The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#41

Post by verall » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 11:20 PM UTC

edejong wrote: post #28

mitchty wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People think i'm weird for never hooking my smart tv up to the network. It works, why does it need to be online?

You are counting on the WiFi module not to be remote hackable?

It is easy to "isolate" wifi module in most smart tv with a screwdriver and about 30 minutes. They use commodity parts so it is normally removable (like in laptops). If it isn't just screw up the antennae so the soc still sees its wifi device pop up but it sucks (ymmv). Not for your grandma but HN can handle it.

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#42

Post by dsl » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 11:32 PM UTC

deehouie wrote: post #40

This piece challenges the current narrative you read in the press. China is an evil surveillance state that spies on its citizens and the rest of the world. Now we know. The greatest democracy of the world also spies on its citizen and the rest of the world.

This is just extreme whataboutism.

There is a vast difference between China spying on and locking people up for being the wrong religion, and the CIA secretly recording a conversation about the planning of a bombing.

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#43

Post by gleenn » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 11:49 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #39

IshKebab wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That quote doesn't show Samsung's thoughts on the risk of hacking at all, and it shouldn't remind anyone of 1984. It's just a statement of how all voice recognition currently works.

iOS can do voice recognition processing entirely locally for many languages. I’m sure the same is true for Android.

Google has made strides in local-only translation. I can't seem to find the Hacker News article but believe it was wired into the Google keyboard iirc.

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#44

Post by NotAnEconomist » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 11:50 PM UTC

Two year old news that they developed the capability to launch targeted attacks, which can use devices with a microphone?

Yawn.

There isn't any evidence that they used this capability domestically (as other comments allege), or broadly (as other comments allege), or in any way inconsistent with the usage of other bug implants used to spy on legitimate targets.

You can make the argument that the CIA shouldn't exist at all, but the frantic, breathless tone that the CIA developed a targeted recording tool is hilarious: that's their job.

Come back with evidence of wrong doing.

Also, the title should likely include the word "Some", to differentiate it from US government dragnets.

Also also, all of the Vault 7 leaks were a big "nothing": just a leak of US capabilities, with nothing that showed wrong-doing in the style of the Snowden or even the Manning leaks. I hope Joshua Schulte spends a long time in prison.

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#45

Post by ei8htyfi5e » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 12:03 AM UTC

I gave a talk in China 5 years warning about this. http://tech.qq.com/a/20140527/035512.htm I asked vendors to make changes to their products, such as planned obsolescence so if the manufacturer goes out of business and a device doesn't hear from the mother ship for awhile, all internet connections are killed for good. Also, to set smart defaults so that even when not configured, it won't allow this behavior. There should be a list of more in the article but you'll have to translate to see them.

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#46

Post by myrandomcomment » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 12:09 AM UTC

dgzl wrote: post #18

myrandomcomment wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because not having an Intelligence agency is a great idea for national security. You know the LAPD beat a man a few times. We should totally get rid of them also. A rational proposal for over-site and control would be a useful comment.

The US spy and intelligence agencies frequently infringe on domestic and international human rights, and many people would rather they didn't exist. Some people don't even consider the agencies to be constitutional. Your sarcastic comments are certainly not useful.

The issue is not the CIA. It has been incredibly successfully in its job since it was founded as the OSS in WW2. We do not hear of the successes as most of it is highly classified. There are some great books on older stuff they did in the Cold War out now that are worth reading.

The reality is we only hear about the screw ups and the illegal things because that news worthy in the 24/7/365 hype cycle we now live it.

The fact is that we as citizens have failed to provide our voices asking for proper guidance of the CIA. We the people think that TV shows like 24 are the reality and torture is okay because it works on TV and only happens to the bad guys. Society as a whole have allowed things to end up this way.

Tell me what really happened when we the public found out about the tap rooms at ATT colo or some of the stuff Wikileaks and Snowden showed? Where is the protest? I do not see the streets full of outrage. Where are the brave Americas standing up for their rights. We could learn from the people of Hong Kong at this point.

The fact is that as long as we can order from amazon and Facebook works no one cares anymore.

