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GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

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Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#121
post #24

> If you root or jailbreak your devices, you've, by their very nature, broken their security. Wow. Please stop spreading things like this. Not having root means not owning a device you paid for and have in your home.

Agreed the modern push against root access is a prime example of attempted enshitification lock-in.

If you don't have root rights, you don't really own it. All other arguments are talking past this key point.

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#122
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but rooting the device de-facto means breaking the trust-chain of the OS. The inevitable outcome of this video is that TV vendors are pushed to harden the security and preserve the trust-chain, because part of the (valid) claim is that nefarious actors may break the security to use the device for spying on you. With support from an actual journalist, it could be reframed to also emphasize the importance of cont…

> True, but rooting the device de-facto means breaking the trust-chain of the OS. Like every single Microsoft laptop out there does so? Think a bit harder before sentences like this, please.

I'm thinking very hard, yet still don't know what you're trying to say. You want a consumer TV to be like a Microsoft laptop, is that the benchmark?

Did you read and comprehend the rest of my statement?

I'm trying one more time. I'm not arguing against you, maybe read this again in a few hours:

I believe you want to have full control over the device you own (like I do btw).

For this you need to acknowledge that right now it is not in the interest of any party to provide that, because it requires additional effort, carries additional risks and doesn't create an economical benefit.

You have to MAKE it the interest of ANY party in the chain (the manufacturer, the seller, the consumer, the lawmaker,...).

Being an angry consumer is not getting you there, asking people to "vote with your wallet" is not getting you there.

--> Why? Because you won't reach a critical-mass of consumers to move the needle for the manufacturer to notice and take action.

Creating noise on security issues and potential hacking won't get you there.

--> Why? Because IF it creates ANY reaction, the public reaction will be to hold device-manufacturers responsible, which (if it works!) will cause them to just spend more effort to lock down their products even more, secure the trust-chain in the OS and simply stop operation when it is broken at any point.

Trying a mix of topics by mangling everything together, to create as much noise as possible? It will not get you there.

--> Why? Because even if that noise is creating a critical-mass, if it's not based on a sober solid foundation with a clear demand, it is not actionable and will die down. Everyone knows that this will happen and affected parties will count on that.

So. What GETS you there is "artificially" making it the interest of the involved parties, STEERING the manufacturer into the desired direction.

How do you steer things if the sheer economics don't do it?

(I don't know your experience, so YMMV from here)

From my experience, the only sustainable way to achieve this is that you literally regulate it, by demanding a LEGAL requirement.

e.g. Pushing for regulation to provide the user full control over the product if he wants it, acknowledging that the process reduces the responsibilities of the manufacturer for that device.

You do that by finding as many reasons, as much evidence as possible that this is a solid direction: Security concerns, environmental concerns/waste elimination, "ensuring a free market",...

--

So how do I know that?

Because I LIVED through it already (with many other active people in the scene), trying to make bootloader-unlock and community OS a default thing on Android Smartphones.

We amplified the topic when the industry was still new and growing, created more noise than there actually was, riled up journalists to act like this is a crucial buying decision for the market, lobbied the whole industry, to a point that they actually made it a competitive feature.

Doing all that against a juggernaut of interests AGAINST it (in US e.g. Verizon, which never bulged, vendors with concerns about unjustified warranty-claims, journalists/users stating that this is weakening security, etc.)

And what happened? It all died down because we didn't use the momentum to get it into a regulation when there was the chance. Some fruit-company demonstrated over years time and again that this doesn't matter, then even turned it into a marketing-feature to NOT give full control to the user.

Meanwhile the momentum and interest in the market died down, and for the past years we started to lose bootloader-unlock again in many brands, without any notable impact on their sales.

So if we have to do it again, in a matured market (like TV is), how do we do it now?

Again, YMMV, but for me, having lived through that already, the only viable way is regulation.

Regulation which demands a solid trust-chain in control of the vendor, AND the possibility for the user to unlock it to take control over the device.

