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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'

#251

Post by mitxela »

rpdillon wrote: post #18

LG's statement: > ACR uses audio fingerprinting technology using the TV’s internal audio processor (not a speaker) to identify content and does not collect screenshots, screen recordings, video recordings, voice recordings, or other audio recordings from the TV. So they are claiming that ACR is done entirely through audio processing, and no visual data from the screen itself is used? That...doesn't seem plausible. Th…

> So they are claiming that ACR is done entirely through audio processing, and no visual data from the screen itself is used? That...doesn't seem plausible.

Wrong. They claim it doesn't record video. Recording means saving permanently - live processing is not recording. ACR is processing the video output live.

Notice what they don't say at all. ACR is just one type of spying. A completely separate feature records what you say from the microphone. They only claimed ACR doesn't do that, which we knew. They did not claim the TV doesn't do that.

This is a carefully crafted PR statement, to avoid saying any lies while making it sound like the accusation was wrong, but it does not actually say the accusation was wrong. We can infer that the likely reason it doesn't say the accusation was wrong is that the accusation is right. Instead, it says several other things, which sound like they are refuting the accusation but are actually refuting other things that nobody said.

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#252

Post by ryandrake »

cogman10 wrote: post #62
rpdillon wrote: post #18

LG's statement: > ACR uses audio fingerprinting technology using the TV’s internal audio processor (not a speaker) to identify content and does not collect screenshots, screen recordings, video recordings, voice recordings, or other audio recordings from the TV. So they are claiming that ACR is done entirely through audio processing, and no visual data from the screen itself is used? That...doesn't seem plausible. Th…

> So they are claiming that ACR is done entirely through audio processing, and no visual data from the screen itself is used? That...doesn't seem plausible. It's probably easier to do and every bit as accurate as just using a screenshot. And it's still exactly what I don't want them doing. There's literally zero reason for LG to be building an advertising profile on me because I was foolish enough to buy one of their…

To me, it's not even about why they're doing it (building an advertising profile). I don't want them doing it at all, for any reason.

When I buy something from the store, my relationship is between me and the store, for the 30 seconds it takes for me to pay for it. I don't want an ongoing relationship with the device manufacturer. I don't want to be tethered in any way to the manufacturer. I don't want to have an account with the manufacturer. I don't want the device sending anything to the manufacturer, advertising related, telemetry, or even a single bit "user has used your product." Do you get it, manufacturers?? I don't want any kind of relationship with you! I want to purchase my product and use it by myself not with you.

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#253

Post by mitxela »

BeetleB wrote: post #124
rpdillon wrote: post #18

LG's statement: > ACR uses audio fingerprinting technology using the TV’s internal audio processor (not a speaker) to identify content and does not collect screenshots, screen recordings, video recordings, voice recordings, or other audio recordings from the TV. So they are claiming that ACR is done entirely through audio processing, and no visual data from the screen itself is used? That...doesn't seem plausible. Th…

> So they are claiming that ACR is done entirely through audio processing, and no visual data from the screen itself is used? That...doesn't seem plausible. It apparently is. Do you know the Nielsen Ratings? That's exactly how they know what people are watching these days. I've been contacted by them to be one of their subjects. They ship you a device that listens and recognizes based on content. They look for certai…

Also, they didn't claim that.

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#255

Post by mrb »

rpdillon wrote: post #18

LG's statement: > ACR uses audio fingerprinting technology using the TV’s internal audio processor (not a speaker) to identify content and does not collect screenshots, screen recordings, video recordings, voice recordings, or other audio recordings from the TV. So they are claiming that ACR is done entirely through audio processing, and no visual data from the screen itself is used? That...doesn't seem plausible. Th…

As usual, the key to explain the discrepancy between LG's claims and the paper 2024 is in the wording. Read carefully: LG claims it "does not collect screenshots, screen recordings, video recordings, voice recordings, or other audio recordings from the TV.". IOW they are making the technical distinction between "fingerprinting" and "screenshots or recordings".

And specifically, they are not confirming or denying that video fingerprinting are done.

What I think is likely is, as the paper states, that they fingerprint both audio and video. Upload both to their servers. But they end up using only the audio fingerprint for ACR. In this situation, neither LG's statement, nor the paper's statement, nor the GamerNexus folks's claims are incompatible with each other.

