Smart TVs are like “a digital Trojan Horse” in people’s homes | 48-page report urges FTC, FCC to investigate connected TV industry data harvesting.

my TV incurred my wrath by having the gall to show me a banner ad while I was in the middle of a game.

so I promptly cut its balls off. (disabled the internet entirely). now it is a dumb TV. and it behaves like a TV. and not an ad machine.

But what device do you use to stream? That's the dilemma I'm in, streaming sticks and devices are all so spammy.
- I just run an old PC plugged in to my TV. It's been running Windows, but I'm strongly considering switching it to linux now that it seems HDR on linux is getting stable. I might even use SteamOS directly since it's got a nice interface for controller use.
- Honestly, the apple TV is the least spammy by a long shot. I also hear great things about the Nvidia shield, but it is pretty ancient by now. Or use a computer, but of course that's got its own annoyances. Of course these are all the most expensive options, apparently for a reason.
- I bought an Apple TV after I had some smart tv related issues with my Samsung. I’m happy with it and it supports any app you’d want.
- Apple TV has been reliable for many years. Don't even have an iPhone or iPad anymore but the OS gets the fuck outta the way and it probably has the least spyware of all the commercial options.
  
  Building your own with like, a Pi or a PC is the best option if you mainly have pirated content.... If you stream anything that option isn't great because your device won't pass all the DRM checks to play higher definition/4k stuff. (Someone correct me but last I looked into it this was still true)
- Join the darkside, and run something like a Raspberry Pi with Kodi, and/or Plex, etc.
- Nvidia Shield
- I've been using a Chromecast for years. I cast whatever I want from my phone. It plays media and that's it.
- Another chiming in on the best device by a long shot is the AppleTV. It’s damn fast and its UI is actually nice to use. Oh and all the apps are always up to date. Zero ads just sitting on the screen anywhere.
- I rooted my (Android TV based) smart TV, removed all the tracking (verified with PCAPDroid), and I use Stremio and SmartTube to stream everything. I also use AFWall as a firewall to whitelist only apps that I install to access the internet only through my VPN. I set my DNS to 0.0.0.0 to block all traffic outside of my DNS if my firewall ever fails because Android TV doesn't have that option unlike regular Android.
  
  I have a Hisense TV if you're curious. You can also get a TV box that is supported by LineageOS and do the same thing on there.
  
  Whenever Android 10 gets super outdated, I'm hoping that Plasma Bigscreen will be advanced enough to be able to replace it, then I will just use my laptop for TV activities instead. I also would need Linux to get better HDR support (currently it only supports HDR10 and not HDR10+ or Dolby Vision) and for AMD drivers to gain HDMI 2.1 support (which is being blocked by the HDMI forum for stupid reasons. The code has been ready for a while, but AMD isn't allowed to release it)
- I use a rooted Xiaomi Mi Box 2S rooted and degoogled filtered by pi-hole and I only use stremio or jellyfin and smartube for youtube.
- I usually hook my Steam Deck up to my TV via a USB hub and HDMI, and then fire something up on Plex, which I keep running on my desktop.
  
  Bonus: Make it a wireless HDMI dongle (which I'm too cheap for but are a thing), and now using it from the couch is even more convenient.
- My TV has always been run without the "smarts" ever since I bought it.
  
  That said, recently I've replaced my TV Box and Media Box with a N100 Mini PC running Linux and Kodi plus a wireless remote and in addition to that the thing even works as my home server with additional functionality than just that of the devices it replaced.
  
  For a cheaper/easier option try LibreELEC on top one of the devices they support (check the downloads page or the Wiki for the list). It's basically a Linux distro with Kodi, so open and with none of the privacy intrusion risks of Android. The same kind of wireless remote (example - note that you don't actually need to use the keyboard on the back or the air mouse) also works here since it just relies on standard shortcut keys of media programs like Kodi so works everywhere (even Android).
  
  However what all these privacy-protecting non-enshittified options have in common is that they're not fully configured solutions that you just buy and use - as you've noticed, if you just buy a streaming stick or device it will likely be at the least "spammy" - and you do have to do some of the work to get them working.
  
