it's a feature on LG smart TVs that uses ACR (automatic content recognition)
to analyze what's displayed on your screen. LG then uses that data to offer
"personalized services," including content recommendations
and advertisements.My [now disabled] Honeywell thermostat had the most packet-sends (not data, just #packets). Wouldn't have caught it without my network defaulting to PiHole.
Best to just airgap the device.
Oh, the irony.
They make money from advertising. I imagine their hundred million dollar contracts have things that they are not allowed to report on.
I do expect people to change though.
How is it that it's been well known that smart TVs will show ads and spy on you for over 10 years, and yet people are still connecting their TVs to their WiFi rather than get a separate dedicated streaming device?
I just don't get it. How are people still surprised to find their TV is spying and will show ads?
I think it's a good thing that consumers are given a choice on whether they want it or not.
Also, it's worth noting that TVs built on Android TV have a massive advantage here in that you can plug them into your laptop and remove the content recognition package using adb (Android Debug Bridge) just like you might with a phone or tablet. This might be possible with Samsung Tizen and LG webOS devices too, but both are going to require more esoteric tooling.
If you connect your tv to wifi, it can spy on you all the time. It can upload info on what you watch even if you used an external google tv puck to watch tv. It can see what you type on the screen if say you use it for say a monitor. There are reports of people deleting networking info but the tvs occasionally connecting back even though they deleted wifi info. You have to get a new network name to block them.
It's much much better to connect an external device, and if not that then use an ethernet cable to connect, because you can physically remove it.
Because the vast majority of people use whatever their tv came with these days in terms of smart tv connections, they don't set privacy settings. There's every reason for the tv makers to keep spying on you. If you have an external device their is motivation for them to not make you angry - but it's true that they can spy on you.
A smart TV used as a dumb TV alongside a quality streaming box (Apple TV or Nvidia Shield TV) or console gets you the best overall experience.
Many people, including myself, don’t want to buy “quality streaming box” just for watching Netflix or YouTube sporadically.
So, you do have to eat that financial hit for the least-bad privacy option.
However, one must acknowledge that you can now watch "TV" on almost all your devices.
I keep mine disconnected and use an external media box (AppleTV 4K).
I usually get Samsung and now I'm nervous about nag screens to connect to the Internet.
You don't have to use every feature of something for it to make sense. I have a "dumb" TV. It has built-in speakers, but I don't use those. Volume is set to minimum. My streaming box connects to decent bookshelf speakers.
Most importantly though, can you even get non-smart TV's these days that aren't super budget items? To my knowledge that's pretty much not a thing anymore (yes there are presentation displays and large format monitors, but that gets into the weeds fast about feature/panel/spec differences, not to mention price differences)
These all have a very simple job to do, and there’s absolutely zero value-add to the smart edge software nonsense.
It would make sense for a washing machine to be smart/have ai if it could detect clothes types and suggest a washing regime or warn you that selected regime can damage them. It'll also be nice to be able to schedule the washing so for ex. it's done when you get at home from work. For dishwasher - maybe somehow detect stuff that's incompatible with dishwasher and warn you?
I do also see a point in having a smart fridge that would detect products that expire based on some qr codes printed on them, otherwise idk...
Those examples seem like they would be useful for mentally disabled people. Not trying to be a dick here, but someone with declining cognitive abilities is more likely to put a sock in the dishwasher, to wash delicate clothing at 90 °C or to forget food in the fridge for months.
It reminds me of those items primarily designed for physically disabled people that (used to) be advertised for normal people on infomercials because the market for disabled people wasn't big enough.
This has the major advantage that if the streaming hardware is ever obsoleted for any reason (ie, Netflix decides my TV is too old to support a compression codec they want to switch to), I only have to buy a new media player for $30 and not a whole new TV.
The difficulty in finding an affordable TV without smart functionality alone means that you're most likely buying a smart TV.
I yet again bought a Samsung smart tv (despite having sworn never to do so again..) and I'm never letting it connect to the internet after what happened to the last one.
Now, whether it won't nag you to connect with pop ups is a different question.
i expected someone to be diving deep into the software within a TV, not some guy who finally decided to check the settings tab
even if you turn that off it's definitely still spying on you
Since then, I've made sure every single TV I own has this turned off (I go through the menu extensively to disable, and search on Google and reddit if it's not obvious how to disable like the case with Samsung).
I have an LG Smart TV, and just a week or two ago I was going through the settings and found Live Plus enabled, which means either they renamed the setting (and defaulted this to on), or the overrode my original setting.
