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Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

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Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#41

Post by jamesponddotco »

EpicEng wrote: post #26
jamesponddotco wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a Samsung "SmartTV", turned it on and the first thing I saw was advertisement and an insane amount of calls to Samsung servers on my Pi-hole. On the TV I just paid for. Opened it up, disconnected the WiFi module, connected my Apple TV to it and am pretty happy.

Why did you give it access to Wi-Fi in the first place? I have a Samsung smart TV and I just skipped that step. Performing a HW mod seems unnecessary.

Because I was curious to see what it would try to do and I did not have an Ethernet cable in the living room at the time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#42

Post by vxxzy »

I’ve had great luck blocking SmartTVs with a PiHole and a custom list. Also adding regex blacklists like “samsungtv” and “roku” seems to help. Granted, I sometimes disable to block to install updates and apps - but it seems to work. My next move is to start whitelisting destination IPs for smart devices and putting them on their own SSID/VLAN.

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#43

Post by blackflame7000 »

RussianCow wrote: post #28
farisjarrah wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next time, make a VLAN with its own Wifi, then connect the TV to that VLAN and then what you want to do is block any incoming or outgoing network traffic to the smart TV. If you do this then no one else can attempt to hijack or connect to your TV and the TV wont ask you to connect it to a network, because its already connected to a network. This worked great on my LG smart TV.

What is the point of doing this as opposed to just skipping that step? Does it keep nagging you? Or are certain features disabled if you don't connect?

I would skip the VLAN step and just block communication from the TV to the internet. That way you could still access media on other devices on your lan via DLNA or something

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#44

Post by shostack »

pxeboot wrote: post #29
farisjarrah wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next time, make a VLAN with its own Wifi, then connect the TV to that VLAN and then what you want to do is block any incoming or outgoing network traffic to the smart TV. If you do this then no one else can attempt to hijack or connect to your TV and the TV wont ask you to connect it to a network, because its already connected to a network. This worked great on my LG smart TV.

My network is setup like this. It is really easy to do if you have a good router/AP, but most consumer routers, especially the ones provided by ISPs, are not vlan aware.

Is it specific to the router? I've got a Ubiquiti Amplifi and I'm not totally sure of the proper way to do this.

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#45

Post by jamesponddotco »

amdelamar wrote: post #23
jamesponddotco wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a Samsung "SmartTV", turned it on and the first thing I saw was advertisement and an insane amount of calls to Samsung servers on my Pi-hole. On the TV I just paid for. Opened it up, disconnected the WiFi module, connected my Apple TV to it and am pretty happy.

Did you disable WiFi in the menu, or physically remove the WiFi card/chip?

Physically removed the Wi-Fi module.

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#46

Post by journalctl »

Simon_says wrote: post #5
kminehart wrote: post #3

When can I buy a TV without smart features? I don't doubt that my smart TV is reporting some data about my usage, but I barely have a choice in the matter.

You can buy it, but it's called a "monitor". Projectors also work.

TVs and monitors serve different purposes, as evidenced by them having different features.

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#47

Post by topspin »

jigglesniggle wrote: post #14
vlozko wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty simple: don’t connect it to the internet. Use something like AppleTV or your own box that you trust to show your streaming services.

Can you be sure it is not connected to the Internet? I thought previously someone gave example of a Chinese TV connecting to open hotspots, or perhaps that was just a thought experiment.

> Can you be sure it is not connected to the Internet?

Yes, you can be sure. The network capabilities aren't hidden spy equipment. You can disable WiFi and simply not connect Ethernet. The market for your data is relying on the indifference of 99% of TV buyers to data collection. Manufacturers and advertisers -- at least those not too far down the grey market rabbit hole -- don't care enough about the tiny fraction of people that actively thwart this collection activity to employ some sort of legally dubious super sekrit network capability to capture your precious data.

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#48

Post by letitbeirie »

kminehart wrote: post #3

When can I buy a TV without smart features? I don't doubt that my smart TV is reporting some data about my usage, but I barely have a choice in the matter.

PC monitors. Some of them need separate sound, but they very rarely (so far) have smart capabilities, given their use case.

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#50

Post by mikeryan »

This is a pretty open secret within the industry. Geographic data can be provided via setup (a lot of TV's ask for a zip code on setup) or usually simply via GeoIP lookup.

Dig a bit deeper and you get into service provided by Samba TV and or Inscape and you can find that they're sending back frames of video in a lot of cases to track what you're watching.

This data is becoming a huge mechanism for subsidizing TV sales and the interactivity is being looked at as a huge opportunity to recoup some of the ad spend being lost via streaming and fewer 30 second spots.

With new TV's its time to view them as private as a browser (With less controls).

https://samba.tv/ https://www.inscape.tv/

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