The CIA Spied on People Through Their Smart TVs, Leaked Documents Reveal (2017)
vice.com
vice.com
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!
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.
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.
I was very weary of buying a "smart" TV, but I wanted a 4K HDR one, and the public display market didn't seem interested in providing that.
Happily, the LG boots (or resumes, or whatever it does) very quickly and the only time I have to touch its remote control is if I've had the TV on for so long without using the remote that it thinks nobody's watching and turns itself off. I suppose there's a setting somewhere to change this, but it happens seldom enough that I haven't bothered.
What the hell?
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!
I _think_ so anyway because I almost never have 2 devices attached but seem to recall such a popup. Could be wrong :)
There's a good range to choose from as well these days: https://geizhals.eu/?cat=monplas
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.
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!)
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.
(Older TVs of excellent quality can be found second hand for very cheap)
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.
Yes, that's a computer screen. But it's 43". That's what you want. (I have it in my living room and you couldn't tell the difference).
If you insist on a dumb TV and are in Silicon Valley I'll sell you my Panasonic 1080p TV from ~7 years ago. It's got an IPS panel!
Some of these are non smart but large.
https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/geforce/products/big-format-gam...
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.
Luckily it's possible to check [0]! Although it gets a bit more complicated and can change, my understanding is that currently most people observe it increase it's network usage after it's trigger phrase, but not at other times (it uses the network for other stuff too, but audio data is typically rather large in comparison).
[0] https://www.iot-tests.org/2017/06/careless-whisper-does-amaz...
[1] 10.1007/s00779-018-1174-x <- Might want to use sci-hub
Conversely, if they were not doing that kind of thing, they could have removed that ambiguity from what they said.
What you should be asking with any "smart" device is "can I prove this device will do no harm to me".
Honestly I have never understood the value proposition of any smart device. Why would I want any of that functionality? Never once in my life have I ever wanted to talk to my TV. I'm beginning to (again) question the wisdom of carrying a smartphone.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...
In case the link doesn't work, it's US Patent 9922646.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...
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!
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?
“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.”
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.
it's very backward to suggest planned obsolescence as a security feature instead of open software/standards
That might work for _some_ devices with extremely large user bases.
Devices with specialist properties or a low number of users sound like they'd be very tricky to have that approach work reliably.
That being said, if there's wide adoption of "known good" base level firmware (eg powering on, init device capabilities) then maybe the specialist stuff could be add on's or something. eg modularising things might be a way to get closer to the goal
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.
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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIH7cG3YmIo is a good start
Or that they think there are enough intelligence agency employees to bother.
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.
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.
I have no interest in hurting anyone so the CIA has no interest in me
Now we know. The greatest democracy of the world also spies on its citizen and the rest of the world.
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.
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.
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/jun/22/inside-chin...
No.
> There is a vast difference between China spying
No.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_by_the...
careful, long page.
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.
Wouldn't this also have been considered as part of the decision to ban Huawei? And yet the administration proceeded anyway.
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.
The reason you look for proof is not that it gives you 100% security. It is the process of finding proof that helps us understand how secure a product is and what vulnerabilities need to be addressed. GHCQ's through examination of Huawei devices found problems with version control, and Huawei promised to fix those problems. This is how security could improve.
I think you also vastly underestimated how difficult it is to do version control for hardware due to extremely complex supply chain. If you examine products from any other brand, the situation is likely to be worse. I'm not suggesting Huawei's problems are acceptable. However, it is a misguided approach to decide which products are secure purely based on national origin rather technical merits.
Anyone using factory shipped firmware for the entire life cycle of a device is negligent. I don't think I've had firmware functionality mismatches with Cisco/Juniper/Arista/etc gear especially since we track hashes and store images locally.
You don't simply leave a gate open because the attacker can scale the walls. I don't see any reason to make it easier for the Chinese government to implant itself in our networking infrastructure. Being able to directly provide and modify Huawei's firmware sans resistance allows them far greater flexibility than what they would have attempting to compromise <insert_us_vendor>'s development resources (not that it's impossible, not even remotely saying that).
I don't like the idea of having important infrastructure like this in the hands of any foreign manufacturer. Not while there is indeed evidence that government try to enforce backdoors in tech equipment.
[1] https://www.rt.com/news/461918-chinese-company-f35-parts/
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...
The last big CIA scandal was Iran/Contra, and four from the CIA ended up indicted: Joseph Fernandez, Alan Fiers, Duane Clarridge, and Clair George. The CIA director, William Casey, probably would have been indicted but died.
But there's no possibility of abolishing the function of intelligence analysis and clandestine service, nor should you want there to be: net-net, the CIA might in fact prevent more armed conflicts than it contributes to, and in any case no major power will ever unilaterally disarm.
