mst comments on It’s not just LG. Every TV company is spying on you

It’s not just LG. Every TV company is spying on you (www.theverge.com)

submitted 1 week ago by cannedtuna@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.world

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Crossposted from https://infosec.pub/post/52518361

The TV world has been a pot of controversy thanks to a two-hour-and-15-minute video from Gamers Nexus claiming LG TVs are nefariously spying on everything you do. They can record and store audio even when they seem to be off, track everything you watch, and could even be hacked remotely and turned into covert surveillance […]

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[–] mst@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 6 days ago (16 children)

It's hard to find dumb TV. But you can just use a smart TV without connecting it to the internet.

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[–] Deaderik@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago (15 children)

That's a bit of a misconception, TV's have other potential paths to try and get themselves connected. Say connecting itself to an unsecured network or uploading through a data stream over HDMI. Or you sell the TV and the next person connects it to the internet (TV's can store a lot of data too).

The only real ways to cripple a Smart TV is to either destroy the ability to spy (disconnect mics etc.) or properly contain it in a firewall.

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[–] adjectivenoun@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Is there any evidence this happens? Why would manufactures go to the trouble of making a nefarious hacker TV when 99.9% of buyers are just going to type in their wifi credentials when prompted?

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[–] Sixseven@sh.itjust.works 9 points 6 days ago (1 child)

You should watch the gamers nexus video. The LG TVs they tested automatically look for open wifi networks to connect to and once connected to a network scan for all devices on the same network and send that back to the mothership.

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[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 2 points 6 days ago

Glad mine is maybe 10 years old at this point.

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[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Also - lots of ISP-provided routers have secondary unsecured networks as part of a network for customer devices that you may not even realize are coming from your own router.

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[–] LazyOldPervert@lemmus.org 1 point 6 days ago (3 children)

How can I find out more about these?

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[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 1 point 5 days ago (2 children)

I know my Time Warner/Spectrum router used to have one back in the day as part of their "nationwide wifi" or whatever it was called.

I bought my own modem and router years ago. Last year I bought a new TPLink router when I wanted to upgrade my wifi and I put custom firmware (OpenWrt) on it to make sure I was in comtrol.

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[–] LazyOldPervert@lemmus.org 1 point 4 days ago (1 child)

Does it work well with the new firmware??

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[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 1 point 4 days ago

Works fine for me.

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[–] hansolo@lemmy.today -3 points 6 days ago (6 children)

This is sort of a solvable problem is the thing. If you just check there's no open networks in/near your home, and do a factory reset when you sell it, you're covering both of the hypotheticals you mentioned.

If the TV can't talk to anyone, it can't talk to anyone. It's too expensive to insert complements into millions of units for edge cases when so many people connect their TVs anyway.

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[–] noxypaws@pawb.social 15 points 6 days ago (5 children)

you're assuming a factory reset wipes rhe stores surveillance data. which I'm pretty sure the GN video touched on. you CANNOT assume this.

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[–] hansolo@lemmy.today -2 points 6 days ago* (4 children)

Sure, but you're selling a TV to someone else. What better way to obfuscate your own data then letting someone else have their "Bob Jones TV" connected to Bob_JonesWifi, and wow, we got 3 years of data? It's not exactly going to catch you.

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[–] noxypaws@pawb.social 4 points 6 days ago (3 children)

I don't want a backlog of transcripts of my private conversations I've had inside my home get uploaded once the next owner connects it to their wifi.

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[–] hansolo@lemmy.today -3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

But the TV will think it's their conversations, that Bob Jones. It has no way to know it moved houses. It will attribute it all to someone else.

Also, just get power strip with an off switch and cut power to the TV when not in use. No power, no data collection.

Once again, a solvable problem if you just think it through.

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[–] noxypaws@pawb.social 5 points 6 days ago* (1 child)

it knows nearby wifi SSIDs and their hardware addresses, which are trivially easy to use to narrow down a location to a rather precise area. I'm pretty sure the GN video covered that as well, and showed GPS coordinates or a street address being transmitted.

You're right about the power strip tho.

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[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 2 points 5 days ago

Hey, so first, off, I watched the entire GN video today. You're correct about the SSID and MAC address stuff - fair point. And holy shit, LG. It's like a creepy fuck competition.

Something that's interesting is that it's not always for every single TV from the company. FWIW.

From this manual on Samsung TVs on how to turn off the microphone (I've had a good run with Samsung equipment (I know, I know) which I never let touch the internet. Maybe I just bought my last TV from them).

You can turn on or off the microphone by using the switch at the bottom of the TV. If microphone is turned off, All voice and sound features using microphone are not available.

This function is supported only in QN7C/QN8C/QN9**C/ Q7C/Q8C/QN8C/QN9C/S9*C Series.

https://manuals.plus/samsung/q60c-qled-4k-smart-tv-manual

Which is only 70+ inch TVs. I went looking for one on my TV, and there isn't a switch - but there's also no voice options for me to enable, either. Meaning there's no microphone to start with. I don't even have enough money to creep on, I'm only buying some pissant, baby-sized TV! (It's also the biggest TV I've ever owned).

I'm also not in the US, so it's possible that privacy laws being what they are in some places, it's not universal.

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