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I'm the author and linking to my tweets is a bad idea because they auto-delete after 14 days. For future HN context, as the author I'm reproducing them here in

by buro9 9y ago

I'm the author and linking to my tweets is a bad idea because they auto-delete after 14 days. For future HN context, as the author I'm reproducing them here in full: My @Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app from https://samba.tv https://samba.tv and boy oh boy... this is worse than recent @facebook stuff. From their own privacy policy: https://samba.tv/legal/privacy-policy/ https://samba.tv/legal/privacy-policy/ … they track what you watch, when you watch it, your location, your interactions with other apps. And they share this with... well, everyone basically. This information is then used to market to you within the TV and offer you a "hot list"... but it is also used to "Detect, investigate and prevent fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities and protect the rights, safety and property of Samba and others" If you have a "Smart TV" from any brand and it's doing an update you will 100% want to disable Samba. Samba is not a feature for you, it is a snitch in your living room, snitching on everything you watch on your TV, it's a feature for corporations only. To disable Samba the soft way... don't agree to their T&Cs post OS upgrade. To disable Samba the hard way... use Android system settings to disable the app. This is a good time to say that if you own a "Smart TV" from any company you should run it on a different network than your NAS and other computers. And that all other devices best require passwords to connect to them. Ideally you run a TV on a different VLAN. And this is where I wish that dumb panels were all the rage, and that the only "smart" functionality was external to the display itself. But when @netflix and other content providers decline the use of their apps outside of integrated devices this is the hell we live in. I really wish that @Google provided a TV box that was the full Android TV, but that was vanilla Google with the ability to install @netflix, @BBCiPlayer, @mubi as apps. That I could just plug this into any display panel, including dumb displays. Perhaps @Google could even call it Pixel TV.

