this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2026
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Privacy
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You could take extreme measures like Louis Rossmann has said he does to his phones.
He said he disassembles his phones and desolders and removes all the microphones. He said if he wants to make or receive a call, he'll use his Bluetooth headset or earpiece.
I don't see why the same can't also be feasible for televisions either, aside from how difficult they can be to properly disassemble and service.
Snowden says he does the same thing.
Technically you can do the same for your TV since the mic is probably in the remote. But that's not the TVs worst threat. The constant snapshots of your screen no matter what is displayed is the bigger deal. That is a software issue and not being disconnected without an entire custom firmware/OS approach.
Where do you get this information that the microphone is in the remote? That's about the dumbest shit I've heard all year, unless your remote is now Bluetooth or something.
Infrared remotes are output light flashes only, and only work when you point them in the general direction of the television.
Now if I'm mistaken about the most modern 'smart' televisions, well just let me know, with reference. Because I'm an infrared hacker, and Hisense and Roku televisions still give to my infrared hacks, output signals only.
Umm, because my Hisense remote has the mic button and a little hole for the mic to collect sound. Which makes sense when a person wants to speak and be heard and have the mic a foot from their mouth vs 6 feet across the room. But I guess your TV is different and listens with infrared.
Now that it's daylight and I'm fully awake, I just verified, that neither our Hisense/Roku TV nor our separate Roku dongle have any microphone in their respective remotes, verified by disassembly, and I disassembled the dongle and verified the dongle doesn't have any microphone either.
Whether the TV itself has any microphone or not, I'm not quite sure, and I'm not about to disassemble that to find out, nor do I care as that TV will never be connected online.
But I can 100% confirm that neither of our Roku remotes have a microphone or microphone button.
Guess what? It might be the year 2026, but our TV was manufactured in 2022, and the Roku dongle was manufactured in 2019, so the microphone thing must be a newer feature in recent years.
Thanks for the heads up, I'll never purchase any new Roku device again.
Umm, then we must have a pre-spyware HiSense/Roku, no microphones to be found here, none that I know of anyways.
Also, no WiFi connection either, so..
Sir, it’s the year 2026.
Ignoring our Hisense TV (we're never gonna connect that online anyways), we do have a separate Roku dongle adapter that is connected online.
I just disassembled it to verify, it does not have any microphone, nor camera.
Oh boy he should not look up how insecure Bluetooth is then
Eh, it entirely depends on your threat model. If you're trying to protect against mass surveillance, it makes sense because you'll only sometimes have a functional microphone powered on. If you're trying to protect against a targeted attack against you specifically, then yeah Bluetooth had some problems. You have bigger issues at that point, though. I also think Bluetooth is probably more secure than you think.
If you’re worried about the guy 10 m away from you eavesdropping, BT is not a great option. If you’re worried about the hackers on the other side of the planet, BT should be fine.
No electronic device is secure.
I mean graphene would be easier for phones.
Theoretically if you never hook a smart TV to the net it shouldn't be able to spy. I'm sure they do tho
I think you are right (today!), but look what happens with cars... the car connects to a wireless network without asking you, to send back telemetry. The cost of doing that is coming down all the time, and there is a big juicy profit stream just waiting to be harvested. I will not be surprised if we see TVs do this eventually, like cars do already.
They could also be designed to simply refuse to function if they can't connect. I didn't hear about any like this so far, but it feels like a matter of time. Enshittification comes for everything.
Graphene is still only for Pixel phones right now isn't it? I heard something about them working to expand out to other model phones eventually, wonder how that's going and how many more devices it'll eventually support? 🤔
They announced last week their partnership is with Motorola. I'll keep using my pixel and see what they roll out and let them work the bugs out of it for a bit first.
Only pixel yes and google is working hard to kill it.
What sending postcards in the mail. Yah loran wan sure but who actually has that in density enough.