Your TV Is Spying On You
Technology
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You sit down to relax, put on your favorite show, and settle in for a night of binge-watching. But while you’re watching your TV… your TV is watching you.
Smart TVs take constant snapshots of everything you watch. Sometimes hundreds of snapshots a second.
Welcome to the future of "entertainment."
No, it's not. It has not connected to the internet.
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You sit down to relax, put on your favorite show, and settle in for a night of binge-watching. But while you’re watching your TV… your TV is watching you.
Smart TVs take constant snapshots of everything you watch. Sometimes hundreds of snapshots a second.
Welcome to the future of "entertainment."
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!
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You can't activate the warranty without it. Then once it knows it can go online it will constantly harass you.
Calm down, it's a TV.
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You sit down to relax, put on your favorite show, and settle in for a night of binge-watching. But while you’re watching your TV… your TV is watching you.
Smart TVs take constant snapshots of everything you watch. Sometimes hundreds of snapshots a second.
Welcome to the future of "entertainment."
Jokes on them: I watch videos on my tablet. There’s no way that’s spying on me, right? Right?
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No it’s not! I had a goddamn Sony tv and it wouldn’t let me change certain settings unless I connected it to the internet! They try to force your hand!
Do you remember the model number? I would like to research this.
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No, it's not. It has not connected to the internet.
Yup same, running a shield
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No, it's not. It has not connected to the internet.
My thoughts exactly. My Xbox is spying on me instead.
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No it’s not! I had a goddamn Sony tv and it wouldn’t let me change certain settings unless I connected it to the internet! They try to force your hand!
What about connecting to a mobile/theter and change password after you adjusted your settings?
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It's almost like we should have strong data privacy laws so companies can't spy on everything we do...
European liberals are trying to weaken gdpr
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My thoughts exactly. My Xbox is spying on me instead.
I think you meant - Me Xbox is spying on my instead.
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You sit down to relax, put on your favorite show, and settle in for a night of binge-watching. But while you’re watching your TV… your TV is watching you.
Smart TVs take constant snapshots of everything you watch. Sometimes hundreds of snapshots a second.
Welcome to the future of "entertainment."
On my Sony Bravia running Android you can just disable the Samba app from running same as you'd disable any app in Android.
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No, it's not. It has not connected to the internet.
Some TVs will sneakily connect to open APs to try and phone home. It is nasty but it does happen. You can only be worry free if you yank out the radio module. Some TVs make it easier than others (My LG TV made it as easy as opening the back of the TV and disconnecting, YMMV)
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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.
A couple I'm aware of:
But like flightyhobler suggested, if you keep an eye on your DNS logs with Pi-hole or managed services like AdGuard DNS and NextDNS you'll get a better idea of what's still getting through.
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No, it's not. It has not connected to the internet.
Well, so, about that.
A lot of TV's will form mesh nets with same brand-or even across brands³-, until they find one that is connected. I've even heard reports of one with a sim card¹.
¹in a 'smoke filled room'²
²okay it was a van. A smoke filled van. And she was on some other stuff too.³OS based i think? So instead of Sony's seeking Sony's or samsungs seeking samsungs, its android tvs or roku's or whatever forming meshes. Don't quote me on that though
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I mean... Just don't hook the TV up to the internet. Don't join your WiFi network on the TV.
Kind of a simple solution.
Doesn't work anymore. They do dark mesh networks.
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You sit down to relax, put on your favorite show, and settle in for a night of binge-watching. But while you’re watching your TV… your TV is watching you.
Smart TVs take constant snapshots of everything you watch. Sometimes hundreds of snapshots a second.
Welcome to the future of "entertainment."
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.
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What 4K TV can I buy that doesn’t do this guys help? Or should I stick to monitors???
You can buy any TV. Just turn off the tracking in the settings and plug in a streaming stick.
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Well, so, about that.
A lot of TV's will form mesh nets with same brand-or even across brands³-, until they find one that is connected. I've even heard reports of one with a sim card¹.
¹in a 'smoke filled room'²
²okay it was a van. A smoke filled van. And she was on some other stuff too.³OS based i think? So instead of Sony's seeking Sony's or samsungs seeking samsungs, its android tvs or roku's or whatever forming meshes. Don't quote me on that though
Where can I read about these mesh networks?
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Where can I read about these mesh networks?
Think there was an article in... I think wired a couple years back.
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A couple I'm aware of:
But like flightyhobler suggested, if you keep an eye on your DNS logs with Pi-hole or managed services like AdGuard DNS and NextDNS you'll get a better idea of what's still getting through.
Thank you for posting this! You saved me a search
