Smart TVs take snapshots of what you watch multiple times per second
Smart TVs take snapshots of what you watch multiple times per second
By Jeremy Hsu on September 24, 2024
Popular smart TV models made by Samsung and LG can take multiple snapshots of what you are watching every second – even when they are being used as external displays for your laptop or video game console.
Smart TV manufacturers use these frequent screenshots, as well as audio recordings, in their automatic content recognition systems, which track viewing habits in order to target people with specific advertising. But researchers showed this tracking by some of the world’s most popular smart TV brands – Samsung TVs can take screenshots every 500 milliseconds and LG TVs every 10 milliseconds – can occur when people least expect it.
“When a user connects their laptop via HDMI just to browse stuff on their laptop on a bigger screen by using the TV as a ‘dumb’ display, they are unsuspecting of their activity being screenshotted,” says Yash Vekaria at the University of California, Davis. Samsung and LG did not respond to a request for comment.
Vekaria and his colleagues connected smart TVs from Samsung and LG to their own computer server. Their server, which was equipped with software for analysing network traffic, acted as a middleman to see what visual snapshots or audio data the TVs were uploading.
They found the smart TVs did not appear to upload any screenshots or audio data when streaming from Netflix or other third-party apps, mirroring YouTube content streamed on a separate phone or laptop or when sitting idle. But the smart TVs did upload snapshots when showing broadcasts from the TV antenna or content from an HDMI-connected device.
The researchers also discovered country-specific differences when users streamed the free ad-supported TV channel provided by Samsung or LG platforms. Such user activities were uploaded when the TV was operating in the US but not in the UK.
By recording user activity even when it’s coming from connected laptops, smart TVs might capture sensitive data, says Vekaria. For example, it might record if people are browsing for baby products or other personal items.
Customers can opt out of such tracking for Samsung and LG TVs. But the process requires customers to either enable or disable between six and 11 different options in the TV settings.
“This is the sort of privacy-intrusive technology that should require people to opt into sharing their data with clear language explaining exactly what they’re agreeing to, not baked into initial setup agreements that people tend to speed through,” says Thorin Klosowski at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital privacy non-profit based in California.
LOL "if it was opt-in, no one would do it!"
no fucking shit. there is nothing worth watching that i would buy a smart tv for
One issue that has come up recently in discussions on here is that it's hard to get dumb TVs or computer monitors in large format in 2024.
Not impossible, but surprisingly difficult. I went looking for a large computer monitor for some user who wanted a large one. I eventually found an older one on Amazon still for sale, but it's not that easy to get large computer monitors, which I think is part of what drives people to use smart TVs as computer monitors.
You can get projectors, but that's not what everyone's after.
if it was opt-in, no one would do it!
Which should be telling them that not only does no one want it, but maybe just maybe we already paid for your fucking TV. Either raise the price or stop being so fucking goddamn greedy to the point that you force us to make the government force you to stop.
Of course the bought and paid for US government won't, but hopefully EU governments will.
If they raise the price, then they only get money once. If they sell your data, now they have an income stream.
These are criminal violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Jail the motherfucking felon CEOs!
So LG and Samsung likely have tons of illegal (copyright) content on their servers then? Ownership is 9/10ths of the law so they say. That’s gotta be exabytes
Most likely yes.. And other privacy sensitive information like banking details, passwords and more.
Well, then you should sue them.
Would be nice if we could have some technological privacy laws written in this century.
For example, it might record if people are browsing for baby products or other personal items.
Don't mind baby products and dildos or whatever.
They could see bank activity and even login credentials when someone is temporarily displaying their own passwords.
This basically ignores all security measures regarding everything. Sensitive communication, company secrets and so on.
That's fucking seriously huge. What the fuck?!
Right? But we've been convinced the Chinese government spying on us through Huawei is a problem.
I know right!?? I connected my htpc to my Samsung tv. Omg!
But it's not sending images. It's content recognition, so it can tell you're on a bank site but not decipher your password if it showed briefly
.
Like content recognition can't recognize text, if that's what it's been configured to look for?
Actual paper here.
https://arxiv.org/html/2409.06203v1
It is not sending full screenshots as anybody technical would already have guessed. It's a few KB over an hour, so it's content recognition hashes.
Opt out anyway. Their study shows the opt out option does indeed opt you out of it.
This shouldn't be opt-out. This is the digital equivalent of some fucking pervert showing up at your window and taking pictures of your TV and then letting a bunch of other perverts pay to find out what you were watching so they can use that info to manipulate you, multiplied by however many millions of TVs they've sold. Even if the punishment for that crime was just a single week in jail, the people responsible should be facing several
hundredthousand years behind bars when you add it all up.It shouldn't be opt in or out tbh. This shit should just be illegal.
The whole adverspying industry needs to be reined the fuck in and slowly turned to mulch.
The first step to that is letting us see what the advertiser has in our hidden "profiles" and let us modify and/or wipe them out.
This kinda stuff should be opt-IN, not opt-OUT. Just think of how many people don't even know this is happening, or that there even is an opt-out.
