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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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.
I guess I’ll stick with my 2012 Toshiba 55" dumb TV.
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.
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.
On my Sony Bravia running Android you can just disable the Samba app from running same as you’d disable any app in Android.
What 4K TV can I buy that doesn’t do this guys help? Or should I stick to monitors???
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.
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? 🤷♂️
Do you remember the model number? I would like to research this.
You can’t activate the warranty without it. Then once it knows it can go online it will constantly harass you.
“You can’t activate the warranty without it” That’s illegal in most of the world
Calm down, it’s a TV.
I got xiaomi, opened it up and disconnected the Bluetooth / wifi card. Connect it to a linux device and now it is a shitter version of a dumb tv. It’s crazy how smart tvs really really suck at being dumb. But it does work once you get used to some annoying quirks.
Tip: connect a cheap air mouse/keyboard to it as a remote
You can buy any TV. Just turn off the tracking in the settings and plug in a streaming stick.
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.
HEC feature enables IP-based applications over HDMI and provides a bidirectional Ethernet communication at 100 Mbit/s
I think the bandwidth is too slow for HD/4K Streams.
I am sure the 100 Mbit/s must also be theoretical maximum, i would be impressed if practical cables supports even half the orignal specs
for streaming, yeah, for tracking its plenty
for streaming, yeah, for tracking its plenty
Apple TV is watching 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
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.
Turn the TV on and keep an eye on the logs. Many of the common blocklist already block that kind of telemetry.
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
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
What domain do I can make sure it’s blocked?
This
Thanks, looks like it’s on the Stevenblack list.
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
I’ve really gotta look into pihole.
Me too
It’s really been great
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.
My TV is not a smart TV, it’s not spying on me.
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.
Well, maybe a Hisense or a cheap soundbar might have a listening device, but they’ll be hard pressed to phone home.
no it isn’t. yours might be, but not mine.
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…?
My ACL says my TV can’t talk to the internet.
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.
Yep. My TV has not and never will be on the Internet in any way. I picked it for its screen quality, and the fact that it also has “smart” components never even entered into the decision. Because those smart components will literally never do anything.
