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I’m Terrified of My New TV

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Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#251

Post by coldpie »

lurchpop wrote: post #24

Went through this recently at Best Buy. The salesperson said by next year they may no longer carry any "dumb" tvs. Currently, those options are almost gone. I didn't see any dumb tvs over 40" and there were no 4Ks without "smart" features. I plan on just blocking it in my router, but who knows if the TV scans around for open hotspots. If I were a "smart" developer Id store everything locally if offline, then dump to…

Have you looked into screens marketed as monitors? You might be able to find one of sufficient size with sufficient inputs, and they tend not to be infected with the "smart" garbage.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#252

Post by aragot »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #213
jabjoe wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't really agree – I'm very nervous about the idea of government banning technologies. If I want to provide a real-time audio feed from my home to Samsung, then that is my choice to make. If government is to do anything here, it's to make sure that there's a minimum standard of notification which is required for these devices. Maybe something like an explicit opt-in for any feature which transmits data to third p…

In Europe we don't really believe in "it is your choice you make" (on other topics) because there are so many factors which prevent you from making this choice freely.

For example the choice of accepting Samsung's TOS could be bundled with the choice of flatsharing with someone. Or being a guest of someone. If you need to refuse attending a party because you've made the choice of disagreeing with Samsung's TOS, you're forced.

It is a classic feature of commercial products: Bundle the choice with something much bigger (such as: socializing) so people don't really have the choice of saying no. Worth saying that if phones were invented under a European jurisdiction, they'd be full of infinite more or less relevant option lists. Ironically that's probably why they weren't born there.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#253

Post by jessaustin »

flavor8 wrote: post #232
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…

Any popular internet connected always-on voice recognition device is going to be taken advantage of by future overly-ambitious intelligence gathering initiatives, period. It really doesn't matter substantively whether they upload the data to be processed in the cloud or not - typical home networks (see: Belkin routers) are not exactly fort knox. If you haven't seen Laura Poitras' profile of William Binney recently, w…

This is one reason why we'll all be better off when our cell phones are disintermediated. That is, we will have one or more wireless modem devices, and one or more voice communication devices, and they will be connected through a personal network. With that setup, we'll be able to proxy the voice comms to keep it under control even if it's vulnerable to hacks.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#254

Post by IshKebab »

downandout wrote: post #246
imgabe wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that exactly how Google's voice recognition works? And Siri's too I assume? Your phone doesn't have the processing power to do speech-to-text on the fly, so it sends it to a server to do it. I don't see a vast government conspiracy behind this. If they can make the TV a bit cheaper by putting in a less powerful processor and taking advantage of the always present high speed Internet connection, of course they w…

Yes, phones do this too. But the massive difference is that you have to consciously bring up Siri and you know when it's listening and when it's not. The TV appears to be constantly listening for audio commands and is sending whatever it hears upstream for processing. Someone in these comments said that you can turn the TV on through a voice command, which means that it is listening even when it is off and merely plu…

It's not sending the audio continuously, in the same way that Android phones with always-listening features ("Ok Google") aren't. There is dedicated keyword-detecting hardware.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#255

Post by michaelt »

sysk wrote: post #236
jabjoe wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> We can't leave it up to ignorant and fickle consumers. People like you infuriate me to no end. The fact is that a lot of consumers are willing to trade privacy for convenience, price, etc. Privacy just doesn't weigh much in those people's list of priorities. I'm glad we still have a semblance of free market capitalism because if people like you had their way, a lot of modern technologies simply wouldn't exist. That…

Well, there are certain things that can only be achieved by legislation, not by technical means.

For example, if you send an always-on sound feed from your living room (or phone) to Google for voice recognition purposes, should it be subject to fourth amendment protections? Because this isn't possible by technical means or through market competition - it can only be achieved by legislation.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#256

Post by dec0dedab0de »

tmuir wrote: post #103
bruce511 wrote: post #19

I'm probably not normal, but frankly I would just leave it unplugged from the Internet. At the end of the day my current tv does what I need to do (ie act as a big monitor) without an internet connection. Given the number of devices already floating around here for browsing the web, I don't really need my tv to do that. For streaming I have Chromecast or whatever. I get that tv makers want to sell me something, but t…

I can't believe that people buy integrated media players with their TVs. They are usually multiple hundreds of dollars on top of the base TV model price, have terrible interfaces, and are crippleware, using apps with very few services. I suppose the economics aren't as straightforward, but I'm of the opinion that Chromecast, Roku, AppleTV, etc are the next layer of crippleware. A small form factor Windows box or a Ma…

you don't need the manufacturer to strike deals with Netflix/HBO/Hulu, you just need a web browser I wish that were true, but silverlight does not work so well outside of windows and mac.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#257

Post by ToastyMallows »

nl wrote: post #124
click170 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I say this I feel like a shill because I worked for them briefly, but Sophos has a Home version of their UTM firewall (0). It has pros and cons, but overall I think it's pretty good (even after working there). Some other options include Sonicwall and pfsense, and I encourage others to post their suggestions as well. I haven't used SonicWall, though I have used pfsense strictly as a firewall. (0) http://www…

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.

Curious as to why you don't want to keep a desktop on 24/7?

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#258

Post by bradfa »

coldpie wrote: post #248
millstone wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are the rule, not the exception. Most people won't bother connecting their TV to the Internet, if for no other reason than it's a huge hassle. Ever tried to type a WiFi password with a remote? But if TVs start phoning home on their own terms, without my WiFi password or Ethernet cable, then it becomes terrifying.

Just curious, how could they do this? Is there a reasonable possibility of integrating a cell antenna into a TV? I find that implausible...

Cell phone sized antennas are quite small, especially compared to a 40-70 inch typical US home TV these days. The electronics to connect to a cell network and send useful data over it is probably $10-20, tops, plus the cost of the usage (but that's all dependent upon usage and negotiation of rates).

I'd say, if there's a corporate reason to want data from the TV even if the consumer doesn't connect their Ethernet/wifi, the cost and complexity of adding in cell connectivity isn't very high these days.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#259

Post by maratd »

TerraHertz wrote: post #242
yincrash wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a button on the remote to activate voice.

"There is a button on the remote to activate voice." More likely: There is a button on the remote to make users believe they have the ability to disable voice data relay to someone's remote servers. What are the chances such TVs will have network controlled power-up capability? You only think you turned it off. It's funny that people seem to be accepting always-on GSM network connectivity of the electronics in contro…

> oh my god, not the TV!

Dude. I stare at my TV. If it stares back, that's scary! And if it's listening to me!?!? All the time?

The messed up part is that ALL of our devices will soon be watching and listening to us. Our thermostats, our smoke detectors, our TVs, our phones ... I just installed a fancy internet connected lock on my door. In fact, I installed a fancy electronic toilet seat too... oh well.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#260

Post by freehunter »

ToastyMallows wrote: post #257
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.

Curious as to why you don't want to keep a desktop on 24/7?

Desktops use a fair amount of power and almost always have some amount of noise associated with them.
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