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LG smart TVs caught logging audio with screen off and snooping on local devices (www.notebookcheck.net)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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An investigation by Gamers Nexus found LG smart TVs sweep local networks to map phones and nearby devices. Tests also showed the sets can capture microphone audio with the screen off — they then upload data once reconnected to the internet.

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[–] 46 points 1 month ago (15 children)

Ugh. So blocklists were not enough. Time to isolate my telly on the router.

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  • [–] 59 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    If your television is connected to any network at all its already too late.

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  • [–] 30 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Amazon Sidewalk - even if you didn't connect it, it could still be spying

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    What is this? I have a Sony TV that's not connected to the internet so I thought I was safe.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I don't know if any TVs are actually using it, but Amazon Sidewalk is a form of LoRa, low power, low bandwidth, long distance communication. It's designed to let non-internet connected devices phone back home. I hear it is very popular with shipping trackers because you can put a small device in a pallet and have it send it's GPS back for free. I'm not sure it would support the GBs of data TVs are phoning home with each month, but it could certainly send some data home.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    Yup, this can get used for very scary stuff. As you said it's low bandwidth, but since edge devices are more powerful that's less of a limitation than you might think. A TV could easily do speech to text, rough ACR, and device fingerprinting all locally without any internet connection, then summarize and compress that data for a daily or weekly upload. No need to send the large data itself, just a a small report that's a few KB in size.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago* (7 children)

    You could try to host your DNS, change the router DNS to that and then spend a while to see to which addresses the TV talk to and block them, it's probably time consuming but if you have that time, it can work

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Yeah, I know. I have a blocklist for LG and other common brands compiled by someone else on my router DNS adblocker. But considering how sneaky they are with collecting information they should stay the fuck away from, I bet they have mechanisms to get around their common ad domains for the data that matters.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    Yeah you are right, you are better of staying away from LG but if you already have one, you could make a subnet for the TV (and/or other IoT devices) with a DNS whitelist to block every domain except Youtube or whatever else is used

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    I have a separate and isolated net for all my IoT and smart home devices but things like the telly, amp, media player etc need to have some network access. Makes me tired that this kind of fiddling is necessary.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    unless LG skips DNS entirely and hard codes its IPs.

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