"Smart" TVs, AI and basically spying on people...

[Randy222]

It's also possible to just not connect it to wifi so it cannot do realtime spying, and then do firmware updates via USB. Surely that defeats the apps on TV, but most of those apps can be obtained on a roku device or other.

IIRC, Gamer Nexus didn't test if LG TVs automatically connect to open WiFi networks, but some comments they showed indicate that. Since you can only contol your own WiFI network it would make sense to short the TV's WiFi antennas to prevent it from connecting to some open WiFi.

While the techy folks here may be able to do it, the 216,000,000 # in the vid probably dont own a screwdriver set.

What I would like to see, is if the comms are 2way to their spy servers, and then the TV owner sends some "fancy" commands to the other side.

[tom66]

I can confirm that my TV (LG G26) does not connect to open wireless networks, as I have an open guest network for IoT devices (routes to the internet at a limited 5Mbit/s) and I can see from root SSH access to the Linux system that wlan0 is still down.

Incidentally they will work with a USB to Ethernet adapter and will acquire an IP address via that which is useful when you mount the TV on the wall and forgot to plug in the Ethernet cable.  65" TV is not fun to move.

[Randy222]

65" TV is not fun to move.

I think they assume everyone will mount it on articulating bracket. Sony Bravia 75" is a royal-brit pita if it's not mounted on stand or articulating bracket! I use a flat wall-hugger tv bracket.

[Red Squirrel]

It's also possible to just not connect it to wifi so it cannot do realtime spying

That won't last. They 'own the glass', and the ISPs 'own the router', so they'll just make contracts for access to ISP operated networks if you don't connect it to one of your own (or it finds itself unable to make contact over yours). And they'll make sure to exchange enough data to identify your home connection and devices for the purpose of pushing drug ads.

ISPs forcing you to use their router is another issue that really needs to be addressed. They should be required to offer you a raw connection that works with any router.  I managed to bypass my ISP's router but I suspect it's not easy to do with all ISPs.

As for TVs I think there will come a point where you have to make an account and register it, just like you have to do with a phone (if not running custom rom).  At that point you won't have a choice but to connect it to the internet or it will simply not work.  I guess if someone manages to figure out how to reverse engineer the TV so you can load custom firmware on it then it could just be the same as putting a custom rom on a phone.

[Sorama]

It's also possible to just not connect it to wifi so it cannot do realtime spying

That won't last. They 'own the glass', and the ISPs 'own the router', so they'll just make contracts for access to ISP operated networks if you don't connect it to one of your own (or it finds itself unable to make contact over yours). And they'll make sure to exchange enough data to identify your home connection and devices for the purpose of pushing drug ads.

?

[Monkeh]

It's also possible to just not connect it to wifi so it cannot do realtime spying

That won't last. They 'own the glass', and the ISPs 'own the router', so they'll just make contracts for access to ISP operated networks if you don't connect it to one of your own (or it finds itself unable to make contact over yours). And they'll make sure to exchange enough data to identify your home connection and devices for the purpose of pushing drug ads.

?

Which bit are you questioning? Their ability to make their wifi interface do whatever they like, or the drug ads comment? The latter doesn't really apply in, uh.. well, any sane country. But in the US, well, Gamers Nexus pulled up a bit from some medical marketing executive bragging about how they can link the ads shown on LG TVs and phones to customer identities, those identities to medical records, and determine how effective their ads are in encouraging people to seek prescriptions for specific drugs.

[UnijunctionTransistor]

'We own the glass.  We own the TV.  We own the living room.'

Funny enough, they didn't really feel like owning it when they had to repair mine.
They didn't step up and pay for that.

The companies may own the glass, but the users (you, me and everyone else) have to pay for it.
Mind you, vehicles are along the same path.

[Sorama]

It's also possible to just not connect it to wifi so it cannot do realtime spying

That won't last. They 'own the glass', and the ISPs 'own the router', so they'll just make contracts for access to ISP operated networks if you don't connect it to one of your own (or it finds itself unable to make contact over yours). And they'll make sure to exchange enough data to identify your home connection and devices for the purpose of pushing drug ads.

?

Which bit are you questioning? Their ability to make their wifi interface do whatever they like, or the drug ads comment? The latter doesn't really apply in, uh.. well, any sane country. But in the US, well, Gamers Nexus pulled up a bit from some medical marketing executive bragging about how they can link the ads shown on LG TVs and phones to customer identities, those identities to medical records, and determine how effective their ads are in encouraging people to seek prescriptions for specific drugs.

Both.
Sorry,  but I don’t buy that.

[Randy222]

Like it being shadow-IT stuff?
I don't use my ISP's wifi crud hardware, no matter how hard they try to tout the 6G wifi with 4x4 mimo. I have my own docsis and my own wifi gear.

"smart" TV's had that all-in-1 benefit, but soon after entering my hulu acct info I started to see unknown devices using my acct. Using the streaming apps from my cableTV dvr box, and those on the Roku devices, I have not see that issue. As such I do not enter any credentials into any of my TV's.

