The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8qbq5x/the-cia-spied-on-people-through-their-smart-tvs-leaked-documents-reveal

by sky_nox • 7 years ago

381 183 7 years ago

vice.com

pinewurst• 7 years ago

(2017)

sctb• 7 years ago

Thanks!

derpherpsson• 7 years ago

This does not go away.

That people treat this as news is for me an indication that people simply don't either read the news, or don't remember them.

I hope people maybe remembers now when they read it the 2nd time.. The US surveillance machine needs to stop.

sky_nox• 7 years ago

'Samsung itself is aware of these risks. In its privacy policy, the company warned customers to be aware that "if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition." The language reminded some of the George Orwell classic dystopian novel 1984.'

IshKebab2• 7 years ago

That quote doesn't show Samsung's thoughts on the risk of hacking at all, and it shouldn't remind anyone of 1984. It's just a statement of how all voice recognition currently works.

serf• 7 years ago

It's just a statement of how all voice recognition currently works.

Amazon has said on numerous occasions that no data transfer occurs without a trigger word hitting the mic -- a feature that was a main point when discussing the safety of having an always-on internet-connected mic in the house.

As for whether or not they're telling the truth, I don't know; but trigger-words have always been a feature that Amazon loved mentioning from a security/privacy standpoint.

mikeash• 7 years ago

iOS can do voice recognition processing entirely locally for many languages. I’m sure the same is true for Android.

java-man• 7 years ago

devoply• 7 years ago

Hey wiretap show me my favorite show. Hey wall with ears tell me the weather.

LinuxBender2• 7 years ago

And people thought I was weird for dancing by myself in front of my TV. The poor folks at the CIA will never un-see that.

tenpies• 7 years ago

I like leaving a device playing a number station[1] in front of devices I know can be accessed by government actors. Then I'll say random gibberish when I'm around so that the audio recording does not perfectly match the Youtube source.

---

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIH7cG3YmIo is a good start

mitchty• 7 years ago

People think i'm weird for never hooking my smart tv up to the network. It works, why does it need to be online?

vernie• 7 years ago

I guess your definition of "works" differs from theirs.

edejong3• 7 years ago

You are counting on the WiFi module not to be remote hackable?

felipemnoa• 7 years ago

At least you were not dancing in front of your microwave.

sureaboutthis4• 7 years ago

I find it interesting that so many people think they are so important that the CIA would be interested in them.

Or that they think there are enough intelligence agency employees to bother.

LinuxBender2• 7 years ago

I enjoy the idea of them staring at me all day long.

That said, it's not the CIA I would be overly concerned about. It's the skiddies that learn how to implement the same level of access. Imagine a child predator watching your kids in their room. Worse, they know when a latch-key kids parent is not there. Combine this with Wifi SSID data from wigle.net and they have your street address.

astazangasta6• 7 years ago

1) If you aren't important enough that the CIA would be interested in you, why not? Make it so.

2) There are plenty of innocuous people that fall under this category. Anti-war protestors, e.g., have been regular targets for this kind of activity (LBJ ordered the CIA to spy on the anti-war movement). Maybe you're politically inert, but not everyone else is.

stcredzero• 7 years ago

On the Max Headroom TV show, it became illegal for people to turn off their TVs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_(TV_series)#Plot

Would it be outlandish for the tech industry to lobby that Smart TVs and computers be given a 911 style emergency calling system, then for emergency dispatchers to have access to surveillance information, then for such devices to be required to be turned on all the time?

jetrink• 7 years ago

I think that was borrowed from 1984, which was published way back in 1949!

“Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely. [...] Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it.”

pjc50• 7 years ago

Like the European "ecall" mandate for cars to automatically call in their GPS position if involved in an accident?

xvector• 7 years ago

I mean it's not like your TV ever truly turns "off", is it? A lot of them power on at least the red/green LED light showing that it's "off" and who knows what else.

chopin• 7 years ago

I have a hard switch on the AC outlet for exactly this reason.

avionicsguy• 7 years ago

A TV set never turns off! It is well known in the industry. Standby usually just turns of the LCD, backlight and changes LED colour.

