Ugh. So blocklists were not enough. Time to isolate my telly on the router.

If your television is connected to any network at all its already too late.

Amazon Sidewalk - even if you didn’t connect it, it could still be spying

What is this? I have a Sony TV that’s not connected to the internet so I thought I was safe.

I don’t know if any TVs are actually using it, but Amazon Sidewalk is a form of LoRa, low power, low bandwidth, long distance communication. It’s designed to let non-internet connected devices phone back home. I hear it is very popular with shipping trackers because you can put a small device in a pallet and have it send it’s GPS back for free. I’m not sure it would support the GBs of data TVs are phoning home with each month, but it could certainly send some data home.

Even then it’s rumoured some brands of TV try to connect to Bluetooth connected devices to connect to the net. I think that was Samsung.

Wouldn’t that require bluetooth tethering?

You could try to host your DNS, change the router DNS to that and then spend a while to see to which addresses the TV talk to and block them, it’s probably time consuming but if you have that time, it can work

Yeah, I know. I have a blocklist for LG and other common brands compiled by someone else on my router DNS adblocker. But considering how sneaky they are with collecting information they should stay the fuck away from, I bet they have mechanisms to get around their common ad domains for the data that matters.

Do a whitelist.

Yeah you are right, you are better of staying away from LG but if you already have one, you could make a subnet for the TV (and/or other IoT devices) with a DNS whitelist to block every domain except Youtube or whatever else is used

I have a separate and isolated net for all my IoT and smart home devices but things like the telly, amp, media player etc need to have some network access. Makes me tired that this kind of fiddling is necessary.

unless LG skips DNS entirely and hard codes its IPs.

Oh right that might be a problem, but in that case we can make a subnet (as i suggested on another reply) and block any connection that isn’t on specific addresses or IPs with a firewall

EU really should regulate against this kind of behaviour

Problem us that there are too few tech literate politicians

The problem is way worse: big tech contributes tobribes politicians to vote according to industry interests.

It’s not the politicians job to know everything but to make decisions and legislate based on information from the expertise. It is the people in the know that need to make the proposals for the politicians to bring it up. It’s us, the tech literate, that need to write proposals that are informative with arguments derived from trusted sources to make the politicians aware that these are concerns that need to be addressed.

Sadly, I don’t have time or money to do that. You know who does? Big tech does!

Let’s all lie belly up and do nothing and accept that nothing will ever change for the better because nobody else is doing it for us and it is impossible for us to change the world all alone. This is exactly the defeatist mindset that the economic elites want people to have.

You could do something small, like find out your representatives and write a personal mail to them, informing them from your point of view. With enough people doing small things and some doing big things the chances for things like this gaining traction are magnitudes bigger than giving up in advance. It takes a few hours to a few days depending on your dedication and whatever cost coffee is in your area of residence.

It’s so refreshing finding someone with that kind of opinion. I feel less lonely.

I can’t tell if this comment thread is filled with doomer basement dweller defeatists that use their worldview as excuse to not even try or foreign bot farms pushing said agenda.

It can be both.

Yeah sorry, it’s not just time and money,but also skill. I’m not the person you choose to convince people to do something. That’s why we choose representatives. That’s why we vote.

You have the time. Get off the internet.

Can’t you see I’m working right now?!

It is the people in the know that need to make the proposals

No, it’s the politician’s job to get in touch with experts of any given field.
They prefer lobbyists instead because they are corrupt.

After proposals come in, yes. If the only proposals coming in are from lobbyists of various corporations and interest groups, guess which matters are going to be on the table?

You’re still portraying the politician as a passive entity, they’re not.

And you seem to think that EU politics is a closed court accessible only for political royalty, which it is not.

The fucked up part is that “expertise” is assumed to be exclusively found in the industry being regulated. Bill Gates is a respected industry expert, but RMS is just some dumbfuck nobody because he’s not “in the industry”.

It is a politicians job to know what they are doing in fact.

Read at least the entire first sentence before you feel the need to comment, my dude.

Problem is lobbying.

ding-ding-ding

AKA legal corruption

The problem is the system that allows for corruption to exist in the first place.

They could educate themselves or hire help, if they weren’t corrupt.

It’s not principally they aren’t tech savy, it s that the politicians are corrupt.

Maybe read what you write? No reason to make yourself look so dumb (and just to state the obvious, I’m not disagreeing at all, just pointing out what should be obvious but apparently isn’t).

EU lobbies won’t ever allow it.

In the later years the EU regulations have been massively disappointing. Only favouring big EU companies and destroying little businesses and the european consumers.

Some disappointing eu regulations:

• The cookiesgate. Your data is still going around everywhere. You just have a pop up everywhere that means nothing.

• ¿Replaceable batteries on smartphones? No, only for cheap chinese phones if so. The big players can pay for some european certification on the quality of their batteries and doesn’t need to be replaceable.

• ¿Stop killing games? Hahahaha don’t ever think about it.

• You are buying too much, we need you poorer. So we put up a 3€ tariffs per category product on chinese stores so you are forced to buy the exact same product to an european retailer at twice the price.

• We heard you like the environment, what about a new complicated tax on packaging so all small business cannot function and only big business are allowed to send products within the european union.

I think the days of the EU legislation saving the day are far off.

Liberalism will always be corrupted by capitalism at the end of the the day. Maybe some systems last a decade or two longer, but it’s all bound to fall.

IMHO Liberalism was manufactured by Capitalism as a left-sounding form of politics to allow mainstream parties which were genuinelly leftwing to move Right in Economic, Quality Of Life and even broad Equality whislt still appearing to be left-wing due to their pro-liberty posture on Moral and Social subjects.

I say this because I have yet to see any form of Liberalism in mainstream politics, ever, anywhere, which sought to maximize people’s freedom to access limitied or constrained resources which are required merelly to live, such as Land (which Land Ownership goes against), so I don’t think that at least in Politics there was ever any genuine Liberalism for Capitalism to corrupt.

Liberals ARE capitalists. By definition.

What makes you define the EU as ideologically liberal?

on chinese stores

Wrong. It’s on items purchased from any non-EU countries. So it also includes the Irish purchasing from UK.

Implying the British actually make anything the Irish want. Come on now lad. 🤣

That charge is not just on Chinese stores. I manufacture my own product in the usa through a factory i own and get hit with those fucking charges.

