Hello!

Regarding what Gamers Nexus recently disclosed regarding LG TVs in their latest video I think its finally time to do what I can to mitigate it.

I cant root it since the firmware is too new and I cant afford a new TV either. My best bet would be blocking all LG IPs network-wide and disconnecting it from the network. (Although I understand even that might not be enough, its the best I can do right now)

I was thinking of using an old Raspberry to atleast access youtube and my media server, however I dont know what would be a good OS/distro to run this on. Preferably I would want to use something like an old PS4 controller as the remote.

Anyone here who has any suggestions or living room setups to suggest? Any and all tips are welcome.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Are apple TVs not phoning home?

If anything I'd imagine they're one of the hardest companies to block, considering most apple users have a thousand idevices that could smuggle messages, even with all communications turned off.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Not at this scale. Remember that Apple is a hardware company first. They make money from hardware and app stores.

    Google is the worlds largest ad company who dabble in hardware and services to increase their ad revenue.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    They're still a public company, and Im sure the heat is on their C suite cause they haven't had any successful hardware releases since the M series processor was first released.

    Not selling "anonymous" data would look to shareholders as thrown away profit, which they're even able to sue for.

    So I'd be insanely surprised if they weren't surveiling their users - but unlike google and all, they own their entire closed-source software and hardware empire, so the likelihood of catching them is also valuably low.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] -2 points 16 hours ago (1 child)

    Just to check, would Apple's commitment to DEI policies look as thrown-away profit to shareholders?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 5 hours ago (1 child)

    I got an even better question for you: Is that relevant here?

    Cause I don't think it is at all, but to answer anyways I think DEI is a valuable tool to assist picking the best person for a job, independent of race - as there is a racist bias in many hiring positions. I don't think its perfect, but honestly I don't think anything in US is.

    And I think apple cares about DEI cause their marketing team said it makes money. Full stop.

    People love when their obsession might align with their morals, but its important to remember if 2028 goes Republican in US they probably won't even do a logo change that pride month, cause all rainbow capitalism ever is is marketing.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 5 hours ago*

    Yes, it's relevant, because DEI inherently limits what the company does, and yet the shareholders voted to keep it. Apparently Apple's shareholders aren't bigoted idiots.

    if 2028 goes Republican in US they probably won’t even do a logo change that pride month

    Nice job showing your ass here, because Apple never 'changed the logo' for the pride month. Where the fuck are they supposed to change it, on the Macbooks?

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 0 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    And Google spyware is all open source?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago* (1 child)

    Google's just using linux for its price, but the GPL of AOSP does a lot of heavy lifting for reverse engineering efforts like this.

    edit: not that that matters at all to apple spying on users - like them scanning all Iclouds openly wasn't even that long ago

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 8 hours ago (1 child)

    Every cloud provider scans their storage, because the law is like that.

    People have gotten their MS accounts closed when Onedrive was still called Skydrive due to automated scans finding suspicious activity

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 6 hours ago (1 child)

    Damn, I forgot we all live in America - and so do all tech companies in the globe

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 2 hours ago (2 children)

    The person in question was German. Microsoft found suspicious images on their Skydrive and shut down the whole MS account, Xbox and all.

    What was it? Pictures of his kids on the beach, which the puritan American algorithm determined as evil

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago

    I could be from alpha centuri for all it matters, storing your data in an american companies servers is still subject to american laws, that was kinda the whole point of the cloud act.

    A European company on the other hand isn't subject to such laws, and is why many tech companies open up in France/Switzerland, they have laws to protect their citizens privacy instead of outlaw it.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago

    People do pick up Pixel phones to install GrapheneOS on. How many people pick up Apple phones/tablets and are able to install another OS on it and have it as functional as GrapheneOS?

    Same with smartwatches which from the Android side can be used offline with apps like Gadgetbridge to retrieve data without giving your watch internet access and not using the official apps.

    Apple is very account and OS centric wanting to funnel everything through them. Exception has been MacOS devices which has had better luck with stuff like Asahi Linux.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago*

    “Find My” network is pretty strict by its nature, if you’re talking about that. Realistically speaking, I wouldn’t be scared of it, because I can’t see any vector from which it can be dangerous to the end user.

    Nonetheless, “Find My” is an optional feature and can be fully disabled. Other Apple web-services can be blocked on a network level, if you want it for some reason. But, IMO, at this paranoia level, the only right option is OSS with a strict firewall.

  • source
  • parent