Either way, I'm super annoyed. I want to switch to firewalling the TV and preventing any updates, but I need a replacement streaming device to connect to it.
Does anyone have recommendations for a streaming device to use (presumably one with HDMI CEC, that supports 4k and HDR)? I use the major streaming services (Netflix, Prime, Hulu, Apple TV) and Jellyfin.
It will just work. You will maybe get an ad or two from Apple, rarely, about Apple services, but it's very rare and easy to ignore.
Otherwise you only get ads if your service(Netflix, etc) delivers ads.
Apple won't share your data with anyone, and generally does a fairly decent job(compared to other giant tech companies) of not collecting much.
I have to click it twice to get back to the home screen.
You should also be able to hold the ‘menu’ or ‘<‘ button, depending on which remote you have, to directly go to the home page
I basically settled on an (incredibly expensive) Sony commercial Android TV -- beyond the ADB method, their commercial line gives you additional admin controls over which apps are allowed to run and which are allowed on the network. Between the two i felt I'd be pretty content.
Granted i haven't tried it because my new job fell through and a $1400 TV was no longer an option.
Eh, I wouldn't be so quick to let my guard down. Even if you trust that that toggle actually turns the functionality completely off, there's no guarantee that it won't be enabled again in the next update.
Just keep your TV offline, as it always should be, and use it as a dumb display for trusted devices.
LG also has a setting for "Wi‑Fi Direct / Wi‑Fi Screen Share". Can the TV connect to LG servers via that route? (Even if LAN and regular Wi-Fi are not configured?)
You really have to disconnect it from the network, or find out what "phone home" connections it is making and block some of them.
2. Use an Apple TV for the "smart" features.
3. Avoid Fire TV, Chromecast, or Roku.
The logic is simple, Google (Chromecast) and Amazon (Fire TV) operate on the same business model as the TV manufacturers subsidized hardware in exchange for user data and ad inventory. Apple is the only mainstream option where the hardware cost covers the experience, rather than your viewing habits subsidizing the device.
[Copied my comment from here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46268844#46271740]
You'd likely be surprised what proprietary WiFi-enabled consumer products do without your knowledge. Especially in a dense residential environment, there's nothing preventing a neighbor's WiFi AP giving internet access to everything it deems eligible within range. It may be a purely behind the scenes facility, on an otherwise ostensibly secured AP.
It's rationalized by the vendors as a service to the customer. The mobile app needs to be able to configure the device via the cloud, so increasing the ability for said device to reach cloud by whatever means necessary is a customer benefit.
And of course: If it exists, it can be used.
That said, I haven't seen any evidence that suggests that televisions and streaming boxes are using it.
But remember, too: Whispernet.
Available as a one-time extra-cost feature on the first Kindle back in '07, Whispernet provided a bit of slow Internet access over cellular networks -- without additional payments or contracts or computers.
And really, Whispernet was great in that role.
But the world of data is shaped a lot differently these days. Data is a lot more-available and much less-expensive than it was back then, ~18 years ago -- and codecs have improved by leaps-and-bounds in terms of data efficiency.
Radios are also less expensive and more-capable compared to what they were in '07.
This will be sold as a feature: "Now with Amazon Whispernet, your new Amazon Fire TV will let you stream as much ad-supported TV as you want! For free! No home Internet connection or bulky antenna required! Say no to monthly bills and wanky-janky setups, and say yes to Amazon Fire TV!"
The future will be advertising. (Always has been, but always will be, too.)
If Neilsen will give me $1 to have a journal of what I watch, they might give Samsung something to have actual logs.
Or imagine some localized automesh based on zigbee/matter-> you have a philips hue lamp connected to wifi, tv connects to it and it forwards data... I totally believe this will be the next development of ad networks and sold as 'better smart home devices'. And it'll not require any LTE. Or it can have LTE only on some subset of devices while others will use that as gateway.
Is this statement based on anything other than Apple marketing materials, perhaps a meaningful qualification from an independent third party? I worry this falsehood is being repeated so much it has become "truth".
But frankly the difference between the two companies seems more a matter of degree than kind. It's not like Apple has a strong, principled stance against collecting data. They have a strong principled stance against other ad networks collecting user data, which looks a lot like anticompetitiveness. Their first party software collects identifiable data on you regardless of whether you opt out. They just avoid using that to target you if you opt out.
The reason Apple says their advertising doesn't track you is because they define "tracking" as purchasing third party data, not first party data collection.
