Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I’m Terrified of My New TV

brennancenter.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 346 posts

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#321

Post by GFischer »

cclements wrote: post #113

You know, reading this and some of the comments, especially about run-away authority with the “cops making stops to take money” make me think. I recoil as I’m sure many do about the increasing ubiquity of potential surveillance technology such as this. I think about the slippery slopes that we have evidence of (see: patriot act). But then another part of me thinks back to the “dirty cop” comment. It seems like cops c…

"The counter argument that such recordings might “going missing” when convenient for the officer comes up then"

That's because it's what it is happening right now. See last week's trending HN story, especially the "the FBI provided two blank CDs, claiming the recording devices malfunctioned" bit (yeah, sure):

http://www.npr.org/2014/10/29/359725475/can-authorities-cut-...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8527469

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#322

Post by timdierks »

imgabe wrote: post #214
enobrev wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google led me to Samsung. Under the "Voice Recognition" section [1] Voice Recognition You can control your SmartTV, and use many of its features, with voice commands. If you enable Voice Recognition, you can interact with your Smart TV using your voice. To provide you the Voice Recognition feature, some voice commands may be transmitted (along with information about your device, including device identifiers) to a thi…

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…

From my understanding, these systems send voice to servers to recognize queries, but they detect the prompting signal ("OK Google" or "Hey, Siri") entirely on the device, and both systems make a "Listening now" sound when they switch from one mode to the other. So, presuming that software is working as described, when you speak near an Apple/Android phone, your speech isn't being sent to the cloud in most cases.

Among other things, running the radios all the time to send audio to the cloud would be a battery-killer.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#323

Post by flyinghamster »

buro9 wrote: post #154
scdoshi wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting idea. Any recommendations?

I liked the idea too so just looked around, the NECs seem particularly good, for example: http://www.necdisplay.com/p/large--screen-displays/e464 A 46" display, for $769, 1080p and 3 x HDMI inputs and all of the necessary sound inputs and outputs. Additionally it's relatively low-power and doesn't actually look bad. I can see me buying something like this in future, it fits with how I use TV anyway, feeding HDMI inpu…

I like the commercial display idea as well. They probably could have saved some money by not bothering with a tuner, though. At least it isn't full of spy crap, and, being a commercial-grade display, ought to last a good long time.

I have one of NEC's 24" monitors (one of the few 1920x1200 panels I could find on the shelf at the time I bought it - 16:10 FTW), and I love it. Aside from my preferred 16:10, the other thing I love about it is that it's matte instead of glossy. Glossy monitors, along with chiclet keyboards, have got to go.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#325

Post by diminoten »

HCIdivision17 wrote: post #296
diminoten wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the readers of this website vastly underestimate how much the average person understands, and vastly overestimate how much the average person values their privacy. It's starting to get annoying, the folks who want to start a "privacy revolution" even when no one's asking them to.

There's the joke about anecdata to be had here, but I've found the people I talk to do care and value their privacy, and they are coming to a slow realization that there's a creeping ... creepiness to it. At least with the people I interact with regularly (most of whom aren't technologists), the average person is getting slightly annoyed by having to keep an eye on their gizmos as they slowly hear more about the devi…

I disagree. With 1.23 billion users[0], Facebook is easily one of the most visited websites on the planet. Also up there? Google.

Convenience is winning the war, and that's only increasing. All data points to even more invasiveness of products, and even more acceptance by people. The people you talk to simply don't outweigh the greater voice of the sum total of users of the Internet.

There is no revolution. Nothing is fermenting, and there is no momentum, except from the hacker elite (us), and that's not going to change, if stock prices and usage rates are any indication.

[0] - http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/04/facebook-1...

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#326

Post by diminoten »

hell-ban-me wrote: post #151
diminoten wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't understand why I'm not allowed to give away my privacy for convenience, in your eyes. I think you'd be surprised at a) how many people realize they're having their data collected and b) how few people care. Is it a risk? Yes. So is driving a car, but I'm not willing to put up with the inconvenience of not being able to drive somewhere.

The same reason you're not allowed to sell yourself into slavery.

Slavery is the complete loss of agency.

Letting JDate know my ethnicity isn't quite the same as losing one's agency.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#327

Post by corford »

nl wrote: post #198
corford wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.pfsense.org/hardware/#pfsense-store

Yeah, I saw that. Not exactly consumer prices are they? Reading the forums there are some dual LAN Atom based mini PCs that seem OK. Edit: Also http://store.netgate.com/Desktop-Systems-C83.aspx has some preconfigured options at under $300.

OpenWRT on a Buffalo WZR-HP-AG300H is a another very nice and cheap solution.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#328

Post by nathan_long »

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…

> That being said, I personally won't be getting that TV.

Will you have a choice? If they profit enough, there may not be any non-surveillance models left in a few years.

The free market does wonders, but sometimes laws are a better tool. Eg, you can't sell a house that doesn't meet fire code, whether the buyer would accept it or not. There's too much danger that they don't understand, or that the next buyer won't, or that they're coerced by having no other options, etc.

Re: I’m Terrified of My New TV

#329

Post by nathan_long »

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…

>> I can't believe that people buy integrated media players with their TVs.

Seems like the old way of "buy a TV, buy a VCR, plug them together" was much better. It's like software: use components so that each can be the best of breed and can be updated independently.

Post reply on HN