Link: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/hacker-finds-own-samsung-tv-collecting-scary-amounts-of-user-information-and-gets-banned-by-openai-for-cyber-abuse-tv-runs-an-ai-model-that-collects-audio-screenshots-and-plenty-of-other-user-data-for-ad-targeting

A hacker reverse-engineered his own Samsung TV and found alarming spying activity, including code that used connected devices' microphones to listen to users.

I kind of need a tutorial how to use a samsung (or whatever brand) smart tv without them tracking us like that - but with still being able to stream netflix and stuff, I just wanna have both, streaming & privacy 😭

I'm sorry to break it to you but streaming services and privacy don't mix. Your best bet is to sail the high seas.

This right here!

Ever read the ToS of a streaming service in detail? Even if you subscribe to the premium ad free plan you agree to let them profile your habits and sell those to others for advertising purposes, etc.

Samsung has been banned from my house.

Completely false. I stream without problems, while still retaining all my privacy.
(I stream from my friends jellyfin servers)

Yup, 'smart' TVs should never get a live internet connection, ever. Don't give it a WIFI password, if you have made that mistake change the password now. Attach a computer, preferably Linux, and use it as a monitor. Even if you then go ahead and use a streaming service (boo), at least you're not just giving audio/video of your living room to Samsung as well.

a region-specific convolutional neural network (an AI)

That parenthetical annoys the hell out of me.

A service remembering how I used it is not the same problem as its app spying on my living room.

These events need to be crimes.

All of the ACR “features” and the audio capture features are behind separate, optional EULAs that the TV will work fine without. The GN video about LG was behavior if you agree to every EULA as well. You can add on a pi-hole and a smart tv blocklist for added protection, e.g., https://github.com/hkamran80/blocklists/blob/main/smart-tv.txt

It’s very easy to setup Wireshark and capture the traffic coming off your devices as well if you want to be sure.

How did you get rid of the content recognition?

I have an antenna for local tv and if there's a movie I want to watch I load it onto a USB stick and plug it into the side of the TV.

Never connect your proprietary appliances to the internet. A TV is just a display, use another device to manage what it displays.

By using either streamio or jellyfin

And also do your best to not live near unsecured wifi.

Just because you didn't explicitly connect it...

How do you use ai to record audio? I mean, recording audio is just procedural code. You can use ai to process the recording, of course.

RIP anybody in a NYC or Tokyo high rise with a few thousand neighbors in wifi range.

That's Apple's (Watch 18) newest semantic shenanigans to get around privacy laws, and it's being echoed by Amazon (Bee) and now Samsung, apparently. They argue that, if local AI processes an audio input stream, produces a transcript and does not store the audio as a file, that does not constitute a "recording". I'm looking forward to the look on the judge's face once this bullshit reasoning inevitably reaches their court...

1996: cameras, microphones, radios, in your appliances? You're schizophrenic

2026: removing the cameras, microphones, and radios from the appliances we use to spy on you is illegal.