buro9 9y ago
HN replying to myself with some context outside of the tweets. I actually trust stock Android over Samsung, Sony, etc Android. Hence my "if we're going to have Android TV perhaps Google could supply it without the forced add-ons". I see this similar to installing Windows yourself rather than having "Windows with added vendor crap"... like if you know you want Windows, a stock one is better and same with Android. I'm now looking at purchasing the Nvidia Shield and disabling all network connectivity on my Sony TV. The Sony TV is a recent one, about a year old. A Bravia something or other. I have disabled the Samba app using the Android Apps system. One thing I didn't include in the tweets was Samba's patent list, because it's too deep a topic for Twitter. The patent numbers are on their site though... go take a look: https://samba.tv/legal/patents/ https://samba.tv/legal/patents/ Some of those are downright scary and have no positive application for privacy conscious users. Feel free to ask anything.
- lukeschlather 9y ago
  Why Android over Linux or MacOS? It feels like at this point, Android and Windows are surveillance systems. If you don't want a surveillance system, you need to go with Linux or MacOS (or iOS.)
  - buro9 9y ago
    Netflix, Amazon Prime, Mubi, BBC iPlayer... in Hi-Res, UHD or 4k mode. The apps with rich capabilities are restricted to the platform. Android is the one with them all. (caveat on Amazon vs Google stupidity)
    - TAForObvReasons 9y ago
      Is there any concern with a smart TV that isn't connected to the Internet (using a chromecast to connect to netflix)?
      - buro9 9y ago
        Depends how disconnected it really is. If it's doing some kind of "always scan WiFi in the background" shenanigans then it's still a computer slowly going out of date without security updates and occasionally exposing itself to the local area. I wish I could take a "smart" TV and flip a switch and have it gracefully fall back to "dumb" TV where the Android device is physically disabled.
        dlhavema 9y ago
        I know its pushing the problem onto another device, but I dont use the "smart apps" on our bravia anymore. It's just an HDMI dumping ground. Right now a blue ray player has all the smarts Edit: mainly cause they'd stopped working years ago...
        Fnoord 9y ago
        My Philips start TV can connect wired or wireless. Using Netflix native on it, goes quicker than via Chromecast. The EPG data contains an ad (!!!). I cannot even pay to remove it. So I just use my settopbox to watch & record. Advantage to that is that I am allowed to skip ads on local recordings (if I use remote recordings though, only on public broadcast TV, and they only last for a week). Chromecast is basically a smart TV on a stick, controlled with a remote from smartphone (and partly, even the remote control of the TV). You can run a Chromecast wired as well. Same with Steam Link. It can run over wireless or wired. I find on all of these wired far more reliable, and I keep more bandwidth for my wireless applications. Even my printer is wired. Then again, I got a 8 port gbit switch for connectivity and barely any wires visible. The caveat is that my smart devices, although wired, are currently NOT on a VLAN, and that Chromecast is a data resource for Google, and as I mentioned the EPG data on the TV contains commercials. Instead of the Steam Link I could even just run a HDMI cable straight from computer. I can also plug in a Bluetooth USB adapter on my USB hub to listen via Bluetooth on the couch to the TV. Other than that, its a great TV for its price. Make sure your TV has enough HDMI ports. You might also wanna have a look at Chromecast alternatives such as Miracast devices or Amazon Fire Stick (the ethernet adapter came free with Chromecast Ultra but for the other Chromecasts it costs 20 EUR extra).
pwg 9y ago
Solution: don't ever purchase a smart TV. Preferably, no one would ever purchase a smart TV. When smart TV sales go to zero, the makers would get the message. Sadly, too many folks don't know, or if they do know, they don't care.
- ge0rg 9y ago
  Or, the "smart" TV is cheaper than a technically comparable flat screen that just comes with HDMI-In.
  - spacehome 9y ago
    How is the current situation possible? Shouldn't some company be able to buy the same panel, put minimal electronics and casing around it and sell it cheaper?
    - braythwayt 9y ago
      What if... Work with me here... The "Smart" TV company is paid by malicious hackers to include malware that snoops on its customers. That would allow them to lower the price of the TV to below the cost of the dumb TV. Mind you, they might have to call the malware "apps" and call the hackers "partners." Ok, snark aside, what if the makers of Smart TVs call them "platforms," and they get a subsidy for bundling apps, and maybe even a revenue stream from people who sign up for things like Netflix through the TV? Again, they will be able to make a cheaper TV if there's more money in apps than margin on hardware. This is analogous to the situation with phones. For most companies, there's more money in the telecommunications service than in the hardware margin, so most phones are subsidized by the service providers. So-called television is going there: It's just a platform for advertising, tracking, and services that generate revenue on subscription. This is going to relentlessly drive hardware margins deep into the negative, which makes it impossible to sell a "dumb" display for a reasonable price. I fully expect that it won't be long before leaving a smart TV unconnected to the internet won't be an option: They won't work unless they can phone home. Samsung's partners don't want you hooking a 4K TV up to an AppleTV and routing around their platform in favour of Apple's app store, not if you bought that TV at a discount thanks to their subsidies.