So the data is still captured every 500ms. But it batches the data together and indeed only send data of around 8kb every minute back to the centralized server. But 8kb can not be full screenshots of MBs of course, so this is some kind of meta / fingerprint data. The original author (Jeremy Hsu) is misleading here with the term "screenshot every 500ms".
the remaining scenarios exhibit consistent peak values occurring every minute, accompanied by additional smaller traffic one minute following each peak. Samsung’s official documentation (Canada, 2022a) mentions that its ACR captures the frames every 500ms, suggesting that Samsung batches the captures as well and sends the fingerprints every minute. The differences in ACR capture frequency explains the different network behavior across the two brands.
Yeah, it'll grab a few frame, crunch them up, post back something like "ac8c986ffcb770d460151b20c1cfe628612247ac2d284c780761af3b544bfea7" to the servers and from there it likely gets binned as "not recognised" but might match a segment from Star Wars 4K77.
It sounds like the sort of thing that should be off by default (and it probably is, I haven't bought a new one for years), but what we've learnt since GDPR is that if a big box comes up over what you're trying to do and it has an "Accept" button, people will generally click it and read nothing just to get back to another riveting episode of America's Deadliest Home Shootouts or something.
THIS is piracy. Along with all the other personal data selling.
Imagine the amount of bandwidth and energy saved, if they didn’t do any of this bullshit.
They are essentially using someone else’s money to get themselves more money. Fuck these people!
I complained about shit like this more than a decade ago and everyone just laughed and said 'Oh they'll never do anything like that'
You get what you fucking deserve
For one people don't actually have much choice if you want to buy a television. Most TVs are smart TVs now, so you are pretending we have a choice here. I have managed to avoid buying one, but only because I don't buy televisions.
Would you like it if I blamed you for getting spied on by Microsoft because you use Windows? Switching to Linux is easier than finding a TV that isn't smart and actually has decent specifications.
You hear that? It's a whisper.... It's a multinational multibillion dollar class action lawsuit coming after Samsung and LG. WTF!
Okay. So how do we turn it off!? I’ve read nothing in my Samsung manuals about this “feature” and here no instructions for turning it off.
Just don't hook it up to your wifi. Don't use any of its included apps. If you must stream get a separate device to do it.
This is the correct answer. I actually disabled LG's version of it when I first heard about it. A few months later it had been reactivated in an update, so I just factory reset it and connected an old laptop.
You can't trust anyone — corporation or government — to protect or respect your privacy. Ever. If it's not open source and E2EE, assume that a criminal is going to view and process it for profit.
I have a Samsung smart TV that is not connected to any networks, and every few days it will display a 'detecting device' loading screen when switching to my input that fails after 30 seconds or until I cancel it (canceling does not seem to impact its functioning)
I have no evidence but I strongly suspect this to be related to attempting to record and send device data to a remote server.
It still can connect to untrusted wifi access point (without password protection). So also try to go to: Settings Menu -> General & Privacy -> Terms & Privacy -> And there is a whole list of privacy setting. Try to find the option to: Do not agree with all. Or you need to manually disallow each privacy option.. Good luck!
Sometimes it requires Wi-Fi for setup. In that case, change the Wi-Fi password after you set it up.
No Internet for the device
They have been known to connect automatically to nearby compatible devices or unsecured wifi.
I got an LG because despite how it looks, you can just refuse to agree to a bunch of their privacy agreements and be fine. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than it would be otherwise, and miles ahead of Samsung's lack of options.
If there are open wifi networks near your TV that you can't lockdown, you'll want to confirm it your make/model is known to automatically connect to those, and then take whatever mitigation steps are justified for your own use case.
For example, if you have multiple TVs, maybe you can swap models around based on their capabilities and location, or look up the schematic for the TV and see if it's easy to block it's internal antennas.
Or maybe that seems like too much of a hassle and you just say fuck it, and don't worry about it. Which is always an option, because given how much data already gets sucked up by surveillance capitalism, my evening TV viewing habits have to be some of the lowest value data points, as I already block ads and avoid all ad supported services.
I love my Samsung because I never gave it the wifi credentials.
Dumb TV is better. My PS5 can do everything I want and I already give all my metrics to them just playing it
Its real tricky to get into and overwrite some of the SoC processors and ARM chipsets, but pretty earlyon the hacker crowd was turning Samsungs Smart TVs dumb.
They've acrually got some great resistance to screen burn.
You can go to Settings Menu -> General & Privacy -> Terms & Privacy -> And there is a whole list of privacy setting you automatically agreed with (which you didn't). However, you should find an option for: Do not agree with all. Or you need to manually disallow each privacy option.. Good luck!
Okay. So how do we turn it off!?
This is probably not the reply you want, but as someone who (in the past 40+ years) has never owned a TV, I simply can't refrain from asking: Have you considered simply not owning a TV?
"I keep overcooking my steak, any advice?"
"I haven't had meat in 40 years, have you considered simply going vegetarian?"
Edit: FYI the key to cooking a good steak is salt, butter, and to flip it every 30 secs, until you've reached your preferred level of doneness. If you're really trying to impress, and don't care about a heart attack, you can also baste with butter in between each flip.
Now, learning how much time it takes for each different type of cut and the variations within, that mostly comes with experience.
