I would be upset if my tv sent a single byte of information out. I use an old lcd and if it ever dies, I just don’t even know what we’ll do. Can you even buy TVs anymore that don’t spy on you?
Yes. Sceptre is a good brand for dumb TVs.
Noted
Why is my unused Vizio TV sending gigabytes of traffic every day?
21–25 of 25 posts
Re: Why is my unused Vizio TV sending gigabytes of traffic every day?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, I recall articles which mention certain brands would look for nearby unsecured networks. All of that goes out the window if vendors start provisioning SIMs and use the cellular network. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't have some code for looking for undersecured networks capable of being exploited to derive credentials, though at least then you'd have grounds to sue under CFAA.
It doesn't even need that, really. Zigbee and similar long range wireless mesh networks are very realistic (and probably cheaper) for basic usage data. Bandwidth is much more limited so it probably won't send screenshots of what you're watching like has been reported with some TVs. Screenshots aren't really needed, though, when there's a host of other metadata and on-device processing available.
As someone who runs a Zigbee network at home, this won’t work. The signal strength across my small apartment was marginal at best, there’s no way you could plop down zigbee devices at random and hope that they could find each other, especially between detached houses.
Re: Why is my unused Vizio TV sending gigabytes of traffic every day?
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't even need that, really. Zigbee and similar long range wireless mesh networks are very realistic (and probably cheaper) for basic usage data. Bandwidth is much more limited so it probably won't send screenshots of what you're watching like has been reported with some TVs. Screenshots aren't really needed, though, when there's a host of other metadata and on-device processing available.
As someone who runs a Zigbee network at home, this won’t work. The signal strength across my small apartment was marginal at best, there’s no way you could plop down zigbee devices at random and hope that they could find each other, especially between detached houses.
Sorry, I was confusing LoRa and Zigbee.
LoRa claims 2-5 km range in urban areas or 15 km suburban, with even larger variability in rural areas depending on line of sight and landscape features.
Zigbee claims I found vary from 10 to 100 meters.
LoRa is pretty cheap, and there are a lot of gateways around to piggy back off if you don't want to set up your own.
You can see a map of one network of gateways here:
https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/
It also uses less power than Zigbee. The big downside, though, is that you get a lot less bandwidth with LoRa.
Re: Why is my unused Vizio TV sending gigabytes of traffic every day?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who runs a Zigbee network at home, this won’t work. The signal strength across my small apartment was marginal at best, there’s no way you could plop down zigbee devices at random and hope that they could find each other, especially between detached houses.
Sorry, I was confusing LoRa and Zigbee. LoRa claims 2-5 km range in urban areas or 15 km suburban, with even larger variability in rural areas depending on line of sight and landscape features. Zigbee claims I found vary from 10 to 100 meters. LoRa is pretty cheap, and there are a lot of gateways around to piggy back off if you don't want to set up your own. You can see a map of one network of gateways here: https://…
Vith Vizio data you get a log whenever user use its remote to (un)pause, go forward, or change channel.
I'm not sure LoRa has enough bandwidth to send the usual data. However, it is still possible to send a lightly simpler data (not doing ACR on everything, but identify channels only)
But would it worth it right now ? Until a large portion of buyers disable (now or in the next few years) the full data collection, it seems unlikely to me.
Re: Why is my unused Vizio TV sending gigabytes of traffic every day?
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, I was confusing LoRa and Zigbee. LoRa claims 2-5 km range in urban areas or 15 km suburban, with even larger variability in rural areas depending on line of sight and landscape features. Zigbee claims I found vary from 10 to 100 meters. LoRa is pretty cheap, and there are a lot of gateways around to piggy back off if you don't want to set up your own. You can see a map of one network of gateways here: https://…
Vith Vizio data you get a log whenever user use its remote to (un)pause, go forward, or change channel. I'm not sure LoRa has enough bandwidth to send the usual data. However, it is still possible to send a lightly simpler data (not doing ACR on everything, but identify channels only) But would it worth it right now ? Until a large portion of buyers disable (now or in the next few years) the full data collection, it…
That's a lot of data, but I imagine if they operated with bandwidth restrictions, companies might limit themselves more in what they collect.
Though I do think that's within range of even the lowest possible LoRa bandwidth estimates since there's no realtime requirement.
A single remote click is a very small piece of data, even less than the 8-10 bytes that a datetime uses. Contextual data will likely be the larger portion, such as a unique system identifier, currently active application, and any metadata that provides. There are ways to limit that, like sending a context object once and giving it an id, then referencing the id instead of re-sending the same data repeatedly.
But even if that doesn't happen, the lack of realtime requirement means the data can simply be queued up to send over time. If a user generates a few kilobytes of data a second for hours by sitting on their remote control's channel switch button, they won't be that active forever. The device can eventually send out all of the data during the inactive periods.
Or it can prioritize which data to send first, or which to discard, when the queue reaches a certain threshold.