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Samsung Blu-ray players bricked because of an XML config file

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Re: Samsung Blu-ray players bricked because of an XML config file

#141

Post by nl »

dylan604 wrote: post #93
Johnny555 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse than you think - it's not just your DVD player that's spying on you, but your TV is too -- many TV's use Automated Content Recognition to detect what you're watching regardless of source (DVD, over the air, streaming app, etc). They even detect commercials, and which language you're listening to. https://www.adexchanger.com/ad-exchange-news/the-marketers-g...

How do you think manufactures can afford to sell these large screens at such cheap prices. They continue to make money off of you long after the initial sale. I'm surprised they just don't give them away (except it would probably raise too many questions). Your digital cable boxes have been doing this for even longer.

> How do you think manufactures can afford to sell these large screens at such cheap prices.

Screens are actually that cheap. Take a look at the monitor size/resolution price curve (for non-gaming monitors) and you'll see TVs fit perfectly on it.

Here's a random 55 inch LG panel available on Alibaba. $145 each for a minimum order of 15. That was just the first I found - I'm sure you can get cheaper (especially in bulk!)

Things like high refresh rate, GSync etc add to the cost of the monitor.

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/LG-full-color-FHD-mod...

Re: Samsung Blu-ray players bricked because of an XML config file

#142

Post by RealStickman_ »

kd5bjo wrote: post #131
Exmoor wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's essentially impossible to buy a consumer TV that's not "smart" these days. There are commercial TV's/monitors, but those are both expensive and also typically not focused on image quality. Best solution is to "air gap" your TV by not connecting it your wifi or ethernet.

> Best solution is to "air gap" your TV by not connecting it your wifi or ethernet. How long will it be before TVs embed a cellular modem with manufacturer-paid service to keep the smart features connected? “No setup, works straight out of the box” has to have at least some marketing value, after all.

That's the point where you install a wifi jammer in your house and do cable only.

Re: Samsung Blu-ray players bricked because of an XML config file

#143

Post by RealStickman_ »

chrisBob wrote: post #106
RandomBacon wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote with your wallet. Don't buy these internet devices. All it takes is for a visiting family member or friend who wants to watch Netflix while you're in another room/asleep/etc to click okay.

That’s what my in-laws did. “For some reason you hadn’t connected your smart TV to the internet; instead of using your Apple TV, we gave TCL your WiFi password. Aren’t you proud we figured it out on our own?”

Better be sure and block the TV from wifi then.

Re: Samsung Blu-ray players bricked because of an XML config file

#144

Post by jeffdubin »

zzo38computer wrote: post #88
dastx wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> needs constant firmware updates Firmware updates are good. They can patch security issues and they can improve different aspects of the device. The security being the best plus obviously. Wholeheartedly agree that there is no reason for a company like Samsung to track your every move despite you paying them hundreds for said devive. I'd be very surprised if they don't make a hefty profit from such devices. So why t…

Firmware updates can be good, but only the user with physical access should be able to install a firmware update. An example of how this might be done may be: There is a ROM firmware (always read-only) and EEPROM firmware (read-only except during firmware upgrade operations); the ROM firmware only checks a switch (which is a physical hardware switch can be set only by the user) and if set, will load the data on the D…

This, but removable microSD card instead of EEPROM.

Re: Samsung Blu-ray players bricked because of an XML config file

#145

Post by lathiat »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #89
Ambroos wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is still used for set-top boxes, at least in Belgium. It happens in the background now, but up until a few years ago when you first got one you'd only see the firmware downloader for an hour or two, with this block diagram where you could follow along: https://i.imgur.com/hh7eWZr.jpg The worst part about that was if your signal quality wasn't great. You'd see blocks fail, and it'd take ages for them to come up a…

That is the most LCAR upgrade screen I have ever seen...

that can't be an accident surely; i want it.

Re: Samsung Blu-ray players bricked because of an XML config file

#146

Post by ajuc »

These things can get really tricky.