Then I’ve got to pay for all this cardboard and plastic but OH LOOK there’s a minimum fee so I’m subsidizing larger businesses or Europeans in general. AND I need to pay for a European contact to do it! Fuck yourselves for that one.

Eu regulation is hostile to small business and they will be left with nothing but major shitty international corps at this rate.

In the USA, you say?

“Oh no”.

Anyway…

I mean the whole point of this is to subsidize small business in the EU at the expense of businesses outside the EU. The fact it is more difficult and costly for you is exactly the point. They want to support businesses and workers in the EU, because that’s where their people actually are, that’s where their taxes are, that’s where they support infrastructure and social programs.

It is true that it favors larger international corporations, because they have near monopolies and csn manage all of this at a smaller relative cost. The solution of course is to make tariffs and other import duties scale with the size of the company.

So the EU regulations are not perfect, they do hurt international small businesses while protecting in part local small businesses. They need, like everyone, to deal with the problem of international monopoly companies and restore more and more of their manufacturing and product development into more and more local small businesses.

And yet, they’ve been the best government on the planet for the working class.

If anyone does, EU will be the first.

Starting today I’m going to yell epstein files at my tv

Secretly recording conversations in peoples homes sounds like it should be against the law in a number of countries.

Imagine someone working for the government, security services, or a defence contractor. I suspect LG may be in trouble with a number of National Security agencies.

Should be. Hope it happens and quickly

It is illegal. Unfortunately crime is legal for corporations. They just pay the crime fee and can continue undisturbed. Shareholders must be held responsible individually, otherwise it will only get worse.

Shareholders must be held responsible individually

So, are you personally on the hook here because the company managing your pension fund is holding stocks in LG? Because that technically makes you a shareholder as it was bought with your money, right?

Edit: not sure why I get downvoted, this is a legitimate concern/nuance to the debate. The managing company doesn’t own these stocks so they’re not the shareholders, that’s the people whose money they are managing, but these people are not directly in control of the funds. Who is the liable party in this?

The fact that a pension fund can hold shareholds is crazy by itself, also, is the pension found a company or managed by your state? It shouldn’t really be a thing in first place

is the pension fund a company or managed by your state?

Both in my case, as there are both the government pension fund that is mandatory and the one used by my employer which uses one of the large primary pension institutions in my country.

Is it a bit weird that I don’t just manage all my pensions myself? Yes, a bit. But it’s how its done in my country and it has some tax benefits compared to getting the money in hand and investing myself.

Is it a bit weird that I don’t just manage all my pensions myself?

Naah, at least, i don’t know anyone that does it in my country

Me either. My union pension is controlled by the union and managed by a bank as far as I can tell.

The highest level employee/officer who had knowledge of it should be held responsible

You mean the CBO[^1]? Because the higher level officers didn’t know anything about it and you can’t prove they did.

[^1]: Chief Blame Officer

you can’t prove they did.

I mean, depending on the scale you probably can with investigation.

Being deliberately ignorant should not be a defense. Just like it isn’t for the peasants.

It doesn’t matter how many layers of evasion there are. Responsibility has to be with individuals in order for there to be change.

That might stop this madness.

See the thing is if your pension also funds a murder company does outsourcing who manages it not make you at least a little culpable? I think it does and i think the only way to stop this madness is for a little justice to come your way.

does outsourcing who manages it not make you at least a little culpable

What if i have no control over who manages it? I have two, one is government managed and mandatory, the other is part of my salary (and mandatory) and who manages my company paid pension is decided by my employer. I have no control of either aside from general risk profile and high level market groups on my company paid pension (e.g. “tech” or “renewable energy”).

That just sounds like a good way to destroy index funds.

Okay.

90 percent of stocks are owned by ten percent of Americans. Just throwing this fact out here

Also, which shareholders? Shareholders have no say in the business decisions outside of the annual voting for board members and whatever broad issues are brought up for a vote. If someone holds stock and then sells it before a vote, are they responsible for the business decisions? If a swing trader bought and then sold in one day/week/month (even at a loss), how much is their liability? If someone sells their shares just before a vote, then buys them again after, are they liable?

If I don’t get executive say in what happens at the company, I am not included in liability. I am not allowed to sit on the damn board with my pension fund.

Executives and controlling board members get held personally liable. It really is as simple as that. If you are in the meetings, and you get a vote, you are liable. There is absolutely no slippery slope fallacy here.

Any bullshit “uhm actually you technically are a shareholder” is just trying to ward off people having to take responsibility for their decisions. (also, in many pension schemas you aren’t actually the shareholders, the investment fund technically is and you are just given the license to decide how they invest those funds and get a portion of the payout, but it is different than manually retail investing for example)

Not shareholders. Decision makers. Upper management. Shareholders should pay in share value (the financial penalty to the corporations should be high enough to affect that), bu the personal an criminal responsibility belongs to managers, CEO in particular.

There should at least be something resembling an attempt of investigating, who, where, and when signed an order to implement this shit into their products. That way they will at least think twice if they want to risk the chance of being held personally responsible.

Only in trouble if they didn’t loop them in on the audio feeds.

Recording without consent is very much a crime in any two-party state, but my guess is that the TOS that people click past to use the TV gives them permission to record you. If it didn’t, they would be in big legal hot water.

Clicking through ToS does not magically make illegal things legal.

Consenting to recording makes recording legal.

Making that consent required to use the TV or its features and it being buried within lengthy, opaque terms of service in a country with a low level of literacy should be illegal, but it stands in the US because it’s a consumer hostile country.

A TOS presented after an electronic device has been sold is not valid in most of the World since it’s considered an attempt to, after the sale, force a change of the terms of the implicit contract which is the sale.

A company can shove whatever they want in front of the customer as contract conditions they have to accept for a sale before the sale - by which point the potential customer can refuse and not buy or accept and buy - not after.

Of course, they don’t do that because they would lose most sales, so instead there’s a TOS or EULA which the owners of the devices are forced to agree to after the sale to fully enjoy that which they bought, but these are really just legal fictions in most countries.

Mind you, this does not apply to a subscription to an ongoing service, though even then at least in Europe, there are conditions they much obbey to have the customer accept a TOS or a TOS change after subscribing, such as it being possible for the customer to cancel the service at no cost rather than accept the new TOS.

Unconscionable bunk. It’s illegal anyway, just like how you can’t sign a contract to sell yourself into slavery.

