LG was the only one mentioned in the GamersNexus News Story because that is the only brand they could afford to do a deep dive chosen because of the MacAfee popup scandal, and what they covered goes FAR beyond what this RTINGS rerelease of an older story they had done earlier but focused on just ACR. The GamersNexus story went far deeper, but at $80K for doing it for one brand, you are going to have to wait for them to make enough money back before they take on another brand.

I don't think this news surprises anyone. (well it shouldn't at least) Don't connect your tvs to the internet ever peoples!

You dont even need to connect it yourself. It can use any open Wifi in range as gamersnexus has shown. It is WAY worse than people think.

I saw someone saying monitors are going this way now.

I've been using one over HDMI ever since "smart" started getting slapped on everything.

I think you all know why are are here..... Yes, you really really want a dildo!!!!

Repeat after me...

I want to buy a red dildo!

I really really wish I knew where they sold 12" red, silicon dildos with real looking veins and pullable foreskin!

Just keep repeating that mantra and by tomorrow mornin... A couple of minutes, you'll get temu showing you all the possibilities of the world of dildos.

Every computer that connects to the Internet is vulnerable.

Just as a general rule, if a television requires internet connection then its not your friend.

Maybe change your WiFi password too. Why would they give up the opportunity to spy on you just because you pressed a special button?

I guess well have to start mapping TV models with microphones and drown them in silicon or something

And hopefully no open WiFi networks or partner SSIDs in the area.

And partner networks. Like in Canada there is/was "Shaw Go WiFi" where any shaw customer could connect and get internet access. If a tv brand partnered with them, all their shit could connect to those instead.

Yeah don't use anything with voice commands. It's just microphones recording everything.

A lot of smart tv remotes have voice command buttons.

It's usually in the remote.

HDMI cables can carry Ethernet.

Search: Ethernet over HDMI (HEC)

The only way to avoid this, other than buying a dumb panel or projector, is to physically burn or disconnect the modem and any microphones.

All the smug people who think they have not connected their TV to the Internet because they "didn't give it access" are pretending like they are dealing with some cornball 1950's company, not a 2020's brand adversarial guv-corp entity. Crack it open and burn it, or Dremel a bit in exactly the right spot.

Oh my fucking god...tell me DP does not

Well barring an insecure neighbor wifi. An isolated vlan does the trick.

You really just replied to my comment saying that is insufficient, under an article saying that is insufficient, with 'that is sufficient'?

Sony put a mic in both. It has a switch to "turn off" the mic on the TV but IIRC the TOS says right up top they're still listening.

Cheap universal learning remotes don't have mics, that helps a little.

Anything capable has one. Apple tv. Nvidia shield. Android box. Roku.

What can do high quality content and not require that a mic be in the room

Um... What does blocking all internet access not prevent here? By isolated VLAN I mean isolated. I.e. fully blocked from internet access LAN local replies only. 0 WAN access.

It doesn't prevent exactly what my comment said it doesn't prevent 'an adversarial entity physically residing within the space'. If I showed up with a pi bristling with antennas, loaded with an unknown, encrypted payload, and plopped it into your living room, would you just hook it into a vlan and be like "there, now I'm safe"?

A quick search says it does not

some not only require the internet, but also an online account to link to.

Seems like a terrible place for an active listening device.

Huh, I didn't notice any change in my advertisements...

Or Samsung phones connected to your WiFi, or Samsung phones in general.

Gotta minimize that attack surface.

if a device manufacturer is so hell bent on their devices phoning home that they'll connect to an insecure wifi or a wifi network run by a 'partner' provider.. they're gonna be doing that whenever it can't phone home via a configured network connection, too, and not just when there isn't one set up.

Yeah I mean you're both right.

Totally different context, although less and less that's the case. I.e. it used to be enough but yeah. I guess not any more.

i just thought up a nightmare scenario and now i want to beat the shit out of my printer more than i usually do

yaaaaay. they put partner networks all over town so there'd be free wifi everywhere during lockdowns. knew they'd find a way to leverage it.

A Linux box you build and configure yourself as a media station. Plenty of generic keyboard remotes exist without mics in them.

HEC(K) no!

So did you get one?

Pc building is not cheap these days. I wouldnt say its beyond me but it is not an accessible route and difficult to get parity in features. For one CEC HDMI is nigh impossible on 99% of non custom boards.

I've put way to much effort into this. Got an Android TV and took about three hours to investigate all the preinstalled apps before removing bloatware and spyware via adb before replacing the launcher and other adware. Of course I had to do this three times because I deleted necessary stuff the first two times.

Additionally this little shit got its own cage behind my firewall with connectivity whitelists, DNS redirects, and so on.

What about European Philips TVs (as in sold in the EU?)

I have a feeling my Samsung TV does it, too.

I wonder if they are willing enough to pay for Amazon sidewalk access https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/everything-you-need-to-know-about-amazon-sidewalk

Hasn’t this been known for years? There’s stuff for it built into ad blocking lists and stuff. I use NextDNS on my network, highly recommended.

Watch the video, it's much more extensive and aggressive then it sounds.

Gamers nexus talks about your exact point at this Timestamp. And he agrees with you.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6IFVTcM28KA&t=635
He says something like,
“A common misconception is taking your TV off your network is enough to stop them from spying.”

It's certainly off the beaten track, and they're definitely outnumbered by all the Android boxes, but they're not hard to find preconfigured either. I'm just kind of biased since I prefer to build stuff myself on principle.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/176976068094

Idk if I'd call a $100 set top box (buy once cry once) "inaccessible". Wouldn't be my first choice, and I also wouldn't be surprised if things like this come bundled with spyware/bloatware (just one of many reasons to prefer self-build IMO).

HDMI CEC seems pretty standard on most modern-ish mini PCs as well. They'll run you 2 or 3x the price of the one in the link, but the market's not short on used - I'm still finding somewhat decent deals despite the hysteria around prices.

Could you find the wifi antenna on the device you just want to use as a dumb device and just rip it out?

Wasn't LG one of the last ones of all monitor brands to go full Gestapo on the users?

Not really. It's closer to people than the TV is.

They also had the ability to hack it to view exactly what it was doing and recording and trying to send and how. Without that access they'd be very limited in reporting.

Someone else did the hacking work fwiw they just used the exploits