Try this: Switch TV to standby then turn on. Time how long this takes. Unplug TV for 30 seconds plug in and then turn on. It will take a while for the TV to boot from cold start.

Manufacturers have been doing this since CRTs.

morpheuskafka3• 7 years ago

The CIA should be completely abolished. Unlike the FBI, it does not seek to enforce any laws whatsoever; instead, they operate with absolutely zero oversight, there only rule being that they're not supposed to be involved in domestic matters. I wouldn't be surprised if they tag-team with other friendly agencies like MI6 to spy on each other's domestic targets so as not to violate that rule.

myrandomcomment3• 7 years ago

Yes, because not having an Intelligence agency is a great idea for national security. You know the LAPD beat a man a few times. We should totally get rid of them also.

A rational proposal for over-site and control would be a useful comment.

ggm• 7 years ago

A rational proposal for closure and reinstitution under a different founding principle? "Because everybody does it" isn't actually good enough.

dgzl• 7 years ago

The US spy and intelligence agencies frequently infringe on domestic and international human rights, and many people would rather they didn't exist. Some people don't even consider the agencies to be constitutional. Your sarcastic comments are certainly not useful.

KorematsuFred• 7 years ago

If you do not like LAPD it is very simple for LA residents to decide how to fix them. Part of the reason why SFPD does not simply shoot many of the hobos dead it because SF population has neccessary oversight on these cops.

CIA on other hand runs amock. It is the biggest supplier of weapons to Islamic terrorists who have eventually turned on USA.American citizens have very little control on CIA.

ohithereyou2• 7 years ago

The CIA is not the only intelligence agency that the US has. Furthermore, most of what the CIA does should be the duty of the State Department.

On a more pedantic point, shutting down the CIA is the ultimate in oversight - you don't have to watch for crimes from an organization that does not exist.

freeflight2• 7 years ago

Yes, because not having an Intelligence agency is a great idea for national security.

It's not like the CIA is the only intelligence agency the USG has. Without the CIA there'd still be 16 other intelligence agencies left [0].

[0] https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-17-intelligence-agencie...

igivanov• 7 years ago

what has intelligence and national security to do with the things the CIA is best known for: endless subversive acts, overthrows of governments, creating and enabling terrorists, assassinations, torture programs, extraordinary renditions? if anything it's quite the opposite.

WillPostForFood6• 7 years ago

they operate with absolutely zero oversight

There is extensive oversight of the CIA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com...

there[sic] only rule being that they're not supposed to be involved in domestic matters

There are extensive rules, law, regulations, and executive orders governing the CIA. Many are listed or referenced in this document.

https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/privacy-and-civil-liberties/CI...

morpheuskafka3• 7 years ago

Per your first article, the President has the discretion to limit reporting of intelligence activities to only eight members of Congress (all of whom, by definition, belong to the two major parties). That means most of the representatives and senators who we elect to actually vote on the laws governing and funding the CIA don't even get access to briefings on all of its activities (meanwhile, nearly 5 million Americans have a security clearance).

xkcd-sucks• 7 years ago

But when have these laws been enforced? When have any CIA leaders suffered the consequences of breaking these laws? What impartial party is in a position to determine that the CIA is in compliance with the law? What recourse is available when it's proven that law has been violated?

astazangasta6• 7 years ago

The oversight is a joke. The CIA tortured people throughout its history, including following 9/11; what oversight did they face as a result? What were the consequences? More funding for running their drone program?

DiogenesKynikos2• 7 years ago

That "extensive oversight" apparently involves the CIA spying on a Senate committee investigating CIA torture, and the CIA deleting documents in order to hide them from the Senate:

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/213933-cia-admits-to-w...

astazangasta6• 7 years ago

I have been reading Tim Weiner's excellent "Legacy of Ashes", a history of the CIA. Everyone should read it; it won a national book award and is generally well-researched and sourced.

