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I’m Terrified of My New TV

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Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#61

Post by RadioactiveMan »

Canada wrote: post #49
RadioactiveMan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your argument. Some of the most popular software in the world is free. Linux, Apache, OpenSSL, Firefox and more are used by millions and got built without charging people to use them. On a personal computer, there is free software to accomplish any desktop computing task. How can you say that it wont get built when it already has been?

Those examples you mention exist mainly because interests with money decided it was cheaper to support communal infrastructure upon which they could build proprietary offerings. Even if they started for the joy of hacking, a lot of people were paid good money to make those projects what they are today. That will not automatically happen for a lot of classes of software. You point out that any desktop computing task c…

Those projects do have a lot of money behind them. The point there is that there is room to make money with open source projects. There are business models besides selling software directly.

You make an excellent point about mobile computing. However, interest in free mobile software is growing and we'll see more options available to mirror the demand.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#62

Post by declan »

api wrote: post #12
joelrunyon wrote: post #9

> In the meantime, I’ll be in the market for a new tinfoil hat and cone of silence. I know this is meant as a pseudo-joke and I know there are going to be a ton of comments here on why the guy is overreacting, but is the tin foil hat really useful anymore? We have demonstrated proof that things like this have been exploited on purpose in the past few years. Instead of the tin foil being representative of the crazy pe…

If anything, the tinfoil hat conspiracy wackos of yesteryear were far too conservative in their paranoid fever dreams. They'd never have believed this. I wonder sometimes: if things like this had existed in the 50s and 60s would we ever have had a Martin Luther King? Or would such things have been picked up at their earliest stages by the data miners and nipped in the bud? Would Ginsburg have read Howl in Golden Gate…

> would we ever have had a Martin Luther King

Here's a possibly-relevant excerpt from an article I wrote for CNET on the topic (before I left earlier this year to found http://recent.io/):

...Project Shamrock had a "watch list" of people whose conversations would be identified and plucked out of the ether by NSA computers. It was initially intended to be used for foreign intelligence purposes, but at its peak, 600 American citizens appeared on the list, including singer Joan Baez, pediatrician Benjamin Spock, actress Jane Fonda and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr....

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#63

Post by ck2 »

You know you can buy a TV without ethernet or wifi right?

If you think your TV is bad, try powering on a windows phone for the first time and go through the dozen privacy waivers and turn off all the defaults of all the data it sends to Microsoft and Nokia. Pages and pages worth.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#64

Post by tempestn »

EpicEng wrote: post #54
51Cards wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple solution is just don't log it into your WiFi.

This is what I was going to say. Do you guys really find the "smart" features on your television to be useful? I just, you know... use it as a television.

I find Netflix and YouTube built into the TV extremely useful. Also the fact that it has a half-decent DLNA client (which I connect to Plex on my home server), and can accept screencasting from my phone. I considered building a HTPC, but realized these features cover 99% of what I would use it for, and for the rest I can just use a laptop.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#65

Post by georgemcbay »

I don't even care that much about my personal privacy and yet I'm terrified of "Smart TVs" because I spent time working on many different models across various manufacturers and they are all horrible, horrible devices in their own ways (some far more horrible than others). I still have nightmares about the Insignia 'Smart' TV we wrote some apps for while working at chumby, the Samsung and LG models were only mildly better.

My TV should not require a 30 second bootup time before it can do anything if powered on cold, my TV should not crash because it has been on too long and there is a memory leak in the YahooWidgets/JavaScript engine it uses for apps, my TV should just focus on doing a really good job of displaying images from one or more sources of other boxes which are small and cheap enough to be upgraded every couple of years (unlike a TV which I upgrade far less).

Let me worry if those external boxes are invading my privacy or not, but my TV really needs to be stupid enough that it isn't even possible, if only for practical reasons.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#66

Post by crazygringo »

chatmasta wrote: post #33
click170 wrote: post #25

The only reason I feel comfortable connecting things like consumer network-connected cameras, TVs, Bluray players, game consoles, or anything else "Internet Ready" to my network is because I perform outbound filtering, and it's a big eye-opener to see first-hand what these devices are trying to connect to. Luckily most things use HTTP so you can actually filter based on the URL it's trying to access. For example, per…

If anyone wants to build it, I would love a website where you could look up any device/program and see a profile of what data it sends out of your house, or what it brings in. Pair it with an open source app to collect the profiles and upload them to the website (somewhat ironically).

You know, that's a fantastic idea.

It's almost analagous to the "nutrition facts" that you get on food. A standard baseline so you can know what's going on.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#67

Post by logn »

monochr wrote: post #42
api wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, the tinfoil hat conspiracy wackos of yesteryear were far too conservative in their paranoid fever dreams. They'd never have believed this. I wonder sometimes: if things like this had existed in the 50s and 60s would we ever have had a Martin Luther King? Or would such things have been picked up at their earliest stages by the data miners and nipped in the bud? Would Ginsburg have read Howl in Golden Gate…

The real problem here isn't Orwell. It's Terry Gilliam[1]. From Google to the NSA you have no recourse against the automated algorithms lumping you in a category which will never put you in jail but will add ridiculous restrictions to your life, for example no fly lists. [1] http://youtu.be/YeY1dxlC7Sg?t=1m40s

I worry more about the chilling effects. The things people leave unsaid, the stories that go unwritten, and ultimately the free thinking that never occurs. In addition, being able to completely data mine all communication gives enormous potential to control future action (in a similar/same way to how marketers can influence future choices). Orwell had a quote about that.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#68

Post by pmoriarty »

The author is afraid of his smart TV, but probably doesn't think twice about carrying around a smartphone.

Smartphones have virtually all of the capabilities that make the author fear his smart TV, only the smartphone is, if anything, even more dangerous because it is more ubiquitous.

People carry their phones around everywhere, and the phones are usually constantly on and equally capable of monitoring your every word and action that you perform on them.

If you value privacy but own a smartphone, you've already lost.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#69

Post by logn »

api wrote: post #23
Canada wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and any mobile phone. "Ok Google" RMS was right all along. We need free software, or we will have no control over our computers. And our computers are going to be everywhere.

But since it's free, nobody will pay for it. If nobody pays for it, it won't get built. Free as in beer is the enemy of free as in freedom.

People pay for free (libre) software because there can still be service offered and sold. And people will pay for a free software TV because it's a physical object.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#70

Post by coldtea »

tedks wrote: post #47

We need a Butlerian Jihad against surveillance. You know what will never stop this? Posts on hacker news. Letters to your congressman (LG can donate a fuqton more to his re-election campaign than you can). Voting with your dollar (people who know what a privacy policy is are few and far between). You know what will? Taking these TVs into the street, smashing and burning them. Mobs storming Best Buy and smashing the s…

>You know what will never stop this? Posts on hacker news. Letters to your congressman (LG can donate a fuqton more to his re-election campaign than you can).

Plus it's not just LG that wants that kind of data. It's the government itself.

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