  Something like LibreELEC on a mini PC should be the simplest to put together as the hardware comes preconfigured in an actual box and all that's needed is to install the LibreELEC image from a bootable USB stick, but if you have a bit more technical know-how (not really that much needed, mind you) you can get something like one of the supported Orange Pi boards along with a box for it and it will cost you less than half as much as even a basic Mini PC - those boards are basically using the same chips as Android TV media boxes so you get the same performance without the "spammyness".
- Never connected my LG TV to the internet. I got an Nvidia Shield TV Pro hooked up to it. The default home screen got riddled with ads as well after I got it, but at least you can change it to a third party one and never have to see it again. Otherwise a cheap used Xbox Series S might also work, but is much bigger and arguably less flexible. And if you want a truly privacy-respecting device you might have to go with a Linux mini PC, though that's much more involved to set up and many commercial streaming services won't give you the full quality streams you are paying for.
- Nvidia shield with a custom launcher. Google updated their Android TV home which made 60% and More of the dashboard just ads so I added projectify as my launcher. There are now only 2 apps being shown on my screen. Plex and Google Play (for updating apps).
- If you want customization and the ability to sideload apps, get an Nvidia Shield. There are custom OSes you can load which remove a lot of the spammy ad BS that the Shield’s default OS has baked in.
  
  If you want ease of use and setup, get an Apple TV. It won’t natively run all of your pirated hentai apps, but it at least has Plex so you can stream custom content from a server if you set one up.
- Old laptop connected to tv through hdmi + cheapest wireless mouse I could find. If you want to get fancy you can also get a wireless keyboard but screen keyboard does a good enough job
- But what device do you use to stream?
  
  Raspberry Pi with a bare image of Android TV installed. The result is a Roku without any attempt to serve home screen ads.
I've never given a tv my wifi password.

I'm not any techier than the average millennial. Maybe my trust issues are worse than average. I don't regret my actions.

Also - my xbox one s may have streamed more video content than provided rocket leaguery....until I tripped on a cord...

Laptop now. Learning how to utilize these new capabilities.

If only our fucking government would do something about this and actually regulate these evil bastards.

First you'd need to ban money from politics and change the voting system to better represent the people living there instead of wealthy elites, but that would just be the start.

Whenever wealthy elites have even a tiny bit of power (as they do in any capitalist system, including social democracies like what the Nordic countries have), they will seize as much control as possible. We saw this happen many times.
- Nico Semsrott (Kabarettist and member of the EU parliament. Yes, both) proposed in jest sponsoring placement on the jackets of the political members that got donations by companies.
  The jackets should then look like the race overalls from Formula 1 or (not US) football players.
  
  And I am fully supporting this.
  
  Edit:
  Like this:
but then the market would be ever so slightly less free. the horror!
But their ~~constituents~~ corporate donors would not profit as much. Won’t someone think about my profits? 🙃

Wait until they hear about cell phones.

And cars, and smart thermostats and smart cameras and smart fridges and routers and literally every fucking thing in your house that is connected to the fucking internet. Every single thing in our homes is a data miner.
- Not mine! But my hobby is making my own smart devices.
- God damn! You know things are god damn grim when even Oswald Cobblepot has gone woke!
Or the patent with a camera to make sure you're watching the ad.
- Please drink verification can.

pi-hole ftw. the vast majority of my pi-hole's DNS drops are from various Roku and Roku-like devices. Also, put all your IoT stuff onto a guest network, or if your gear supports it, on its own VLAN.

See, I just don't connect it to the network. It complained when I set it up but now it just works as a screen.

I've got a raspberry pi steaming my desktop to it with gamestream/sunshine/moonlight, and it's now as smart as my computer. It can even stream from different computers no matter where they are in the house, watch anything with stremio, and play games from them too. It's way better than using the youtube or netflix button on the TV, most of the services it offers I don't use anyway.

But actually pihole does sound like a good idea and maybe I should get that set up one of these days.
- So with all the recent drama I learned that some TVs look for other open networks or other same brand TVs in range, and if found will join those networks and still share data.
  