What it indicates is that the CIA is essentially a long-running unconstitutional operation, and that every president since WWII has made use of the CIA to conduct covert actions in foreign countries that are entirely illegal, including operations like subverting elections, deposing governments, assassinating foreign leaders, running drugs, and more. Every President should basically have been impeached for running these covert actions, the Constitution has no authority for the President to wage undeclared wars and conduct hostile actions whenever they feel like it.

There is another branch of the CIA that conducts intelligence analysis; there might be some room for this half of the CIA, but this function has always been secondary, and has the problematic history of constantly tailoring what it says to satisfy the political demands of the President or Pentagon.

We'd be better to replace the CIA with a new agency, one which doesn't conduct covert action, and whose mandate is to make public intelligence assessments (because the public needs to be informed of these things in a democracy) rather than secret ones. The clandestine nature of the service should disappear entirely.

morpheuskafka3• 7 years ago

This is exactly what I'm saying. The CIA is not the only secretive and corrupt organization. But the CIA is the only one that has no role--by design--in either law enforcement or legitimate military action. The Army might be secretive, but if you're in the Army, you wear a dog tag and an American flag on your shoulder. If you're in the FBI, you wear a badge and give testimony in court. If you're in the CIA, you illegally enter a foreign country, commit crimes there, and are not bound by laws of war or rule of law.

The CIA essentially operates outside the framework of all laws and doesn't have any sort of international standards. Even war--legalized killing--has the Geneva Conventions, laws of war, etc. The CIA just does whatever it wants, almost always violating the laws and sovereignty of a foreign country while doing so, with no public, legislative approval. What the military is doing in the middle east is secretive and abusive but there is, however broad, an AUMF on the public record saying why we're there. If a solider gets captured in a foreign country, we don't just pretend we didn't send them there. The CIA can just deny that it even operates there forever. That's what I mean by no oversight.

sureaboutthis4• 7 years ago

Only if the Chinese, Russians, Germans, et al, promise to do the same thing.

Iv• 7 years ago

Why wouldn't they? In the current legal environment, that would be unprofessional and even a misconduct for them not to acquire these capabilities.

espeed• 7 years ago

There's a microphone in the Samsung TV smart remote.

bilbo0s• 7 years ago

In the actual tv's too in some cases.

pfundstein• 7 years ago

I think you mean telescreen

johnhenry• 7 years ago

Aside from wanting to protect its citizens from foreign spying; I have to wonder if another reason for the US's curtailing Huawei is to simply eliminate the competition?

sirmoveon• 7 years ago

People with technical knowledge at this point shouldn't doubt this perspective anymore. No evidence of wrong doing was published, and the claim of the possibility of the Chinese government making Huawei do their bidding at some point, is no different from what other governments have been doing, including the U.S. (and getting caught in the wrong doing).

There's no shame in the hypocresy. It's a blatant attempt to damage Huawei.

I have no sympathy for what the Chinese government does to subdue everyone under their power, but the Americans seem to have been historically better at playing the victim and getting away with it while still managing to curtail on others.

w72• 7 years ago

That doesn't make sense to me. Especially given the GHCQ's break down of Huawei gear finding that Huawei can't even do version control right (they had revisions of firmware with the same version id for the same hardware with different build characteristics), and magically reintroducing vulnerabilities from 2006. Personally I feel that Huawei gear would be ripe for exploitation and then misdirection.

I don't get why people are so hung up on proof though. There doesn't have to be proof. No one who I've talked to in the networking industry cares about proof (this includes myself). Hell China already bans companies at will. The only thing that matters is enough of a non-zero chance of Huawei releasing malicious firmware updates to select targets in the future. Judging by their inability to have firmware revisions that completely match in functionality who knows if they're already doing so at a smaller scale.

jwhite• 7 years ago

I don't disagree with the general realpolitik you describe, but it's not clear that damaging Huawei isn't damaging the USA as well. American companies supply Huawei, and their business is being harmed; and American consumers buy Huawei equipment -- if Huawei is excluded from the US market then presumably that may have an inflationary impact on substitutes, so American consumers will be paying more for certain goods.