If the courts won’t enforce it, vigilantes should.

“In any two-party state” what? That’s such a weird thing to say. Two-party systems are a worse version of applied democracy, that should be incredibly obvious. I just seriously don’t understand why you would even think about saying that it’s a crime in two-party states only, it’s so odd. If anything two-party states are more akin to not having strong laws against that because of the very fact of it. Look at the US, which I’m guessing is a big part of your mind in this. Do yourself a favor and search for countries two-party systems and their laws on this compared to actual democracies with more parties.

Call recording laws in some U.S. states require only one party to be aware of the recording, while other states generally require both parties to be aware. Several states require that all parties consent when one party wants to record a telephone conversation.

Or hired by those same agents of authority.

I ran a packet capture on my TV as I left it turned off overnight.

They wake up in the middle of the night, do “stuff” then go back offline. Like a zombie.

I have basically every URL our TV automatically pings blocked at this point. It phones home every 10-30 seconds whether they’re off or on. I think when we get a new TV we’re looking for a dumb TV

we’re looking for a dumb TV

Increasingly hard to find, monitors are going the same way as well as projectors.
Soon enough you’ll need soldering skills.

LG’s monitors were downloading malware/ad BS so you can’t trust the monitors either.

LG’s Windows drivers were doing that. LG deserves the blame and can’t be trusted, but ditto for Windows itself.

To be clear this was Windows, detecting you had an LG display device plugged in, and Windows Update opting to automatically download the latest drivers/software for that LG display.

I have a led backlight connected my TV’s usb port and I’ve noticed it comes on randomly when the TV is turned off, then turns off. This happens couple of times throughout the night, when the TV is clearly doing something

I have my TV on an extension cord and cut the power before going to bed. Hopefully any internal battery it has isn’t enough to do “stuff”.

Oh, nice. Who doesn’t like their fucking TV snooping on them?

Is this with accepting all their terms and functionality, or also when declining?

I don’t know anything about those TVs, but i bet that if you decline you just have a fancy brick on your table, just like with every smartphone

The docu investigation found that despite declining, the devices still send data regardless.

My LG TV is not getting network privileges, ever. I wonder if there is a way to turn off the WiFi radio altogether.

A soldering iron will do it…

Welp glad I never put in my WiFi. This’ll be my last LG

So this is why every product started to go standby, low power mode, instead of turning off.

Also because people whine when things take too long to turn on but yes this too

I never had a problem with older TVs’ boot times. In fact, I remember them being faster, the farther back I go…

They’ve been doing that since infrared remotes let you turn the TV on.

And that’s why I have a VLAN without outbound connections allowed. Still allows me to cast to the device from a separate vlan but the TV has no internet at all.

Seriously, this is the way. I did this too in about 15 mins. Also setup a simple rule to allow the vlan to reach my homeserver in a separate vlan specifically on Plex and Jellyfin ports. That's it. They cant phone home. You still enjoy your own media.

Yeah if you setup the firewall correctly you can access the TV but the TV can’t access anything it self.

I’ve recently tried setting up VLANs on my network, but I’m very new to this type of networking. I’ve got a bunch of guides and videos bookmarked, but I haven’t successfully got things working yet. Would you happen to have any good resources for a beginner? I THINK I have all the hardware I’ll need—a Pi5 8GB with OpenWRT installed, a managed gigabit switch, and a router flashed with OpenWRT to act as an access point. And a ton of Ethernet cables. I’ve also got some Lenovo Tinys I could use with… Opnsense? once I’ve got more knowledge and skillz and stuff.

Did this a few month back. Then my Sony TV decided to hide all apps when it has no internet for a few weeks. I guess when the internal disk is filling up and it needs to phone home again. What a shit show!

So I had to connect again, but now play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spocky.… is running, to hopefully never be coerced to go online again.

Jellyfin ftw.

Same here, smart devices go on a very restricted VLAN. Most only get access to Home Assistant for control.

Even without deliberate spying from these devices letting these things loose on the network at large has always seemed a bad idea to me.

Isn’t that what android does all the time?

Depends on the ROM/OEM.

Clarification: Most Android users don’t use custom firmware (“ROM”). OEM means the company that makes your phone. All the major ones use Google Play Services. Nothing and OnePlus might be exceptions as those are known for using custom firmware that is more private. Also, Pixel phones running GrapheneOS ostensibly do not include Google Play Services. But Pixel phones don’t ship with GrapheneOS. You have to add that yourself by unlocking the bootloader (available deep in the settings, wipes the phone), and manually flashing the custom firmware (CFW or “ROM”) to the phone.

No.

That said, the whole reason Android exists today is because Google was getting a lot of personal data from Gmail, but when they saw Andy Rubin’s invention, they realised they could get a lot more personal data with a phone, so they bought Android from him.

Android collects a lot of data (as that is its primary purpose for Google), but it doesn’t upload everything you say. It — or, more accurately, Google Play Services (and possibly other services) do other underhanded things to exfiltrate your data from the device back to Google. Like if you try to use an ad blocker, it will use DNS filtering to tunnel around the ad blocker for its own uses.

The wildest thing is, Google successfully ran an ad campaign convincing people their way was the right way and that Apple’s way of doing things was wrong. That’s a big part of why Apple is trying to be more like Google. They’re certainly not hurting for money, but they see people willingly accepting this sort of thing, so they’re realising more and more how much money they’re leaving on the table. Imagine if it had gone the other way, if more people rejected Google and its data collecting practices. We’d probably be paying more for some things since we’re not (also) the product, but more companies would be putting privacy first. Because that’s what the consumers would be demanding. But no, we have people out there, a metric fuck ton of them, saying privacy is negotiable. So, companies are negotiating with privacy — mostly against it.

I think I will opt to not belive they are not collecting.

Google been caught time and time again doing shady stuff and enabling evil features by default with some obscure optout mechanism either added later or only after been caught.

At this point the burden of proof is on them

I assume any device with such a capability is doing so until proven otherwise. And some internet poster saying no and relying on conjectures isn’t proof. i.e. Throwing around technological illiteracy implications.

The modus operandi of tech companies is to do it. Deny doing it. If they get caught, say it wasn’t that bad. If it was, it a mistake and they didn’t mean it. And maybe you asked for it by using the device in the first place.

I assume any device with such a capability is doing so until proven otherwise.