We get the government we deserve. Disbanding the CIA just moves the issue to the next agency.

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#47

Post by w7 » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 12:12 AM UTC

sirmoveon wrote: post #32

johnhenry wrote: post #29

Aside from wanting to protect its citizens from foreign spying; I have to wonder if another reason for the US's curtailing Huawei is to simply eliminate the competition?

People with technical knowledge at this point shouldn't doubt this perspective anymore. No evidence of wrong doing was published, and the claim of the possibility of the Chinese government making Huawei do their bidding at some point, is no different from what other governments have been doing, including the U.S. (and getting caught in the wrong doing). There's no shame in the hypocresy. It's a blatant attempt to dam…

That doesn't make sense to me. Especially given the GHCQ's break down of Huawei gear finding that Huawei can't even do version control right (they had revisions of firmware with the same version id for the same hardware with different build characteristics), and magically reintroducing vulnerabilities from 2006. Personally I feel that Huawei gear would be ripe for exploitation and then misdirection.

I don't get why people are so hung up on proof though. There doesn't have to be proof. No one who I've talked to in the networking industry cares about proof (this includes myself). Hell China already bans companies at will. The only thing that matters is enough of a non-zero chance of Huawei releasing malicious firmware updates to select targets in the future. Judging by their inability to have firmware revisions that completely match in functionality who knows if they're already doing so at a smaller scale.

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#48

Post by craftinator » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 12:17 AM UTC

ohithereyou wrote: post #24

myrandomcomment wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because not having an Intelligence agency is a great idea for national security. You know the LAPD beat a man a few times. We should totally get rid of them also. A rational proposal for over-site and control would be a useful comment.

The CIA is not the only intelligence agency that the US has. Furthermore, most of what the CIA does should be the duty of the State Department. On a more pedantic point, shutting down the CIA is the ultimate in oversight - you don't have to watch for crimes from an organization that does not exist.

The operations of the CIA would just shift to another agency. Do you really think they would just throw away all personnel, equipment, and data, and cancel all operations?

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#49

Post by celim307 » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 12:17 AM UTC

penagwin wrote: post #26

serf wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's just a statement of how all voice recognition currently works. Amazon has said on numerous occasions that no data transfer occurs without a trigger word hitting the mic -- a feature that was a main point when discussing the safety of having an always-on internet-connected mic in the house. As for whether or not they're telling the truth, I don't know; but trigger-words have always been a feature that Amazon lov…

> As for whether or not they're telling the truth, I don't know; Luckily it's possible to check [0]! Although it gets a bit more complicated and can change, my understanding is that currently most people observe it increase it's network usage after it's trigger phrase, but not at other times (it uses the network for other stuff too, but audio data is typically rather large in comparison). [0] https://www.iot-tests.or…

The pessimist in me think that a determined actor could simply capture non-trigger voice data offline, and bundle it with the rest of the traffic whenever the next trigger word occurs. But I am talking out my ass and have in no way verified any of this

Re: The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

#50

Post by viivaux » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 12:25 AM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #35

morpheuskafka wrote: post #11

The CIA should be completely abolished. Unlike the FBI, it does not seek to enforce any laws whatsoever; instead, they operate with absolutely zero oversight, there only rule being that they're not supposed to be involved in domestic matters. I wouldn't be surprised if they tag-team with other friendly agencies like MI6 to spy on each other's domestic targets so as not to violate that rule.

> they operate with absolutely zero oversight There is extensive oversight of the CIA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com... > there[sic] only rule being that they're not supposed to be involved in domestic matters There are extensive rules, law, regulations, and executive orders governing the CIA. Many are listed or referenced in this document. https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/privacy-and-civi…

I wonder - do HN rules prevent people from pointing out suspicious accounts even when the user's name is a balls-out reference to shilling?

Am I allowed to reference other comments made in the last three days, such as > "If Iran didn't attack the ships who did?", or

> "In 1971, 60 Minutes, the most watched TV show in the country won an Emmy for it's story on "What Really Happened at Tonkin Gulf?". The truth was out pretty early, and well accepted."

Maybe we :are: dealing with an incredibly naive and honest fella here - but with that fucking name?