Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
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For what we see nowadays in TV, I often thought to substitute it with a Fishtank, smarter content, HD 3D, true color and no spyware
Rule #1 Do not connect tvs to wifi.
Problems solved.
I basically just assume that anything which is closed-source, networked and has sensors of any kind is a spying device. It's easier than evaluating each one individually.
Easier from an analysis perspective, but seems a much harder way to live your life overall.
Eh. Its an upfront decision that's pretty easy to figure out if a TV or something has it. A TV being an extreme case where you know for near certain it has it even. Its about as hard as looking for anything else you care about in a product in most anything else this might be a concern with - I can quickly see if a TV is a smart TV or not.
Disclaimer: I am aware that the TV market specifically is kiiinda weird with their dedicated TV remote button deals that let them sell TV units at a loss (to then be remade by these deals). I still feel this is not much harder a way to live life... I mean, what, I'm gonna spend an extra 20 minutes looking for a TV?
I have an LG "Smart" TV, but because I don't use it much (view the News in the Public TV and little more) I never connected it to the WiFi, so offline this Live Plus is irrelevant for me.
Not necessarily. Manufacturers have been known to use ad-hoc networks to find a path back home.
For example your neighbour gets a smart tv and connects to the internet. Now your smart tv connected to your neighbours and phones home.
Any TV nowadays is a smart TV, dumb TV are not longer exist since several years, but I don't think that the TV can connect to the Neighbours WiFi (so smart to crack the passcode, normally long as my arm, my router even with an inbuild Firewall, well....), and even if it is the case, they log the activity of the neighbours WiFi, not mine. There isn't any network activity in my TV, apart watching 99% Public TV which don't have ads in most EU countries (because of this, movies in EU public TV are country restricted, I can watch these only in the PC, visiting their homepage using an Proxy with an server of the corresponding country).
It’s not connecting to your neighbours wifi. Your neighbours tv can make its own hidden wifi, that your tv can look for. Once your tv connects to the other tv, it could send whatever data it likes through neighbours tv. Since their tv is internet connected it would get back to manufactures servers.
Now, I haven’t researched this, or have any hard proof of manufactures doing this. But the technology itself would be fairly trivial to implement, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already happening.
As others have said, the only sure-fire way to ensure no connection is to remove the wifi chip altogether.
Well, as said before, with the use I give to the TV, it's anyway irrelevant for me. Logging the news or an ocassional docu in the public TV? Which ads will they show in channels which don`t have?
Any proof of this. First I've heard about it.
It's not this the way Apple tag and findmyphone works?
I thought that was via other iPhone pinging the tag and reporting its last location back. This sounds like the TV using the other TV as a network bridge and then sending data back via it.
Exactly. Desoldering the wifi antennas is about the best you can do.
It's going to get to the point where we'll need 3rd party open source OSes for every device in our homes.
"Your toaster is spying on you, use ToastOS instead."
Reminds me of the Cory Doctorow story Unauthorized Bread. It's as depressing as it is relevant even though it tries to shoot for hope.
I have faith that soon even 'dumb' devices will ship with small multi-year battery powered cell-connected evices that cannot be disabled, and are not part of an OS.
I still believe this leaves a good market for a brand to just make privacy focused TVs.
If I’m buying a $1000 TV, I would pay $1100 if it means it’s just a screen and not smart.
The only obstacle is enough people wanting this.
Considers how much the average person cares
Maybe it’s a fantasy.
Yeah. Looks like RootmyTV is only for older models of LG TVs and that's kind of sad.
tvs are annoying to the point people recommend never connecting them to the internet and getting a raspberry pi to use as a "smart hub" sort of thing instead.
You're not too far off: there are water kettles and rice cookers (Xiaomi) and vacuum cleaners with app support (and definitely not collecting telemetry...)
There are also refrigerators, washers, dryers and dishwashers that collect telemetry.
It can't send screen shots if it doesn't connect to the internet. I own an LG TV and it's never been connected to a network.
For those of you who need it:
Press the Settings button on your remote (the gear icon).
When the side menu pops up, select Settings.
Choose the General option.
Scroll down and select System.
5, Select Additional Settings.
Plenty of TVs are capable of radioing your neighbour's TV and piggybacking off their internet connection, so if it's not in a Faraday cage, it might be overconfident to say it's never been connected to a network.
Source? Never heard of that ever.
Source on this?
I don’t know if they use it on their Fire TVs but Amazon Sidewalk, for instance, does exactly what the previous commenter described.
You're going to need to provide some evidence for such a claim. That doesn't even sound legal.
Not OP but I think this guy is remembering a scene from silicon valley, not from reality. That said it's probably not that far off. Amazon smart devices absolutely have this "feature" in production today-- and it's opt-out, not opt-in.
Thanks for that. Just another reason to be glad I've banned any Amazon devices in my house. It's already insane enough to me that people literally have to think before they speak in their own homes to avoid accidentally triggering the always-listening robo-creepy-spy in the next room.
Enough is enough. If I ever buy a TV, I will personally tear out anything even remotely resembling an antenna (including destroying PCB antennas).
I’ve never found a compelling reason to buy a TV. Now if computer monitors ever go “smart” then I’m in trouble.
LG doesn't make disabling Live Plus too hard, though you do have to click through a few menus. If you want to turn it off, here's how:
1. Press the Settings button on your remote (the gear icon).
2. When the side menu pops up, select Settings.
3. Chose the General option.
4. Scroll down and select System.
5, Select Additional Settings.
6. Toggle Live Plus off.
In the Settings menu on its TVs, LG says, "By turning Live Plus on, you understand that the content displayed on your TV can be recognized, and that the viewing information may be used to provide you with an enhanced viewing experience and personalized services including content recommendations and advertisements."
And then fingers crossed. Since you don't know if this option is doing something at all. After all their source code is not open source.
Anyhow.. Have fun. Good luck. And it's better to fully disconnect your smart TV from the internet and wifi. And just use your own home theater computer with Linux. And don't use any of their smart features or apps.