lucb1e 9y ago
> linking to my tweets is a bad idea because they auto-delete after 14 days. I feel like you should mention that in your bio, it's not standard and breaks conversations. People should know that they should cite you if they want something to be preserved in conversations or when linking.
- buro9 9y ago
  The bio space is too short. Meh, I can delete if I want to :)
  - andybak 9y ago
    Much as I hate linkrot I'm not sure we should be using Twitter as a archival source. But people do and you're not making future historians happy. ;-) So - why are you using Twitter at all if you want to delete stuff so quickly? You sound the kind of chap who would much prefer their own platform. Heard of these things called "blogs"?
    - braythwayt 9y ago
      Many years ago I used Posterous as my blog, in good HN fashion. Aaaaand it went away. Walled gardens are always going to be a massive vulnerability for link rot.
      - lucb1e 9y ago
        Twitter is not exactly a walled garden, though. AFAIK it's perfectly indexable.
        kbenson 9y ago
        Doesn't Twitter gate high volume access behind contracts for money? In any case, if Twitter allows posy deletion, then it's standard. You may consider deleting bad form, but that's just another case of someone's perception of a platform not matching reality. The internet makes it hard to definitively remove something, but a large percentage has already been lost to churn and bit rot due to lack of care.
wtf42 9y ago
>> That I could just plug this into any display panel, including dumb displays. Do you mean Chromecast? You can just plug it into your TV's hdmi port and use netflix/youtube/twitch/mubi android apps to control your streams on TV.
- buro9 9y ago
  I have a Chromecast but I meant more like an Android TV box, like the Nvidia Shield. To separate the TV display capabilities from the internet capabilities. Now I know the Shield exists that's what I'll be doing.
jghn 9y ago
I wound up having to change my wifi password. Without thinking about it I configured my current TV to join my wifi network. After it so kindly started putting ads on the screen while watching things I turned it off. A few months later, ads again. Somewhere in the bowels of the settings the wifi was reenabled, so I shut it off. A few months later, more ads. In a new place in the settings it was back on. Repeat a few more times. Changed my wifi password and that took care of that.
- Keverw 9y ago
  Wow. No way to opt-out of the ads? Do they have a in-hardware or in-app purchase to remove the ads? <- That would be a horrible trend to start.
  - jghn 9y ago
    Actually I take it back, that is what kept changing location. They'd have an opt out but bury it in increasingly arcane places, and of course since it was "different" I was opted back in. Then I started disabling my wifi and that kept magically re-enabling. And that's the point I took the nuclear option.
    - tass 9y ago
      What brand of TV?
      - jghn 9y ago
        Samsung, from about 4 years ago I think
        tass 9y ago
        I had a Samsung plasma TV about that long ago and it started to show notifications every time it turned on that some service I never used was being decommissioned. Same experience as https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/TVs/Annoying-notification-on-smart-TV/td-p/125307 https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/TVs/Annoying-notificatio... but with a different notification. I don't think I'll buy a Samsung TV again after that, and I don't connect any TV to the internet anymore.
skrebbel 9y ago
Can someone explain this tweet to me? > But when @netflix and other content providers decline the use of their apps outside of integrated devices this is the hell we live in. I don't understand. I can just open a web browser on a little media center PC, connect it by HDMI, point it to Netflix and play a movie, right? (Admittedly I haven't tried because our Panasonic has Netflix and no ads or spy apps that I've noticed) But what exactly does Netflix forbid that @buro9 is referring to? And does anyone know what their reasoning is for doing so? I ask because I'm rather interested in the concept of buying a dumb TV once this one breaks (hopefully long from now), but I do like me my Netflix. Lots of people in this thread suggest buying a dumb TV but I don't understand why Netflix and friends would disallow customers using that.
- NotSammyHagar 9y ago
  You can definitely watch netflix on a computer connected via hdmi, running either windows or macos. You can watch netflix with a chromecast, with nvidia shield, there are endless choices. I like these external devices because i feel they are less likely to spy on me than crapware in a tv.
  - friedman23 9y ago
    But netflix is tracking the same exact information that this Samba app is tracking
    - buro9 9y ago
      Take a look at the Samba patents. Samba have patents for how to communicate and track across the boundaries of security sandboxes for example. Whereas Netflix on my Android that has NetGuard really is just talking to netflix.com and apparently not doing anything else bad. I have zero expectations that an app won't track in-app use for that app... but Samba is (with the consent of the hardware provider who owns the local instance of Android) tracking everything it can across apps.
- corrigible 9y ago
  High-quality streaming doesn't really work outside of their dedicated apps, IIRC
andrepd 9y ago