Wouldn't this also have been considered as part of the decision to ban Huawei? And yet the administration proceeded anyway.

Bendingo• 7 years ago

The western governments (in this case the UK) don't seem serious about the Chinese security scare, when they allow Chinese company to take part in the F-35 program.

[1] https://www.rt.com/news/461918-chinese-company-f35-parts/

mulmen7• 7 years ago

RT is a propaganda outlet, this isn't compelling.

deehouie• 7 years ago

This piece challenges the current narrative you read in the press. China is an evil surveillance state that spies on its citizens and the rest of the world.

Now we know. The greatest democracy of the world also spies on its citizen and the rest of the world.

dsl• 7 years ago

This is just extreme whataboutism.

There is a vast difference between China spying on and locking people up for being the wrong religion, and the CIA secretly recording a conversation about the planning of a bombing.

pessimizer• 7 years ago

That's true, but there's also a vast difference between the CIA spying on and locking people up for being the wrong religion, and China secretly recording a conversation about the planning of a bombing.

Similarities between the two governments are that they would both characterize their spying on, imprisoning, and torture of religious minorities as preventing potential bombings, and characterize their counterparts as oppressive police states. China might have the stronger case, as they have about a quarter of the prisoners per-capita that the US does.

raxxorrax3• 7 years ago

This is just extreme whataboutism.

No.

There is a vast difference between China spying

No.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_by_the...

careful, long page.

ei8htyfi5e3• 7 years ago

I gave a talk in China 5 years warning about this. http://tech.qq.com/a/20140527/035512.htm I asked vendors to make changes to their products, such as planned obsolescence so if the manufacturer goes out of business and a device doesn't hear from the mother ship for awhile, all internet connections are killed for good. Also, to set smart defaults so that even when not configured, it won't allow this behavior. There should be a list of more in the article but you'll have to translate to see them.

itake• 7 years ago

(Un?)Fortunately, a few countries made planned obsolescence illegal :-/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42615378

discordance• 7 years ago

As long as this sort of planned obsolescence only kills the connectivity feature, and keeps the rest of the device functioning/useable that sounds good

ggg2• 7 years ago

except they will be (very) easy pickings for malware that do their own thing. e.g. Mirai botnet.

it's very backward to suggest planned obsolescence as a security feature instead of open software/standards

ei8htyfi5e3• 7 years ago

Funny story on the talk title. I called it Evil Toasters are Coming: The coming IoT Security Apocalypse. But nobody in China owns a toaster, so the metaphor was lost on them. #LocalizeForYourAudienceFolks

jonathanstrange• 7 years ago

I think you forgot the most important feature: Physical on/off switches for cameras and microphones. These should be mandated by law in any device, even smartphones.

ei8htyfi5e3• 7 years ago

This was in the talk. ...and I built these into my cameras that I made at my first startup, Waylens.com. They're super important in convincing people to put a connected camera in their vehicle where sensitive things are mentioned. I wonder why more manufacturers dont do this.

jmalkin• 7 years ago

I've gotten nothing out of my Smart TV that I couldn't have gotten from a Chromecast, or preferably, a laptop hooked up to a TV.

And I've lost a lot. My TV is slow. When I try to control the volume, sometimes I have to wait multiple seconds.

And things stop working all the time and require a reboot.

I hate the damn thing. It even comes with bloatware for some reason, games I'll never play that it insists on updating forever.

And with the privacy concerns on top of all that, I wish I had a dumb TV.

My shit cube TV from the 90s was better!

GuiA• 7 years ago

Don't buy it.

(Older TVs of excellent quality can be found second hand for very cheap)

voltagex_• 7 years ago

Older TVs also use more power (and put out more heat).