Anyway. Peace.

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#123
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. My computer is a tool I actively use. The TV is an almost entirely passive consumption device. Was performance not good enough when it was new? If it wasn't, will the new software versions truly buck the trend we've seen in software for the past few decades and improve performance? What new features are necessary? Video playback has been a solved problem for the past few decades.

All of the software on a tv is a client to some service, and the service changes constantly, and so must also the client whether anyone likes it or not, and you already knew all of this perfectly well.

The author of the comment further up this thread seemed to suggest they use their television as a traditional television rather than as a host for several streaming service clients.

I think it’s quite reasonable with this framing to question frequent update cycles.

It’s likely you understand this well and have decided to argue something else for reasons unknown.

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#124
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wouldn't say it's a solved problem. Just have to find an exploit that works with verified / attested boot In general though on devices that are rootable, white-hat hackers are more inclined to responsibly disclose vulnerabilities instead of releasing them as a way to root said device. So having a rootable phone does increase security. What doesn't increase security is when bank apps that are essential to daily li…

The thing is, the whole topic is not fully binary. I agree with you that having a rootable phone does increase security in certain ways. > What doesn't increase security is when bank apps that are essential to daily life start detecting that a device has been rooted and force a lot of people into using closed source extensions to hide the fact that the devices is rooted. I'll ask naively: Why not? I can come up with…

Because a lot of people will install whatever closed source magisk module or lsposed extension they can find to go around the bank jailbreak detection and end up actually weakening their security posture. Those modules are a prime target for trojan attacks.

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#125
post #60
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly in a lot of cases people here are too ideologically blinded to see the logic that you’re laying out. It’s the same mental gymnastics that let many here praise something like GrapheneOS yet turn around and screech over it not allowing root which is nearly central to its entire security architecture. But in this case… I don’t know. The OEM is so actively hostile you might be better off just taking the risk wit…

Wait who are these people who praise GrapheneOS but complain about it not allowing root? It sounds like you're conflating two groups of people

No, go to any large GrapheneOS post on here and you’ll inevitably see comments asking why they can’t have root and why it needs to be so strict, why can’t they have everything with the feature set of GOS + root. I’m sure in my comment history I’ve argued with people here over this.

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#126
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait who are these people who praise GrapheneOS but complain about it not allowing root? It sounds like you're conflating two groups of people

No, go to any large GrapheneOS post on here and you’ll inevitably see comments asking why they can’t have root and why it needs to be so strict, why can’t they have everything with the feature set of GOS + root. I’m sure in my comment history I’ve argued with people here over this.

I would also have been annoyed with that if I had to use GrapheneOS, security is a terrible argument to deny people access to their own hardware. But then I'm not a GrapheneOS user, just like I wouldn't have been a Fedora user on my desktop if Fedora made it impossible to gain root.

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#127
post #54

I think the author took the wrong message from the video. His arguments are all - yes everyone does this not just lg; :) - yes it can be used to track the user; but unless you literally go into lg ads hq, you can’t say they don’t - they rooted to trigger this; well the os and system apps don’t need root, we need it to observe. If the author is here please consider these as the reasons to why an LG customer would be m…

Yes, as the owner of an LG OLED, I paid a premium for a good quality panel, and expect it to be mine. Also, I anticipated ads on a smart TV (unfortunately it's inevitable), but (wrongly) assumed that such invasive tracking and "we own the glass" would be a bar too low even for the budget manufacturers. I'm never buying any LG product ever again.

I have an LG OLED as well, and to be honest I don't care. It is pretty obvious that every TV manufacturer does it by the fact that they all have to make their TVs "smart", perhaps save for the tiny/unknown ones that don't have an ad department or a contract with an ad company. Five minutes of using any smart TV interface should be able to dispel the notion that it somehow exists for the benefit of the user, and not for other reasons. My TV simply never goes on the network, which makes this a non-issue

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#128
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an LG OLED as well. When I bought it, it was the previous year's flagship. I am also mad at this. I also had an LG washing machine. The dispenser plastic drawer broke after a year of use. After over a week of multiple emails and calls with the shop, LG themselves and third-party spares shops trying to get a replacement, I bought a Bosch. I am also never buying anything from LG again.

