audio while the screen was (or at least looked to be) powered down in standby mode. When the team disconnected the TV from Ethernet, the set continued saving voice input locally and uploaded the stored files once network access was restored. Lawyers: If it is true that the company is secretly recording voices when the device appears to be off, and…
dont know if that means if the tv has 2pt text disclosing the recording in the middle of a multi-language manual and agreeing to plug the tv into power counts as consent or if it even covers tv devices/usage
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> I think it's usually not malice, it's incompetence. Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice, and should be treated accordingly.
> Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice, and should be treated accordingly. I disagree with this as stated. Maybe in the right context you could make a case for it, but in general? Heck no. Intent matters a great deal, and there is no justice in treating someone incompetent (or negligent) the same as someone who is actually malicious. Both things are bad, but the latter is worse than the…