>I really wish that @Google provided [...] Why though? If you're concerned about privacy and freedom (as you should well be) then why jump out of the fire into the frying pan? Grab a dumb TV, grab a small form-factor PC (like an RPi) and install whatever you want on it (kodi, etc.)
dawnerd 9y ago
The nvidia shield is pretty much what you’re looking for. I just don’t hook my tv to the network and just rely on my shield for everything. Works great. Learned my lesson a few years ago when my 3,000+ Samsung tv decided one day they were going to spam advertisements for GameStop in the notifications. Of course they deny that ever happened but I have proof on my twitter. Too lazy to look it up right now though.
- mitchty 9y ago
  Ha, I have the same setup, samsung tv and a shield. The tv's never been updated since I bought it, never configured wifi and there isn't any open wifi around for it to try to connect to. Smart tv's aren't smart enough to come with their own internet connection... yet. God I hope they don't put something like cellular connections in these things, then I'd have to find the damn radio and desolder the antennae.
  - maksimum 9y ago
    Inb4 "your TV failed to turn on because of a timeout while trying to access manufacturer.com for checksum verification."
friedman23 9y ago
I just want to understand how people believed all these services worked previously for example, did you know that when you purchase an ebook using kindle software amazon knows exactly what page you've read to and how long you've stayed on each page. They also know exactly what books you have purchased. Or Did you know that whenever you use a smart tv app that every time you "hover" over a tv show an event is logged that you hovered over it? Same with every click and every time you rent a movie. This all seems pretty scary but these services could not function without this information.
- joering2 9y ago
  I already paid for my TV and it wasnt cheap. It doesnt NEED to spy on me to make extra buck, but sure it can so it DOES.
- majewsky 9y ago
  > these services could not function without this information Why does Kindle NEED to know how long I've stayed on each page? Why does a smart TV NEED to store hover events in a persistent DB?
  - friedman23 9y ago
    >Why does Kindle NEED to know how long I've stayed on each page? It doesn't, but every page turn event has a time stamp. Using that info it's pretty easy to know how long someone has been on a page. >Why does a smart TV NEED to store hover events in a persistent DB? When the company is doing AB testing to decide on the optimal page layout this information is important.
- DavideNL 9y ago
  > did you know that when you purchase an ebook using kindle software amazon knows exactly what page you've read to and how long you've stayed on each page. They also know exactly what books you have purchased. Yea :'( That's why i always purchase ebooks with my Laptop, then use Calibre + DeDrm plugin to send the ebook to my Kindle through usb. Also, my kindle is ALWAYS in airplain mode and has never been connected to any wifi. It's so sad we are forced to do these things, and most people probably don't even realise they are being spied on and have their info/profile sold... By the way, i hope my Pi-hole blocks all the smarttv trackers... but i'm not sure.
Fej 9y ago
Google did the Nexus Player with Android TV, and I haven't heard anything about it since it came out. There was also the Nexus Q a while ago but that was before Android TV and also a massive failure.
_bxg1 9y ago
> And this is where I wish that dumb panels were all the rage, and that the only "smart" functionality was external to the display itself. Could you not simply turn off WiFi on your smart TV and use an external device anyway?
kstrauser 9y ago
> If you have a "Smart TV" from any brand ...you should turn that crap off and replace it with a Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, or anything else external. The Amazon app on our Vizio was so out of date that it literally couldn't connect to Amazon's API. Later updates fixed Amazon but enabled some flat-out 1984 level spying: https://consumerist.com/2015/11/09/vizio-smart-tvs-are-watching-you-back-even-harder-than-most/ https://consumerist.com/2015/11/09/vizio-smart-tvs-are-watch... . That's when I hard reset the TV, banned its MAC from our Wi-Fi, and started treating it exclusively as a dumb display for other devices. Under no circumstances would I give any smart TV Internet access. It's not that I have great trust for any of the settop box manufacturers (although Apple's been doing a great job here), but I actively distrust all TV manufacturers.
- techsupporter 9y ago
  > you should turn that crap off and replace it with a Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, or anything else external. [...] Under no circumstances would I give any smart TV Internet access. I totally agree, though my only exception is for Roku TV devices. They're essentially a flat-panel LCD with a Roku permanently stuck in the case with software that supports different inputs as "apps." I've been doing some packet sniffing and, so far as I can see, my TCL Roku TV doesn't do anything different on the wire that my Roku Premiere does.
- beezle 9y ago
  I really do not know why you (and other commenters later) place such great faith in the add on devices, Roku in particular. Just from a couple months ago: "And that’s where streaming TV company Roku comes in. Today, the company is introducing a new measurement suite called Roku Ad Insights that lets brands and agencies measure how effective their marketing is on OTT in four ways." You really should assume that any app you run on any device is gathering data about what you are doing. Could be used in house and/or sold to third parties.