I tend to agree.

Google been caught time and time again adding anti consume features and enabling by default with some obscure optout mechanism either added later or only after been caught.

At this point the burden of proof is on them.

Great, I wonder what my fridge is up to. It’s LG and has wifi for some reason. I never connected it to my network, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they take advantage of open networks anyway

I tested this when my LG fridge was new, and got a warning when I left the door open. Quite helpful. But still disabled.

The regular beeping speaker/piezo solves the same problem without WiFi or other shenanigans.

My LG fridge also beeps, as any other fridge would. I guess the added benefit is that it can send a notification to your phone, maybe useful in some scenarios, all it costs is your privacy…

It needs wifi for the open-door alarm? My dumb GE fridge can do that without smart features.

My LG TV runs WebOS, which is a linux distro. I have been wondering how hard it is to root and replace with a distro of my own choosing. I had thought because my TV is pretty old that I was safe from the more sophisticated spying, but last week it interrupted what I was watching and would not let me continue using it without agreeing to new terms of use. This revived my interest in rooting it.

I saw this linked the other day. I haven’t looked into it deeply or done it.

I rooted my C1 years ago. I spent weeks afterwards worried that I just destroyed the warranty of a $1,500 TV.

But today, I’ve never felt so justified.

I didn’t know LG webOS rooting was a thing, that’s interesting to know.

There is an open source version of webOS, although I don’t know how it compares to the stock LG version. Maybe there will eventually be something like a LineageOS equivalent.

Go look up “tivoization”. GPLv2 isn’t enough to protect you from this shit.

cani.rootmy.tv - I just recently bought an LG for the first time, with eyes wide open, and used this site to get root on it, as well as VLANing it with a strict block list, but also an allow list only based policy, and strict no external DNS requests policies.

Also worth knowing that when accepting their policies many of them are optional and are just data slurping consent , think it was the top 2 compulsory in my region out of about 5.

I guess it’s time to start unplugging everything at the wall when not in use

I’m shocked, i tell you, shocked!

Waiting for the “No idea how this happened, we’re sorry and promise to make this better in future versions” moment - instead of admitting that this is just part of their business model.

Hoping for prosecution from the EU and at least one other country.

from the EU and at least one other country.

EU is not a country.

Current Commission is pushing for chatcontrol so they’d probably applaud LG’s practices.

LOL

I knew someone would point that out.

“other” in this case is shorthand for “not in EU”.

The EU is not a country, yet it does stuff that otherwise countries do, like legislating and judicating privacy laws. The correct term would have been “other political entity” but what is the point of that word picking again?

Like any political entity the EU can do many things at once, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Different institutions also have different interests. The Commission isn’t the primary driver behind chat control, a number of member states are. At the same time EU courts tend to be staunchly opposed to mass surveillance and in the European Parliament it depends on the party.

Current Commission is pushing for chatcontrol so they’d probably applaud LG’s practices.

Just because they want to spy on you doesn’t mean they are okay with other organizations spying on you.

I’ll let the EU prove me wrong.

I’m hoping not only prosecution, but an actual outcome such that they (and other companies) are afraid to try this again.

If all they get is a small fine that’s just a business expense to them, then of course they’ll continue doing sh** like this.

Glad I unplugged the ethernet cable from my LG TV

Me too with my TV. But reading more detailed comments here, it’s more complicated and nuanced than just “if it has a direct Internet connection it will get up to shenanigans”. Sounds like this device is using HDMI to manipulate Windows (install drivers etc) and piggyback off the Windows machine’s Internet connection. But I’m assuming if it’s not plugged into a Windows PC directly it might not be a problem.

What to do once you buy a tv in 2026

• open the tv
• remove the wifi chip and antennas
• remove the microphone
• cover the motherboard in fabric, then aluminium foil
• close the tv
• done

Why fabric and aluminium foil? Pretty sure removing microphones/cameras/bt/wifi modules is enough :p
Also, the foil wont do too much if you dont ground it!

The fabric is to prevent it from accidentally shorting components. The foil is for a faraday cage.

Can never get too safe

Unfortunately that will probably also void any warranty. Better to restrict access at the network level.

It shouldn’t be necessary or expected to perform surgical interventions on devices to make them respect privacy.

how will you deal with Amazon Sidewalk?

There’s a lot of misinformation in the comments here.

1. LG have been caught using the Internet connection of connected devices (like windows computers) to snoop on your network.
2. Because of that, it has access to your network even if you remove the wifi module or do not connect the TV directly to your network.
3. Lobotomizing the TV will not necessarily fix this issue, but I still think it’s a good start. It may be beneficial to switch to a different operating system or just ban the TV from accessing certain parts of the Eco system on your computer.
4. Removing Bluetooth, wifi, and microphone modules will be beneficial in the long run because this will not be the last time a company tries this and it’s not limited to LG. If you are technically inclined or can follow a YouTube video, go for it.

LG have been caught using the Internet connection of connected devices (like windows computers) to snoop on your network.

Do you have any sources for that? Not doubting it just curious about how that works.

www.theregister.com/personal-tech/2026/…/5275486

pcmag.com/…/lg-to-remove-unwanted-monitor-pop-ups…

This is literally in the video.

s-config.com/stopping-a-smart-tv-from-being-used-…

These do not support your claims.

See the third link and watch the video.

I think you’re misunderstanding what’s happening. The LG TV isn’t directly using the Windows internet connection. It’s taking advantage of Windows Update to have Windows itself install malware as a driver update for the screen.

Which I think is actually worse, because it shows that Microsoft is complicit in this nonsense.

This all happens the moment you plug that HDMI (or DisplayPort for people who purchased an LG computer monitor) right into an internet-enabled laptop through a protocol called EDID, also known as “Extended Display Identification Data,” which by itself is totally harmless!

It simply tells your operating system what kind of monitor is connected, what its capabilities are, it’s serial number. That’s it!

Inside Windows, when you go to Device Manager, it might not seem like much. Just a generic PnP device attached as a monitor.

Dive a little more into Device Manager, and we see where EDID does its magic; we found that this particular Microsoft Box is hooked up to some kind of Samsung monitor. Now, Samsung might have some kind of driver that would help take advantage of my monitor. But this Samsung is so old they simply do not care.

Yeah, it’s installing drivers on WINDOWS.

So, caveat two is don’t connect these things to an internet-connected WINDOWS machine.

