this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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Privacy

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These TVs can capture and identify 7,200 images per hour, or approximately two every second. The data is then used for content recommendations and ad targeting, which is a huge business; advertisers spent an estimated $18.6 billion on smart TV ads in 2022, according to market research firm eMarketer.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 10 months ago (5 children)

If there are any unsecured networks in your vicinity it might be telling on you without you knowing.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Pull one of your old routers from the back of closet, and use it to make a completely new network just for your TV. If you don’t connect the router to the rest of the internet, your TV is happy to connect to something, and you get to keep your privacy a little bit longer.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Not everyone has an old router. I do, but not everyone.

Why do I keep an old router?

[–] this 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If you have a nice enough router you could connect your TV to it and block its Mac address maybe.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Or maybe configure the firewall to block/allow only very specific things. It’s a bit more technical than just plugging in an Ethernet cable though…

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Cause it still works, doesn't take up much space, and doesn't really eat a whole lot just siting there.

Also, 2 is one, 1 is none. Good to have a fall back in case hardware dies

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

This is the way.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm a little surprised we haven't heard about one of these smart TV brands using something like Amazon Sidewalk yet to communicate the analyzed data:

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/

A popular brand could totally set up their own network like this and with apartments there would probably be sufficient density to ensure that there's always at least one connected device nearby to act as a bridge.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Well that's pretty terrifying.

Need to figure out how to block that now. Sigh

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Open it up and desolder the wifi module/antenna

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

if you're this paranoid, just buy one of those mcdonalds menu screen tvs or just rip out all of the wifi electronics. i can imagine it being one of those standard modules like in laptops.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Until it doesn’t work at all since the wifi chip is integral to boot up.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

What’s the funny-to-serious timeline for this comment, fifteen years?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Any evidence of that or are you just speculating?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Pure speculation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't think so. The first step when connecting to WiFi is to agree to the terms of service that allow the manufacturer to legallly spy on you. Without agreeing to that, they'd be breaking the law.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I'm too skeptical to default to the whole "corporations will abide by the law" thing anymore. I'm willing to accept that I might be wrong though. There have just been too many times where I've pessimistically remarked on a situation like this as a sort of half joke only to find out that I was right and it was actually worse than I initially assumed.