  - Qub3d 9y ago
    I run my Roku TV behind a super-duper locked down VLAN because of this. I wish I didn't have to, and I no longer recommend them because of the things you've mentioned.
paulcole 9y ago
> Samba is not a feature for you, it is a snitch in your living room, snitching on everything you watch on your TV, it's a feature for corporations only. Serious question: so what? Lots of things don’t benefit me. Lots of things benefit corporations only. Why am I supposed to get outraged by this?
jra_samba_org 9y ago
Please don't call Samba.tv just 'Samba'. We (the Samba project) have trademark on Samba, which is for the file server, authentication and print server that runs on Unix boxes and allows interoperability with Microsoft Windows. Samba.tv is... Something else. It has nothing to do with us.
- duncan_bayne 9y ago
  Have you considered a cease and desist? I think the name is sufficiently similar to cause confusion.
  - ouid 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_infringement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_infringement >"Infringement may occur when one party, the 'infringer', uses a trademark which is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by another party, in relation to products or services which are identical or similar to the products or services which the registration covers" this basically means that in order to have an infringement case, you need to show that both the name/brand/logo are confusingly similar, and also that the product/service/domain are close enough to each other. I don't know that "software" is a sufficiently narrow category to count.
    - TylerE 9y ago
      "Software" is a a WAY narrower category than, say, Cars vs Washing machines.
    - johnhenry 9y ago
      Might be along shot, but both seem to be relevant in the whole "watching digital video" space. (I'm imagining an a scenario in which an elderly version of myself becomes confused... Me: "Honey, I think we should watch a movie over the samba!". My elderly wife: "Did you mean the samba on the smart TV, or the samba on the PC?" Me: Dag Nabbit!)
      - 9y ago
gerdesj 9y ago
I do put TVs on a separate VLAN and also cameras, phones, IoT stuff (those get the SEWER VLAN). I run a pfSense router and am seriously considering SSL splice in Squid in transparent mode for some of that lot. SSL Splice is nearly a MitM but does not need trustable faked SSL certificates, but you do get more logging and the ability to make certain URLs vanish. Now if the security of the device is crap enough to believe faked certs then why not try the full Bump and see what the bloody thing is really up to ... If nothing else my SEWER VLAN has a very strange view of DNS (thanks pfBlocker) and a rather limited view of the internet as a whole. Squid docs on Bump etc: https://wiki.squid-cache.org/Features/SslPeekAndSplice https://wiki.squid-cache.org/Features/SslPeekAndSplice
- stuaxo 9y ago
  Is it possible to do this and have samba shares available on this VLAN and the standard VLAN at the same time ?
Zhenya 9y ago
You can find Nexus Players at some retailers and as used merchandise. Highly recommend the device!
megablast 9y ago
> My @Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app from https://samba.tv https://samba.tv and boy oh boy... this is worse than recent @facebook stuff. In what way do they force you to use it?
tjoff 9y ago
1. How is this in any sense even a fraction of how bad facebook is? 2. I can not fathom why anyone would connect their "smart" TV to the network at all.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
anavin 9y ago
@buro9, I'm Ashwin Navin, co-founder of Samba TV. As a company, we start from the principle of putting the consumer in control of the data he/she shares, and how it can be used. Samba TV’s analysis of viewership data follows a clear opt-in prompt when you setup your TV and settings to disable at any time from within your Smart TV settings. By opting out of our service, we will no longer collect your TV viewing information, and our functionality we’ve built to enhance your TV experience – like content recommendations – will be disabled. We believe there is a need for more guidance to discover new shows or be notified when a new season of your favorite shows come out. We also believe there is a need for better insights to guide the media industry, which is stuck with an antiquated system of measuring TV broadcasts. Our apps may not be for everyone, so when you disable Samba TV, your viewership data is not used in our media research or ad targeting offerings. As far as advertising, we like the privacy model Apple has for iOS: If you want to continue using the functionality, but prefer your data not be used for advertising, you may reset your advertising ID and/or choose to limit ad tracking at any time through your TV settings. Your Samba TV advertising ID is a device ID used to serve targeted ads. By resetting this advertising ID, we will remove the link between your Samba TV advertising profile and the content you previously watched, so interest-based advertisements will not be served based on such content. Limiting ad tracking will opt your Samba TV Advertising ID out of receiving targeted advertising based on your TV usage.
- mousebender 9y ago
  As your product shares its name with an open source product that was created in 1992, will you be renaming your product? Assumedly there are no barriers to going to your prior name, Flingo.
AngellPetter 9y ago
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by buro9 9y ago

