The TV has multiple mics that can't be disabled, they constantly record everything and upload transcripts in plain text.
It gathers data and metadata of all devices on the network, including IP addresses. And even analyzes network data to understand which applications are being run.
Did the video actually say this? I scrubbed through and found it interesting, but from what I gathered, microphones were only activated when AI voice input was used. Granted, there was no investigation on how trigger happy the beginning of recording might actually be. Did I misinterpret?
Not only that. If shows that it does capture lots of ambiance conversations and switching microphone recording to be easily.
Also there is a scare bit that they show an almost silent stream of audio actually contains audible conversation. Why was it even recording?
The "own the glass" thing is the most consumer disrespect I have heard in a while. They claim they own the TV and YOUR LIVING ROOM.
They know they are invading your privacy, they know the make it fricking hard for you to be able to disable it.
They are pyschos.
I'm ditching buying LG forever
I wonder whether it's better to connect it to a network that is then firewalled off from the internet. That may prevent it from looking for alternatives.
> Only a matter of time before they ship with cell modems
I do wonder about the hackability of this. Will it be a purely telemetry connection or will it be able to stream video via that connection as well? (not that data costs as much these days as it used to). Can we piggy back the rest of our internet data on this connection? LG TV as modem/router?
Will they include GPS, so they can also connect your home address to the profile they're creating on you? Location-specific advertising value would make that answer: yes!
They would probably use a low cost IoT plan, which (without volume discount) is something like $1/mo and a few cents per MB. So they may be able to send content ID info or conversation transcripts, but video would be too expensive unless the user pays.
GPS is probably unnecessary since mobile phones are constantly mapping out WLANs. You can get a decent approximation of GPS with just a wireless scan in most places.
I saw a previous conversation here where someone said they were able to “repurpose” a similar IoT modem to get some free data, but the modern chips are soldered on and tightly integrated, so it would be harder to reuse unless you get root on the device. I think they use eSIMs stored in a secure element in the CPU.
I've thought for a while on this and with 5G RedCap I really see a day where they include a fully ad-supported 720p streaming TV service over the 5G link and some kind of "premium" offering to pay more for higher streaming quality (but still be screwed over by ad city to cover the 5G link).
Consumers will buy it if they're told they "never have to worry about an over the air TV antenna again" because it has a magic 5G antenna in it!
Hard to get a gps fix indoors. My guess is to infer it from OTA tv channel IDs and relative signal strengths. Wouldn’t need a big database and the transmitters don’t move much.
See “datacasting” for data side. Would be 1-way so hard to know how many eye/ear balls get the noise; I mean; ad.
Couldn't you still get a reliable GPS fix by observing over longer time periods? But it requires a relatively expensive hardware component so geolocating via nearby wifi APs would definitely be cheaper. Google offers a convenient API for that and there's a semi-public database over at WiGLE.
Seriously. My fucking CPAP machine ships with a 5g modem so my info can be easily available to my physician. Can’t turn it off, no clue if I’m even paying for it given how obtuse the billing situation is with how the company charges health insurance
I do the same thing. My concern is that if somebody makes the decision to spin up an open wireless network it’ll just try to connect to that and upload all of the telemetry it’s been holding onto.
I’m considering opening mine and taking a desoldering braid to both the RJ45 and wireless antenna solder joints. This might break the TV, but at this point if it does I’m ready to just throw it in the trash and find a commercial display.
I bought a television. I didn’t buy an invitation to be watched in the name of surveillance capitalism and until America gets its shit together with data privacy and consumer protection laws this is just going to continue happening.
I haven’t had a chance to watch this yet, but I did watch the preview and all of Steve’s latest work has been great so
I’m sure it’ll be great.
I'm not sure about that. Although this reporting is aimed at the everyman, the problem they describe is far more impactful for elites and corporations. This is pervasive violation of their personal, corporate and legally privileged privacy, and is a vector for systematic corporate espionage. So I suspect US Senators will soon get phone calls from donors really upset about this.
