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It’s not just LG. Every TV company is spying on you (www.theverge.com)
submitted 6 days ago by 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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[–] -2 points 5 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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  • [–] 4 points 5 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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  • [–] -3 points 5 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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  • [–] 5 points 5 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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  • [–] 2 points 4 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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