Good point.

But, as others have said, if you do successfully air gap one of these things, it might stop working because a hard drive is full, or more directly because it can’t phone home and is designed to lock you out in that case.

On Gamer’s Nexus’s video on the subject at 1:20 you’ll hear how they talk about how LG accesses your network data through windows.

I think it’s important to note that I didn’t say in my original comment anything about it using your windows Internet connection to send and receive that data that it collects via microphone or that it may have accessed through your Wi-Fi network if you happened to connect it to that.

I think people assumed (it’s early for me, my bad) that I meant it was transmitting this data that it collected over your windows computer’s Internet connection but that wasn’t what I was intending to claim. When you connect an LG device (Television or Monitor) you agree to allow that device access to your network and they literally say they have full access to your device both in the TOS and in device settings . They gather all the information of every single device connected to your TV. Their apps can “use all system resources” and “access your Internet connection”.

0:47:00 of this video gives more detail about this. youtu.be/Q9uefFYe6bM?is=xKJNG-RT_j_2Tw1U

“Sending ACR data to advertising partners thru inputs like HDMI”

techpowerup.com/…/216-000-000-spy-tvs-the-lg-smar…

Stuff like this is why I'm still holding on to my old TV for dear life. It's seen better days but it's at least easily repairable.

The amp went bad which causes the internal speakers to give up after a couple of minutes, so I just run it with a soundbar. Then one of the cats broke the optical port for it, so now it's taped on lol. The panel still works great, so I think I'll just replace the main board on it to keep it going for a few more years.

Once something on it finally goes where repairing it becomes unviable, then I've no idea where to go from there. I guess I'll just keep buying used TVs and fix them up.

As people say in these threads everytime, just don’t give your tv Internet access.

Seems smart to avoid LG as well.

Yeah, it's a fair point. It's also because newer TVs are generally less repairable as well, but I didn't get the message across very well.

I do tv repair. They are dead east to repair. Its basically a large laptop. You have a system board, power board, and depending the brand a few other smaller boards that are easy to swap. Getting the parts is not incredibly difficult, but it depend how new, how old, Eric. EBay is key. But, like any tv, of its the screen, it’s trash. Typically costs more to replace that then buy new.

it depend how new, how old, Eric.

Please do not dox your fellow users, Matt.

(I assume a typo for “etc” but I was amused) :D

go one step further and open it up and unplug the wifi antennas, just to curtail it even further.

It’s still listening and recording. The recent Gamers Nexus video shows that the just store everything locally until they find a way to send it. They’re always scanning the radio for other access points too.

My Visio TV developed a thing where the OSD menus freeze up and the controls unresponsive frequently - it’s not connected to WiFi. Its my opinion that some internal drive is filled up with my watch data that a factory reset cannot fix, and I suspect the lack of disk space is why it’s freezing. I can’t* prove this, but I suspect it to be.

*I might possibly have the skills to, but my time is devoted to other tasks, and I don’t want to deprive my household of the living room TV just because I want to tear it apart.

High risk low reward. the eFlash would almost certainly be wiped in a reset. If you did get to it, it’s not removable. If you unsoldered it, the new one could need a base load on it for it to work. You could probably buy a used board from another TV, but it could well already have issues. Getting the screen off and back on in one piece isn’t trivial.

A friend of mine recapped his 75" Took most of a day, it did fix the tv, but he complained that it was definitely not worth it.

Same with my vizio!

You should make sure the ACR and voice control features are disabled.

You know you can use a new to without connecting it to the internet.

If you do ever need to replace that tv, look into monitors for kiosks aimed at businesses. High quality, modern screens with no smart features 🥰

This is why I always block devices that have no business being on the internet at MAC level.

You’ll also have to make sure to properly destroy it afterwards. If you re-sell it, the next owner might connect it to the internet and all the stored data will get uploaded.

Also there’s tech like Amazon Sidewalk that allows devices to talk to other devices nearby in a mesh, bypassing your router entirely.

Just don’t connect it. If you need to stream, use a device you trust.

If manufacturers start adding cell radios, that’s when we’ll really need to worry.

My “big” TV is a 55", 14-year-old Toshiba dumb display. It still works as well as it ever has, but it’s not OLED and it’s not 100", so sometimes I think maybe…

But, then I read articles like this, and decide against it.

and guess who will (potentially) have legal action taken against them? i’ll give you a hint: it won’t be LG!

Both of my lg TVs are rooted. Anyway to just disable this through that? Dont see anything in the homebrew channel

Could you please share what resources you used? I connected my TV to the internet before all of this came out, and I’d like to completely wipe it and start fresh

That’s why my TV doesn’t get wifi access, and I use a third-party device like an Amazon Fire to do all my streaming, so at least it’s Amazon who gets my data, not LG.

/s

Back in the 90’s we had designated computer desks, where the big ass CRT and big ass desktop PC lived. Most people would use a surge protector power strip with a master power switch, and they would use that one switch to turn on and off the CRT monitor, PC, printer, desk lamp, etc…

That seems like a great idea right about how.

Cellphones do this same thing though.

Not all of them. Some have hardware kill switches and don’t run iOS or Android.

We can’t solve all our problems in one fell swoop. We can at least solve some of them.

I still do that and never did it any differently. Mainly to conserve energy, since my parental household was poor and we actually could not afford to leave appliances running when not in use. This became a habit and now I’ve been incidentally preventing data harvesting for years. I do need to get an old 90s alarm clock though, since I cannot always turn off my phone at night when I have plans in the morning. Also GrapheneOS.

I’m currently only with a CRT TV and running GrapheneOS, sadly I’m stuck with windows 11 so I’m still tracked there.

The alarm clock is a good idea too.

A modern TV will be fine if you get one that allows set up without Wi-Fi then disable the eco mode and motion smoothing.

You can even plug in a GrapheneOS phone with a USB-C to HDMI cable.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5KnFmKjFTA

I have a Samsung TV that I suspect does this. Once upon a time (back when I was less knowledgeable about this practice) I connected my TV to the internet. I have since been totally I able to forget my network from the TV, even a factory reset didn’t wipe the network settings from it. I’ve had to block it from the network at a router level.

I only discovered it was still doing this when I got a new router, and I had a popup on my TV saying “software update downloaded and complete” and I was wondering how tf it did that even though I’d gone through the process of forgetting the network, and seemingly the settings showed it had been “done”.

