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Comment by e2le | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure creating a network without no internet access is going to be a long term solution. It's entirely likely that they will create future functionality in these devices to cycle through open networks and networks to which they have credentials for until they find one with internet access.

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HDMI will share its connection through the cable as well. So if you want to use a Chromecast or a BluRay player, etc, then your TV can get internet through that.

If you’re using a chromecast and also trying to keep your tv from phoning home what are you even doing? I mean I guess one fewer place having your info is good, but...

VLC supports casting to a local network Chromecast. It works fantastic.

And Plex!

There's also Cast All The Things (catt)[0], which makes any of the hundreds of websites supported by youtube-dl[1] cast-able.

[0] https://github.com/skorokithakis/catt/

[1] https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html

I hear this speculated a lot; is there any proof of this being done in the wild? Not trying to discredit, I think it's perfectly plausible, I'm just curious if any companies have been caught doing it

Apparently we now need HDMI condoms. Do such things exist?

Most probably there will be a market for HDMI cables with Ethernet specifically disabled - so, IMHO, there'll be sellers for it :)

Pretty useless. The number of devices that actually use Ethernet over HDMI is appromiately zero.

Can you please point to any consumer product that has implemented the Ethernet channel of HDMI?

I’d like to think that would be a CFAA violation, but I’m probably overly optimistic.

Wouldn't that be trying to circumvent security measures, and therefore very illegal in some jurisdictions?

One person's "security measure circumvention" is another person's "security measure".

I guess you could then add some user-important content to the walled-off network, like a basic SMB share. Maybe it will avoid disconnecting from the user-set network if it has user content. But yes, this isn't a very stable solution.

No vendor will use SMB to check for connectivity. They would check for relevant internet paths.

Though I doubt the companies would be ballsy enough to connect to unsecured networks, if that breaches laws in a country that the tv is sold it may have legal ramifications for the company.

Edit: then again my argument is based on logic and risk, not two factors marketing and sales teams consider very often..

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