Movies and television shows can be an excellent form of entertainment and a great source of educational materials. And this is the golden age of television. Sorry you've been missing out on that
Yeah. My Samsung claws my firewall like a squirrel trapped in a box. It intensifies on certain hours of the day. I'm quite sure it also tries to send what devices are connected and what filenames are in attached memory sticks. Maybe also some media file checksums.
Do your firewall rules allow you to block your tv's telemetry, while allowing you to still use the internet on it? If so, would you mind sharing how you did it?
This is why our "smart" TV is not allowed to be connected to the internet.
But can you really be sure that it doesn't connect to another network? i have to check again but if i recall correctly there are TVs that try to connect to other open networks or even look for other TVs from the same manufacturer and connect through those to the internet. I have to double check this again, so take this with a grain of salt
If that's true - lan for your own content with network isolation and ripping out the WiFi antenna, I guess?? I hate this
There is such a thing called HDMI Ethernet. If you connect some sort of Android box to your TV it might establish an Ethernet connection with it and thus connect to the internet.
A smart TV is not allowed on my property.
I am a bit puzzled about the "even when your laptop is connected" part.
I have a small android box connected to it and am not using apps on the TV so it should have no chance of sending screenshot out even if it takes them.
The TV itself is not connected
But if you connect your phone to the android box then the TV could use the phone to send the screenshots.
TV->android box->phone->internet.
Something doesn't add up. How can a TV take 100 Screenshots of 4k content per second? No wifi has that bandwidth. No embedded processor has that capacity.
It doesn't need a 4K screenshot. It needs enough data/metrics from any given single frame to run it through analytics and an algorithm to tailor ads. Backend surveillance like this isn't interested in fidelity to the human viewing experience. It needs identifying data. That can be had through a combination of low quality data scrapes done numerous times.
"Screenshot" is more like a metaphor here. Sort of like how your Apple or Google photos are "private," but the data and analytics taken from them you've given away. It's like if you told me I could look at all the photos on your phone and take as many notes and subject them to as much analysis as I wanted, but I promised not to actually physically keep your phone/photos. Probably makes you feel like your photos are securely still in your possession, but I got what I wanted. Your data is technically private, but my data about your data is mine.
Totally agree. It sounds like something was lost in translation here by the final edit of potentially some run though a llm for proof reading to dumb it down enough to either just make it more consumable, more clickbait or realistic both.
My guess is the actual research reported that it was 100s of packets per second (not screenshots) which is still a lot more than you would expect even for spyware. Either way it’s been well known that smart tvs are spyware ridden, I don’t need a paywalled service to tell me that.
I'm the OP, but not the author of this article posted.
After I dove deep into the study, the study said it records data at 500ms. And then it batches the data together, and only sent data once per minute back to Samsung. Between 8kB and 9kB of data per minute. So definitely not 4K screenshots.
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it doesn't necessarily take full resolution images
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just because it can capture images a few hundred milliseconds apart doesn't mean it's continuously capturing images. It could be several in short bursts with a delay between groups of images.
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I'm pretty familiar with how one particular brand of TV works, and you're right, it's absolutely not screenshots. It's a handful of single pixels across the screen. By matching these pixels against known content it's possible to identify what was being watched. Not too different than how Shazam can identify a song.
That's not to say all TV manufacturers work that way.
I'm with you, I think it's probably BS. But I suppose it could be taking highly compressed low resolution snapshots.
I agree. I'm the OP, but not the author of this article. I do believe this author doesn't know what he is talking about. After looking at the study, it seems it does record data at 500ms interval. However, only in intervals of 1 time per minute 8kB of data is sent back, meaning its only some kind of meta data.
Plenty of embedded processors have that capacity, but I generally agree about the bandwidth.
It may be snapping multiple in a small period of time, everyonce in a while. Compressing them in the background then trickling them back out.
Probably a data snapshot, not an actual screenshot.
360p is probably enough. And that's "up to" per second, average is probably far far far less.
It doesn't say the screenshot must be full resolution and it doesn't say the screenshot is immediately uploaded. A couple seconds to downscale and compress would work the same as far as content identification is concerned
Yea I don't believe it, that's some processor intensive streaming. My security camera feeds can't even do that. 100fps is crazy for streaming. Are we sure these "screenshots" aren't just anonymous metric gatherings like video codecs and resolution?
Not mentioning taking 100 screenshots each second with what - 25 frames per second? - is kinda overkill...
Do not connect your Smart TVs to network people, seriously. Just a bad idea. Use a media center PC or some other device that allows you to stream content, and make sure the TV itself is just a big monitor, nothing more.
But it doesn't eliminate the problem, it merely passes it to the media center PC etc
Smart TVs are designed to surveil you, a media center PC can be used however you want. Flash Linux and run Jellyfin and torrent everything through a VPN, then nothing can track you.
LG by now will have several weeks of footage of me scrolling through streaming services and failing to find anything to watch.
Diagnosis: ADHD. Display ads for stimulants.
Not sure how ads for medications are legal anywhere.
Theoretically I could display highly illegal stuff and they would distribute it making them complicit?
Can the API be hacked to flood their servers with petabytes of cat pictures?
What is happening with the data? Where are the data savers?
Friendly reminder that gaming console monitors, computer monitors, projectors, dumb TVs, and commercial displays exist.