I am sure some day the pixels themselves will be receivers of some sort, maybe lines with parallel IR receivers, it can then simply make an image from the IR hitting the screen from the room, a well hidden video cam even when the device is "off". How that data gets back to the C2 is perhaps just a minor technical issue. What if the TV could send out Rf that gets onto the house electrical wiring and then that gets filtered out by some other device and then sent back to C2. 100% plausible to accomplish.

[Monkeh]

It's also possible to just not connect it to wifi so it cannot do realtime spying

That won't last. They 'own the glass', and the ISPs 'own the router', so they'll just make contracts for access to ISP operated networks if you don't connect it to one of your own (or it finds itself unable to make contact over yours). And they'll make sure to exchange enough data to identify your home connection and devices for the purpose of pushing drug ads.

?

Which bit are you questioning? Their ability to make their wifi interface do whatever they like, or the drug ads comment? The latter doesn't really apply in, uh.. well, any sane country. But in the US, well, Gamers Nexus pulled up a bit from some medical marketing executive bragging about how they can link the ads shown on LG TVs and phones to customer identities, those identities to medical records, and determine how effective their ads are in encouraging people to seek prescriptions for specific drugs.

Both.
Sorry,  but I don’t buy that.

If they choose to have their TVs connect to a wifi interface they've negotiated access to, they can do that. They already do with cars - both wifi and cell. You don't get a say.
As for the medical marketing, well..


Let me just grab a few pertinent snippets from the transcription for you:

So, for us, we're resolving CTV and digital exposure to individuals, the same person, by using identifiers, like NPIs, HEMs, IP device, and household signals ... These get recorded as the same individual and not modeled as lookalike audiences.

We're measuring across patient journey, and this gives us the ability to look at those clinical actions or the clinical decisions and the activation points across that patient journey, ensuring that we're able to map these data into clinical conversion signals.

And we see that our completion rates are nearly double online video for us, just I pulled some recent numbers looking within our DSP, we see CTV drive two times higher new to brand prescriptions than OLV alone.

We talk about suppressing converted patients. If they've already achieved that desired conversion objective, move them out and into that next phase. So, once a script is filled, we stop spending against the person and really shift into another phase of that journey.

So did a physician actually take an action as a result of seeing an advertisement as a result of a patient coming in and requesting therapy? So, being able to correlate that exposure to an actual script or an actual conversion.

We talk again about script lift. So, a group of individuals exposed to advertisement versus the control groups. Are we seeing changes in those behavior? And since we have visibility into that clinical patient journey, we're able to see those signals of change.

And on and on it goes. Quite clearly they can connect devices with the identities of users and their medical records. But good news, you and I are not currently exposed to such via legal means.

I don't use my ISP's wifi crud hardware, no matter how hard they try to tout the 6G wifi with 4x4 mimo. I have my own docsis and my own wifi gear.

You don't. But your neighbours might.

[NiHaoMike]

Might the solution to unwanted wireless features, without having to modify the device, is some very short range jammer that basically has to be taped to the target device to be effective?

[Halcyon]

It's also possible to just not connect it to wifi so it cannot do realtime spying

That won't last. They 'own the glass', and the ISPs 'own the router', so they'll just make contracts for access to ISP operated networks if you don't connect it to one of your own (or it finds itself unable to make contact over yours). And they'll make sure to exchange enough data to identify your home connection and devices for the purpose of pushing drug ads.

ISPs forcing you to use their router is another issue that really needs to be addressed. They should be required to offer you a raw connection that works with any router.  I managed to bypass my ISP's router but I suspect it's not easy to do with all ISPs.

I still can't believe this is a thing, it's so archaic in my opinion. Here in Australia, you get just that. If you have fibre to the premises, you just get a bog standard Ethernet connection, what you put behind it is up to you. While a lot of ISPs still supply CPE for a "plug and play" experience, there's nothing stopping you from using your own. My ISP is only BYOD, they don't supply any hardware at all, even if you ask.

[Monkeh]

I still can't believe this is a thing, it's so archaic in my opinion.

It's still a thing because it's financially beneficial to retain as much capability to strip privacy from their customers as possible. See the state of advertising there from the video I linked - they are quite openly talking about directly linking what are supposed to be confidential medical records with multiple devices to actively push ads at individuals, to effect specific financially desired medical decisions.

It's not archaic. It's state of the art corporate dystopia.

[madires]

ISPs forcing you to use their router is another issue that really needs to be addressed. They should be required to offer you a raw connection that works with any router.  I managed to bypass my ISP's router but I suspect it's not easy to do with all ISPs.

I still can't believe this is a thing, it's so archaic in my opinion. Here in Australia, you get just that. If you have fibre to the premises, you just get a bog standard Ethernet connection, what you put behind it is up to you. While a lot of ISPs still supply CPE for a "plug and play" experience, there's nothing stopping you from using your own. My ISP is only BYOD, they don't supply any hardware at all, even if you ask.