Other than a history replete of cooperation with domestic and foreign state surveillance, which in exchange allow its market position, you mean?
If further evidence is necessary, any Apple device that I have owned pings multiple Apple domains several times per minute, despite disabling every cloud dependency that can be disabled. The roles of the domains are partially documented, but traffic is encrypted and it is impossible to know for sure what information Apple is exfiltrating. It is certainly a lot more than a periodic software update check. It certainly seems that Apple is documenting how people interact with the devices they own very closely. That's an insane amount of oversight over people's lives considering that some (most?) people use their phones as their primary computer.
$ man dasd
No manual entry for dasd
https://eclecticlight.co/2023/01/23/scheduled-activities-1-s...
while : ; do pkill -9 dasd ; sleep 10 ; done
But if you wanna be afraid of boring ordinary things, you go right ahead.
akd -> gsa.apple.com
nsurlsessiond -> gateway.icloud.com
nsurlsessiond -> mesu.apple.com
nsurlsessiond -> gdmf-ados.apple.com
nsurlsessiond -> gdmf.apple.com
adprivacyd -> bag.itunes.apple.com
CloudTelemetryService -> gateway.icloud.com
cloudd -> gateway.icloud.com
amsondevicestoraged -> bag.itunes.apple.com
tipsd -> ipcdn.apple.com
parsec-fbf -> fbs.smoot.apple.com
parsec-fbf -> swallow.apple.com
com.apple.geod -> gspe1-ssl.ls.apple.com
identityservicesd -> init.ess.apple.com
I saw an ad for apple gaming service in my iphone system settings recently !
That's not to say that Google isn't worse but let's not pretend Apple is some saint here or that their incentives are perfectly aligned with the users. Hardware growth has peaked, they will be forced to milk you on services to keep growing revenue.
Personally I'm looking forward to Steam Deck, if that gets annoying with SteamOS - it's a PC built for Linux, there's going to be something available.
Hardware is now purely a way to get you on to the app store - which is why iOS is so locked down and iPad has a MacBook level processor with toy OS.
If you stop looking at the marketing speak and look at it from a stock owner perspective all the user hostile moves Apple is double speaking into security and UX actually make a lot more sense.
This isn’t some hypothetical or abstract scenario, it’s a real life multi billion dollar a year industry that Apple allows on their devices.
You can argue that this is not the same thing as the native ad platform that they run and I’d agree but it’s also a distinction without a meaningful difference.
I'll still keep buying stuff on steam.
Why would anyone pay to be treated like shit.
Jellyfin + Arr stack would take a couple of hours to setup and cost $10/month for a seedbox in Europe, but it's not as convenient as downloading an app and logging in.
This is just the stuff I watched this year.
Add in all the region locks, also not all the services having rights to local dubs despite them being available (more for children's stuff but still relevant, Disney+ is unusable for me because of this)
Netflix used to have a catalog worth keeping the subscription on, nowadays I maybe get to watch something once a quarter and keep it on for kids stuff.
Streaming is not convince anymore it's a shitshow.
I think a jellyfin/ARR/Seedbox setup is going to be the solution this year.
Also, you can buy a more capable used ThinkCenter micro for less money, so the value proposition isn't exactly great.
This seems to be a side effect of KODI's extreme aversion to being associated with piracy.
They have an option (buried way under settings) to make the home-screen apps only.
> Turn on Apps only mode > From the Google TV home screen, select Settings Settings and then Accounts & Sign In. > Select your profile and then Apps only mode and then Turn on.
It also makes the device significantly more performant.
I've farted around with every HTPC software from MythTV on and I'm over it. I'll happily pay the premium for an AppleTV that will handle almost everything in hardware.
Who needs a frontend? Just open brave.
Don't get me wrong, I'm never giving up my ublock-YouTube plus steam plus Plex Linux htpc but there's plenty of reasons they're not super practical.
Also doesn't Netflix still throttle to 720p on PCs?
How often that happens to be a pain point?
So enough that I'd like to find a good solution, even if it's not super high priority. My sofabaton Bluetooth remote was hopefully the savior but its Bluetooth mode is pretty bad and makes macros unreliable.
You can even completely replace Google's sponsored-content-feed launcher/homescreen with an open source alternative that is just a grid of big tiles for your installed apps (FLauncher).
For me, SmartTube with both ad-blocking and sponsor block is the killer feature of Android TV as a platform.