Yes, I could hack a smart TV to disable its networking capabilities. (Merely withholding my wifi password is not reliable.) But that would still be showing the manufacturers that I find spyware TVs acceptable, and supporting the production of those models.
Also, this would be a good time to pressure our legislators into criminalizing this nonsense.
dumb TVs
Only one company makes Dumb TVs anymore, Sceptre, and the quality is very hit or miss due to the way they acquire their screens.
It's also harder to find them in larger sizes any more, even for the few for which sell them at all, so if you want a larger one, you may not have much by way of options.
https://assetbasedlife.com/dumb-tvs-are-a-dying-breed/
This lists Insignia, which is a Best Buy store brand.
This has a couple, at least as of last year:
https://www.tomsguide.com/features/dumb-tvs-heres-why-you-cant-find-them-anymore
Your best bet of grabbing one is to head over to Best Buy and look out for the Insignia brand of TVs. There you can find a 43-inch dumb TV for around $169 or a 32-inch model for $69 . (Links to Best Buy.)
On Amazon, you can simply search for dumb TV and you should be able to find a few options from manufacturers like Westinghouse, RCA or Sceptre. (Links to Amazon.)
It's also possible to buy a used TV, but obviously, as with getting used cars to avoid monitoring stuff in newer cars, the pool of those will only be around for so long, and you can't take advantage of any technological advances subsequent to them.
Plenty of companies make display TVs that only display commercial content. You see them all the time displaying menus in fast food restaurants.
These can also have all smart tech turned off because some companies also use them as digital whiteboards to display proprietary or confidential information.
Why is withholding the WiFi password not enough? Could they somehow piggyback off a different device or something?
I've heard that some of them will connect to any wifi available. So if your neighbor does not have a password on their network. The tv will connect and upload the data.
Yes. It could talk to another smart device and ask it to send its packages. You could be careful and connect none of the smart crap in your house to your network, but the smart fridge in your upstairs neighbor's kitchen could still be helping with smuggling your data out. Or your devices could be connected to some unsecured network around.
In any case, the only surefire way to stop your data from getting smuggled out is to physically kill all the wireless connectivity capabilities of the device. Disconnect antennae, desolder chips, scrape out pcb traces. Otherwise you're just hoping the firmware is not doing anything funny. Fortunately I think these are all hypotheticals that have not (yet) been observed in real smart home products.
Good question. Please see my follow-up comment.
Not putting your WiFi password in would absolutely be reliable. I’d love to hear your ideas on how they’d remotely break into your WiFi Network
Not putting your WiFi password in would absolutely be reliable.
No, it would not.
I’d love to hear your ideas on how they’d remotely break into your WiFi Network
They wouldn't, of course, nor did I say they would.
(But since you brought it up, we have already seen internet providers quietly using their CPE to create special-purpose wireless networks surrounding customers' homes. These could obviously be made available to any company that paid the ISP for access, just as cellular networks have been made available to companies like OnStar. So a TV could do this with a business deal rather than breaking in to your normal WiFi.)
However, your network is not the only network in the world, and WiFi is not the only kind of link. Neighbors exist. Open guest networks exist. Drive-by and fly-by networks exist. Mesh networks exist (and are already created by devices like Amazon Echo). Power line networking exists. Bluetooth, LoRa, cellular, etc. etc. etc. Maybe you live on an isolated mountain top where these things are unlikely to reach you (at least until satellite links become a little smaller and cheaper) but even that is not absolute, and most of us don't.
Unless you disassemble your TV and examine all the components within, and know what they do, it could have any number of these capabilities.
Also, partly due to how prevalent multi-network support is becoming in electronics integration, it is not unusual for related functionality to be dormant at first yet possible to activate later.
I'd love for you not to be adversarial, and to learn more about a topic before making bold claims about it in absolute terms.
If you have a samsung phone in the house, it can connect to the TV and give it a hotspot of sorts. This is a hypothetical, not real (yet!)
Btw, is there a firmware hacking/flashing scene for smart TVs?
Unfortunately no.
The best option if you want a new tv without this stuff is buying a business display, such as here:
https://www.sharpnecdisplays.us/products/displays/m651-2
This one even comes with a Raspberry Pi compute module.
You have to specifically search display and not TV.
Yes there is, believe it or not. It just depends on the kind of TV you have.
I setup my LG to be “jailbroken” so I could have it inject a python script into a PS4 to mod that.
https://youtu.be/zYoesrUsIj8?feature=shared
Interesting stuff.
The other option is to setup a PiHole and find the telemetry they are using to send the info off and blocking that.
I would love to able to able to put a different OS that does nothing but what I actually tell it to so on my smart TV...
Buy a commercial TV. It's a plain jane TV. I put one in as a SCADA, but it's just a tv with no frills. When I saw what it was, I knew when I'd need to purchase a tv this would be the type I wanted.
So what do we do when smart TVs force us to connect to the Internet, and refuse to work until we do?
This is exhausting. We're speeding towards a horrible, privacy-less future.
That's a easy solution, here are the steps:
Step 1: Do not purchase a smart TV
Step 2: Yay, you did it! You did all the steps. 🥳
Edit: People are missing the point. This is a joke.
Here's another joke: It's a pity that a TV is a necessary item to live.
