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

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

#91

Post by baybal2 »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #46
dgzl wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. T…

Yes, USA has 20+ intelligence agencies.

But all you refer to can and should be done by military intelligence.

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

#92

Post by elvecinodeabajo »

voltagex_ wrote: post #82
GuiA wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't buy it. (Older TVs of excellent quality can be found second hand for very cheap)

Older TVs also use more power (and put out more heat). You'll eventually find your game consoles, Blu ray players etc no longer function with the TV as it doesn't support whatever the latest HDCP standard is.

There are LED 'dumb' TV's.

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

#93

Post by osamagirl69 »

test6554 wrote: post #87
jmalkin wrote: post #73

I've gotten nothing out of my Smart TV that I couldn't have gotten from a Chromecast, or preferably, a laptop hooked up to a TV. And I've lost a lot. My TV is slow. When I try to control the volume, sometimes I have to wait multiple seconds. And things stop working all the time and require a reboot. I hate the damn thing. It even comes with bloatware for some reason, games I'll never play that it insists on updating…

I have resisted the urge to buy a new tv for 11 years. I own the same 48" non-smart Sony I've always had. I have always felt like the grass would be greener if I were to buy one of those 65" LG OLED tvs, but thank you for setting me straight. This old TV is 5 inches thick, but it turns on in 2 seconds. I hooked an amazon fire tv into one HDMI port. I also have a sonos "connect" hooked up to the audio-out so that I ca…

Just wanted to chime in since you specifically mentioned the "65" LG OLED", which is the same TV I have (specifically the OLED65B6P). When plugged into the internet it has all of the usual unfeatures (including ads displayed over hdmi input), however if you leave it unplugged from the internet it works great and boots up almost instantly to the last input selected without any fuss. Furthermore, the HDMI CEC commands work as expected (in both directions--control of the tv from the computer and control of the computer from the TV with all of the expected buttons on the remote being passed through). The set is also quite good about supporting legacy S/PDIF (optical) passthrough so I haven't needed to replace my receiver.

So far the only feature I have been unsatisfied is that for some reason the set does not auto-shutoff when the hdmi input is not active. For example, I had it hooked up to a computer which was set to turn the monitor off after 15 minutes and instead of the TV shutting off it displayed an 'input disconnected' screen. As a stopgap solution I set the computer to have a 'screensaver' that is all black instead of turning the monitor off--which works pretty OK since the OLED is completely 'off' when displaying a blank screen. The only downside is that the the electronics in the TV stay running, so the power consumption in this state is about 20w.

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

#94

Post by Mr_Manager »

jmalkin wrote: post #73

I've gotten nothing out of my Smart TV that I couldn't have gotten from a Chromecast, or preferably, a laptop hooked up to a TV. And I've lost a lot. My TV is slow. When I try to control the volume, sometimes I have to wait multiple seconds. And things stop working all the time and require a reboot. I hate the damn thing. It even comes with bloatware for some reason, games I'll never play that it insists on updating…

Personally a big fan of my Samsung smart TV. Although the Twitch app was recently removed which is a tad annoying.

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

#95

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #58
morpheuskafka wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per your first article, the President has the discretion to limit reporting of intelligence activities to only eight members of Congress (all of whom, by definition, belong to the two major parties). That means most of the representatives and senators who we elect to actually vote on the laws governing and funding the CIA don't even get access to briefings on all of its activities (meanwhile, nearly 5 million America…

the President has the discretion to limit reporting of intelligence activities to only eight members of Congress (all of whom, by definition, belong to the two major parties) 1: that's not "absolutely zero oversight" 2: It seems like a reasonable way to maintain critical secret information while still informing members of the opposition party. That means at least several of these members are being briefed: Dianne Fei…

> If something goes totally off the rails they can provide oversight.

Historically, that's not true at all. I was going to give a list of cases of egregious actions by the CIA, but quickly realized I'd be sitting here all night if I really wanted to put together any halfway complete list. The sheer number of coups, assassinations, drug-running operations, weapons smuggling operations, etc. that the CIA has run is just mind-boggling. The list of countries that haven't had a CIA-backed coup or insurgency might be shorter than the list of countries that have. Things "go off the rails" so often with the CIA that going off the rails seems to be the plan.

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

#96

Post by nitrogen »

osamagirl69 wrote: post #93
test6554 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have resisted the urge to buy a new tv for 11 years. I own the same 48" non-smart Sony I've always had. I have always felt like the grass would be greener if I were to buy one of those 65" LG OLED tvs, but thank you for setting me straight. This old TV is 5 inches thick, but it turns on in 2 seconds. I hooked an amazon fire tv into one HDMI port. I also have a sonos "connect" hooked up to the audio-out so that I ca…

Just wanted to chime in since you specifically mentioned the "65" LG OLED", which is the same TV I have (specifically the OLED65B6P). When plugged into the internet it has all of the usual unfeatures (including ads displayed over hdmi input), however if you leave it unplugged from the internet it works great and boots up almost instantly to the last input selected without any fuss. Furthermore, the HDMI CEC commands…

I have this problem as well (display staying on when there's no video signal) with an older PC monitor. I think it might be caused by the HDMI audio continuing to transmit while the video is blank. To test the hypothesis, try disabling your HDMI audio device driver temporarily and see if it fixes the problem (though then you don't have sound...). Of course, it could be something completely different...

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

#97

Post by edejong »

mulmen wrote: post #30
edejong wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

While that is possible I would consider this to be a case of outrunning your friends rather than the bear.

So, a neighbor’s compromised wifi router could remotely exploit your smart tv without even configured settings: https://blog.exodusintel.com/2017/07/26/broadpwn/

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

#98

Post by tptacek »

pm90 wrote: post #90
tptacek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could see "abolishing" the CIA by name and replacing it with a new agency over the Bush torture program, and the failure to cut through the legal morass erected to protect the authors of the torture program --- a lasting shame for the CIA and the nation --- would certainly justify that. But there's no possibility of abolishing the function of intelligence analysis and clandestine service, nor should you want ther…

> But there's no possibility of abolishing the function of intelligence analysis and clandestine service, nor should you want there to be: net-net, the CIA might in fact prevent more armed conflicts than it contributes to, and in any case no major power will ever unilaterally disarm. This is a very interesting perspective. Using this kind of perspective, you can argue for any bad thing, can't you? How can you possibl…

Just be mindful of what I'm defending. It's not the CIA; it's the concept of intelligence and intelligence analysis.

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

#99

Post by majia »

w7 wrote: post #47
sirmoveon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

> I don't get why people are so hung up on proof though.

The reason you look for proof is not that it gives you 100% security. It is the process of finding proof that helps us understand how secure a product is and what vulnerabilities need to be addressed. GHCQ's through examination of Huawei devices found problems with version control, and Huawei promised to fix those problems. This is how security could improve.

I think you also vastly underestimated how difficult it is to do version control for hardware due to extremely complex supply chain. If you examine products from any other brand, the situation is likely to be worse. I'm not suggesting Huawei's problems are acceptable. However, it is a misguided approach to decide which products are secure purely based on national origin rather technical merits.

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

#100

Post by ColanR »

celim307 wrote: post #49
penagwin wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

It does seem to me like Amazon worded that statement very carefully, and in a way that allowed for that kind of behavior to occur.

Conversely, if they were not doing that kind of thing, they could have removed that ambiguity from what they said.

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