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Comment by maxton | Hacker News Reader

Stuff like this is the reason I don’t connect smart TVs to the internet. If I need web content on the TV, I can connect my laptop with HDMI. The TV should be no more than a display and speakers with a tuner.

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Can't confirm this myself, but in previous threads about similar topics, people noted that some of those "smart" devices probe every open WiFi they find and use that without your explicit consent. So it's not always possible to disconnect them.

Solder the antenna to ground on the wifi module. It's what I'll be doing on my next TV.

Only if ripping out the wifi module isn't feasible first.

I could see firmware failing to boot or crashing if an assumed device is missing.

Or you could just block the TV’s MAC address on your router.

they'll just connect to your neighbour's router, or their car, or their phone...

That’s a legit concern. If Samsung made a deal with, say, Comcast to connect to the ever-present “xfinitywifi” SSID, then it wouldn’t matter if you’re blocking the sly TV from your own network.

That's a very valid concern, especially since most consumer-grade ISPs are in bed with the media industry and would be very interested in the tracking data from these TVs.

Nothing prevents you from presenting that same SSID as a honeypot.

How does that solve anything? Your WiFi should already be password protected anyway. It's other people's routers with open networks you need to worry about.

I don’t see an awful lot of open networks anymore... :/

The antenna will probably be inside the TV case and very difficult for the "average" user to try. They'd be too-scared to do so. Heck, I'd wager that a good chunk of electrical-minded individuals, even trained ones, would be scared of doing anything to their expensive device that requires them to open it.

Oh, it surely is. I'm lucky enough to be one of those trained people who can and does do such things (one reason my technology (laptops, TVs, etc) is old is because I continue to repair old stuff instead of getting new shiny).

With the exception of coffee shops and big box retailers, there aren't many unsecured networks left in even dense residential areas, so I'm unsure of how much impact this has.

Correct thing is to "connect" them to the internet but blackhole them so they cant actually talk to anything. It's what I've done and so far it's blocked a lot.

people noted that some of those "smart" devices probe every open WiFi they find

Given that this would potentially expose them to criminal liability under unauthorised access laws in various places, I have always been sceptical of this claim, and I have yet to see any convincing evidence that it actually happens. Does anyone know definitively that it does?

I've also found smart TV systems, especially Samsung's (this was quite a few years ago now), to be quite terrible. I would constantly have connectivity issues and app crashing issues. Now I have so many external devices (Apple TV, Roku, Chromecast, PS4) with all of the streaming apps that I will never buy a smart TV again.

Not only are the built ins awful. Their lifespan is very short. I had my Samsung for about a year before it would let me know that “XYZ service was ending in one month”.

Disconnected that thing from WiFi and have never hooked it back up. Xbox/PS are just far superior smart devices.

Soon enough, failure to connect your TV to the internet within, say, one month will void your warranty (and the TV will refuse to work in two months after that).

Given that the above would potentially be illegal on both counts in many places, that seems like hyperbole.

To each their own - 100% of the content I consume is Netflix or YouTube. For me a non-smart tv is useless unless I hook up something smart to it.

But you could plug in a Roku or a Fire TV, right? The TV can't proxy through those. It's maybe cringeworthy to say, but I probably trust those companies more than I do Samsung.

You do not need to "trust," just read their respective Privacy Statements and you'll see for yourself.

This is not an argument, like not at all, it's just a distraction from the issue: Trampling all over user-rights because somewhere in hundreds of pages of ToS/EULA legal-speak there's a clause hidden supposedly justifying it all.

Here's some reality: "You’d Need 76 Work Days to Read All Your Privacy Policies Each Year" [0] and that was back in 2012. Since then ToS, EULA, Privacy Statement and whatnot have only expanded in scope, people use even more services these days and thus accept even more terms.

You'd need a dedicated law team doing all the reading and interpreting for you if you want to realistically stay informed about all that consent you've given, without having to give up large parts of your productivity just checking and tracing what weird things you supposedly agreed to [1].

There need to be some well-established limits that won't just rely on users supposedly hand-waving all their privacy away, that way the USG might actually even go back to honoring the Fourth Amendment [2].

[0] http://techland.time.com/2012/03/06/youd-need-76-work-days-t...

[1] https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-ridiculous-eula-clauses-agr...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine

>but I probably trust those companies more than I do Samsung.

Care to explain why? It looks like both roku and firetv spies on what you watch.

https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smar...

The thing is, the smart thing you hook up to it is under your control. It could be a laptop or Raspberry Pi.

Is a Windows PC really under your control nowadays? And if you connect your phone to the TV, you don't really even own those, even if you paid $1000 for your "phone". The manufacturers are the true owners unless you root them which is not always easy.

No, but you can detach the Windows PC. With a smart TV, you're stuck with whatever is in that firmware, without which the TV may not even turn on.

I guess you could detach the smart TV and replace it with another... but I get your point.

"The content I consume". When the fuck did people start actually talking about themselves like this, it sounds like it's straight out of a dystopian sci-fi novel from the 80s.

I hear you. Nobody could say this in reference to reading books. That tells you something.

I've seen "gobble up" and "devour" used in reference to books before.

Netflix is watching you. Youtube, on the other hand, in a private window over a VPN is as far as you can go privacy-wise.

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