Your TV Is Spying On You

It's almost like we should have strong data privacy laws so companies can't spy on everything we do...

No, it's not. It has not connected to the internet.

So does your isp, and uses that for targeted ads. My pihole is constantly blocking a domain ran by xfinity that collects data for their targeted ad service

oh I disabled my "smart" TV's ability to connect to the internet. its a dumb TV now.

it made the mistake of showing me a banner ad while I was gaming. so I promptly cut its balls off in retaliation.

I’ve never allowed my TV to have an active route to the internet since I bought it in 2019, it’s exclusively fed over HDMI by gaming consoles and an Apple TV.

The thing is, HDMI 1.4 added HEC, so what’s to prevent media players from serving as an Ethernet switch and providing an internet connection to TVs.

Mine ain't, I'm using an ancient dumb TV.

Sometimes hundreds of snapshots a second.

That's a pretty neat FPS for a tv.

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

YOUR tv is spying on you. MY tv has no smart capability.

Stupid TVs FTW. If you can’t buy them stupid, give them a WiFi lobotomy.

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

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.

Jokes on them: I watch videos on my tablet. There’s no way that’s spying on me, right? Right?

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.

What 4K TV can I buy that doesn’t do this guys help? Or should I stick to monitors???

It doesn't if you don't connect it to the internet. Fortunately most smart TVs still have HDMI inputs so you can use them as dumb TVs with a PC.

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.

no it isn't. yours might be, but not mine.

I watch TV through my computer using Jellyfin. Am I at danger?

In other news, water found to be wet, puppies cute. More at 11.

My ACL says my TV can't talk to the internet.

The company that made my TV is engaged in copyright infringement, you say? Transmitting copyrighted images over the Internet for profit?

Huh.

Hundreds of snapshots a second? So my tv has at least 200 Hz? Or do they snap the same frame multiple times just for fun?

At this point I'm just going to assume George Orwell was a time traveler. He's been right about everything so far.

My TV is not a smart TV, it's not spying on me.

Part of the reason why I take good care of my little 24" dumb TV. It's on the lower end (poor viewing angles, absolutely no adjustment on the legs) but I still have a use for it, so I won't be replacing it.

The other concern I have with smart TVs is because manufacturers basically install a smartphone SoC, the TV's lifecycle is now the same as a smartphone. Most people probably won't connect a new smart TV box to their discontinued, laggy (thanks to bloated apps) smart TV, the completely functional unit just gets replaced.

We need regulation to be able to unlock these devices and make available the firmware drivers so that after the manufacturer stops support, the community can continue it (and obviously for us hackers, we would strip the system of all telemetry)

No shit

Comms must be infrequent bc my domain sink doesn't log anything like that from my tv when I've checked

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!

On my Sony Bravia running Android you can just disable the Samba app from running same as you'd disable any app in Android.

Not mine, since I don't have one ;)