buro9 9y ago

HN replying to myself with some context outside of the tweets. I actually trust stock Android over Samsung, Sony, etc Android. Hence my "if we're going to have Android TV perhaps Google could supply it without the forced add-ons". I see this similar to installing Windows yourself rather than having "Windows with added vendor crap"... like if you know you want Windows, a stock one is better and same with Android. I'm now looking at purchasing the Nvidia Shield and disabling all network connectivity on my Sony TV. The Sony TV is a recent one, about a year old. A Bravia something or other. I have disabled the Samba app using the Android Apps system. One thing I didn't include in the tweets was Samba's patent list, because it's too deep a topic for Twitter. The patent numbers are on their site though... go take a look: https://samba.tv/legal/patents/ https://samba.tv/legal/patents/ Some of those are downright scary and have no positive application for privacy conscious users. Feel free to ask anything.

lukeschlather 9y ago
Why Android over Linux or MacOS? It feels like at this point, Android and Windows are surveillance systems. If you don't want a surveillance system, you need to go with Linux or MacOS (or iOS.)
- buro9 9y ago
  Netflix, Amazon Prime, Mubi, BBC iPlayer... in Hi-Res, UHD or 4k mode. The apps with rich capabilities are restricted to the platform. Android is the one with them all. (caveat on Amazon vs Google stupidity)
  - TAForObvReasons 9y ago
    Is there any concern with a smart TV that isn't connected to the Internet (using a chromecast to connect to netflix)?
    - buro9 9y ago
      Depends how disconnected it really is. If it's doing some kind of "always scan WiFi in the background" shenanigans then it's still a computer slowly going out of date without security updates and occasionally exposing itself to the local area. I wish I could take a "smart" TV and flip a switch and have it gracefully fall back to "dumb" TV where the Android device is physically disabled.
      - dlhavema 9y ago
        I know its pushing the problem onto another device, but I dont use the "smart apps" on our bravia anymore. It's just an HDMI dumping ground. Right now a blue ray player has all the smarts Edit: mainly cause they'd stopped working years ago...
      - Fnoord 9y ago
        My Philips start TV can connect wired or wireless. Using Netflix native on it, goes quicker than via Chromecast. The EPG data contains an ad (!!!). I cannot even pay to remove it. So I just use my settopbox to watch & record. Advantage to that is that I am allowed to skip ads on local recordings (if I use remote recordings though, only on public broadcast TV, and they only last for a week). Chromecast is basically a smart TV on a stick, controlled with a remote from smartphone (and partly, even the remote control of the TV). You can run a Chromecast wired as well. Same with Steam Link. It can run over wireless or wired. I find on all of these wired far more reliable, and I keep more bandwidth for my wireless applications. Even my printer is wired. Then again, I got a 8 port gbit switch for connectivity and barely any wires visible. The caveat is that my smart devices, although wired, are currently NOT on a VLAN, and that Chromecast is a data resource for Google, and as I mentioned the EPG data on the TV contains commercials. Instead of the Steam Link I could even just run a HDMI cable straight from computer. I can also plug in a Bluetooth USB adapter on my USB hub to listen via Bluetooth on the couch to the TV. Other than that, its a great TV for its price. Make sure your TV has enough HDMI ports. You might also wanna have a look at Chromecast alternatives such as Miracast devices or Amazon Fire Stick (the ethernet adapter came free with Chromecast Ultra but for the other Chromecasts it costs 20 EUR extra).