Against all that, you have a 70-year legacy of people putting their lives on the line for the agency, which abolition/rebranding would likely be seen as sullying (further than the torture program already has).
It's not going to happen.
I echo the other commenters on this thread who suggest that we might want to think harder about holding Congress and our Presidents responsible for how they've overseen and directed the CIA.
This is a very interesting perspective. Using this kind of perspective, you can argue for any bad thing, can't you? How can you possibly measure the effectiveness of the CIA?
The alternate perspective is that the CIA are meant to be a tool for the protection of American interests around the world. To create and maintain an international order that is conducive to American interests, and to quash any possibility of Another power rising. Those goals are measurable, and the people working at the CIA probably have figured this out a long time ago and are optimizing for it too.
Doesn't it also perfectly sum up the purpose of most (if not all) actions led by a state actor that can afford such policies? (quite a few companies may also fit the bill)
I do think it’s perfectly rational for a State to pursue those things but not necessarily a Superpower. There are many things America could choose to do (or not do) that may not provide short term benefits but over the long run would benefit every state.
I don't think you know anything about the history of the CIA if this is your assertion. First, the clandestine service was created in 1947, so the assertion that we can't do without it is belied by the preceding millenia of history. As for "might in fact prevent more armed conflicts than it contributes to", what is your basis for this? The way the CIA operates is to stir up trouble. They arm dissident factions, they bribe officials, they create and disseminate propaganda. Their entire history is one of fomenting conflict. Also, the torture program is not new - the CIA has tortured people throughout its history, in addition to doing things like running mind control programs and other bizarre nonsense.
Second, the CIA has historically been pretty shit at its intelligence work; just in the past twenty years they failed to anticipate 9/11, incorrectly said Saddam had WMDs, and were instrumental in ginning up the whole Russiagate fiasco. That's not much of a record; but it does have continuity with the rest of their sad history. In addition the function of this intelligence service - its ONLY function - is to provide intelligence briefings to the President. If the President doesn't listen, or can't comprehend, the entire analysis function of the CIA, however many thousands of people and billions of dollars are at work, goes to waste. This is a terrible way to organize an institution. It is designed to fail.
What the CIA actually represents is a key failure of American post-war policy: the decision to conduct foreign policy primarily through covert action. This has never worked, and it results in an unaccountable organization that has historically favored brutal, murderous individuals like Suharto, Pinochet, Mobutu, and many others. This is an organization that needs to die, now, and the more we can do to build momentum for that the better.
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/213933-cia-admits-to-w...
1: that's not "absolutely zero oversight"
2: It seems like a reasonable way to maintain critical secret information while still informing members of the opposition party. That means at least several of these members are being briefed:
Dianne Feinstein - California
Ron Wyden - Oregon
Martin Heinrich - New Mexico
Angus King - Maine
Kamala Harris - California
Michael Bennet - Colorado
If something goes totally off the rails they can provide oversight.
Historically, that's not true at all. I was going to give a list of cases of egregious actions by the CIA, but quickly realized I'd be sitting here all night if I really wanted to put together any halfway complete list. The sheer number of coups, assassinations, drug-running operations, weapons smuggling operations, etc. that the CIA has run is just mind-boggling. The list of countries that haven't had a CIA-backed coup or insurgency might be shorter than the list of countries that have. Things "go off the rails" so often with the CIA that going off the rails seems to be the plan.
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.
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.
A rational proposal for over-site and control would be a useful comment.
The reality is we only hear about the screw ups and the illegal things because that news worthy in the 24/7/365 hype cycle we now live it.
The fact is that we as citizens have failed to provide our voices asking for proper guidance of the CIA. We the people think that TV shows like 24 are the reality and torture is okay because it works on TV and only happens to the bad guys. Society as a whole have allowed things to end up this way.
Tell me what really happened when we the public found out about the tap rooms at ATT colo or some of the stuff Wikileaks and Snowden showed? Where is the protest? I do not see the streets full of outrage. Where are the brave Americas standing up for their rights. We could learn from the people of Hong Kong at this point.
The fact is that as long as we can order from amazon and Facebook works no one cares anymore.
We get the government we deserve. Disbanding the CIA just moves the issue to the next agency.
But all you refer to can and should be done by military intelligence.
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...
I imagine with that amount of agencies there's enough overlap to maybe reform that whole 3 letter forest into something more unified/streamlined while introducing some more oversight.
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.
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.
They'll also cost you at least 2-3 times as much as an equivalent consumer TV.
Wear your PPE.
-Comedian Yakov Smirnoff (http://wiki.c2.com/?InSovietRussia)
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?
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.
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.
Apparently everyone here thinks so much of themselves that they think they are important enough to be a target.