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I’m Terrified of My New TV

brennancenter.org

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Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#191

Post by FeeTinesAMady »

cclements wrote: post #113

You know, reading this and some of the comments, especially about run-away authority with the “cops making stops to take money” make me think. I recoil as I’m sure many do about the increasing ubiquity of potential surveillance technology such as this. I think about the slippery slopes that we have evidence of (see: patriot act). But then another part of me thinks back to the “dirty cop” comment. It seems like cops c…

I think a better solution to the problem of the cop's recording going missing is to automatically find the cop guilty of everything he's accused of when that happens, without a trial. That'll stop that problem right quick.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#192

Post by justcommenting »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #186
qbrass wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said it was always on? They can't guarantee what you or anyone in range of the microphone will say while giving the TV a command, which gets sent off to be processed. That's enough to warrant the warning.

As with laptop webcams, it probably not so much that it's always on, but that it can be turned on at any time without you knowing.

if video but not audio surveillance freaks you out, a little piece of black electrical tape goes a long way. that includes your phone's front-facing camera..

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#193

Post by jabjoe »

downandout wrote: post #155

I wasn't particularly disturbed by this article until I got to the following passage regarding the "Voice Command" feature: "Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party." I don't think there is a prison horrible enough to send these people to. There is NO legitimate reason that an always-on…

No. Government needs to have laws against this. We can't leave it up to ignorant and fickle consumers. This is a failure of the system of law, thus government. Consumer action is no substitute. Voting with wallets is not equal in anyway to voting. And never should be. We shouldn't be trying to herd consumers to punish companies, we should be asking governments to do their job.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#194

Post by rhizome »

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).

Relatively few people run gateway devices with the ability to do what you're describing, but pcap is an open format and there are existing utilities for dumping (tcpdump/wireshark) and visualization (https://www.sans.org/security-resources/idfaq/visualize_data...).

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#195

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

justcommenting wrote: post #192
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with laptop webcams, it probably not so much that it's always on, but that it can be turned on at any time without you knowing.

if video but not audio surveillance freaks you out, a little piece of black electrical tape goes a long way. that includes your phone's front-facing camera..

blu-tack works fine on the laptop too.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#196

Post by mmmm »

fulafel wrote: post #156
millstone wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point about a smartphone's capabilities is well taken. But the TV straight-up says that your personal information will be captured and transmitted to a third party. I value my privacy, and trust (hope?) that my phone isn't transmitting that sort of stuff. If it did, I think it would be discovered and made public very quickly, and I would switch phones! But since the TV straight out says that it transmits my pers…

Are you not counting Googhle or Apple as third parties?

Do they send sound from your phone to their servers non stop? If so, I'm switching from iPhone straight away.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#197

Post by spacefight »

facepalm wrote: post #176
downandout wrote: post #155

I wasn't particularly disturbed by this article until I got to the following passage regarding the "Voice Command" feature: "Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party." I don't think there is a prison horrible enough to send these people to. There is NO legitimate reason that an always-on…

I suppose the reason for sending all audio to a server could be that the TV is not powerful enough for voice recognition, it needs the cloud for that?

That's hardly an argument to shit on your customers privacy.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#198

Post by nl »

corford wrote: post #168
nl wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any hardware solution recommendations - or things that will run on a RPi/router? I don't like the idea of having to keep a desktop/laptop computer on 24/7.

https://www.pfsense.org/hardware/#pfsense-store

Yeah, I saw that. Not exactly consumer prices are they?

Reading the forums there are some dual LAN Atom based mini PCs that seem OK.

Edit: Also http://store.netgate.com/Desktop-Systems-C83.aspx has some preconfigured options at under $300.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#199

Post by 72deluxe »

facepalm wrote: post #176
downandout wrote: post #155

I wasn't particularly disturbed by this article until I got to the following passage regarding the "Voice Command" feature: "Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party." I don't think there is a prison horrible enough to send these people to. There is NO legitimate reason that an always-on…

I suppose the reason for sending all audio to a server could be that the TV is not powerful enough for voice recognition, it needs the cloud for that?

If they'd improve the software and stop dishing out underpowered processors in TVs, that'd help. I have an LG that's a few years old and there's nothing "smart" about it. It should have been sold as "slowTV" instead of "smartTV".

I am saddened that the data needs to fly off to the other side of the world, particularly when dictation and speaking to a device can be done offline: see Dragon Naturally Speaking, Apple offline dictation on OSX, and a Nokia from 15 years ago that would respond to simple voice commands like BLUETOOOOOOTH (yes, you had to shout it), plus the dumb Bluetooth interface in my car that I have to stop and speak to in order to pair devices with it etc.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#200

Post by nl »

downandout wrote: post #155

I wasn't particularly disturbed by this article until I got to the following passage regarding the "Voice Command" feature: "Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party." I don't think there is a prison horrible enough to send these people to. There is NO legitimate reason that an always-on…

There is a YC company (Wit.ai) building systems to enable this for 'internet of things' devices.

Voice makes a good interface for these devices, but I do agree that privacy is a concern.

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