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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

#171

Post by authatheist »

trhway wrote: post #118
authatheist wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "privacy protection". The organization that supposedly protects our privacy is the exact same one we need protection from. It's like a bunch of sheep trusting that wolves will protect them from getting eaten by wolves.

but if the wolves are smart a bit, the sheep can trust that the wolves would eat them in moderation and in orderly fashion as to avoid starving themselves when all the sheep are suddenly eaten.

That's beside the point, and of no comfort to the sheep that get eaten.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#173

Post by authatheist »

SixSigma wrote: post #161
authatheist wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My "solution" is to wake people up to the fact that we should not have rulers at all. That's the only way to achieve a non-nightmarish future in the long term. People see tyranny creeping up all over the West, for example, but it doesn't occur to them that instead of asking our rulers to please not oppress us, we should stop believing in their authority altogether. You have your activism, and I have mine.

Having no "leaders" wouldn't stop the phenomena of corporate surveillance. A world with unfettered unregulated markets sounds more nightmarish to me than what we have now.

Rulers monitor us to cement their power over us, but in a free society without political power, with free-flowing information available to all, companies would have to be careful about what they do, lest they lose their customers, ie. their income.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#174

Post by authatheist »

rhizome wrote: post #133
authatheist wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My "solution" is to wake people up to the fact that we should not have rulers at all. That's the only way to achieve a non-nightmarish future in the long term. People see tyranny creeping up all over the West, for example, but it doesn't occur to them that instead of asking our rulers to please not oppress us, we should stop believing in their authority altogether. You have your activism, and I have mine.

What are some historical examples of "waking" people up to a "fact?" I'm not so sure lack of belief is enough to dissipate authority. As the old saying goes, you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. Within my lifetime, the surest way to invite a tiny war into your life is act as if political and/or legal authority doesn't exist. Hell, just implying that authority should change was enough to get…

If a large enough percentage of people decide to disregard govts and forcefully defend themselves against their enforcers if necessary, then govts just cease to function and exist. I'm not saying we're there now, or even near a point where that's feasible, but it is one way out.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#175

Post by aruggirello »

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…

Ironically, "Why I’m Scared to Turn This Thing On" should be "Why I’m Scared to Connect This Thing to AC", really.

Samsung Smart TV's have this feature, so you can turn them on by voice. My wife's parents, sister and brother each have one.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#176

Post by facepalm »

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?

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#177

Post by carlio »

kibwen wrote: post #29
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…

Can you recommend any resources for getting started?

I use Little Snitch for OSX: http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#178

Post by loup-vaillant »

authatheist wrote: post #173
SixSigma wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having no "leaders" wouldn't stop the phenomena of corporate surveillance. A world with unfettered unregulated markets sounds more nightmarish to me than what we have now.

Rulers monitor us to cement their power over us, but in a free society without political power, with free-flowing information available to all, companies would have to be careful about what they do, lest they lose their customers, ie. their income.

And, how would we make that happen? How, once you remove the rulers, do you prevent new ones from rising up? How do you prevent companies from flooding customer under a wealth of irrelevant information? How do you prevent things like cartels, now that there is no regulator?

It's all well and good to postulate a free society, but do you have any idea what a free society actually looks like? (Neither do I, by the way.)

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#179

Post by habitue »

userbinator wrote: post #159
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…

Luckily most things use HTTP The irony is that as people justifiably push for "more security", more and more of them are going to use HTTPS or other encrypted transports, making it impossible to determine what information they're transferring just from network inspection. End-to-end encryption is a good thing only if you trust both endpoints and don't want MITMs to interfere. Otherwise, it's security being used again…

Yeah but theoretically, you should control your own devices, and be able to decrypt what they're sending because you have access to the keys they're using. (of course I realize this is complete bs, they're black boxes). Richard Stallman is looking less crazy now with all his warnings about "tivoization"

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#180

Post by qbrass »

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…

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.

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