Shady fucks.

Checks out. I wish this was a conspiracy - but they got caught shaking hands w CIA. most people forgot

using US tech - either domestic or foreign; youre being spied by both marketers or governments. sad but true

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vault_7

cbsnews.com/…/cia-hacked-samsung-smart-tvs-wikile…

theguardian.com/…/cia-targeting-devices-smartphon…

wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_15728810.html

The CIA didn’t work with Samsung; they found a vulnerability in Samsung TVs then didn’t tell anyone about it.

Rip out the antenna.

Agreed, but, router block is far less work. 🤣

Right… Because it will only talk to your wireless router.

Genuine question…how else is it going to connect to the internet to upload data?

Your neighbor’s open wifi.

Yeah that’s fortunately not a problem for me lol

I just changed my SSIDs.

I’m very glad that my “unsubstantiated fearmongering” regarding smart TVs doesn’t look that unsubstantiated anymore. I’ve Bad my girldfriends Samsung smartTV Lockes down once she moved in with that thing and I saw what kind of connections that thing made.

She can still use it if you tell her to disable the Wi-Fi then plug in a laptop.

Not that simple for her, she likes some of the features it offers. For example, using the youtube app on your phone to control videos on the TV. I’ve blocked most unrelated domains tho, including the update domains so I’m not being surprised by a random update that bypasses everything I’ve set up.

Once I got a bit of time, I play on building a pi box that works similarly to what she’s expecting.

You can do that with SmartTube on an Android box.

I didn’t know rooting was a thing for LG tv’s, but I’m definitely looking into it now.

TVs shouldn’t get internet…

Of course they should. But you should be able to control what it does with that connection.

A TV just needs to be a dumb display and nothing more.

No. I would never use a TV that isn’t connected to a computer. It would be great if that computer was built-in with good peripherals, but only on the condition that the user owns it.

A TV connected to a computer is a dumb display and nothing more. Methinks you’re both in agreement.

Luigi

“We own the glass, we own the TV, we own the living room. We know who is in an LG home.” –LG President of Ads

These are the Gamers Nexus videos btw. Support them and their work. Get some cool shirts and physical media while you’re at it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5KnFmKjFTA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IFVTcM28KA

What is so dumb is he is banned from running a public company so they get him to run a private company. WTF the oligarchs are really this bad.

I think my TV is too old to be doing this, I hope

in capitalist America , you don’t listen to tv , tv listen to you !

It’s fair to make it “you don’t watch TV, TV watches you!”

Which I feel like might have been a real Yakov Smirnoff joke way back when.

Kind of — Bob Hope made the joke in the late 1950s:

Bob Hope, back from his Russian junket, noted that there had been TV in all the rooms of his Moscow hotel–”only it watches you”

Source: knowyourmeme.com/memes/in-soviet-russia

Brilliant!

A screen that records audio without your consent? Maybe, they got inspiration from 1984

yeah how is that not wire tapping?

Because they don’t need to tap physical wires anymore.

Suggestions for people who only need and want a good screen instead of an ad infested spy station?

Ironically LG still makes good screens. Just don’t ever connect their TVs to the network.

Edit: If you must connect it to a network connect it to a different VLAN (Guest network) with no other devices.

However their budget models (under $400) are very uncompetitive.

TCL and Hisense are much better at those, and you can disable Wi-Fi then plug in your own box.

It might be best to connect it to a network that just blackholes the traffic so it doesn’t go hunting for some open wifi.

If it’s like a lot of other devices, it will realize that it can’t get to “The Internet” through that network, and might disconnect. It’s possible it will then look for another option, and might see an open network and use it.

Can confirm. My LG C3 has never touched the internet (and never will) and it’s amazing.

Use them as such, why would you give your screen Internet? Attach a Mediacenter of your choice, e.g. Kodi.

Update firmware over USB.

Why? Why would I accept a device in my home that will snoop on me if I use it as intended?

I think the point is they can’t upload anything if they’re not connected. Unfortunately, they’re some of the best OLED TVs right now in terms of the display

My TV is 15 years old and works fine. Getting the best TV out there is not very meaningful anymore.

I do understand that but I don’t think it’s something we should accept. Next thing these fuckers have their own 5G antenna and connect to mobile with zero config, then what, rip out the antenna or literally wrap it in tinfoil?

I agree. Don’t support what you don’t support. That being said, some people are ok with the trade-offs and that’s entirely up to them

Because if you want a screen of a certain size, there are no other reasonable options.

The same reason you might buy a phone that will spy on you and show you ads. You can’t buy a phone that doesn’t do that.

you would think its as simple as that, but i have seen reports of lg automatically connecting to open networks if they are available

theres also the possibility of them adding some cellular transmitter in the future

maybe the only way is the desolder all the wireless antennas…

Faraday laminate around the antenna also.

LGs will find nearby wifi that will let them on to phone home. It doesn’t matter if your own network is locked down. And if they’re doing it, it’s likely others are as well.

Used commercial displays maybe.

This is perfectly legal for a reason.

Are they monitoring everyone closely? No.

Are they monitoring those running for office, those they find “of interest”, certain key words and phrases, and so on?

CERTAINLY.

AI helps them to sort through the noise; this is the Patriot Act manifest. Companies are eager to comply.

Decades ago, they would have to “wire” your house to monitor you, tapping your phone and the like.

Today, they simply have to notice you, and they can get all of the data they want at will.

If your goal is political and unpopular with the powers that be, using the internet or phone will never be even vaguely secure. The TV is watching you… and the fridge and the washing machine and so on.

If you think your device is secure; that very same device is guaranteed to be insecure. They are supremely interested in those who want “secret” communications.

Correct vibe but many unfounded assertions that cannot possibly be correct in technicality

Umm… You’ve seen NSA’s data centers?

“No way every domestic telephone call is being recorded and transcribed!”

Next moment:

“Woah! Gnarly dude! A.I. that’s been trained on ludicrously large datasets! It can mimic your mom’s voice, dude! Here, check it out! It can also write e-mails like a human!”

All the leaked intel points to: this is a very real and possible situation. Better not think about it and stick your head deeper into the sands.