Your broken waking machine drawer is an orthogonal problem, and perhaps not specific to one corp. Plastic parts break but, OTOH, overbuilding consumes resources with diminishing utility. A deep spare parts market is a cost. May i suggest basic home repair? Two techniques that work in many cases are: - "welding" with a soldering iron, using cable tie as a filler rod. You'll want good ventilation and a sacrificial tip…

> Your broken waking machine drawer is an orthogonal problem

Perhaps, but LG has proven problematic to deal with.

To give you an idea, I tried directly with them at first. They gave me an official website to search for the part. It wasn't available. They then game me 2 or 3 third-parties to search. None of them had the part available. I emailed and called. They would at best say "not available".

Eventually I got LG to escalate to a manager, who called me back the next day. The manager was very nice. Told me to go to that official website again. I couldn't find the part. She then instructed me how to navigate to a form on that same website where I could send a message requesting the part. Remember, this is an official LG website.

I sent the form. The next day I got a reply from a third party, telling me they didn't have the part and I should contact the manufacturer directly. Now this is with dirty laundry already accumulating and us risking running out of pants. There's no laundromat near me and I don't have a car, nor I have the time for this crap.

Eventually I found what _could_ be the right part. Only there was no way to be sure it was, and it had a 3-week wait and would cost about 100 quid.

At that point I sat down and calculated how much I paid for the machine, its expected lifetime, deducted the time I had it for to get an estimate "remaining value", and it was less than the time I was wasting with this ordeal, plus everything else if I had to arrange alternative washes for the time being and the price of the replacement part (assuming it was the right one), so it made sense to just buy a new machine and send that one for recycling, so I did that.

> May i suggest basic home repair?

Sure you can, but I don't have that machine any longer, would probably not get it to a good state, and would waste even more of my time.

It wasn't a simple plastic crack. The drawer was comprised of 3 bins (on the same part), 2 of them covered by rubbery lids. The rubber needs to seal the bin below, otherwise detergent and softener leak and make a mess (which was happening at this point). One of the bin walls somehow got completely deformed. The rubbery lid wouldn't seal, and to make it worse, it eventually split at the seal because of the pressure from the bin wall. It would have been a nightmare to repair to an acceptable state.

Also note that the bin lid is something that needs to be opened and closed frequently for top-ups and cleaning. No home repair would survive for long.

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#129
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is hacker news. Not Reddit. You can comment about anything here and build credibility. Just don’t start on the most divisive topics.

Four relevant bullet points from the Hacker News Guidelines: * When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. * Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. * Please don't post shallow dismissals * Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the li…

Those guidelines were written before bots could pass the Turing test and before nation states set up active disinformation groups that don’t even set out to push a narrative, but to just push every side of divisive topics just to spread division.

You can follow them if you want, but I find it hopelessly naive to trust brand new accounts whose first topics they comment on are touchy ones.

Re: GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea

#130

> If you root or jailbreak your devices, you've, by their very nature, broken their security. Yeah no this is just incorrect. There's many cases where jailbreaking actually fixes issues when a vendor abandons the platform. It also enables usefulness for a product long after it's been EOL'd.

In the current season of LLM driven security research, this is even more important. There are a LOT of EOL devices sitting there unpatched, vulnerable to the growing number of vulnerabilities. We can either stick our heads in the sand, we can demand the ability to update the vulnerable software on the hardware we bought, or we can exploit the CVE ourselves (collectively, as a community) and introduce CFW for the vulnerable devices.

The main thing I'm taking away from this LG thing is that I'm going to root my TV as quickly as I can with whatever CFW will get rid of this surveillance capitalism atrocity attached to the wall in my family room.

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