  So not connecting it isn't enough in all cases.
  
  A pihole wouldn't solve this either if it was smart enough to know it's blocked and look elsewhere.
I need to replace my router as it's coming to end of life. I want one with vlan so I can put all my iot on a separate lan. Any recommendations?
- I went ubiquity with my entire network. Can recommend
- I recently picked up a GL-iNet Flint 2 because it's a powerhouse and one of the easiest routers to flash Open-WRT onto. If you don't want to mess with firnware flashing, it comes stock with their fork of Open-WRT. So, either way, you have a ton of control over your router, including setting up VLANs and running AdGuard.
- I have the Ubiquiti Edgerouter X. I got it mostly because at the time it was on sale 😂 but it seems to have decent support. Note that you will have to get a wireless AP as the Edgerouter is a pure router without WiFi function. Lots of people also like Mikrotik products.
- For consumer grade gear, Ubiquiti is probably the best bet. Unless you want to get into the commercial side of things, but that’s prohibitively expensive for the average person.
  
  Personally I run a GL.iNet system. I like it being completely open source, and the Flint 2 is a workhorse of a router. But as far as ease of use and config, Ubiquiti is certainly more straightforward.
So lucky my smart thermostat and door/window sensor are connected via DECT-ULE to my router/modem combo (for those interested AVM Fritzbox) and I can poll those via home assistant.
And I don't think they could phone home (and I hope AVM doesnt do bs).

One way to get Congress to act on this would be to remind them of how Robert Bork's video rental history got released. They very quickly realized that they all had the same sleazy movies on their rental list and passed a law making it illegal to share them.

Call your Congressmen and tell them that their smart TV is sending screenshots of whatever they're watching back to home base, including stuff that's not streamed, and there might be swift action.

Better yet, hack Samsung and leak it to the press. That'll definitely light a fire under them.

I blocked my two TVs from phoning home via my pihole. They are the two noisiest devices on my network, by leaps and bounds.

On a day of heavy usage, my phone and desktop may get ~2000 blocked requests combined. That’s high, but not unheard of. It just means I did a lot of browsing, with a lot of blocked ad requests. My TVs average somewhere around 7500 blocked requests per day, on days that I haven’t even turned them on. That’s an attempt to phone home every ~12 seconds. And it is much worse on days that I actually use them.

To be clear though, that's largely because it is just repeating the same request over and over as it times out and retries. They're a lot less noisy when they actually connect successfully, though it is still undesirable for them to do so.
- Is it encrypted?
I got a 42" 4k computer monitor instead
- How many times the cost of a comparably-sized Trojan TV did that run you?
Maybe i'm stupid, but why would a TV even do that? All it's know is what you're watching today, right? How is that information useful? If you're living with other people, the TV couldn't even know who's watching, that would make the data useless.
- Data mining. They know what you watch, when you don't and any other habits you have.
  
  If you have a microphone on your remote or tv, then they also send that data over.
- Knowing the distribution of what entire households watch is very useful. It's not about spying on you personally.
Jesus dude, what brand TV do you have?

My LG issues a few hundred blocked requests throughout the day with heavy usage. I've never seen it wake up and phone home (my Nintendo Switch does it every hour for some stupid reason)
- One is a Samsung, and the other is a Roku. The Roku is a little bit noisier, but not by much.

can we just ban online features from tvs, cars, printers, light bulbs etc.

That ship, my friend, has already sailed.
- Civilians used to own canons. For blowing up ships. And the occasional home invader. Doesn't matter if it has sailed if we sink it. We should sink that ship.
Cars being online has some tangible benefits in that they can transmit location data to emergency services, especially if the driver is unresponsive. Might save someone from dying in a ditch in the middle of nowhere.

Arguably, some of the data collected while driving is also very useful for maintenance and development (e.g. if a lot of vehicles start having a similar issue after X miles).

That said, this data should be limited in scope and use (e.g. must not be sold, especially not to insurance companies), as well as anonymized as much as possible. Which is currently not the case, and that definitely needs regulation.
- You don't need a high bandwidth connection to do emergency notifications, and considering it might be in a remote area satellite would be better than LTE.
  