If I am ever well off enough to consider a home theater, it seems I will need to make it a faraday cage and open up the TV to snip all of the microphones and disconnect the Wi-Fi antennae (or maybe even drill any modem chips on the circuitry if we want to go bonkers) as well as any webcams.
Do they make audiophile grade aluminum foil yet? Seems like a neat business opportunity for customers like me
This seems to be the worst case scenario, put into practice by a highly popular device manufacturer. Are they doing this with all of their other devices as well? Monitors, washing machines, fridges? If they can fit this into a TV, they can fit it into everything else.
There's also a fair bit of arrogance from LG: "We own the glass..." leading to this great piece of marketing:
"within an LG TV household we can help extend the ad campaign footprint to the other devices in the household" (at ~14:11)
Advertising is a mind virus. These people are fucking gross. And this seems to be what all technology companies are turning into. Advertising is the Paperclip Maximiser of the real world.
I recently divided much of my home network into VLANs (with "Entertainment" devices separated for this very reason), and this makes me happy to have done so, but now makes me want to do the same to my in-laws network, since they have an LG TV and I regularly connect various of my devices through their network...
Tangential point: I recall on a previous article someone commenting on their surprise at how good Gamers Nexus investigative reporting was. This seems to be another example. You go Gamers Nexus. Might have to buy a supporter pack.
> There's also a fair bit of arrogance from LG: "We own the glass..."
The execs shown in those clips used some pretty revealing language. I also had to do a double-take when they described a customer's (compromised) house as an "LG household," where they "know who's in [it], we know which devices are there... we know how to extend that reach into mobile" and tell advertisers they can "own the living room."
The sense of entitlement is so over-the-top that it's difficult to distinguish from satire.
I shared this thought with a friend of mine recently, primarily in regards to the use of residential proxies:
They don't care about any effect on the individual people.
They view their thing in a vacuum with some kind of religious fervor. It's a form of psychosis, and it seems increasingly prevalent in tech company leadership and so spreads into those who aspire to be tech company leadership types.
Fairly strong disagree. Plenty of damage could be caused to the individual, whether they made the decision to run a residential proxy or not.
Essentially little difference from running a tor exit node.
My position is that I assume that most people running a residential proxy are not aware that they're running a residential proxy. I understand why people use them and how they're useful, but I just don't think there's informed consent. I think they essentially grew out of botnets, or botnets just rebranded into 'residential proxies'.
Having said that, I'm not trying to convince you to change your position. Feel free to continue to disagree with me.
I don’t have a deep understanding of residential proxies. But if you had an internet plan with a data cap, it would surely count against both download and upload, yeah? That alone is a huge violation.
These companies need to be fined into the dirt. We need a corporate death penalty, to be honest.
It's like AI model collapse, where they're surrounded by feedback they're doing everything right, no matter what, for a long time, the feedback loop just drifts away from baseline reality.
We bought a new tv two years ago and I spent probably a week researching to find the least-smart set I could.
The best option is display only units made for businesses, like what they use for restaurant menus, but those are usually twice the price of normal tvs because they're not app subsidized like smart tvs are.
What I ended up going with was Hisense. They ship with Google TV, but it's disabled by default. On first power up, it asks if you want to activate the Google TV features, and you can just say no. The thing then runs like a basic display.
I have stopped using TV sets more than a decade ago.
Instead of a TV set, I use a very big monitor, which is connected to a mini-PC (an old Intel NUC with Linux), which also has a TV tuner and an infrared remote control receiver. Besides just showing a TV channel, a mini-PC can also record it and it can play any other kind of movie or music files, or it can stream some video from the Internet.
I have an older TCL TV that I've never connected to the internet. Of course, that doesn't prevent it from finding open wifi access points and exfiltrating data without my consent. Based on this (really marvelous) reporting from Gamers Nexus, I probably need to double-check what is actually happening.