If you're into local network media streaming, Jellyfin's Android TV app is also great. Their Apple TV app is limited enough that people recommend using a paid third party client instead. And that's usually inevitably the case with Apple's walled gardens... The annual developer fee means things that people would build for the community on AOSP/Android are locked behind purchases or subscriptions on iOS and Apple TV.
The good is that the above norm encourages the creation of high quality software. The bad is that, by the same token, some ideas that would be free/libre community projects on other platforms are instead paid utilities in Apple's walled garden, especially on iOS and Apple TV.
All macOS utilities absolutely don't cost money. There are countless free macOS utilities in the Mac App Store, as well as open source utilities for macOS specifically too.
Years ago our refrain was "if you're not paying for the service, you're the product".
Nowadays we all recognize how naive that was; why would these psychopathic megacorporations overlook the possibility of both charging us and selling our privacy to the highest bidder?
In other words, Apple doesn't have a pass here. They're profiting from your data too, in addition to charging you the usual Apple tax. Why wouldn't they? Apple's a psychopathic megacorporation just like all the rest of them, whose only goal is to generate profit at any cost.
Use a PC for "smart" features. Used PC hardware is cheap and plenty effective. And the Logitech K400 is better than any TV remote.
No spying (unless you run Windows). Easy ad blocking. No reliance on platform-specific app support. Native support for multiple simultaneous content feeds (windows) - even from different services.
And it's not like it's complicated. My parents are as tech-illiterate as they come and they've been happily using an HTPC setup for over well over a decade. Anyone who can operate a "Smart TV" can certainly use a web browser.
Unlikely, Apple TV is itself a "PC", not much different.
An actual PC doesn't cost much for electricity in a year either (say $30/year headless for watching several hours a day and sleep mode the rest). Make it an ARM and it will be quite less.
then the only thing to do will be to rip out the antenna
The only time we ever interface with apple is to install a new app on the AppleTV and that is very rare.
The appletv is not connected to any other apple products or services.
An Apple TV is probably also OK, but likely also much more expensive. Also, Apple is a company that is and always has done all they could to lock down their platforms, lock in their users and seek exorbitant fees from developers releasing to their platform.
Which wireless keyboard do you use? I've pretty much exact same setup - TV + Linux Mint + Logitech K400+. I'm just looking to see if there are better options for K400+
The keymap takes some getting used to.
The Apple TV remote is way more useable, and HDMI CEC just works™, which never ever was true with the NUC. I really like the client-server model - the Apple TV is my dumb front end for Plex, Steam Link, and so on. It also is well supported by every streaming service.
All of the Apple TV apps are designed with a UI for a TV and remote, not a user sitting two feet from a computer with a keyboard and mouse, and are way easier to use sitting on a sofa then a keyboard + browser combo.
I could fiddle with the NUC and make it work, but it was not family friendly. In general, the "it just works" factor is extremely high, which I could not say for the NUC.
If Apple ever goes evil, I'll just switch to whatever the best solution is when that happens (maybe a rooted Android TV device?). It's not like I'm marrying it. An Apple TV is $150. I've gotten 4 years out of my current one. The cost is negligible.
As I've gotten older, I've really come to value the "it just works" factor. I don't have time or energy for fiddly stuff anymore. After I put in the time to set something up, I want it to be rock solid. To each their own though.
This might be temporarily a good rule of thumb to follow, but you will get monetized eventually. Nobody likes leaving money on the table. Same reason why subscription services now serve ads as well.
The zipper also doesn't spy on us... yet? When smart zippers become the norm and you can't find jeans with dumb zippers, I'll return to using buttons even if they're a bit annoying to deal with.
Quality has gone out of everything in the last 15+ years.
So these items, along with anything marked Smart == Ad platform, or AI == Future Ad platform, are on my 'will not buy on principle' list regardless of need or wants.
I 100% agree, and I own very nice LG TVs. They are not connected to the internet. They each have an Apple TV and that is their only way that they get video, and can't send data out.
So.. they can take the time to do this properly.. but won't bother to ask you privacy preferences out of the box.
This should be illegal. If you collect data from customers then you need to be up front about that and the setting must be opt in. They clearly have the capability to do this. Their products need to be taken off the market if they can't act in a civilized manner.
Alternatively block it from the internet at the router, or connect to a LAN-only subnet. Keeps the benefits of local AirPlay, Chromecast, and HomeKit without being able to phone home.
Same applies to basically anything connected to the internet. Can it collect data useful for advertising, or otherwise legally saleable? If so, deny it access to the internet if you value your privacy. Or, when possible, replace its firmware / software with a reputable open-source version.
