https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-KgX9xyIRK8 "Can the CIA really spy on your phone?" He mentions TV and while it's off.
LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
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Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#52> "LG also said that its features like “Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), voice recognition, and interest-based advertising are optional,” and “not enabled by default.”
I am absolutely certain that ACR was enabled on our new TV by default, back some years ago. I am nearly certain their voice recognition, and advertising spying were enabled on our TV by default.
If none of this is truly "enabled by default" then this is a recent development.
I discovered this many years ago and did some deep dives, and unfortunately didn't publish anything about it. Lesson learned.
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#53Easy solution. Do not connect your TV to the internet.
Also debunked in the Gamer Nexus video. The TV will scan for public wifis and connect. Watching the video, it also seemed like a "missed opportunity" for LG to not create a mesh network of LG devices that would help eachother connect to the internet. So the LG device on your neighbours wifi might help your not connected TV to some tasty internet access. Or at least to unload its cache of A(V)CR fingerprints. LG is tr…
They didn't actually say it does that. They said it could do that. It doesn't (yet).
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#54How can we lock down a TV, still use it but trust we aren't being spied on?
Don’t give your TV internet access, and use an Apple TV.
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#55If you live in the United States you should find out who your state senator and representative are and write a letter to them asking them to propose, and support legislation prohibiting spying and increasing consumer privacy protection.
Kentucky passed HB 692 unanimously requiring smart TVs to ask permission if they are going to be spying on us. Ask your state legislature to follow their lead and pass some very popular consumer privacy protection.
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who hasn’t owned a television in decades, why would a TV even need a microphone in the first place? How many other household devices have a microphone whose primary function is orthogonal to recording audio?
There are lots of good reasons that are used to paper over the abuse cases. Microphones in tvs are a useful accessibility feature when they enable voice commands for the user, and allow them to be used as voice assistants. They also enable tvs with a camera and microphone to be used as video calling or audio calling interfaces. Used well we get star Trek view screens, used poorly we get little brother monitoring. For…
> Microphones in tvs are a useful accessibility feature
Made nearly moot by the presence of microphones in most (all?) modern remotes.
I say nearly moot because its worth noting the ability to operate a physical remote may itself be prohibitive to some.
So in effect, there are a multitude microphones in a modern LG environment.
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#57How can we lock down a TV, still use it but trust we aren't being spied on?
Leave it offline.
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#58Note that their statement could also be true if they record 99% of the time. We need to start calling companies out for meaningless weasel statements like "We don't record continuously". The majority of the problem is also simply the ability to record. Putting a remote control listening hardware on a device that runs a plethora of 3rd party apps and with full connection to the internet means that even if LG isn't con…
As someone who hasn’t owned a television in decades, why would a TV even need a microphone in the first place? How many other household devices have a microphone whose primary function is orthogonal to recording audio?
1984 purposes.
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#59https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-KgX9xyIRK8 "Can the CIA really spy on your phone?" He mentions TV and while it's off.
by the way, Intel's Quark chip is installed at least 3 times on each chipset and can run on a Minix OS when plugged in to the power and off:
from: https://web.archive.org/web/20201201175708/http://blog.ptsec...
Highly efficient" is 25mW at 33MHz. According to the Wikipedia page, it can run even when the PC is off but plugged in or connected to battery. an ARM Cortex M0-4 will use even less power in idle. All it needs is a tiny capacitor and bootrom and a secret flash storage to record audio and upload it once internet becomes available
"The Intel Management Engine always runs as long as the motherboard is receiving power, even when the computer is turned off. This issue can be mitigated with the deployment of a hardware device which is able to disconnect all connections to mains power as well as all internal forms of energy storage. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and some security researchers have voiced concern that the Management Engine is a backdoor.
Intel's main competitor, AMD, has incorporated the equivalent AMD Secure Technology (formally called Platform Security Processor) in virtually all of its post-2013 CPUs."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine
There are countless low or passive power audio devices since the Thing that can record and upload/bounce audio to receiveing devices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#60How can we lock down a TV, still use it but trust we aren't being spied on?
Don’t give your TV internet access, and use an Apple TV.
I've gotten frustrated enough with my Apple TV that once my gen of hardware is no longer supported I'll replace it with a Raspberry Pi. I don't need fancy apps, just a browser for Jellyfin and (sometimes) YouTube. Any other incidental streaming service usage can also be done through a browser anyway.