We once almost bricked our devices (electronic magnifier/OCR for low vision people) with an update that added automatic calibration for the cheap crappy OEM touchscreen we used in some devices. It was so crappy all the screens we had in our company had the same serial numbers and returned different coordinates when you clicked in the same spot :)

Fortunately libev has calibration - you can provide a matrix to transform all touchscreen events with. We added calibration step - the software asked user to touch 4 corners on the screen, calculates inverse matrix and saves it to configuration for better touchscreen accuracy. We tested it extensively, and uploaded the version to our update server.

The next day customers started calling :) turns out libev (which reads the configuration during booting) had a "feature" that parsed the numbers in the configuration using the default system locale.

German locale uses . as thousands separator and , as fraction separator.

So, when you did the calibration and restarted the device with German locale your screen transformed the touschscreen events multiplying them by thousands - so you couldn't click on anything, so you couldn't use the device or click "update software".

It was even worse if you used german locale, saved the calibration configuration and then changed locale to English - then it simply crashed during boot because of wrong number format :)

Fortunately we left one usb port accessible so users could attach usb mouse and click "update" if they had the first situation, or download the whole firmware on an usb pendrive and update from it.

BTW the libev bug is fixed, now it always reads the configuration using C locale. Guess what happened when we updated the linux on our systems half a year later and that change was included :)

Re: Samsung Blu-ray players bricked because of an XML config file

#147

Post by slim »

userbinator wrote: post #54

One thing you have to understand is that these internet-connected Blu-ray players in question are programmed to log their activities and send copies of this information to Samsung. In some ways, this is even more disturbing than the bricking. Only corporate greed can create a media player that watches you and needs constant firmware updates. I have a VCR and DVD player which still work, and things like this are the r…

strangely it seems more acceptable when an OEM ships its laptops with Windows 10 which does the same thing

Re: Samsung Blu-ray players bricked because of an XML config file

#148

Post by LASR »

kd5bjo wrote: post #131
Exmoor wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's essentially impossible to buy a consumer TV that's not "smart" these days. There are commercial TV's/monitors, but those are both expensive and also typically not focused on image quality. Best solution is to "air gap" your TV by not connecting it your wifi or ethernet.

> Best solution is to "air gap" your TV by not connecting it your wifi or ethernet. How long will it be before TVs embed a cellular modem with manufacturer-paid service to keep the smart features connected? “No setup, works straight out of the box” has to have at least some marketing value, after all.

Why would that ever be a thing when the vast majority of consumers connect to WiFi anyway.

And why wouldn’t they simply just require an internet connection to display anything?

Re: Samsung Blu-ray players bricked because of an XML config file

#149

Post by swiley »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #125
userbinator wrote: post #54

One thing you have to understand is that these internet-connected Blu-ray players in question are programmed to log their activities and send copies of this information to Samsung. In some ways, this is even more disturbing than the bricking. Only corporate greed can create a media player that watches you and needs constant firmware updates. I have a VCR and DVD player which still work, and things like this are the r…

You'll be surprised on how much crap Samsung packs into low-end & mid-end smartphones in India, especially since now the phones are made in India, available only in India(M-series). The phones have major international data hoarder apps, their equivalent in India and their Samsung equivalent with its own app downloading services which masquerades as system updates to force the gullible into downloading Samsung apps ev…

I wouldn’t be surprised. I recently bought a low end android to use as a balloon tracker (which I didn’t realize was illegal until later) and had to wait around 10-20 minutes after connecting it to WiFi While it downloaded ~15 apps (some of which kept launching background services and crashing the phone because it would run out of memory.)

I used to think consumer PCs were bad but holy cow, the way android enables malware out of the box is insane! And in the name of protecting the user from malware they have no tools to deal with it.

Re: Samsung Blu-ray players bricked because of an XML config file

#150

Post by hatenberg »

mimimi31 wrote: post #136
Johnny555 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse than you think - it's not just your DVD player that's spying on you, but your TV is too -- many TV's use Automated Content Recognition to detect what you're watching regardless of source (DVD, over the air, streaming app, etc). They even detect commercials, and which language you're listening to. https://www.adexchanger.com/ad-exchange-news/the-marketers-g...

"The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police p…

Clearly missed out on infrared ;)
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