pwg 9y ago

Solution: don't ever purchase a smart TV. Preferably, no one would ever purchase a smart TV. When smart TV sales go to zero, the makers would get the message. Sadly, too many folks don't know, or if they do know, they don't care.

ge0rg 9y ago
Or, the "smart" TV is cheaper than a technically comparable flat screen that just comes with HDMI-In.
- spacehome 9y ago
  How is the current situation possible? Shouldn't some company be able to buy the same panel, put minimal electronics and casing around it and sell it cheaper?
  - braythwayt 9y ago
    What if... Work with me here... The "Smart" TV company is paid by malicious hackers to include malware that snoops on its customers. That would allow them to lower the price of the TV to below the cost of the dumb TV. Mind you, they might have to call the malware "apps" and call the hackers "partners." Ok, snark aside, what if the makers of Smart TVs call them "platforms," and they get a subsidy for bundling apps, and maybe even a revenue stream from people who sign up for things like Netflix through the TV? Again, they will be able to make a cheaper TV if there's more money in apps than margin on hardware. This is analogous to the situation with phones. For most companies, there's more money in the telecommunications service than in the hardware margin, so most phones are subsidized by the service providers. So-called television is going there: It's just a platform for advertising, tracking, and services that generate revenue on subscription. This is going to relentlessly drive hardware margins deep into the negative, which makes it impossible to sell a "dumb" display for a reasonable price. I fully expect that it won't be long before leaving a smart TV unconnected to the internet won't be an option: They won't work unless they can phone home. Samsung's partners don't want you hooking a 4K TV up to an AppleTV and routing around their platform in favour of Apple's app store, not if you bought that TV at a discount thanks to their subsidies.

lucb1e 9y ago

> linking to my tweets is a bad idea because they auto-delete after 14 days. I feel like you should mention that in your bio, it's not standard and breaks conversations. People should know that they should cite you if they want something to be preserved in conversations or when linking.

buro9 9y ago
The bio space is too short. Meh, I can delete if I want to :)
- andybak 9y ago
  Much as I hate linkrot I'm not sure we should be using Twitter as a archival source. But people do and you're not making future historians happy. ;-) So - why are you using Twitter at all if you want to delete stuff so quickly? You sound the kind of chap who would much prefer their own platform. Heard of these things called "blogs"?
  - braythwayt 9y ago
    Many years ago I used Posterous as my blog, in good HN fashion. Aaaaand it went away. Walled gardens are always going to be a massive vulnerability for link rot.
    - lucb1e 9y ago
      Twitter is not exactly a walled garden, though. AFAIK it's perfectly indexable.
      - kbenson 9y ago
        Doesn't Twitter gate high volume access behind contracts for money? In any case, if Twitter allows posy deletion, then it's standard. You may consider deleting bad form, but that's just another case of someone's perception of a platform not matching reality. The internet makes it hard to definitively remove something, but a large percentage has already been lost to churn and bit rot due to lack of care.

wtf42 9y ago

>> That I could just plug this into any display panel, including dumb displays. Do you mean Chromecast? You can just plug it into your TV's hdmi port and use netflix/youtube/twitch/mubi android apps to control your streams on TV.

buro9 9y ago
I have a Chromecast but I meant more like an Android TV box, like the Nvidia Shield. To separate the TV display capabilities from the internet capabilities. Now I know the Shield exists that's what I'll be doing.

jghn 9y ago

I wound up having to change my wifi password. Without thinking about it I configured my current TV to join my wifi network. After it so kindly started putting ads on the screen while watching things I turned it off. A few months later, ads again. Somewhere in the bowels of the settings the wifi was reenabled, so I shut it off. A few months later, more ads. In a new place in the settings it was back on. Repeat a few more times. Changed my wifi password and that took care of that.

