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Comment by xanaxagoras | Hacker News Reader

This looks really cool, but after I first learned about Automatic Content Recognition and all the ridiculous anti-privacy things these smart TVs do, I adopted a policy: A TV is a big dumb monitor, that's it, and it never ever gets internet access. So, for better or for worse, all of my TV needs go through an Apple TV, and I block Apple's 17.0.0.0/8 for that client just in case it wants to get a little too chatty about my habits with Apple. YouTube is AFAIK the only thing on there that's able to spy on me, mitigated to some extent I hope with pi hole, and 90% of the time I'm in plex or an IPTV client.

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You might want to build a faraday cage for it too - one can also exploit TVs that are not connected to the internet at all, via DVB-T.

https://twitter.com/David3141593/status/1481993413843161092

I think the person you’re replying to is more concerned about privacy implications than a security exploit involving an exotic TV airwave signal attack.

It's great that more people have become security aware over the past five years. Hopefully in the next five years they'll learn about threat modelling.

I think the person you’re replying to is making a tongue-in-cheek comment.

Time to jam my soldering iron through the wireless chipset!

"Error 6942: Wireless chip authentication failed. Please visit an LG® Authorized Reseller™ to purchase a replacement Home Entertainment Destination."

Wow, I've been investigating Intel Management Engine lately, and this comment feels quite poignant.

There was a long history of "jailbreakme" sites where one would "slide to jailbreak" their Apple devices because of their long history of under-investment in security.

This site is a spoof of jailbreakme, so using Apple devices as a defense is an somewhat amusing choice.

privacy != security

Exactly, never ever connect a smart TV to internet. Instead, connect a Apple TV/FireStick/ChromeCast/Android TV/Raspberry Pi to do the "smart" things and if they break, they will be cheaper and easier to be replaced than a TV.

Why do you prefer sticks spying on you than TVs?

Not parent commenter, but it's a lot easier to swap out a stick spying on you for one that doesn't than it is do do the same with TVs. Likely an order of magnitude in price difference, too.

> it's a lot easier to swap out a stick spying on you for one that doesn't than it is do do the same with TVs

Serious question: Which sticks don't spy on you? My understanding is that all of them do, but I could be wrong.

Doesn't Plex report all your media content and metadata to their central servers? Why not use one of the XBMC forks?

At minimum they employ multiple dark patterns with the aim of getting you to fork over your email/agree to some fine print. Jellyfin is a great alternative

I sub users myself and give them the credentials. I use unique mail addresses for all users.

Aside from the newsletter which can be unchecked during registration, I’ve not seen any evidence they’ve on sold the mail accounts at all.

And apps have fine print, there’s a big difference between an EULA and Sony/Samsung scraping screenshots, adding dynamic advertising etc.

are you able to point to exactly which parts of the plex eula are bad?

Plex may share Collected Information as expressly set forth in this Privacy Policy, including the following limited situations: [...] With third parties to improve and deliver advertising to you on our behalf.

Plex may also use third-party advertising companies to serve ads, which may, directly or indirectly, collect or use information about user visits to websites and mobile app usage over time and across non-affiliated websites and mobile apps to display advertisements more tailored to users’ interests on this browser or device, and those browsers or devices associated with it.

You can see the laundry list of data they harvest and share with advertisers under the "Data We Collect" section, it's too long to quote here: https://www.plex.tv/about/privacy-legal/

No. The cloud portion of Plex.tv acts as a "directory" for sharing, but it doesn't know what media you have, or stream, or share[0].

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/30j7ye/plex_media_bro...

Yeah, that is a guilty pleasure I expect. I've looked through their privacy policy, nothing objectionable leaps out but I'd rather keep everything to myself. I may have to look at Jellyfin at some point, I've just been running Plex for so long there's a certain inertia. And plexamp is like... amazing.

Plex is an XBMC fork!

I feel similarly about all modern TVs but I'm not willing to go to this much effort - I think next time I need to buy a TV I'll just get a projector instead.

Some manufacturers still make dumb signage displays which are also more rugged and durable than consumer TVs. They cost a lot though.

Also, Sceptre in the US and Swedx in the EU still make dumb TVs.

https://www.sceptre.com/

https://www.swedx.com/

If anyone knows of other brands making dumb consumer TVs, please let us know.

Samsung commercial signage displays.. QB55R models and similar. They're on Amazon in the US and not super expensive.

I gave my very nice SmartTV to a hiking buddy last year and bought a cheap dumb TV from Walmart for $190 that only has HDMI inputs. I bought the latest Apple iTV box, and I couldn’t be happier with this setup.

In addition to better privacy (don’t SmartTV manufacturers make 30% of the profit on a TV from your data?), the user experience is so much better, no comparison really.

My wife is not 100% happy with the screen quality so I might replace the TV with a studio monitor, but for my tastes what we have is close to perfect.

> don’t SmartTV manufacturers make 30% of the profit on a TV from your data?

I'm not sure about all manufacturers but in the case of Vizio, selling user data:

- accounts for 65% of their net profit

- is double the amount of money they make from selling actual TVs

- grew 134% year over year as of Q3 2021

https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/10/22773073/vizio-acr-adver...

https://investors.vizio.com/news/news-details/2021/VIZIO-HOL...

>I bought the latest Apple iTV box

Okay but...

>In addition to better privacy

I'd very much like a source on that. I filter and block everything (via whitelist) from my TV and streaming boxes. Apple hardware and services are by far the ones that makes the most connections in both amount of connections and amount of sources connecting to. A Xiaomi android box is on a far second-place.

IMO "Apple privacy" is a myth with no proof ever published unless you think Apple for some reason is a better data collector end-point. I don't believe they are and it is also beside the point. Data collected is staying collected forever which makes the collector irrelevant. They can always change their opinion - you cannot. Amount of privacy related info collected is the only thing that matters and since I cannot see the excact data collected there's only amount collected left. In that Apple is definitely #1.

Fair point. I consider the Apple TV box to be more privacy preserving than SmartTVs.

I understand the instinctual irk of having one's habits monitored by a corporation but I'm curious about practical implications.

What are some concrete harms to the individual viewer in anonymously sharing TV viewing data?

At least the same concrete harm as someone spying on their neighbor without getting caught.

I do think the more compelling reason not to connect it is because as a general rule the updates they put out make the user experience worse over time and it's better to have a connected device that's easier/cheaper to replace when the cumulative security/compatability updates cause a slow down (Without getting in to anti user features like devoting more screen space to ads each update).

Some hypothetical concrete harms that are technically possible when the data is being collected:

Targeted advertising outing someones behaviour because they watched a video related to that topic on the tv.

The TV reporting you for piracy for playing a home video of your kids dancing to copyrighted music.

Reported to the government for watching speeches from an oposition party.

I do the same, course I only have one Apple TV so for the time being I am using the smart TV features.

i seem to remember having issues with blocking 17.0.0.0/8 when i first tried it. don’t remember exactly, but probably with icloud and homekit at the very least. i wish we had better info on what services talk to which ip (plus port) ranges, and why.

I don't have iCloud or use HomeKit. Software updates stopped working and I can't download apps without suspending my rule, but I almost never do either of those things anyway. Everything I use works fine but yeah, I can see those 2 causing big issues.

Doesn't Apple TV need to access its network for the content?

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