BTW corporate meeting rooms with smart TVs...shouldn't have them.
But this response is like when there were meat safety issues in the US and some people said "then buy another brand". People didn't buy that argument (for what I hope are obvious reasons), and so regulation was enacted to protect the public.
It's clear that this problem must be handled with regulation, too. I'm all for markets solving problems, but I'm also for recognizing when it can't. I haven't seen the whole video yet, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's NOT just LG.
"Samba unites TV, digital, and behavioral data through AI to power faster, more accurate media decisions. We help the world’s leading brands and agencies reach the right audiences, measure real outcomes, and access signals no one else has."
That was a long two hours. 15 minutes longer than two hours actually. It was well spent overall since Gamers Nexus covered the privacy intrusions that LG has built into the OS for their smart TV line and likely all of their other smart home devices. "We own the glass" and "we own the living room" don't tell the whole story.
The enshittification of TV ownership and usage through smart TVs and the apps and other software that runs without user knowledge is a huge problem wherever these devices are sold. The TVs track and log every device on owner networks - smart watches, thermostats, smart phones, etc, anything that uses wireless or that accesses the internet from inside the home.
I am so glad that I have avoided "upgrading" our TV, almost montly, for years now by simply sending all the Best Buy texts to spam or deleting them. The best way is to opt out of Best Buy communications and after watching that video I will do that.
Our TV is a Panasonic plasma TV from 2012. I need to exit the last streaming service that we subscribe with and that will get it set to an OTA device used when weather int he area is bad enough that having that real-time local weather channel adds value.
From the video - RCE vulnerabilities could allow anyone to drop code on your TV that enables them to use it as a surveillance device. Lots of microphones in the device and no way for the user to disable them. The TV is listening all the time and, using the very sensitive microphones, can detect and record voices in conversations happening in other rooms more than 60' distant. They are effectively whole-house listening devices probably using MEMS microphones due to excellent sensitivity of the devices. Users are fingerprinted and everyone in the house can be identified, even children and those who are frequent enough guests to have been ID'd. Everything that happens triggers the recording.
I suspect Amazon's and Google's devices were the same with their voice triggers. LG does not allow the user to disable that functionality even after the user has disabled it (apparently) through the deeply buried menu option.
LG pushes updates to TVs that improve the tracking ability for LG and their "partners", which includes Microsoft through MS's ownership of Nuance. LG tried to separate their data collection/advert business to circumvent restrictions on ...
Man there is so much there. Fortunately the only LG product I own is a dumb monitor. I will be contacting relatives to offer advice about what to do with their smart devices, LG or others, so I know this starts another round of investigation for me.
No Samsung or LG at my house. Almost done canceling subscription-based "services" like TV content and gaming (XBox) stuff. I don't have software subscriptions so that's great. And, I should be finished with MS OSes pretty soon and flipped to Linux on new devices.
A lot of the shit and shit infrastructure that some of you build is destructive. One day, you will get your just desserts after shafting people with Binding Arbitration agreements, huge TOS and Privacy Policies, and other types of enshittifying end results.
The title undersells it.
The TV has multiple mics that can't be disabled, they constantly record everything and upload transcripts in plain text.
It gathers data and metadata of all devices on the network, including IP addresses. And even analyzes network data to understand which applications are being run.
Did the video actually say this? I scrubbed through and found it interesting, but from what I gathered, microphones were only activated when AI voice input was used. Granted, there was no investigation on how trigger happy the beginning of recording might actually be. Did I misinterpret?
I haven’t watched it all yet, but I believe they discuss an RCE vulnerability where an attacker can permanently monitor the mics?
Not only that. If shows that it does capture lots of ambiance conversations and switching microphone recording to be easily. Also there is a scare bit that they show an almost silent stream of audio actually contains audible conversation. Why was it even recording?
The "own the glass" thing is the most consumer disrespect I have heard in a while. They claim they own the TV and YOUR LIVING ROOM.
