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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

#171

Post by duncan_bayne »

harry8 wrote: post #166
duncan_bayne wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think that what they broke is your property? Read the EULA. It almost certainly specifies that what you think you own, has in fact just been licensed to you.

No. This is actually nonsense. Nobody has read the Eula. Nobody has knowingly and willingly agreed to those terms (if they exist). No vendor has expected those terms to be read (if they even exist). No vendor has explained those terms to a customer. There is a contract for exchange of ownership. You can't actually break that contract with unconscinable means such as fine print that nobody reads nor is expected to rea…

> You can't actually break that contract with unconscinable means such as fine print that nobody reads nor is expected to read nor has had explained.

You shouldn't be able to, but I think in most jurisdictions you most certainly can.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-user_license_agreement#Enf...

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

#172

Post by speedgoose »

mirimir wrote: post #168
speedgoose wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TVs are much much more larger. But you don't need a TV obviously.

I live in a 42 m^2 apartment, so I really don't need that large a monitor :)

I used to have a video-projector with a wide lens in a similar sized apartment. Great for movies and slow paced video-games.

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

#173

Post by pjmlp »

Exmoor wrote: post #123
mirimir wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my answer. I'll never own a "smart TV", just decent gaming graphics with a large monitor.

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.

There are still plenty of options in Europe, it is a matter of being picky.

As for image quality it is miles ahead of crufty CRT displays, Sony Triniton or the like.

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

#174

Post by dspillett »

_ph_ wrote: post #32
dspillett wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> still use programming languages, where such errors result in Unfortunately no language or other framework or system can completely do away with programming logic errors.

But that is the point I was trying to make. No language can save you from logic errors, but a lot of languages let you recover from errors in functions. The simplest way is exception handling in Java like try { parse(xmlFile) } catch ( ... ) {.... } There is no reason the device should get in an undefined state if parsing that file fails or even completely crash.

> There is no reason the device should get in an undefined state

That is impossible to guarantee. It isn't even possible to completely generally[†] test for - what you have there is a variant of the halting problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem).

[†] added "generically" there as it is possible, using formal methods from the start, to prove that a program is correct so will not error (in an unexpected manner) on any input, but such methods are time-consuming so outside of certain specific fields you'll not find them used

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

#175

Post by rstuart4133 »

rndgermandude wrote: post #151
_ph_ wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Impossible is a big word :). But while a C or C++ program tends to crash in the presence of an error, like with a segfault, a lot of languages just throw an error which you can catch. So you could proceed with the default values, if the file cannot be read correctly.

"can catch" doesn't give you anything, unless you actually do the catching. C and C++ programs tend to crash in the presence of an error, but so do rust programs (panic), C# and java and js and python programs (unhandled exception). Some languages make it harder to footgun yourself for certain types of errors, but never all types of errors. I have seen js programs (and similar stuff in other languages) crash because…

There is one difference in Rust: they are so confident of their memory model, panic!() only kills the current thread. The exception is if it happens in the main thread it kills everything.

In Samsung's case, if they put the parsing of the telemetry config xml file in a separate thread the default Rust behaviour is not to kill the entire thing. Sending the telemetry back to servers sounds like something you would do in a separate thread, so perhaps it would have saved them.

Other languages with similarity strong memory models like Java / Python / Haskell could do the same thing of course. And in those languages programmer could just emulate it in any case. C / C++ with their weak memory models could not sanely do it. A programmer could emulate it in those languages by using separate processes if the OS supported it, but they would have to forgo shared memory.

Not a huge difference perhaps - but Rust's strong memory model does buy you something.

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

#176

Post by swiley »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #161
swiley wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ma…

>And in the name of protecting the user from malware they have no tools to deal with it There are tools as the ecosystem is open and the community is extraordinarily talented, but it largely depends upon the device, whether the kernel source, driver blobs are available and boot loader can be unlocked; these were generally true for most devices from high profile manufacturers, but now things are changing as those manu…

It depends on the device manufacturer which is the one installing malware in the first place. There is no hope for android unless something fundamentally changes.

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

#177

Post by tpmx »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #104
tpmx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably. Samsung hired thousands of c++ developers in a particular low-cost country to build Tizen. You can't really hire that many quality developers that quickly, and it showed.

Tizen is not a bad system by itself. For example, all Samsung watches run it, and they're the best wearables after iwatch.

It kinda is shitty, though. Do remember that it was built as a replacement for Android on smartphones, then when that, in a 100% expected way completely failed, was was relegated to the TV and smartwatch platforms where general requirements are perhaps 5x less.

Those two platforms probably only use the best 20-30% core functionality of what was built. And they're still second tier...

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

#178

Post by fomine3 »

catalogia wrote: post #137
richarme wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a guess, but I would assume the term factory reset referred to clearing user settings before devices commonly had firmware update capabilities. So the legacy name should not be used to imply how the function should work in relation to firmware downgrade.

It should restore all writable storage to factory configuration. It shouldn't matter a whit whether that storage has code or config on it.

Who pays for more EEPROM/Flash capacity to save factory firmware?

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

#179

Post by pdimitar »

pjmlp wrote: post #173
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.

There are still plenty of options in Europe, it is a matter of being picky. As for image quality it is miles ahead of crufty CRT displays, Sony Triniton or the like.

Can you point me at an EU marketplace where I can pick a non-smart TV with modern good display? I've been desperate to find something like that for months.

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

#180

Post by mirimir »

pjmlp wrote: post #173
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.

There are still plenty of options in Europe, it is a matter of being picky. As for image quality it is miles ahead of crufty CRT displays, Sony Triniton or the like.

Huh, I thought that gamers also like high quality images.
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