The question now is, even if I don’t connect the TV to Internet, what TV brand should I buy? Currently I have LG, but no way I’m supporting that even without Internet connection.
Well thing is, they all track you to some point.
Specs wise, LG still makes some of the best TVs. You want 4k 120Hz, they've got you. But if you feel morally unable to support a company that has opt-out tracking like this, you're a bit more limited. I thought maybe Sony's better, but nope. There's instructions on how to disable ACR on their TVs too. Philips comes with Roku or Google TV, both of which snoop on you, but I don't know if they do the automatic content recognition thing.
Dumb TVs exist, but good luck finding one with a decent resolution AND price.
good luck finding one with a decent resolution AND price.
That raises the question: is there one that has decent resolution and privacy, but is expensive? Those of us who can afford it should surely go for the privacy friendly option regardless of price. Boycotting the surveillance society that's in full development is worth a lot.
Yeah. I really like LG products. Will see what happens when my current TV stops working.
hopfully they dont communicate locally with other lg or partnered devices
now or in the future
Like amazon ring devices? I think it's called Sidewalk .
Fortunately these TVs are not yet sophisticated enough to communicate to the internet without your permission like Apple devices do now.
"They found the smart TVs did not appear to upload any screenshots or audio data when streaming from Netflix or other third-party apps, mirroring YouTube content streamed on a separate phone or laptop or when sitting idle. But the smart TVs did upload snapshots when showing broadcasts from the TV antenna or content from an HDMI-connected device."
The world is owned by a big club, and you're not in it.
The only sensible way to operate these TVs is with no internet connection. We run our entertainment through an AppleTV. If that ever starts showing ads at rest, I’ll replace it with a Mac mini or a NUC. Fuck these companies and their race to the bottom.
They collect all this data and then still cancel the most watched/best shows.
Morons.
So they are allowed to pirate content actually? Even if it’s not Netflix or YouTube they take screenshots of potentially copyrighted content
Did you actually read the article? They don’t upload screenshots; they recognise content and upload the identification of that content.
The blurb above says that the TVs uploads screenshots when viewing antenna and hdmi input sources, which is what most people are reacting to here. The actual article is paywalled.
However other articles go into more detail and note that only a few KB of data per hour is actually uploaded, so the TV must be doing image analysis locally and uploading metadata only.
Use a pihole people, don't go barebacking the internet
Doesn't help if the device has a baked in DNS address and just ignores your settings tho. Amazon and Google devices seem prone to that. After blocking everything on the common DNS ports except the PiHole, some of my devices have been acting kinda sluggish.
Easy to block that - though not with pihole exclusively.
We use another tool at our network edge to block all 53/853 traffic and redirect all port 53 traffic to our internal DNS resolver (works much like pihole).
Then we also block all DoH.
Only two devices have failed using this strategy: Chromecast - which refuses to work if it can’t access googles DNS. And Philips Hue bridges. Both lie and say “internet offline”. Every other device - even some of the questionable ones on a special VLAN for devices we don’t trust - work just fine and fall back to the router-specified DNS.
That might not help..
A DNS filter is no protection lol
Don't let your TV connect to the internet. I have mine on my wifi so I can control them using Home Assistant, but they're on an isolated VLAN with no internet access.
Edit: Of course, this only works if you use an external box for streaming, like an Nvidia Shield, Apple TV, Google Chromecast TV or whatever they call it now, etc.
Wait what? Is there a blog or article on how to do this?
Because I can't picture how this works in my head for my setup. It needs internet to go to Hulu/Netflix/etc.
I just never gave my TV access to the Internet and use my home theater PC to watch stuff. Never seen a need for more.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, corporations treat you like a product. Whether you buy something from them or not. People are becoming the product that they sell.
I usually don't care very much until it starts to affect pricing for stuff based on some algorithms impression of how desperate you are. That algorithm started with travel (airlines, online booking fees for hotels and stuff) and has expanded.
If I need a new computer because mine isn't working, I don't really care that advertisers come at me with ads for their computer products. I need one, they want me to buy one, it's marketing. No worries.
If I need a new computer and suddenly all the prices for new systems goes up by $100 because it thinks I'm desperate enough to pay that, now I have a problem.
I still don't like them selling my data, and I'll do what I can to avoid it, but marketing is going to do marketing things.
The problem is, you don't get a say in the matter. If the marketing company sells on your data, you don't get to say no.
If Ford wants telemetry on your car (and they do) and they sell it to your insurance company who raises your rates because you don't drive in a manner approved by corporate, you don't get to say no.
If you search for wigs and antinausea meds, and Google sells that to health insurance who guesses you've got cancer and are a financial liability, you don't get to say no, and you don't get to argue that you were planning for a party.
If you're a fifteen year old kid and your browser starts showing gay dating ads to your extremely homophobic parents, you'd better hope they don't put it together because you don't get to stop any of it.
You can control how your data is gathered, but you have ZERO say in how it's distributed and interpreted.
I agree. And that's problematic. Each company will have different policies, so it's important to know what companies do with your data, at least for the subset of companies that you actually use.
I run a pi hole and it blocks 1000 attempts per minute from a single Samsung TV, then it outright denies requests from the tv. Duck those douches.