You'll eventually find your game consoles, Blu ray players etc no longer function with the TV as it doesn't support whatever the latest HDCP standard is.

pmontra• 7 years ago

I bought a LG smart TV because it was only 50 Euro more expensive than the non smart one and its display was much better. I never configured its WiFi so it's as dumb as any other TV set but I enjoy the screen.

agotterer• 7 years ago

I also hate my Samsung smart tv. On a fresh “turn on”, before I can load any app I have to wait for the tv to “sign in”. This can take up to 20 seconds.

tomc1985• 7 years ago

I have a Samsung smart TV and the best thing I ever did was not accept the EULA and never plugged it into the network

test6554• 7 years ago

I have resisted the urge to buy a new tv for 11 years. I own the same 48" non-smart Sony I've always had. I have always felt like the grass would be greener if I were to buy one of those 65" LG OLED tvs, but thank you for setting me straight.

This old TV is 5 inches thick, but it turns on in 2 seconds. I hooked an amazon fire tv into one HDMI port. I also have a sonos "connect" hooked up to the audio-out so that I can play my TV audio through my ceiling speakers when I want.

But it's just a display, so I can plug and play the capabilities I want. I can even tell alexa to open up plex while the TV is off and the fire TV must send a signal through the hdmi port because the tv turns on and it loads plex.

osamagirl69• 7 years ago

Just wanted to chime in since you specifically mentioned the "65" LG OLED", which is the same TV I have (specifically the OLED65B6P). When plugged into the internet it has all of the usual unfeatures (including ads displayed over hdmi input), however if you leave it unplugged from the internet it works great and boots up almost instantly to the last input selected without any fuss. Furthermore, the HDMI CEC commands work as expected (in both directions--control of the tv from the computer and control of the computer from the TV with all of the expected buttons on the remote being passed through). The set is also quite good about supporting legacy S/PDIF (optical) passthrough so I haven't needed to replace my receiver.

So far the only feature I have been unsatisfied is that for some reason the set does not auto-shutoff when the hdmi input is not active. For example, I had it hooked up to a computer which was set to turn the monitor off after 15 minutes and instead of the TV shutting off it displayed an 'input disconnected' screen. As a stopgap solution I set the computer to have a 'screensaver' that is all black instead of turning the monitor off--which works pretty OK since the OLED is completely 'off' when displaying a blank screen. The only downside is that the the electronics in the TV stay running, so the power consumption in this state is about 20w.

neilv• 7 years ago

I managed to score a similar Sony TV on CraigsList a couple years ago. I plugged it into a DVD-1080p-upscaling Blu-ray player without WiFi. My local public library has a better catalog than Netflix, on disc, so I canceled Netflix. The TV chassis looks a little dated, but the picture and sound are great, and, on principle, I'm violated slightly less than before (by my own "tech" industry).

astrange2• 7 years ago

I have one of those LG OLED TVs and everything about it is just fine. It's perfectly fast; the OS is based on Palm webOS, so it's okay, but you still don't have to touch it. They are regularly for sale at less than half retail price if you wait six months.

The only ergonomic problem is devices fighting each other over HDMI CEC; if I turn it on to use the Switch, then the Bluray player likes to turn itself on, force the TV to switch to it, and then start autoplaying a disc!

T3OU-736• 7 years ago

Panasonic, back in the plasma days, used to have a "professional" line. Those were plasma monitors (no built-in tuner, no sound processing at all), and it had modular inputs. There are 3 slots for I/O cards. Can still find the cards on ebay under the "Panasonic HDMI TV Boards" search results.

eljimmy• 7 years ago

Up until recently I was using a 12 year old 46" Sony Bravia and upgraded to an LG OLED and I have to say, the difference in screen alone was well worth it.

hn232• 7 years ago

Well, if you have Alexa in your home...what is the difference? Alexa and all these 'smart' gadgets call home. You have a microphone that is always ON. Recordings are stored and manually analyzed by subcontractors of Amazon. There is no fancy AI. Why shouldn't the $Agency use this channel as well?

Mr_Manager• 7 years ago

Personally a big fan of my Samsung smart TV. Although the Twitch app was recently removed which is a tad annoying.

raxxorrax3• 7 years ago

I've gotten nothing out of my Smart TV that I couldn't have gotten from a Chromecast

But you wouldn't get the security service from the CIA. They should just do tests like they do for paternity.

Tests have concluded to certainty of 99,9% that jmalkin is no domestic terrorist.