They know they are invading your privacy, they know the make it fricking hard for you to be able to disable it. They are pyschos. I'm ditching buying LG forever
It's good that at least one tech company still listens to its customers! Ba-dum-tss.
Only a matter of time before they ship with cell modems so you can’t disconnect them from the internet.
My LG tv post-update is never allowed on a network and it will never be updated again. Hopefully it never breaks…
Other TVs like Samsung are using a peer to peer mesh network with nearby devices instead. LG might do the same.
> Other TVs like Samsung are using a peer to peer mesh network with nearby devices instead.
Details?
I wonder whether it's better to connect it to a network that is then firewalled off from the internet. That may prevent it from looking for alternatives.
> Only a matter of time before they ship with cell modems
I do wonder about the hackability of this. Will it be a purely telemetry connection or will it be able to stream video via that connection as well? (not that data costs as much these days as it used to). Can we piggy back the rest of our internet data on this connection? LG TV as modem/router?
Will they include GPS, so they can also connect your home address to the profile they're creating on you? Location-specific advertising value would make that answer: yes!
They would probably use a low cost IoT plan, which (without volume discount) is something like $1/mo and a few cents per MB. So they may be able to send content ID info or conversation transcripts, but video would be too expensive unless the user pays.
GPS is probably unnecessary since mobile phones are constantly mapping out WLANs. You can get a decent approximation of GPS with just a wireless scan in most places.
I saw a previous conversation here where someone said they were able to “repurpose” a similar IoT modem to get some free data, but the modern chips are soldered on and tightly integrated, so it would be harder to reuse unless you get root on the device. I think they use eSIMs stored in a secure element in the CPU.
I've thought for a while on this and with 5G RedCap I really see a day where they include a fully ad-supported 720p streaming TV service over the 5G link and some kind of "premium" offering to pay more for higher streaming quality (but still be screwed over by ad city to cover the 5G link).
Consumers will buy it if they're told they "never have to worry about an over the air TV antenna again" because it has a magic 5G antenna in it!
Hard to get a gps fix indoors. My guess is to infer it from OTA tv channel IDs and relative signal strengths. Wouldn’t need a big database and the transmitters don’t move much.
See “datacasting” for data side. Would be 1-way so hard to know how many eye/ear balls get the noise; I mean; ad.
Couldn't you still get a reliable GPS fix by observing over longer time periods? But it requires a relatively expensive hardware component so geolocating via nearby wifi APs would definitely be cheaper. Google offers a convenient API for that and there's a semi-public database over at WiGLE.
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geolocation...
https://wigle.net/
Seriously. My fucking CPAP machine ships with a 5g modem so my info can be easily available to my physician. Can’t turn it off, no clue if I’m even paying for it given how obtuse the billing situation is with how the company charges health insurance
So how do we stop this? Laws? Who do we write to?
I do the same thing. My concern is that if somebody makes the decision to spin up an open wireless network it’ll just try to connect to that and upload all of the telemetry it’s been holding onto.
I’m considering opening mine and taking a desoldering braid to both the RJ45 and wireless antenna solder joints. This might break the TV, but at this point if it does I’m ready to just throw it in the trash and find a commercial display.
I bought a television. I didn’t buy an invitation to be watched in the name of surveillance capitalism and until America gets its shit together with data privacy and consumer protection laws this is just going to continue happening.
I haven’t had a chance to watch this yet, but I did watch the preview and all of Steve’s latest work has been great so I’m sure it’ll be great.
Obviously they'll get away with this in the US, but doesn't this break a LOT of EU privacy laws?
>Obviously they'll get away with this in the US
I'm not sure about that. Although this reporting is aimed at the everyman, the problem they describe is far more impactful for elites and corporations. This is pervasive violation of their personal, corporate and legally privileged privacy, and is a vector for systematic corporate espionage. So I suspect US Senators will soon get phone calls from donors really upset about this.