DNS sinks can often cause elevated traffic numbers because the client is constantly failing and retrying.
I bet if you enabled it to test the numbers would drop dramatically.
Causing the smart TV become even slower hahaha
So I guess they learned nothing from the last class action lawsuit https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/lawsuit-news/lg-samsung-sony-class-action-alleges-smart-tv-privacy-violations/. Also reminded me of this past gem from LG: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/lg-smart-tv-snooping-extends-to-home-networks-second-blogger-says/.
The amount of effort i had to put into buying a dumb tv the last time it was new tv time is positively infuriating.
Yup. When we went to buy a TV I knew this was happening because the smart TVs with wifi and extra hardware and software were cheaper than the dumb TVs. Nothing is free, I knew they had to be doing this shit.
Cool. I've already got more books than I'll be able to finish before I die. Might as well get back into reading. Fuck those bastards.
I couldn't even find one last time
At this point it's easier to get one of those 50" gaming monitors and put an htpc near it or just something like a chromecast
No wonder these things operate slow as shit!
I had an issue with my 2016 Samsung TV where the interface slowed to a crawl and as soon as I disconnected the Ethernet cord it became responsive. I called Samsung customer service and they were able to reset my TV to factory settings without what I considered to be an adequate amount of authorization. I disconnected the TV again and banned it from my network and went with Apple TV.
Buy a computer monitor, a projector or a commercial display instead, they tend to be dumb.
Alternatively, don't connect your TV to the internet (bear in mind some are wireless). Unplug it from the wall when not in use.
As if Microsoft's Recall wasn't enough...
Alternatively, don't connect your TV to the internet
Until the first use menu gauntlet requires an internet connection to complete setup and enable the device for normal usage.
Samsung monitors now include all the smart TV crap and need a remote to set them up
Too much work. Mine away!
Mine isn't connected to the internet. Too bad so sad greedy fucks
Watch next year's models have LTE modems...for your convenience of course
wtf?
Sceptre still sells dumb TVs'. If you are in the US, Walmart sells them. I have one and it's pretty good. No frills.
I actually like mine. 4k on clearance for $300 for a 55" 3 uears ago. HD version was more. Menus suck and remote on/off is IR only, but I can make do.
i genuinely do not understand how TVs are so corrupt and greedy. You just display pixels, that's it! The entire purpose is to convert 1s and 0s to pretty color
Imagine if your computer monitor just displayed ads on top of the hdmi signal
I believe that is patented
“Oh right, it’s money!!” — Hbomberguy
That's both disturbing and completely expected. I've generally always preferred monitors over TVs tbh, this is just another reason for it lol
“When a user connects their laptop via HDMI just to browse stuff on their laptop on a bigger screen by using the TV as a ‘dumb’ display, they are unsuspecting of their activity being screenshotted,”
But if you never connected the TV to the internet, it's not able to upload anything right?
Correct
Thing is, it's getting pretty cheap to build radios into devices, and companies are doing that and bridging them to whatever Internet connectivity they can reach, not just your own. You don't necessarily have to personally plug something into an Ethernet socket to make a device Internet-connected.
From back when Amazon Sidewalk was rolling out:
https://www.statuscake.com/blog/what-is-amazon-mesh/
This time, however, the big news is Amazon mesh, a network to connect users and their devices. The tech giants have called this project Amazon Sidewalk+ with the idea first being made public back in 2019 where they announced they wanted to extend and expand the connectivity of their customers.
Why did Amazon do this?
According to Amazon, the main reason was to provide a better service for their customers whilst using their devices. Although there has been some backlash by those in the safety and security space, the idea seems to be very safe and simple.
How will Amazon mesh work?
The Sidewalk project will create a network mesh between all the connected devices so it can increase the connection field around the devices. It will be able to do this by using Low-energy Bluetooth and 900MHz radio signals to pass data with the connected compatible devices. By doing this, the network can extend the reach of the signal and thus it will be able to cover a larger area to allow devices to connect.
Here is an example of how this will work: imagine if you have a compatible device at the end of your garden such as a light which you normally can’t control with your phone. With the extended network, that light could connect to a neighbour’s device and by doing this it will be connected to the network, and you will have the ability to then use your phone to control the light.
There has been some concern regarding how much data the network will use for those who agree to be part of it and Amazon have estimated that the data usage could be around 400-500mbps a month. For most people, this is such a small amount that it won’t even be noticeable.
How can the mesh network be used?
Another use for this mesh is for users around the network to connect and possibly use the mesh to perform other tasks such as a Ring doorbell (Amazon-owned) to be installed in the part of the house where the usual Wi-Fi signal doesn’t reach. This provides customers with a great alternative to the far more expensive Wi-Fi extender mesh products on the market.
As is normal in situations like this, many users are concerned about the security of this project. According to what Amazon has released regarding how it will work so far, there will not be any security concerns as the connections will not identify which device was connected meaning that if your Ring doorbell extends the network to a nearby device, the system will not mention that this device was connected to that particular Ring doorbell. However, people need to be aware that Amazon itself can collect this data and the way the users interact with the network.
The feature works by creating a low-bandwidth network using smart home devices such as Amazon Echoes and Ring security cameras. At its simplest, it means that a new Echo can set itself up using a neighbour’s wifi, or a security camera can continue to send motion alerts even if its connection to the internet is disrupted, by piggybacking on the connection of another camera across the street.