Maybe they would even have a printable version you could pin on your walls.

datenhorst3• 7 years ago

In Europe, people have started purchasing so-called public displays instead of Smart TVs and just hook up a Chromecast/Pi/Fire TV Stick to it. This is especially common in countries where one can avoid public broadcasting fees by doing so.

apexalpha• 7 years ago

Didn't now the concept but they're tv's without tuners?

INTPenis• 7 years ago

You mean projectors? Because that would explain why I rarely see youtube ads on chromecast hooked up to my projector. As soon as it plays on my tablet ads show up.

SaturateDK• 7 years ago

I'll do this for my next "TV", however I might never buy a new one really. Unless it dies I don't really feel the need to upgrade it.

agopaul• 7 years ago

What do you mean with "public displays"? I researched a little bit before buying my TV and couldn't find decent options in terms of cost, size and quality of the panel.

neetodavid• 7 years ago

I think I have heard these displays (no smart TV features) referred to as 'Digital Signage' in North America.

Theodores• 7 years ago

Remember hi-fi separates? The true music audiophiles would have half a dozen boxes for their hifi. Kind of need the same where everything just does one job well. So the screen is a screen, not some screen with built in set top box. Ideally it doesn't even have speakers built in, again separates for that. It should also not have a remote but just wake up to a signal and play it.

Is this a monitor? Maybe. Monitors are not designed to show the football. You turn your computer on and they turn on. You can plug a Chromecast in and get whatever you want beamed to them.

There has to be a market for a generic display panel that doesn't do much apart from show the picture. But when a SoC costs little and might as well have the wifi then it isn't going to happen.

CloudNetworking• 7 years ago

My Samsung from late 2017 works a charm. The apps and the interface in general are snappy. It comes with the classic remote and a new one with only a few buttons that's pretty amazing (and has a mic to help the CIA on getting the sound too lol).

I paid £750 for the 55" version. I would never buy something like a Toshiba because of the software and I'm keeping a very close eye to Samsung to see for how long I can keep using the integrated software to watch Netflix, Prime Video, NowTV, Disney, etc without a Chromecast or Fire stick or Apple TV (and with only one remote for everything, including my BT set and the Xbox!)

decoyworker• 7 years ago

The only smart feature that I love is the ability to play 4k HDR videos from a USB drive. With that said, I will never connect the thing to my network.

mulmen7• 7 years ago

I have not been excited about the release of a new consumer product in well over 5 years. The last real improvement in a consumer device for me was the iPhone 6s and even then I preferred the older form factor.

I no longer look forward to the release of any new device or expect it to make my life better in any way. I just assume it will spy on me and/or exploit some weakness in my subconscious.

When my current TV dies I might just go back to having no TV at all.

mlang23• 7 years ago

I terminated all my TV related subscriptions over the past two years and now also finally sold my TV. One of my best moves ever. I am not missing anything, have a lot more useful spare time, and save around 1k a year.

narnianal• 7 years ago

The question is how much this matters if you already have 2-5 active microphones listening in when there are two normal people in the room. I bet if the CIA wants they can get enough data from the audio alone to even say who looked at whom during a conversation.

stevesimmons• 7 years ago

I hate my Samsung Smart TV too. It auto-installed a Rakuten TV app that several times a week would switch from the only channel we watch (BBC News) to channel 4000 showing trailers for its video-on-demand pay per view service.

Samsung makes it very hard to uninstall this 'feature' and even kills threads about it on its web site support forum.

I had to got back to the shop I bought it from and threaten to return the TV as defective unless they sent instructions for permanently removing it.

Samsung, you should be ashamed of yourself, taking such an obviously anti-customer stance. My next TV certainly won't be a Samsung.

And hopefully several other people reading this won't buy a Samsung either. Vote with your wallet, folks!

imglorp• 7 years ago

So did they finally show you how to remove that app? What did that entail?

9HZZRfNlpR2• 7 years ago

CIA is able to spy but Samsung doesn't even get screen mirroring work on my TV. Thankfully, I disabled the internet connectivity and forget about it, it turned out to be a good thing maybe.