> So I suspect US Senators will soon get phone calls from donors really upset about this
:pray emoji:
Definitely need to find a powerful-adjacent group that could be damaged by the kinds of leaks these TVs represent.
If I am ever well off enough to consider a home theater, it seems I will need to make it a faraday cage and open up the TV to snip all of the microphones and disconnect the Wi-Fi antennae (or maybe even drill any modem chips on the circuitry if we want to go bonkers) as well as any webcams.
Do they make audiophile grade aluminum foil yet? Seems like a neat business opportunity for customers like me
This seems to be the worst case scenario, put into practice by a highly popular device manufacturer. Are they doing this with all of their other devices as well? Monitors, washing machines, fridges? If they can fit this into a TV, they can fit it into everything else.
There's also a fair bit of arrogance from LG: "We own the glass..." leading to this great piece of marketing:
"within an LG TV household we can help extend the ad campaign footprint to the other devices in the household" (at ~14:11)
Advertising is a mind virus. These people are fucking gross. And this seems to be what all technology companies are turning into. Advertising is the Paperclip Maximiser of the real world.
I recently divided much of my home network into VLANs (with "Entertainment" devices separated for this very reason), and this makes me happy to have done so, but now makes me want to do the same to my in-laws network, since they have an LG TV and I regularly connect various of my devices through their network...
Tangential point: I recall on a previous article someone commenting on their surprise at how good Gamers Nexus investigative reporting was. This seems to be another example. You go Gamers Nexus. Might have to buy a supporter pack.
> There's also a fair bit of arrogance from LG: "We own the glass..."
The execs shown in those clips used some pretty revealing language. I also had to do a double-take when they described a customer's (compromised) house as an "LG household," where they "know who's in [it], we know which devices are there... we know how to extend that reach into mobile" and tell advertisers they can "own the living room."
The sense of entitlement is so over-the-top that it's difficult to distinguish from satire.
I shared this thought with a friend of mine recently, primarily in regards to the use of residential proxies:
They don't care about any effect on the individual people.
They view their thing in a vacuum with some kind of religious fervor. It's a form of psychosis, and it seems increasingly prevalent in tech company leadership and so spreads into those who aspire to be tech company leadership types.
also, residential proxies don't really affect anyone except Cloudflare, who we should rightfully hate anyway. Spying does.
Fairly strong disagree. Plenty of damage could be caused to the individual, whether they made the decision to run a residential proxy or not.
Essentially little difference from running a tor exit node.
My position is that I assume that most people running a residential proxy are not aware that they're running a residential proxy. I understand why people use them and how they're useful, but I just don't think there's informed consent. I think they essentially grew out of botnets, or botnets just rebranded into 'residential proxies'.
Having said that, I'm not trying to convince you to change your position. Feel free to continue to disagree with me.
I don’t have a deep understanding of residential proxies. But if you had an internet plan with a data cap, it would surely count against both download and upload, yeah? That alone is a huge violation.
These companies need to be fined into the dirt. We need a corporate death penalty, to be honest.
It's like AI model collapse, where they're surrounded by feedback they're doing everything right, no matter what, for a long time, the feedback loop just drifts away from baseline reality.
LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48956688
LG monitors installing adware on Windows PCs | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48953226
“We’re listening?…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8duCxY-gnZ0&t=5s
Telescreens.
Can anyone recommend a non-spying TV brand or a model? (Modern)
We bought a new tv two years ago and I spent probably a week researching to find the least-smart set I could.
The best option is display only units made for businesses, like what they use for restaurant menus, but those are usually twice the price of normal tvs because they're not app subsidized like smart tvs are.
What I ended up going with was Hisense. They ship with Google TV, but it's disabled by default. On first power up, it asks if you want to activate the Google TV features, and you can just say no. The thing then runs like a basic display.
I have stopped using TV sets more than a decade ago.