But the company’s plans have caused alarm among observers. Ashkan Soltani, a former chief technology officer of the US Federal Trade Commission, told the tech site Ars Technica: “In addition to capturing everyone’s shopping habits (from amazon.com) and their internet activity (as AWS is one of the most dominant web hosting services) … now they are also effectively becoming a global ISP with a flick of a switch, all without even having to lay a single foot of fiber”. The feature may also break the terms and conditions of users’ internet connections, which do not allow such resharing, warned Lydia Leong, an analyst at Gartner.
Users can disable Sidewalk in the settings section of the Alexa or Ring apps, but have until 8 June to do so. After that, if they have taken no action, the network will be turned on and their devices will become “Sidewalk Bridges”.
Amazon is not the first company to look to create such a network. Apple has taken a similar approach with the company’s range of AirTag item trackers, which can connect to the internet through any compatible iPhone they come into contact with, not simply their owner’s. And BT, through a long-term partnership with Fon, ran a service from 2007 until 2020 that allowed broadband customers to share spare bandwidth in a public wifi network.
When you have companies creating their own radio networks, they can use someone else's Internet connection to move data.
For expensive devices, like cars, it also makes economic sense to have a dedicated cell modem and service phoning data home. But it's not the only route.
Point is, you don't have a monopoly over granting your devices Internet access any more.
They're eating the dogs. 😊
That means they're violating HDCP (High definition copy protection)? Do streaming services such as Netflix and Disney, as well as movie studios such as Universal, know this?
Did you go beyond the headline?
They found the smart TVs did not appear to upload any screenshots or audio data when streaming from Netflix or other third-party apps, mirroring YouTube content streamed on a separate phone or laptop or when sitting idle. But the smart TVs did upload snapshots when showing broadcasts from the TV antenna or content from an HDMI-connected device.
So an HDMI connected device that is streaming Netflix is getting screenshot?
I mean, even if it wasn't a streaming service, but let's say, video game content, or a blu ray, that is still a violation, and of course, if I'm playing content I made, then it's violating my copyright.
No... they only record on HDMI.
Exactly. HDMI contains HDCP when HDMI is streaming something copyrighted, such as Netflix app/in-browser. While they allegedly don't record Netflix app on TV, they'll be recording Netflix if it's been streamed from computer via HDMI.
this is why you get a separate apple tv/android box and not connect your tv to the internet
Like those things aren't capable of the same shit?
anythings capable of it, but the companies behind the (premium) boxes have less of an incentive. While theyre all capable, its a matter if you have trust in them. At least for the Shield TV for example, go download a shield tv rom if you really don't trust Nvidia. If you are paranoid that they all can do it, than any smart device can do it because its connected to the internet.
I'd rather pay for pretty much all products up-front with money at purchase time rather than pay with my data.
Not gonna tell other people what to do, but for myself, whether it's my car or television or search engine or whatever, I'd rather just pay the bill rather than having the manufacturer or service provider go data-mining my data to figure out how they can make money from it.
I think that YouTube is a great service. YouTube Premium, though, is ad-free. What I want isn't no-ad stuff, but no-log policies. And there aren't a lot of manufacturers selling privacy. And it's hard to compare services and products based on that.
I'll go one more step. I don't want to go read through privacy policies and figure out what the latest clever loophole is. We had to deal with that kind of legal stuff back prior to standardization around a few open-source licenses, and it sucked.
And I don't want to deal with privacy policies that change and maybe don't do what I want.
What I want to do is look for a privacy certification, and let the certification agency deal with that.
2000 dollar/euro premium price for Samsung S95D isn't high enough?? No.. we already pay up-front with money. This is just a very nasty trick by Samsung & LG.
Time should have stopped to 1999.
In 1999 this had already happened, just the information about that explosion hadn't reached your part of the galaxy yet. Metaphorically.
I'm thinking about at least Russia (Putin taking power and the second Chechen War), Israel (repatriation and its political turn and its choice of allies in the changed world, Likud taking power), Armenia (Kocharyan taking power, Sargsyan and Demirchyan being assassinated) and Azerbaijan (starting to boycott negotiations and build up oil industry since that time) having made a clear direction change.
These may not be obviously connected to other things we see, but I think they are part of the same tendency. I think at the same time Microsoft got an anti-monopoly decision saying that documenting Windows interfaces its bundled applications use for independent developers is sufficient for it to not be a monopolist, and Netscape died, and dotcoms crashed, and Linux attained the love of corporations, albeit not so notable yet, while FreeBSD didn't, and Amiga started dying, and DEC, and Sun received a hit, and one can notice many other things.
By the way, it's the favorite thing to say for journalists mentioning it that The Phantom Menace was a bad movie and hated by fans, and Attack of the Clones an even worse one, and Revenge of the Sith kinda better. But these were all political statements (I'm not imagining it because Lucas said that himself many times), and when we treat them as such, they were very good as that - the predictions came out to be correct.
OK, I might just love Star Wars too much.
What an infodump.
I mean, yes, obviously I agree with Agent Smith on that part.
I’m happy to see this, my wife and I were about to buy a smart TV. Now I’ll just get the dumb variant.