Where to get modern TVs screen wise but dumb ones? Monitors go up to only somewhat limited dimension's. Anyone have ideas? Buy the screen from LG and build yourself?

nfoz• 7 years ago

To find modern dumb TVs, you usually need to look at the "commercial" or "business" lines (sometimes called "digital signage). Companies make them hard to find.

I have a 55" 4K LG dumb tv and I'm very happy with it: https://www.lg.com/ca_en/commercial-tv/lg-55UX340C-public-di...

It's just a tv. It turns on and off quick. The remote-control is simple. The only downside is it only has 2 HDMI inputs, and it doesn't do HDR.

titzer2• 7 years ago

It is now completely legitimate to be afraid of every single thing connected to the internet. Thanks technology!

mulmen7• 7 years ago

I remember a time when typing your credit card number into a webpage was madness.

dschuetz• 7 years ago

I knew a guy who worked on his paper about smart TVs and their potential exploitation vectors. That was back in 2015. His supervisor wrote that paper off bluntly as "scientifically not relevant". Oh well.

ovi256• 7 years ago

The supervisor can still be right! Scientific relevance and societal relevance are at odds all the time. Just look at cosmology or any other field with very very long term, slim, payoff and huge costs. As much as we curiosity oriented people dislike it, satifsying our curiosity about the origin of the universe has very low impact. The most impact probably comes from the theoretical understanding that results in new engineering capabilities to build new weapons, industrial machines or energy sources. |But then the question can be asked "why not fund that research direction directly ?"

titzer2• 7 years ago

The Internet of Things is a surveillance entity's wet dream. And we are sleep-walking right into it.

mulmen7• 7 years ago

Everyone is fully aware of the implications here. Even most consumers know the risks, they just don't care. The sad part isn't that people are stupid, it's that they are smart and just don't care.

bigbluedots• 7 years ago

I own a Samsung Smart TV, and I'd be interested in removing or disabling the microphone. Any ideas?

mulmen7• 7 years ago

Yeah, try a screwdriver. Or a wood chipper.

Wear your PPE.

thesmok• 7 years ago

Image search "mems microphone" to get an idea of how it looks. There is a hole in the microphone body – fill it with glue. Or just remove the microphone.

mikorym• 7 years ago

Is it still possible to buy HD TVs that are not smart? That's a niche that may interest HN readers; I prefer smartness through a peripheral...

KozmoNau7• 7 years ago

You can buy monitors made for commercial usage, such as signage. They'll be simple monitors with no TV tuner or "smart" functionality, and they'll be built to better resist burn-in.

They'll also cost you at least 2-3 times as much as an equivalent consumer TV.

aembleton• 7 years ago

There are a few, such as this one https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8159898

hn232• 7 years ago

Louis: Really? Inspector: Sure! Louis: Ohh!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4aLThuU008

sureaboutthis4• 7 years ago

to secretly spy on targets

Apparently everyone here thinks so much of themselves that they think they are important enough to be a target.

heyflyguy• 7 years ago

The tinfoil hat people get more and more correct, being validated at every turn.

Tistel• 7 years ago

I bought a Philips 4k tv which works ok. But, when I plug it into my ethernet and hit the software update button it says it can't find the host. So I am guessing they hard coded the wrong IP/URL into the firmware. I am sure are there is some USB firmware patch I can do, but, I don't want to risk turning it into a giant doorstop/brick.

ChicagoBoy11• 7 years ago

Isn't the most obvious fix for this never connecting the TV to the internet in the first place? If your TV works the day you buy it, why do you need to connect it so it gets "firmware" updates? in some respect, isn't the user still capable of making their SmartTV a "dumb" TV?

musicale• 7 years ago

Who'd have thought that always-on, internet-connected cameras and microphones could be used for spying on you?

peter_d_sherman• 7 years ago

"In America, you watch television. In Soviet Russia, television watches you!" <g>

-Comedian Yakov Smirnoff (http://wiki.c2.com/?InSovietRussia)

The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)

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