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Comment by goatcode | Hacker News Reader

If this is an argument that all TVs are smart TVs, then all TVs with an IR control input device are smart TVs (because universal remotes).

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No of course not. The moment you - possibly accidentally - grant the fucker an internet connection over BT, it starts to rat on you. However briefly.

Aything with an IR remote does not betrays it's users like that (through the remote)

> grant the fucker an internet connection over BT, it starts to rat on you

Or it does that by itself, with a mesh network that your neighbours have setup by accident with their Alexa or Ring - Amazon Sidewalk is an amazing end-run around your own firewall rules.

I wonder when home security setups will start including a Faraday cage, at least for certain rooms or areas.

It seems way simpler to short the wifi antenna or something than to redo the walls? Bluetooth is probably harder to fix though, if the TV has that.

If you build it into all of the exterior facing walls, you can use a cell range extender to tunnel a data connection inside your house, and also similarly with a Wi-Fi AP connected via Ethernet, in the event that you want Wi-Fi signal outside your home as well.

Actually, when I build my next house in 5-10 years I think I might do exactly this

Not gunna lie, i'm looking at building/remodelling a home in the next few years, and i'm seriously considering foiling the walls of some rooms just to build a faraday cage.

Thanks for giving me another invention to be angry about, haha.

Makes you wonder about the opportunities for poisoning of Sidewalk networks, just to get some petty revenge.

that's not petty, that's downright patriotic. we have an inalienable right to privacy, security, and liberty, and absolutely no obligation to let companies (or governments) invade or curtail those rights.

> we have an inalienable right to privacy, security, and liberty

I assume you’re referring to the US constitution. The rights you’re referring to constrain the government, not companies. You do not have a legal right to privacy w.r.t. your TV spying on you.

no, not just the constitution, it's inalienable because it's intrinsic to being civilized people, not because some piece of paper says so. on the contrary, companies have no right to spy on us.

Yet they seem to be able to keep on doing it just fine.

so people still kicking dogs makes it ok?

note that a right isn't a passive trait, but an active assertion. every time we give in to what's easy, we lose a little bit of our rights. you maintain rights by speaking out and living by them. we wouldn't need a second amendment were that not the case (n.b., i don't personally own nor desire a gun).

IR is line-of-sight, and the receiver can be blocked with a small piece of electrical tape.

Same for bluetooth, just build a faraday cage around your TV and you're good!

Only if it's grounded, so that's a step up from the tape.

Bluetooth can be turned off in the settings.

It can't. Which is sort of the point of my comment. If it could I'd have no problem with this feature.

I mean sure, it's (probably) not an internet connection, but Bluetooth and an IR remote aren't really comparable. Bluetooth exchanges information in both directions, IR does not. Bluetooth works from hundreds of feet away (or more) with no line of site, an IR remote does not. Bluetooth allows for broadcasting arbitrary content to my TV, an IR remote can only change the channel. Given the relative complexities I'm also far more concerned about a security vulnerability existing in the never updated random Bluetooth module/drivers in the TV than an IR receiver that emulates button presses.

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