Over here too: Zwangsrouter verboten! But some shady ISPs, especially new FTTH providers, are still trying to push their routers (usually rent out) and  customers have to be adamant to go for own routers.

[Andy Chee]

What if the TV could send out Rf that gets onto the house electrical wiring and then that gets filtered out by some other device and then sent back to C2. 100% plausible to accomplish.

And 100% trivial to defeat, just unplug your TV from the wall.... no access to house electrical wiring!

A more technical solution would involve RF chokes.

[VinzC]

The fix would be to make a hacked firmware that floods the tracking with fake data.

How about goodwill electronics engineers band together and build consumer-respectful goods? After all we together do have the knowledge, know-how, experience and most probably the required manufacturing hardware, right?

[Sorama]

The fix would be to make a hacked firmware that floods the tracking with fake data.

How about goodwill electronics engineers band together and build consumer-respectful goods? After all we together do have the knowledge, know-how, experience and most probably the required manufacturing hardware, right?

Power to the engineers !
😁

[Psi]

How about goodwill electronics engineers band together and build consumer-respectful goods? After all we together do have the knowledge, know-how, experience and most probably the required manufacturing hardware, right?

Power to the engineers !
😁

All we need is a way to fund it.

[Siwastaja]

The fix would be to make a hacked firmware that floods the tracking with fake data.

How about goodwill electronics engineers band together and build consumer-respectful goods? After all we together do have the knowledge, know-how, experience and most probably the required manufacturing hardware, right?

You need billions of money and years of experience to manufacture and sell consumer-priced stuff, and at that point, any initial "goodwill" is long gone.

[Zucca]

ISPs forcing you to use their router is another issue that really needs to be addressed. They should be required to offer you a raw connection that works with any router.  I managed to bypass my ISP's router but I suspect it's not easy to do with all ISPs.

As for TVs I think there will come a point where you have to make an account and register it, just like you have to do with a phone (if not running custom rom).  At that point you won't have a choice but to connect it to the internet or it will simply not work.  I guess if someone manages to figure out how to reverse engineer the TV so you can load custom firmware on it then it could just be the same as putting a custom rom on a phone.

I was shocked to see what my modem FTTC does at startup with Wireshark.
Before that ETH port becomes a WAN it makes some funny 192.168.x.x stuff.

I have pfSense and I will always keep it as first stop behind the modem WAN.

[Psi]

The fix would be to make a hacked firmware that floods the tracking with fake data.

How about goodwill electronics engineers band together and build consumer-respectful goods? After all we together do have the knowledge, know-how, experience and most probably the required manufacturing hardware, right?

You need billions of money and years of experience to manufacture and sell consumer-priced stuff, and at that point, any initial "goodwill" is long gone.

It's more that companies, by that point, are run by a board and/or publicly traded, verses being owned/controlled outright by a single person.
You need a company owned by a single person, or at least a company where one person has complete control.
That way you can force honest/respectful/correct business decisions instead of the norm of making decisions based on maximizing profit at all costs.
Sadly, in the vast majority of cases, once a person has a company they can sell in the $10-100 million range they usually do. Or they choose to release some controlling interest in order to get funding to grow the company.

[Siwastaja]

Sadly, in the vast majority of cases, once a person has a company they can sell in the $10-100 million range they usually do. Or they choose to release some controlling interest in order to get funding to grow the company.

Most people who have managed to build a successful business from scratch, valued at $10-$100 million are already pretty tired at that point and looking for a small break, then new adventures, so it's a natural exit point.

Or rather, those who manage to pump up value out of nowhere are either dishonest or just lucky to begin with, and willing to exit soon before their bubble bursts. And those who worked for 5-10 years their assess off to build that value, are tired enough that even if they didn't think about an exit earlier, now that value is there, exit suddenly starts looking appealing, and the original idea of keeping their core values changes into building a new company with those core values with all that money.

[Randy222]

If they choose to have their TVs connect to a wifi interface they've negotiated access to, they can do that. They already do with cars - both wifi and cell. You don't get a say.

But, you could get into it and perhaps mangle what's being sent? It's likely they put more effort into having the feature work and less effort on keeping hackers out.

[PlainName]

I was shocked to see what my modem FTTC does at startup with Wireshark.
Before that ETH port becomes a WAN it makes some funny 192.168.x.x stuff.

What kind of stuff?

[Monkeh]

If they choose to have their TVs connect to a wifi interface they've negotiated access to, they can do that. They already do with cars - both wifi and cell. You don't get a say.

But, you could get into it and perhaps mangle what's being sent? It's likely they put more effort into having the feature work and less effort on keeping hackers out.

Sure, but 99.5% of TV owners aren't going to do anything like that. And it's every TV around you. Every neighbour and friend and family member and display stand in a store and waiting room and..