Follow the money. Can any money be made inconspicuously off you after a sale of the device? Are you happy with the way it would be done? Do some minimal research, and scratch your head.
1990s: "You should talk to a psychiatrist."
2013: "You should talk to my cousin Ernie, he's an IT whiz."
(via @kennwhite on twitter, 2013, now deleted)
Is it really?
First things I did when I got a new LG TV:
* Turn off auto-smoothing
* Turn off high dynamic range
* Turn off audio processing
First things I did when I got my Apple TV:
* Turn off auto-smoothing
* Turn off high dynamic range
* Force everything to play at 1080p (delete all other resolutions)
There is a sharp cultural line between people who can't stand UHD/4K/48fps and those who want everything to look like pre-HD cinema, and people who love all the post processing. I'm on the wrong side. Which side are you all on?
It's weird that all this "new" tech feels so backwards to some of us.
It's hard for me to tune in on an overly smoothed, saturated picture with fake surround sound plasticy soundbar audio.
But what I can't figure out is why you would actively dislike 4K. What makes you want exactly 1080p, no more, no less?
Watching a movie on my new smart TV, the actors looked more like actors, and less like the characters they were portraying. This could be from some other feature, like AI upscaling or something. But something is definitely off.
It could be it's just different and I'll get used to it, but I haven't yet. I haven't watched much on that TV yet though to tell.
35mm could easily resolve above 1080p. A good 4K transfer is in theory much closer to the actual image seen in a cinema.
But take LoTR for example: I have a friend with a 60-something inch TV and watched the 4K DVD and then watched the streaming at home on my 50something inch and I'll be damned if I can tell A from B. Maybe I need to put them side-by-side some day!
So I'm gonna go with, "I'm old, Bob."
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Yeah, tell be ‘bout privacy
I visited a week later and he had reset the TV because he started getting spanish ads. On my way out the door that time, I randomly said something like "I can't hold it in anymore, I need diapers!" and my friend was like "dude don't do that."
Sure enough, not a day later... It really just Depends.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42580659
from memory, the logical explanation is that by connecting to the same wifi the new tracked profile is being used. For example, the grand parent could have been learning Spanish, their profile gets picked up.
Another explanation is observation bias. Spanish ads were shown previously, but were ignored. Now you're on the lookout for them, so they're more noticeable.
We get podcast and very infrequent YouTube ads in Spanish. So does everyone else we’ve talked to. When you use IP address databases it almost always says our IP addresses are in the other town.
I do think it makes sense their ad algo messes up once in awhile.
Trying to fight it is way too much work unless you have a super configurable firewall, and even then you're playing whack a mole with ALLOW lists.
Connecting my TVs to my home network; not even once.
It baffles me how even programmers who code for a living can fall for this.
Oh? What if it's one of those, "if you opt out, we quietly reenable it a month later" settings, like LinkedIn notifications? What if it can be reenabled remotely for "law enforcement"? Heck, what if they just ignore the setting and keep mining what you watch? They've already effectively admitted to having the bare minimum concern for user privacy, and we know how willing companies are to break laws to get training data these days.
If LG makes money from snooping on you, what makes you think the “off” button actually turns it off? People have no way of verifying this.
To me this is the worst part of TVs (and cars, and fridges, and so on) are even allowed to have these features[1]: non-techinical customers have no understanding that “smart” hardware is capable of doing whatever it wants - and hide it from customers. You have no way of knowing what your “smart” thing is doing behind the scenes.
[1]: any feature thats sending data back to company servers, meaning you loose control of your data. Features that are 100% on-device is not what I’m talking about.
Not true, one may still find themselves worrying, especially since the factory reset or software update could add more “features” that we don’t want. Fortunately, once you’ve sworn off buying an LG product, you no longer have to worry.
> This professed concern for privacy is silly. What the heck is wrong with companies learning about your preferences? Unless you are a sociopath, psychopath, pervert, subversive, or criminal, why would you care?
We need a worldwide campaign telling people that in order to have this opinion, they must agree to a group of 12 reporters to be quietly standing and watching in their living room, taking notes about any porn movies the person likes to watch. Also if they are not "criminal or perverts", they should feel no issue with living in a glass walled house where everybody can see them sitting in the toilet. What is there to hide?
gnabgib•1mo ago
Texas is suing all of the big TV makers for spying on what you watch (1258 points, 7 days ago, 641 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46294456