Instead of a TV set, I use a very big monitor, which is connected to a mini-PC (an old Intel NUC with Linux), which also has a TV tuner and an infrared remote control receiver. Besides just showing a TV channel, a mini-PC can also record it and it can play any other kind of movie or music files, or it can stream some video from the Internet.
I have an older TCL TV that I've never connected to the internet. Of course, that doesn't prevent it from finding open wifi access points and exfiltrating data without my consent. Based on this (really marvelous) reporting from Gamers Nexus, I probably need to double-check what is actually happening.
BTW corporate meeting rooms with smart TVs...shouldn't have them.
Sceptre still makes some, Walmart carries many of their models.
I've been searching for one hour, and the only truly safe thing is an HTPC linked to an OS-free commercial display like these large VAs from ViewSonic: https://www.viewsonic.com/global/products/commercial-display... (goes from 45" to 100").
Possibly use a projector instead?
Or even better, don't watch (or own a) TV.
But this response is like when there were meat safety issues in the US and some people said "then buy another brand". People didn't buy that argument (for what I hope are obvious reasons), and so regulation was enacted to protect the public.
It's clear that this problem must be handled with regulation, too. I'm all for markets solving problems, but I'm also for recognizing when it can't. I haven't seen the whole video yet, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's NOT just LG.
Another comment confirms that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49593184
"Samba unites TV, digital, and behavioral data through AI to power faster, more accurate media decisions. We help the world’s leading brands and agencies reach the right audiences, measure real outcomes, and access signals no one else has."
https://samba.com/
Related:
LG TVs aren't the only ones spying on you [video]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49575176
That was a long two hours. 15 minutes longer than two hours actually. It was well spent overall since Gamers Nexus covered the privacy intrusions that LG has built into the OS for their smart TV line and likely all of their other smart home devices. "We own the glass" and "we own the living room" don't tell the whole story.
The enshittification of TV ownership and usage through smart TVs and the apps and other software that runs without user knowledge is a huge problem wherever these devices are sold. The TVs track and log every device on owner networks - smart watches, thermostats, smart phones, etc, anything that uses wireless or that accesses the internet from inside the home.
I am so glad that I have avoided "upgrading" our TV, almost montly, for years now by simply sending all the Best Buy texts to spam or deleting them. The best way is to opt out of Best Buy communications and after watching that video I will do that.
Our TV is a Panasonic plasma TV from 2012. I need to exit the last streaming service that we subscribe with and that will get it set to an OTA device used when weather int he area is bad enough that having that real-time local weather channel adds value.
From the video - RCE vulnerabilities could allow anyone to drop code on your TV that enables them to use it as a surveillance device. Lots of microphones in the device and no way for the user to disable them. The TV is listening all the time and, using the very sensitive microphones, can detect and record voices in conversations happening in other rooms more than 60' distant. They are effectively whole-house listening devices probably using MEMS microphones due to excellent sensitivity of the devices. Users are fingerprinted and everyone in the house can be identified, even children and those who are frequent enough guests to have been ID'd. Everything that happens triggers the recording.
I suspect Amazon's and Google's devices were the same with their voice triggers. LG does not allow the user to disable that functionality even after the user has disabled it (apparently) through the deeply buried menu option.
LG pushes updates to TVs that improve the tracking ability for LG and their "partners", which includes Microsoft through MS's ownership of Nuance. LG tried to separate their data collection/advert business to circumvent restrictions on ...
Man there is so much there. Fortunately the only LG product I own is a dumb monitor. I will be contacting relatives to offer advice about what to do with their smart devices, LG or others, so I know this starts another round of investigation for me.
No Samsung or LG at my house. Almost done canceling subscription-based "services" like TV content and gaming (XBox) stuff. I don't have software subscriptions so that's great. And, I should be finished with MS OSes pretty soon and flipped to Linux on new devices.
A lot of the shit and shit infrastructure that some of you build is destructive. One day, you will get your just desserts after shafting people with Binding Arbitration agreements, huge TOS and Privacy Policies, and other types of enshittifying end results.
Extremely concerning!