  For the diagnostics you could log events internally and then collect them with OBD-II readers, though I'd like to force car makers to use open data formats so people can see for themselves what's collected.
- That said, this data should be limited in scope and use...
  
  Yep, anonymized, limited, non-distributable, and secured, with severe penalties (on the order of tens of thousands of dollars per person, paid to the harmed party) for failure to adhere.

For example, Amazon Web Services and ad-tech company TripleLift are working with proprietary models and machine learning for dynamic product placement in streamed TV shows. The report, citing a 2021 AWS case study, says that "new scenes featuring product exposure can be inserted in real-time 'without interrupting the viewing experience.'"

Peacock is also working with TripleLift to develop "In-Scene" Peacock ads that owner NBCUniversal says it's currently testing:

When a user plays episodic content, your brand’s product or message is dynamically placed in the frame of targeted scenes, creating a non-interruptive ad experience that aligns the programming with your campaign theme/goals.

This could be hilarious when your omegaverse softcore porn drama gets plastered with prune juice, old people pill adverts, and trump propaganda on everyone's shirts, tattoos, jock straps, voice lines and whatever else the AI can scrounge up. "It totally fits with the narrative!"

Am I reading this wrong or are they literally hijacking a shot in the content by placing a product in there?
Sounds like they could literally go in there and replace the kid watching tele-shopping in a movie with watching a literal ad made to look like it's genuinley in the movie.
- It's exactly that. Detect where there are ads in a scene ( a panel for example) and replace the space with their own ads.
Kind if reminds me of the scene in The Truman Show when they talk about the cereal to the hidden camera.
omegaverse softcore porn drama

😏

They called me crazy.

I’m more than happy to buy a TV that uses post-purchase monetization, because I am never going to connect that fucker to the internet. It’s a display. I shall use it as a display. I do not care that it can replace my streaming box. I fully control my streaming box, and I will use that.

If I catch it doing any sketchy shit like trying to use unsecured/Comcast/etc WiFi to phone home, it’ll be time to pull out the screwdriver, though.

What happens when it no longer needs your WiFi and uses something like LoRa to phone home with your data and location? It may not know who you are exactly but it'll have a good guess.
- What happens when it no longer needs your WiFi and uses something like LoRa to phone home with your data and location? It may not know who you are exactly but it’ll have a good guess.
  
  I mean....what happens when it becomes sentient, sprouts legs and you catch it sleeping with your spouse?
  
  Let's deal with the here and now.
- Screwdriver.
- What's Lora?

Why do we continue to be ok with this? Where is the outrage and call for change?

the overwhelming bulk of humanity cant be fucked to care about shit like this.. until it personally affects them.

Then they will wail like banshees about the great injustice of it all, and how could anyone let it happen to them.
It's there, but people forget about it when they can get a 4" bigger TV for 100 bucks less.
Because it works and provides a use case. Most "simpletons" do not want to invest any more time in than putting some Account Data and start watching netflix or whatever. "We" (e.g. the people that care about data privacy and stuff) never have been okay with that shit...
- Simpletons LOL get a grip

Just disconnect your TV from the Internet and get an Apple TV.

First yes, second no.

The dumber the device the happier the user.
- Apple TV doesn't try to do much other than being a very technically capable passthrough. You get pretty much every streaming service, multiple Plex clients etc. And no ads.
  
  My 1st Gen ATV4K is 7 years old now and was buttery smooth until last tvOS update, now it's only slightly smoother than most high end TVs. That's quite a good run.
- Agree, of all the companies out there, Apple isn't the one I entrust with my data. Pretty happy with my Nvidia Shield instead, the OS is open enough to allow monitoring all telemetry, and I'm happy to say that after switching everything off that Android enabled by default, nothing really gets out there. I've sniffed connections on my router as well, and it only really connects to where it should.
  
  Edit: Aww look, I've triggered the fanboys ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Technical fixes only work for the technical and often it's technically working against the law. We need the law on our side, not the corporations. So we need to engage with law as much as technology. Or we end having to break technologies like secure boot and laws.