It even makes sense from a technical standpoint: it is far easier to uniquely identify content by audio than by video, as a fingerprint of a few milliseconds of audio is pretty darn ideal, compared to fingerprinting even a single video frame which has hundreds of ways it could be compressed depending on codecs, bitrate, resolution, etc.

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#256

Post by tredre3 »

cassianoleal wrote: post #76
aeternum wrote: post #23

Note 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…

In any case, "We don't record continuously" is still recording. They should not be recording at all!

Enough with the knee jerk reactions. They have to record in some cases. You don't have to like those features, but plenty of people want those features.

- The television has voice control.

- The television has a manually triggered speech-to-text feature so you don't have to type with tv remote.

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#257

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Rohansi wrote: post #193
roscas wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People worried about LG. Use Android, iOS and Windows. Use Facebook and TikTok! Use WhatApp and get shocked TikTok keeps all data, video, images, text and reads it. Same as WhatsApp. Drive a Tesla. Have that Ring on the door and other devices. Go figure. People are strange. And yes, that ME and PSP are on every cpu since I can't remember, Thinkpad T60 was probably one of the last ones without spy tech.

FYI AMD's PSP does not connect to the internet like Intel's ME does.

IIRC Intel renamed it to Intel CSME some time ago; the I in CSME stands for integrity.

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#258

Post by cogman10 »

nyctimus wrote: post #240
cogman10 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So they are claiming that ACR is done entirely through audio processing, and no visual data from the screen itself is used? That...doesn't seem plausible. It's probably easier to do and every bit as accurate as just using a screenshot. And it's still exactly what I don't want them doing. There's literally zero reason for LG to be building an advertising profile on me because I was foolish enough to buy one of their…

wouldn't taking screenshots in fact not always be possible depending on the content you are watching? For example netflix with their hardware level drm? (Although its their TV they possibly have ways around that with some custom hardware)

LG sits at exactly the location where screenshots are possible.

Eventually, a digital signal needs to be converted into pixels on a screen. Once that happens, it's trivial to also pipe those pixels into a screenshot.

It's the reason DRM for digital media is pretty dumb IMO. The most sophisticated DRM still has to be decoded at some point for the end user to enjoy it. It can always be broken with a camcorder (though quality suffers). However, there exists devices which decode the HDMI signal so doing a pure digital signals.

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#259

Post by tclancy »

cogman10 wrote: post #62
rpdillon wrote: post #18

LG's statement: > ACR uses audio fingerprinting technology using the TV’s internal audio processor (not a speaker) to identify content and does not collect screenshots, screen recordings, video recordings, voice recordings, or other audio recordings from the TV. So they are claiming that ACR is done entirely through audio processing, and no visual data from the screen itself is used? That...doesn't seem plausible. Th…

> So they are claiming that ACR is done entirely through audio processing, and no visual data from the screen itself is used? That...doesn't seem plausible. It's probably easier to do and every bit as accurate as just using a screenshot. And it's still exactly what I don't want them doing. There's literally zero reason for LG to be building an advertising profile on me because I was foolish enough to buy one of their…

> There's literally zero reason for LG to be building an advertising profile on me because I was foolish enough to buy one of their TVs.

I feel like the world is bossed by people who read (well, ok listened to a 5 minute summary on a grindlife podcast at 1.5x speed) about the Trojan Horse and thought they smelled a business opporunity.

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#260

Post by okamiueru »

semiquaver wrote: post #116
hdgvhicv wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many misunderstandings about that video. Which ain’t surprising as it was longer than a movie and mainly nonsense about what it can do rather than what it does do.

Agreed. I’ve come to believe that the video’s benefit from bringing awareness to the issue is outweighed by how misleading it is. Massive amounts of the video were “we hacked the TV and made it do [bad thing]” and was reported as “LG TVs do [bad thing]!”

Did we watch a different video? The point of hacking the TV, and making it do bad thing. Was to explain the privacy issues inherent with the hardware capabilites for video and audio recording, which combined with multiple known exploits to gain access.

It's a long video, and they cover more than one issue. Please explain what, in particular, you found was misleading.

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