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

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

#871

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…

IANAL but without concent I think LG is comitting a crime here. The owner who ostensibly agreed to obtain concent through the ToS might be breaking their agreement, but wouldn't that be a separate issue? ToS and other click licenses have been making shit up for way too long.

IANAL, but I believe the argument is that agreeing to the TOS constitutes consent. Even though no reasonable person would believe such a thing would be in the TOS and no reasonable person reads the full TOS (no person actually could...).

Perhaps we start suing one another for not disclosing the wire tapping, forcing the lawsuit upwards towards LG. It'd be more efficient to sue LG, but lawyers don't seem to be done those things. At least not that I'm aware of

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

#872

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have video surveillance signs. Audio is a different category in a lot of states. In California, it's illegal to record audio without consent of all of the parties, and I believe you can get a civil remedy of $5000 for this.

I would be willing to bet the TV's demo mode used by most box box retailers disables that by default, specifically to avoid such an issue.

Someone needs to find out. Presumably by the TOS it's in the settings, so verifiable

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

#873
post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be even better if the federal government made it illegal.

Would be even better to have a judge declare that they already are illegal.

Easy to forget, judges determine the legality of things. It is literally their job

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

#874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you actually even turn and keep the microphone off or does it toggle itself back on like Apple's Wifi and Bluetooth one-touch toggle off for now buttons?

> Apple's Wifi and Bluetooth one-touch toggle off for now buttons? This comparison rubs me off the wrong way every time I see, because. 1. The notifications clearly tell the behavior (doing $THING until tomorrow). 2. There's a way to turn them "really off". What LG does is completely different. IIRC from the teaser of this video, the microphone is never "completely" off or apps can re-enable them somehow.

Norman Doors.

Good design communicates even without language. It is reasonable to see a toggle switch and think it... you know... toggles. The same reason you see a handle on a door a pill before you read the sign that says push. The sign is literally there because the physical design is telling you something different. It is literally mixed signals.

Apple could have done many different things to make the design clearer. Hell, if they really wanted to keep the toggle like design, make it look like a spring.

But no matter what, the current design is abhorrent because they use the same design language for a temporary toggle and a real toggle. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why people get confused. It is also crazy considering how much Apple prides themselves on design. If it was good design, you wouldn't need the sign...

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

#875

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple's Wifi and Bluetooth one-touch toggle off for now buttons? This comparison rubs me off the wrong way every time I see, because. 1. The notifications clearly tell the behavior (doing $THING until tomorrow). 2. There's a way to turn them "really off". What LG does is completely different. IIRC from the teaser of this video, the microphone is never "completely" off or apps can re-enable them somehow.

Norman Doors. Good design communicates even without language. It is reasonable to see a toggle switch and think it... you know... toggles. The same reason you see a handle on a door a pill before you read the sign that says push. The sign is literally there because the physical design is telling you something different. It is literally mixed signals. Apple could have done many different things to make the design clea…

Could you sketch a spring-loaded button? I just have a hard time imagining how could this time dimension be added properly to a button - not that I would disagree with you in general.

Also, is this really different from a button that reflects state? E.g. you have a battery saver button that automatically turns on at <20%, is that fundamentally different than a button that resets to a given value at 0:00? I genuinely don't know, just asking questions here.

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

#877
post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law has been unable to keep up with tech changes. Let's hope for the irony of AI helping them figure this stuff out.

> The law has been unable to keep up with tech changes. Nah, for the most part the law has been unable to keep up with (or choose to oppose) corporate power , and new ways it's being used. Usually there's no magic quantum doohickey which demands fundamentally new legal theory.

[deleted]

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

#878

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just reads as legal boilerplate. How else can voice recognition listen for a wake word without being able to process everything it hears.

Keep all the processing on device? Do so in a way that is legal in the jurisdiction you are selling the devices in without claiming it's the owner's responsibility to get consent from all individuals (even if they cannot legally consent because they are, say, a child!?) to comply with wiretapping laws in their own home? Choose not to sell an object that comes with software made to spy on you and sell all it learns to…

In a place where recording audio requires consent from all parties, I don't think it matters whether "all the processing is on-device" given that the law was probably written with tape recorders in mind. If I buy a device that can record audio, and place it in my home where unsuspecting guests are recorded by it, whether that recording is transmitted to the manufacturer or stays within my home seems irrelevant.

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

#879
post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law has been unable to keep up with tech changes. Let's hope for the irony of AI helping them figure this stuff out.

> The law has been unable to keep up with tech changes. Nah, for the most part the law has been unable to keep up with (or choose to oppose) corporate power , and new ways it's being used. Usually there's no magic quantum doohickey which demands fundamentally new legal theory.

For example, take this TV spyware thing, and rewind to the year 1986, and imagine RCA started selling televisions with microphones in them that recorded what was in your room and radioed it back to headquarters for some reason.

Obviously the costs wouldn't have worked at the time, but is there anything that was missing in our ability to describe the risks and wrongness? The concepts of privacy and consent, contracts and monopolies, ownership and licensing... They were all there 40 years ago.

In other words, the bee in my bonnet involves how the phrase "keeping up with the technology" sometimes becomes way to shift blame and a false target. It distracts us from the immediate political alignment problem towards a nebulous future technological one, which is so ill-defined it can never arrive. ("Once technology finally stops changing, then we'll legislate for our individual constituents' rights.")

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