You sit down to relax, put on your favorite show, and settle in for a night of binge-watching. But while you’re watching your TV… your TV is watching you.
Smart TVs take constant snapshots of everything you watch. Sometimes hundreds of snapshots a second.
Welcome to the future of “entertainment.”
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At this point I’m just going to assume George Orwell was a time traveler. He’s been right about everything so far.
No it’s not.
Still got an old Panasonic plasma from 2010 and it’s going strong.
But I am aware of the “wonders” of post-purchase monetization, which is how they’re printing out so many of these cutting edge OLED big screens for surprisingly low initial purchase prices
Just create a black hole network at your house and connect all ‘smart’ appliances to that. Block all traffic at the router level. This prevents them trying to connect to open mesh networks and also provides the benefit of cataloging all the traffic
I watch TV through my computer using Jellyfin. Am I at danger?
Other than your PC or Mac spying on you, you are in no danger.
Nope
Mine ain’t, I’m using an ancient dumb TV.
99% of what we watch is from streaming (Netflix, YouTube, etc). A dumb tv with a Chromecast probably isn’t any better.
even better we dont use tv anymore, just a PC.
I’m not, but I’ve disconnected the Internet from it. It can try all it wants to send the data to the mother ship.
Soon they may come with cellular capacity. Cars and e-bikes already do.
You gotta Faraday cage it!
Sometimes hundreds of snapshots a second.
That’s a pretty neat FPS for a tv.
The article states that’s what the privacy policy sais samsung can sample every 500ms and LG every 10ms. It doesn’t really mean they are, but it’s definitely possible. A very basic way of detecting content is to take a 1000 pixels evenly spaced out over the screen and store the color values. That gives you something you can match against a database. You don’t need to process a 4K screenshot for this.
Yeah I’m calling bullshit on that quote, I’d like to see proof of any smart TV having beefy enough hardware to record anything at 100fps+, and even then what would be the point? Nothing played back on the screen will even have a frame rate and 60fps… I’m sure this is a lazy article mistake
If they were recording so much couldnt tv makers be held liable for recording another companies property.
I guess I’ll stick with my 2012 Toshiba 55" dumb TV.
I just don’t own a tv. Getting rid of my entertainment and gaming systems and most of social media was my answer to internal peace. I don’t have streaming either.
The built-in OS on smart TVs almost always sucks. The built-in OS on our LG is slower, has less apps, and has less support for HDR and higher resolutions than our Fire stick.
Just don’t use it and instead plug in a Fire stick, turn off its tracking, then sideload apps like BeeTV and HDO Box.
I know Amazon has a bad rep from a privacy standpoint but the Fire stick is super cheap compared to its competition and lets you turn off the tracking in one page of the settings menu.
The article says the TVs still capture input and do recognition from external sources so using an external device is not helping.
Edit: Unless your tv is not connected to the internet.
The TV can still connect via weave, Amazon sidewalk, or other mesh networks through your neighbors doorbell or thermostat or whatever… Even if you never connect it, it could still report. Have to open it up and destroy the antennas.
On my Sony Bravia running Android you can just disable the Samba app from running same as you’d disable any app in Android.
Jokes on them: I watch videos on my tablet. There’s no way that’s spying on me, right? Right?
Not if your tablet runs an open source operating system without tracking. Like GrapheneOS or LineageOS, which both can be set up entirely without Google services, or sandboxing apps.
Spy all you want Agent Hisense of the Roku org, I’ve got you in a black box. Your communications have been cut! You’ll never report back to HQ now!
No, it’s not. It has not connected to the internet.
Well, so, about that.
A lot of TV’s will form mesh nets with same brand-or even across brands-, until they find one that is connected. I’ve even heard reports of one with a sim card¹.
¹in a 'smoke filled room’² ²okay it was a van. A smoke filled van. And she was on some other stuff too.
Where can I read about these mesh networks?
It’s the same thing apple’s Find My runs on. Devices bounce off each other like the fires of gondor
Think there was an article in… I think wired a couple years back.
Some TVs will sneakily connect to open APs to try and phone home. It is nasty but it does happen. You can only be worry free if you yank out the radio module. Some TVs make it easier than others (My LG TV made it as easy as opening the back of the TV and disconnecting, YMMV)
My TV isn’t a “smart” tv.
My thoughts exactly. My Xbox is spying on my instead.
I think you meant - Me Xbox is spying on my instead.
Yup same, running a shield
What 4K TV can I buy that doesn’t do this guys help? Or should I stick to monitors???
Look for Signage Displays. They’re basically TVs with different software.
Never heard of those before. Thanks
You can buy any TV. Just turn off the tracking in the settings and plug in a streaming stick.
Sceptre still makes TVs that are just that, no underlying smart OS
TY!
I got xiaomi, opened it up and disconnected the Bluetooth / wifi card. Connect it to a linux device and now it is a shitter version of a dumb tv. It’s crazy how smart tvs really really suck at being dumb. But it does work once you get used to some annoying quirks.
Tip: connect a cheap air mouse/keyboard to it as a remote
I mean… Just don’t hook the TV up to the internet. Don’t join your WiFi network on the TV.
Kind of a simple solution.
Doesn’t work anymore. They do dark mesh networks.
You can’t activate the warranty without it. Then once it knows it can go online it will constantly harass you.
Calm down, it’s a TV.
“You can’t activate the warranty without it” That’s illegal in most of the world
Who said
No it’s not! I had a goddamn Sony tv and it wouldn’t let me change certain settings unless I connected it to the internet! They try to force your hand!
What about connecting to a mobile/theter and change password after you adjusted your settings? 🤷♂️
Do you remember the model number? I would like to research this.
Until the cost of a sim card w/service is less than the revenue they generate from it. Which I fear is scarily close.
Does anyone know if there’s a domain blocklist for smart TV telemetry? If so, I could easily put it into my DNS server, like I already do for ads.
I’d like to continue using my streaming apps without resorting to yet another device. I have an HTPC that runs KODI but I think it’d be a pain to replace all of my streaming apps.
A couple I’m aware of:
But like flightyhobler suggested, if you keep an eye on your DNS logs with Pi-hole or managed services like AdGuard DNS and NextDNS you’ll get a better idea of what’s still getting through.
Turn the TV on and keep an eye on the logs. Many of the common blocklist already block that kind of telemetry.
