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Comment by LinuxBender | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

While that is possible I would consider this to be a case of outrunning your friends rather than the bear.

So, a neighbor’s compromised wifi router could remotely exploit your smart tv without even configured settings: https://blog.exodusintel.com/2017/07/26/broadpwn/

It is easy to "isolate" wifi module in most smart tv with a screwdriver and about 30 minutes. They use commodity parts so it is normally removable (like in laptops). If it isn't just screw up the antennae so the soc still sees its wifi device pop up but it sucks (ymmv). Not for your grandma but HN can handle it.

Good advice! I’d still rather buy a not-so-smart-tv /display.

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.

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.

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.

> Make it so.

I have no interest in hurting anyone so the CIA has no interest in me

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

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