On a technical level Google knows where 80% of Americans are, because they’re using Google’s Android. It could report back what cell-tower their mobile-computer is using, or it could be using the mobile-computer’s GPS, or it could take the SSID of any nearby WiFi or Bluetooth device and compare it to a map that’s diligently updated daily by every Google Android user. To say Google knows where every Google Android user is is very technically possible. It’s also technically possible to infer other things with a satisfactory probability, like where the other 20% are.

The NSA, CIA and FBI were the data harvesters. The solutions to their needs were financed by them and we got… for instance, Google. They had vasts amounts of data and needed a way to search through it. Likewise the intelligence-agencies wanted ways to impersonate others digitally and… oh look, we have live ‘deep-fakes’. I won’t bother espousing how the economy serves the state’s needs first and any consumer commodities are second- or third-order artifacts, but really? You don’t think the very thing advertisers are doing now–in no way secretly either–are not technically feasible for the rapacious, infinite-money pits of the secret-police?

Right–I forgot! Only communists have secret-police!

is it same with very old lg? (20 years i think)

That’s not likely even a smart TV. So hold it precious and keep it safe, you aren’t buying another one.

username checks out

“The toaster is listening” in 2006 🤣

“The toaster is listening” in 2026 😬

Frakking toasters.

SO SAY WE ALL!

It’s 1984 for sure. Every devices listens.

I thought I had disabled everything but mine was still connected to WiFi. Thanks for the reminder. I disconnected it and blocked it at the router.

Tired of doing this for so many devices. We truly live in a full on surveillance state.

For what I saw in the video, even that way, the fucking TV try to connect to any available wifi to comunicate your data. Its insane

Yeah, I went with LG because I wanted to try an OLED, and the price was right. Never buying anything from them again, and whatever tv I do buy next I’ll disable all the shit from the get-go.

I’ve always been privacy minded, but things have gotten so bad, and I’ve gotten complacent. Hell, I just bought a connected smoke alarm system because my wife and kids needed something they can mute remotely. Should have just bought a stick instead.

I need to replace my WiFi, about time I get one with real VLAN support, so I can build an isolated guest/IoT network.

connected smoke alarm

What the fuck? I would have simply bought a wall powered smoke alarm, opened it up, and wired an auxiliary button to the snooze button’s pads and put that button lower down as one of those wall switch buttons.

You really just need to complete the circuit to make it shut up.

Looks like HAL from space odyssey.

It does!

Alarm: beeps

Push

Alarm: “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that”

…

Alarm: keeps beeping

my wife and kids needed something they can mute remotely

But… why?

There was a good reason for it, but no one can remember why now. Anyway, car been mow knock side

Because they are short and my ceilings are tall. We also cook a lot and with kids, smoke happens. So, the requirement from the wife was being able to silence remotely.

Yeah untrusted devices should run in a client isolated vlan similar to a guest network.

All IOT devices are auto blocked unless I allow them.

Yeah, I’m glad I took the time to set up a separate VLAN for this. It wasn’t easy on my MikroTik router (nothing ever is with those), but it’s worth the effort.

there was a time… long past I suppose …when this would have been an outrage and politicians would be holding press conferences where they took crowbar swings to such devices. Things sure have changed.

This fucking chaebol has gone too far with this shit on their TVs.

This is why my tv’s don’t get internet access.

This is why I don’t buy smart TVs in the first place.

Is this even possible or reasonable? Smart tvs are pretty dumb if you never connect them to the internet, so no issues until they decide to add 5g chips to them

Or… If your neighbor has an open network… Or the TV has a secret networking protocol that allows it to talk to other LG smart devices that are on a network. Or it looks for phones that have the LG app installed… You get the idea. Once you put wireless capabilities in it, there is any number of ways it can leak your data out.

Sure prove it. At least these are proven and now your just making stuff up.

Proving it is the hard and expensive part. I don’t really have the time, skillset, or money to buy a bunch of LG or other branded IoT devices, put them in an isolated test chamber and then try to decode all the RF noise come off them.

That being said, all the technical requirements to do the things I suggested in my previous comment currently exist in those smart TVs. All that was preventing LG from doing that was consumer trust, and they’ve clearly thrown that in the garbage. At this point, based on previous behavior, it should be assumed that they will go as far as possible to exfil customer data without their consent or knowledge, until proven otherwise.

I didn’t read the article and I’ve only watched the “trailer” for Gamers Nexus’ series on this so far, but I bet they actually do check this at some point.

My solution here (this is my solution; i recognize 99.5% of people would never do this) is to open up the tv and physically remove any wifi adapters or cards. Obviously not stopping them from hiding them, but being under the plastic shell is enough to stop most people

Non-smart TVs are still available, they just cost a bit more. As for the connectivity issue, China has been caught hiding 5g chips in electrical control systems and city buses, and selling “free streaming” boxes with malware that scans networks and attacks targets deemed worth while. And all these TVs are being manufactured in China so why take the risk when you aren’t going to use the connectivity anyway?

Specifically which ones? Are they any good? HDR, color accuracy etc?

Unless you’re buying a commercial screen of some kind, you can’t really buy dumb TVs anymore, at least not from the major brands.

You can still buy dumb TVs you just have to search for them. You can also go off brand and get a dumb TV from a brand like sceptre.

I just don’t have a TV.

I mean that works too, I’m just not a fan of watching things on computer monitors. Sometimes I just want to sit in a recliner and watch a movie on a larger screen.

Yeah that’s fair. Personally, I live in a really small space so steam deck and phone are my only devices. Don’t think I’d feel comfortable with a TV that reported back on me - but TBF I do have a phone which I’m sure is doing that anyway!

My TVs don’t get connected to the network because TV companies have started showing ads, and that was bad enough. Then came the fact that a lot of TV apps were making your TV into a residential proxy, making your TV into part of a botnet. And now, on top of all that, they’re spying on you.

The ads were bad enough.

In any reasonable world you would have control over devices in your house that contained computers and would be able to remove bad software and install your own stuff. But, these devices are all covered by section 1201 of the DMCA which makes it a crime to bypass any access control software. This is how Apple is able to block alternate app stores. It’s why printer ink is the most expensive liquid on the planet. It’s why John Deere is able to remotely brick a tractor anywhere in the world, and prevent farmers from fixing their own farm equipment.

What’s especially galling about this is that, the US forced the rest of the world to adopt this bullshit as a part of trade treaties, threatening that any country that didn’t do it might lose tariff-free access to the US economy. And now what happened? Trump just ripped up those treaties anyhow and imposed the tariffs anyhow.