Do you really think the lawmakers would listen to the poor instead of corporations?
- We have wins before, via groups like EEF. There are Pirate Parties and all kind of Right To Repair and digital freedom groups. The corporations don't want us to fight or even have a voice.
- There are ways, yes
- if people like Louis Rossman can change legislation in our favor (talking about right to repair), I don't see why not

“CTV” is a new term that I wasn’t familiar with.

It's also slightly confusing because CTV is a major TV station in Canada. I've never heard CTV to mean Connected TV.
- I'm not even Canadian and the CTV television station is what came to mind. Have also never heard "CTV" to mean connected TV.

Of course they are without any data privacy laws companies are going to collect and then sell as much of your personal data that they can get away with.

The situation is really bad for consumers. Even with a Pi-Hole and a dumb TV and something like a Fire TV stick (they tend to send lots of telemetry too and apps like Toggo will nag you to oblivion to consent to data mining - if an app asks at all that is).

I'm slowly building up a Jellyfin library and yeah I jumped the hoops to find a non-smart TV. Wrote about it at https://beko.famkos.net/2022/11/27/on-non-smart-tvs/ and settled with a https://www.homex.eu/u55nt1000.html that ticked all my boxes:

☑ ~~cheap~~ affordable ☑ 4k (UHD) ☑ ~~dumb~~ non-Smart ☑ HDMI ☑ 55″

No idea about it's tuner though[1] alas it's not really any longer available in any market space today and I hope it will not die on us any time soon or the quest to find a new one starts again 🤓

[1] We've a decent external receiver that does all the work and HDMI juggling but even that thing is on the WiFi for software updates and in-house streaming but from what I can tell it behaves at least, which is probably just because it's old by now.

Article about technology being used against people

Posted by ZeroCool, known hacker extraordinare

Wake up, sheeple!

My current tv is a 42” I got in 2012. I would love to upgrade to a bigger one, but I don’t wanna get a lame smart tv.

I'm on the same boat 44" tv, from ages ago. Connected to my linux reinstalled asus chromebox. Freedom baby yeah!
You can get a smart TV and just not use any of the smart features. My TVs are on a separate VLAN with no internet access, so I can still control them via Home Assistant but they can't reach out to the outside world. I use Nvidia Shields for streaming.

Fuckingcapitalists

Ahh yes, unlike all those non-capitalist modern nations with their complete lack of widespread insidious surveillance.
The non-capitalist solutions have been here all along, mostly things licensed under copyleft. But people just need to have the wherewithal to actually use these solutions.

Since telling them that Bork's video rentals could be made public got them the pass the VPPA, maybe telling them their TVs know all the freaky porn they watch will get them to pass a comprehensive digital privacy bill.

Though I'd have to use photosynthesis if I wanted to hold my breath.

My next purchase will be a dumb tv with a media stick.

Unfortunately it's very hard to buy a decent dumb TV these days.
- Video projectors are available, though.
- For smart tv, they recommend just never give access to internet. And look if it has some kind of monitor mode so it always launch display on the hdmi port.
- Buy a monitor, not a TV

What would you guys recommend for a dumb TV with a good quality panel in the 65-75" range that's a available to buy in the EU? My intention is to hook it up to my own device (probably a mini PC running some Linux distro with Kodi and some other stuff).

Eizo or iiyama monitors are very good imo. The other use raspberry pi ( or anything else ) + tv card
- Thanks. Anything more specific in mind? I know Eizo for their monitors for colour-critical work and from looking on their site I'm only able to find a 50 something inch model that's probably very expensive (I think it was in their medical lineup). As for iiyama, they have some 65 and 75" models for e-signage, but they're running Android.

this article is a load of bollocks;

i really love my smart idiot box!

but wait, this may sound bad,

we interrupt this limerick for an ad --

have you thought of switching to our socks?

This is beautiful.
There once was a man who went mad

When YouTube kept forcing an ad

They kept crossing his border,

So he bought this camcorder

Now he's looping his own tape of a cat.

