- cross-posted to:
- Technology@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- Technology@programming.dev
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.”
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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.
The article says the TVs still capture input and do recognition from external sources so using an external device is not helping.
Edit: Unless your tv is not connected to the internet.
The TV can still connect via weave, Amazon sidewalk, or other mesh networks through your neighbors doorbell or thermostat or whatever… Even if you never connect it, it could still report. Have to open it up and destroy the antennas.
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?
no it isn’t. yours might be, but not mine.
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I watch TV through my computer using Jellyfin. Am I at danger?
Nope
Other than your PC or Mac spying on you, you are in no danger.
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
What domain do I can make sure it’s blocked?
Id also like to know what lists hes using
It’s on https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts
I also have additional lists from firebog.net, and I use jacklul/pihole-updatelists to maintain it.
I’m using like 30 block lists with over 1,900,000 blocked domains. There is a site that had a bunch of blocklists and I just grabbed most of them
This
Thanks, looks like it’s on the Stevenblack list.
Can I get some more info. Do you know what device on your network is asking for said address?
Roku: has its own problems, but I dont use the smart tv features and turn them all off especially the wifi. It doesnt talk to my isp and ive never got requests from it.
I think it’s my LG TV. But it has its own service that I also block.
Here is the service from xfinity that I’m talking about. It’s relatively new to my network and has increased my blocked percentage by a lot. Mind you, I have 1,900,000+ domains on my blocklist
Are you using isp provided hardware?
My experience with said items has been poor. Literal open doors to your network.
I’m using my xfinity router/modem in bridge mode to my router.
Do whatever you can to remove this from your network as soon as you can. OpenWRT as a suggestion.
I’ve really gotta look into pihole.
Me too
It’s really been great
I don’t think those two facts are related? Your isp doesn’t need to connect to its servers from within your local network to track your internet usage. Something else in your network must be trying to connect to that domain
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
YOUR tv is spying on you. MY tv has no smart capability.
How does that help me though?
I think they are inviting you over to their place to watch some (dumb) TV?
Finally, some good TV :)
Disconnect it from the internet…?
Is every comment in the world supposed to cater to you? Are people allowed to add to discussions without consulting you first?
Is it adding to discussions or just posturing? Much like heavy’s comment was about their issues, Lost_My_Mind’s was also about their own situation. Why is the latter acceptable and the former not?
My assumption is not because it promotes discussion, but because it’s something that’s more people emotionally agree with.
Yikes, I didn’t know I was being hostile, sorry I hurt your feelings.
You will never be forgiven!
I probably have some bad karma :(
Pal, it’s way beyond bad karma at this point!!!
No shit
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.
Well, maybe a Hisense or a cheap soundbar might have a listening device, but they’ll be hard pressed to phone home.
How old is it ? Which one did you buy
2 1920x1080 LG ones probably over 10 years ago. If smart TVs can’t get online they can’t spy on you.
It’s almost like we should have strong data privacy laws so companies can’t spy on everything we do…
But think of the corporations! Why isn’t anyone thinking of the poor withering corporations?!
European liberals are trying to weaken gdpr
Comms must be infrequent bc my domain sink doesn’t log anything like that from my tv when I’ve checked
I guess I’ll stick with my 2012 Toshiba 55" dumb TV.
We probably have the same model - the one with the big oval stand. Every once in a while I wish it was OLED and/or higher resolution, but it’s not worth the expensive or all the modern “features” such as these.
Jokes on them: I watch videos on my tablet. There’s no way that’s spying on me, right? Right?
Not if your tablet runs an open source operating system without tracking. Like GrapheneOS or LineageOS, which both can be set up entirely without Google services, or sandboxing apps.
