DS Forums

 
 

SMART televisions spying on you


Reply
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 08-11-2014, 17:29
Fran Blakes
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: In bed watching TV
Posts: 837

Last year it was LG televisions monitoring activity:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25018225

Now Samsung what to watch and listen to you too :
http://www.brennancenter.org/analysi...red-turn-thing
Fran Blakes is offline   Reply With Quote
Please sign in or register to remove this advertisement.
Old 08-11-2014, 18:13
alanwarwic
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: the wild world web
Posts: 28,132
http://www.networkworld.com/article/...of-things.html

"He did not name the brand, but both LG and Samsung are known for this kind of intrusiveness".
I smell more US protectionist stuff there. Siri always sends your voice back to Apple, so do we also ban smartphones?

Microsoft and their privacy lobbying also makes the whole subject blurry.
alanwarwic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-11-2014, 23:46
Tassium
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: It's Grim
Posts: 24,403
What government is doing is allowing private firms to collect data about people and save it, safe in the knowledge that no court order will be needed if the local security forces will wish to take a look.

Government in this country and around the world.

The threat to people is significant of course. As we have seen, government is increasingly "bought" by private interests who get the laws they wish and the policy they wish.

The Conservatives right now, and who knows who Labour will sell out to in the future?

Scary scary times we live in, it's like science fiction come to life.
Tassium is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-2014, 00:00
breppo
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Cathedral of Motorcycle Racing
Posts: 2,410
The largest Dutch consumer organisation has started a campaign to end the spying by the manufacturers. According to their research the following brands are the main culprits: Samsung, Philips, Sony, LG and Panasonic.

Samsung has an opt-out for recommendations so it won't keep track of your viewing habits, but it's buried in the menu's. Disabling it won't affect other smart functionality on the TV.

I've disabled the WIFI connection on my Samsung. I don't use any of the "smart" functionality.
breppo is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-2014, 08:57
David (2)
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: S.West England.
Posts: 18,033
As far as smart TVs go, if you don't connect them to the Internet and only use broadcast tv such as freeview, satellite, then there's no "return path" for such data to back along. Obviously you won't be able to make use the smart features.....but at least u have a choice.

On a smart phone, there's nothing u can really do about it apart from switch the phone off.
David (2) is offline Follow this poster on Twitter   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-2014, 09:44
alanwarwic
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: the wild world web
Posts: 28,132
..
Scary scary times we live in, it's like science fiction come to life.
Even scarier is that secret organisers, non government and government can now monitor us so easily in secret. Privacy likely has far more danger than non privacy. (mafia, terrorism etc etc)
And the costly privatisation of services via the use of people ATOS and MAXIMUS could also create Stasi like agencies, operating better through their very own 'establishment' controlled privacy.

BTW I suspect that the vast majority of hacker recording are made through the mics and cameras on peoples laptops and PCs. US companies(Dell/HP/Intel etc) help make lots and lots of those so make of that what you will.
alanwarwic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-2014, 10:26
breppo
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Cathedral of Motorcycle Racing
Posts: 2,410
Here are some interesting reads: http://www.scmagazineuk.com/alarm-be...rticle/354900/

http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/01/tech...urity/tv-hack/

http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/...n-experts.html

And there's loads more of hacking stories.

The Dutch government's reaction to all this: It's the responsibility of the the user to be aware of the dangers and take appropriate measures to defend themselves...
breppo is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-2014, 11:01
Nigel Goodwin
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: North Derbyshire
Posts: 41,783
The largest Dutch consumer organisation has started a campaign to end the spying by the manufacturers. According to their research the following brands are the main culprits: Samsung, Philips, Sony, LG and Panasonic.
I can't comment on the other brands, but Sony give you the option during initial installation - there's also NO DEFAULT - you HAVE to accept or refuse it, in order to continue installation (I always refuse it on all the sets I install).

So (at least on Sony) you can't accidentally give permission for seeing your viewing habits.
Nigel Goodwin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-2014, 11:26
alanwarwic
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: the wild world web
Posts: 28,132
..Samsung has an opt-out for recommendations...
Likely it meant, but chose not to say the voice recognition which uses the Cloud.

Strangely, of the big players it seems only Google voice can work without using the cloud.
alanwarwic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-2014, 12:55
breppo
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Cathedral of Motorcycle Racing
Posts: 2,410
I can't comment on the other brands, but Sony give you the option during initial installation - there's also NO DEFAULT - you HAVE to accept or refuse it, in order to continue installation (I always refuse it on all the sets I install).

So (at least on Sony) you can't accidentally give permission for seeing your viewing habits.
All the major brands have the option during installation, but usually it's an all or nothing choice, so most people press yes in order to not miss out on something. Almost nobody reads the terms and conditions, which in Samsung's case is a hefty 57 pages long in legalese, which even I as a tax lawyer find difficult to comprehend. Basically you sell your soul to Samsung without realising it.
breppo is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-2014, 13:36
spiney2
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 24,092
bettter than a fridge which downloads porn.

knock at the door

"this is the police and we have come to interview your cheese"
spiney2 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-2014, 13:44
spiney2
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 24,092
All the major brands have the option during installation, but usually it's an all or nothing choice, so most people press yes in order to not miss out on something. Almost nobody reads the terms and conditions, which in Samsung's case is a hefty 57 pages long in legalese, which even I as a tax lawyer find difficult to comprehend. Basically you sell your soul to Samsung without realising it.
everything seems to have an infinitely long manufacturer indemnity. including all computer software, which is not guaranteed to work in any way. nice to know all those accountants and lawyers understand Turing's halting problem ......
spiney2 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-2014, 15:03
Nigel Goodwin
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: North Derbyshire
Posts: 41,783
All the major brands have the option during installation, but usually it's an all or nothing choice, so most people press yes in order to not miss out on something.
I would have thought most would press 'no' during install? - no need to read the 'legalise', just the VERY short message on-screen and decide if you want to participate or not.

However, assuming you press 'yes' does it matter?, it's no big deal is it - just people over reacting as usual
Nigel Goodwin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-2014, 17:53
Fran Blakes
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: In bed watching TV
Posts: 837
In the future it won't be 3D glasses that we'll be wearing to watch television.

It'll be a burqa and talkbox...
or clown masks
Fran Blakes is offline   Reply With Quote
 
Reply



Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

 
Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 22:11.