I just use an Apple TV connected to my TV which isn’t connected to any network. I hook it up every now and again to update the software when there are new features available related to picture/sound.

I also run a Jellyfin server for most of my streaming needs.

Apple TV most certainly collects information too...
Do most smart TVs still allow performing updates via USB? I have an older LG TV which does this.

So this is why my TV walked into the bathroom while I was dropping a deuce. 🤔

While they are at it take a look at car manufacturers too.

I bought a commercial digital signage TV. No Roku/Chromecast/whatever, but the damn thing STILL has Ethernet and Wi-Fi and nagged me about setting it up on the internet. I'm only buying computer monitors from here on out.

Even monitors are beginning to become "smart" now...

So which brand is the better of em? I just received my pi so I’ll set up a pi hole but I need a tv. I looked at conference room monitors and they’re too expensive, even on eBay. I could just not connect it to the net, yes, but I can tell ya right now that the other people in the house will definitely connect it to the net and not have patience for using the pc, etc

I'd recommend getting a Hisense Android (or Google) TV since they let you set it up without creating an account, then use "adb uninstall --user 0 ..." to completely debloat it (including removing Google apps). Then you can use your router to block internet access to the TV's MAC address, along with setting the TV's DNS server to 0.0.0.0, which will redirect all DNS traffic to a black hole, effectively blocking internet access.

Also replace the launcher with LeanbackOnFire and the keyboard with LeanKey Keyboard while you're at it. Note that replacing the launcher will block the Input button on the remote from working, but LeanbackOnFire will allow you to access the inputs from the homescreen. You can also use Button Mapper to remap whichever remote button you want to whichever HDMI input you want using an Android broadcast signal, but that's a bit more advanced and requires reading adb logcat logs to figure out how to switch inputs using the proper command.

If you're feeling super adventurous, you can dump the boot.img using UART in the Uboot bootloader and root the device after unlocking the bootloader. Note that you will need to enable UART in the service menu before unlocking the bootloader since unlocking the bootloader will make integrity checks fail (including certain DRM), which will also make the service menu inaccessible.

Additional note: disabling Google apps will make the stock launcher stop working, so you will need to install a replacement launcher before debloating.
So which brand is the better of em?

I haven't found one that isn't shit, sadly.

That said, I installed Android TV on a Raspberry Pi 4, connected that to a TV via HDMI, and have all the features (and way more) of a Smart TV or Roku, without the OS level ads or spying.

Don’t forget that if you connect external devices to them, they’re also taking snapshots of the content “so they can serve targeted ads”.

Do you know a credible source to read about it, please?
- Roku’s patent

I dumbedcmy smart tv by disconnected it from the internet. The stupid thing is the tv was requesting internet connection to work, so I had to put it on my network and then block everything so the tv pouted and then shut up.

Now I switch to a Fire tv usb stick on it but god I hate it..

the tv was requesting internet connection to work

What tv is that? Just so I know what to avoid
- Samsung tv, after a bad update.

To dumb your TV, just don't connect it to the internet. Get a SFF pc or something and use that to watch your series/movies. My TV functions as a monitor.

What do I do? I don't live in the US, by the way.

If just using a Smart TV for a computer monitor, what is the easiest way to keep it from sending your information? Just keeping it away from WiFi? Would it be able to connect via your HDMI?

Never connect to wifi. Don't agree to the ToS. It can't connect to your network via hdmi.

We have a PiHole running and the TV makes constant attempts to connect to home-base.
The other person said to never connect to wifi, but I'd say either put it on an isolated wifi (guest network) and lock it down to LAN-only access in your router, if at all possible.

The reason being that these devices are aggressive about getting a wifi signal, and even if they can't connect to yours, they'll apparently search for unprotected wifi networks and connect to those to send data and phone home. Locking it down to LAN only prevents this, and isolating to a guest network means no information about other devices on your network.

It's utterly insane we have to do this stuff. If you're willing to spend more, there are commercial signage displays you can buy that are essentially dumb TVs, and that is pretty much the only way to get a dumb TV today (and obviously, don't expect smart features from it).

Asstechnica site itself is failing my trackers filter. 😂