Now I’ll just get the dumb variant.
These don't really exist on a consumer level anymore. What you're looking for is called a commercial display, which is what's used in businesses and hospitals.
No, they still exist.
Luckily they exist in smaller sizes still. I’m just getting a small tv for occasional use.
So much more goatse and bathtube girl pictures along with porn are now gonna be on my tv
I wish I could go back in time to warn myself not to read this. The memory of receiving those (and other awful shit) is indelibly marked in my brain.
lol yeah! My friend where dicks and would set that to our screen savers or if we left our laptops open would go to meatspin.com and then lock your laptop. You got quite the surprise when you unlocked your computer lol
I never own a smart tv, but can you flash custom firmwares into it?
That would be sweet but I have never come across such a thing unfortunately!
AFAIK there's no custom firmware for these devices.
Well there are no non smart TVs anymore as far as I can tell, except the "monitor" version of TVs for 30% more money and maybe some antique 32" TVs with resolution of 1366x768
Earlier this month I finally disconnected the wifi for my 7 year old Roku TV. I miss being able to turn it on w/ voice activation but I'll trade that in for my privacy
So how do you all guys watch content on these "dumb TVs"?
If you connect e.g. android box, how is it any different than connecting the TV itself? Do you think producers of android boxes aren't such pricks? This bugs my mind.
best way is a mini pc you can put an open source OS on
then you totally control it. they can be found cheap used and are usually upgradable
they are thrown out by schools and buisnesses all the time. it does not have to be very powerful by pc standards
it can also be your first home server if youre interested
OTA antennae for sports.
For streaming, I usually watch it on my laptop so that I can have easier options to skip and replay.
My desktop is connected via HDMI so I have that as an option but I rarely take advantage of it.
I live by myself so I don't have as much pushback as you likely would FYI
Do they do that in EU too?
It says not UK - obvs not EU currently - but safe bet, no?
Ig it's time to buy a regular tv then
My pi-hole was getting hammered by an LG smart TV.(Phrasing)
That TV no longer gets internet privileges and I definitely won't be buying an LG again. I strayed from Sony and regretted it across the board.
Installed pi-hole this week. Number one blocked domain with 1600 queries.... Scribe.logs.roku.com.
Crazy!
/song note emoji/I always feel like/end song note emoji/
Projectors > *
mine would be getting only choppy static more than anything. where i live there is only sattelite available and it costs more than cable
I had to update my LG recently and it had to get approval for all sorts of weird shit. Oddly enough, it let me continue using just about everything even after I denied all the very invasive checkboxes. I guess even they can't deny use of your own tv if you reject the agreement lol
For future reference, you can update LG TVs via USB so you can avoid connecting it to a network.
If you have a smart device, someone is doing this with it. Best options to reduce their ability to access your devices: smart TV's - don't connect them to the internet unless you're updating the firmware. Use a streaming stick for streaming services, and then your privacy violations are minimized to the streaming stick that doesn't have a mic, or camera. Some controllers do have a mic, it's only a problem with who is making the tech. Other smart devices like fridge, microwave, oven, washer, etc, just never connect them to the internet, they likely will work fine their entire life without a network connection. Personal smart devices such as smart phones, remove google, and apple. Neither can truly be trusted, however apple does have a track record of keeping their snooping to themselves for what that's worth. For robots, they will likely need a network connection, I recommend supporting home automation projects that will allow us to replace the OS on our robot vacuums, and food delivery devices with one that connects to a home based server that doesn't need an internet connection. But never, ever, trust a smart device that is within hearing, seeing, or is touching you. It is a monitoring device, and it is being used that way by anyone with enough power.
Don't buy them, they are excessively expensive and tt's a better idea to separate the smart functionality into an HDMI device of your choice anyway.
Most new tv's are smart tv's by default, yo uave to pay extra for dumbness
If I ever have to get a new one, I will madboi it with a monitor and DTV HDMI decoder.
my tv can barely play Netflix I doubt it's taking pictures every second lol
maybe that's why it can't play Netflix :)
If I just use a projector, do i still have to worry about the maker of the tablet that connects to the projector doing the same thing?
Yes, but for different reasons. They are much less popular, and have way lower market share as a result.
Lots of lower-end chinese projectors are also running Android (linux), with multi-core CPUs..
Jokes on them tho, they lack common understanding.
I watch a video about someone modding a shitbox and they think i can afford this new spyker sports car or any other 80k e car.
Obviously that shit is a swing and a miss. You want to give me advertising that suits me? Start by advertising stickers about cars because that's something i could afford...not something i would buy tho.
Hmmm
"how to diy replace stolen catalytic converter"
"96 Ford esprit strange smell and noise in roof"
Youtube: buy this $90 grand all terrain thingy on credit!
I got a nice LG C3 on an open box deal, I connected it to run updates and fiddle for a few, then deleted the apps and took it offline.
Hahah my friends made fun of me for buying some cheap as fuck "smart" TV instead of an expensive LG one like them, my TV can barely run a web browser, no chance in hell that things spying on me.
Maybe it can barely run a web browser because it's working so hard spying on you?
Exactly. Since this comment doesn't make sense. It's most likely not only Samsung and LG doing it