I just wish there was a country brave enough to rip up the IP agreements the US forced on them and allow us to actually own our own stuff again.

Bingo. No need to connect your display.

Yep an isolated vlan with no internet access. Cast your media from a dongel or computer connected via hdmi.

He hacked it without internet access and also show that they can collect data without internet access

They speculated it could connect anyway via some router brands, that allow specific devices to connect automatically. Since cases like that happened.

So if it’s range of neighbours’ routers, you might be fucked anyway. They didn’t confirm it though, to be clear.

Then you can watch all the depraved porn you want to, and the Government will think it’s coming from the house with the insecure wifi

No, it sends mac addresses. It knows exactly which tv and where, doesn’t care that it connected via your neighbor or some public wifi.

not necessarily, MAC is a layer 2 protocol, and your router (NAT or no NAT) operates on layer 3. Routers are supposed to overwrite the MAC address with their own when they forward a packet.

It’s always possible for the unit to put its own identfying info in the payload. But you didn’t do anything silly like register the TV, did you?

That… seems like a poor design choice security wise. Might as well carry it into DEF CON wearing a shirt that says “PWN ME DADDY” at that point.

Yea I could see them using Amazon sidewalk or xfinity open access points to get around the no connection thing. But that should be easily discovered if they do.

The logging was shown using shell commands running on a rooted OS. I don’t doubt the companies can or are doing this, but it’s akin to showing that installing malware exfiltrates your crypto wallet info.

Anything with a CPU, WiFi module, and microphones is capable of this.

Which is why we need to be wary of products that have those things in them. Which this article highlights.

Instead we’re being asked to just accept that these “features” are going to be hard baked into literally everything we own whether we like it or not.

Right. When the fuck did a TV start needing a microphone?

I’m old enough that I remember our first remote control TV. The remote was on a cable. It’s incredible and wonderful to me how far and how fast tech has come - but some stuff is just going too far. You don’t need to talk to your TV. Same with smart fridges - WTF? I dunno, maybe I’m just showing my age. But this unnecessary complexity adds insecurity and more stuff to go wrong.

Maybe, because back then, tech was developed to serve the customers, but now serves corps interests and is used to spy and screwup the customers.

“How can I solve this or that problem” to “how can I extract money out of people”.

Money ruins everything.

smart devices these days are just data-ming gold mines, now with AI, its even more “valuable” to them.

But the video showed him connecting a pc to the TV to do the hacking. So it means a physical connection is required to run the shell command. Soo It means I can’t get hacked right ?

According to the video they just needed to be on the same network not physically connected to the TV. If that was accurate…

what’s that meme? a schizophrenic is talking, listen and learn

like for real the last 28 years have been extremely good for your credibility as truth seekers

yeah now all the schizos of old are just genuinely 100% right. tuns out we’re being followed the toaster is a spy

I mean I know it’s about LG but they are all doing this.

Is it related to the LG system (lower level like bios, drivers) or with Android TV OS?

Check Hardware Nexus their video, this will tell you enough www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IFVTcM28KA

heres a youtube video of a guy converting his speaker into a microphone if you’re interested.

How to Convert a Speaker into a Dynamic Microphone www.youtube.com/watch?v=LroLf0c2fKM&t=5s

I’m not surprised. Almost everything that you would assume does something in only one direction also does it in the other direction. LEDs generate a small amount of current when you shine a light on them, solar panels emit a small amount of infrared when you apply power to them, etc.

To be fair to solar panels, isn’t about everything emitting infrared if you apply power to it? :x

True

this is precisely why i never “pair” the voice remote that came with my vizio. just keep using the dumb one from a previous model

This is a good time to remind everyone to:

• Install Pi Hole, get LG rules to nerf all the telemetric data going out
• Jailbreak the TV, install SmartTube for your YouTube account without ads and live your best life

I went to the pi hole website, but I couldn’t find where to get the device. Any suggestions?

To clarify, are you looking for where to get a pihole or where to get the LG rules?

Pihole is essentially a dns server that routes junk you dont want to nothing so that ads or trackers cant phone home. You can run it on any computer, but then need to make sure your router or devices are using it as a dns server.

The rules for blocking can be found in lots of places, everyone has their own lists. Im not familiar with lg specific rules but there are probably hardware telemetry lists out there if you search pihole lg block list

Is this the rasberry device to get to plug into my router/modem? Do I have to ever update it?

That raspberrypi would work but to be clear, while pihole started on Raspberry Pi hardware you can run pihole on virtually anything now. It’s lightweight so old hardware is fine. I’m setting it up for my daughters house on an old refurb Chromebook - reformatted to run Linux Mint.

I want to be able to block all the banner ads on my other devices. Doesn’t pi hole just run as an extension?

Pihole runs a dns service for your network, translating server names to ip addresses. The block lists keep certain ads, malware and other unwanted behavior from functioning, but only those that can be blocked this way. Not all ads and malware can be. For instance it can’t block YouTube ads so browser extensions like UBlock Origin are still useful but it certainly blocks a lot of stuff.

It also depends on how the ads are built into the service. I used to run PiHole, but now use AdGuardHome (still on r-pi though).

Some phone apps have their ads blocked but not all. If you’re using any apps or games that have ad-based rewards or features it will break.

Yes, it will do that. I wouldn’t call it an extension. Pihole is a DNS server. It’s the “phonebook” that your devices will use to look up IP addresses that correspond with the requested domains. If a domain is requested and it happens to be on the block list, it will deny the lookup.

Adguard offers a similar service that isn’t self hosted (Which I use as backup) and they have a pretty good explanation here: adguard-dns.io/en/welcome.html#workStages

Or buy a smart TV if you have the opportunity.

Got any good LG lists?

Even better. Put the LG on a untrusted vlan that only whitelists public IP access.

That still leaves you with an active wiretap on all of your conversations.

Its never gonna phone home. If I was really worried about it I would take the TV apart and locate the mic. Put a switch between it or just cut it.

I think the original coverage from Gamers Nexus should also be linked here:

https://youtu.be/6IFVTcM28KA

Could you consider removing the ?is=… parameter from the link? That and si are tracking parameters used by YouTube to track who you refer videos to.

Thank you for the info 🙏

ca.pcmag.com/…/yes-your-tv-is-spying-on-you-heres…

for anyone wanting to see where to shut down some features