Keverw 9y ago
Wow. No way to opt-out of the ads? Do they have a in-hardware or in-app purchase to remove the ads? <- That would be a horrible trend to start.
- jghn 9y ago
  Actually I take it back, that is what kept changing location. They'd have an opt out but bury it in increasingly arcane places, and of course since it was "different" I was opted back in. Then I started disabling my wifi and that kept magically re-enabling. And that's the point I took the nuclear option.
  - tass 9y ago
    What brand of TV?
    - jghn 9y ago
      Samsung, from about 4 years ago I think
      - tass 9y ago
        I had a Samsung plasma TV about that long ago and it started to show notifications every time it turned on that some service I never used was being decommissioned. Same experience as https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/TVs/Annoying-notification-on-smart-TV/td-p/125307 https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/TVs/Annoying-notificatio... but with a different notification. I don't think I'll buy a Samsung TV again after that, and I don't connect any TV to the internet anymore.

skrebbel 9y ago

Can someone explain this tweet to me? > But when @netflix and other content providers decline the use of their apps outside of integrated devices this is the hell we live in. I don't understand. I can just open a web browser on a little media center PC, connect it by HDMI, point it to Netflix and play a movie, right? (Admittedly I haven't tried because our Panasonic has Netflix and no ads or spy apps that I've noticed) But what exactly does Netflix forbid that @buro9 is referring to? And does anyone know what their reasoning is for doing so? I ask because I'm rather interested in the concept of buying a dumb TV once this one breaks (hopefully long from now), but I do like me my Netflix. Lots of people in this thread suggest buying a dumb TV but I don't understand why Netflix and friends would disallow customers using that.

NotSammyHagar 9y ago
You can definitely watch netflix on a computer connected via hdmi, running either windows or macos. You can watch netflix with a chromecast, with nvidia shield, there are endless choices. I like these external devices because i feel they are less likely to spy on me than crapware in a tv.
- friedman23 9y ago
  But netflix is tracking the same exact information that this Samba app is tracking
  - buro9 9y ago
    Take a look at the Samba patents. Samba have patents for how to communicate and track across the boundaries of security sandboxes for example. Whereas Netflix on my Android that has NetGuard really is just talking to netflix.com and apparently not doing anything else bad. I have zero expectations that an app won't track in-app use for that app... but Samba is (with the consent of the hardware provider who owns the local instance of Android) tracking everything it can across apps.
corrigible 9y ago
High-quality streaming doesn't really work outside of their dedicated apps, IIRC

andrepd 9y ago

>I really wish that @Google provided [...] Why though? If you're concerned about privacy and freedom (as you should well be) then why jump out of the fire into the frying pan? Grab a dumb TV, grab a small form-factor PC (like an RPi) and install whatever you want on it (kodi, etc.)

dawnerd 9y ago

The nvidia shield is pretty much what you’re looking for. I just don’t hook my tv to the network and just rely on my shield for everything. Works great. Learned my lesson a few years ago when my 3,000+ Samsung tv decided one day they were going to spam advertisements for GameStop in the notifications. Of course they deny that ever happened but I have proof on my twitter. Too lazy to look it up right now though.

mitchty 9y ago
Ha, I have the same setup, samsung tv and a shield. The tv's never been updated since I bought it, never configured wifi and there isn't any open wifi around for it to try to connect to. Smart tv's aren't smart enough to come with their own internet connection... yet. God I hope they don't put something like cellular connections in these things, then I'd have to find the damn radio and desolder the antennae.
- maksimum 9y ago
  Inb4 "your TV failed to turn on because of a timeout while trying to access manufacturer.com for checksum verification."

friedman23 9y ago

I just want to understand how people believed all these services worked previously for example, did you know that when you purchase an ebook using kindle software amazon knows exactly what page you've read to and how long you've stayed on each page. They also know exactly what books you have purchased. Or Did you know that whenever you use a smart tv app that every time you "hover" over a tv show an event is logged that you hovered over it? Same with every click and every time you rent a movie. This all seems pretty scary but these services could not function without this information.

joering2 9y ago
I already paid for my TV and it wasnt cheap. It doesnt NEED to spy on me to make extra buck, but sure it can so it DOES.
majewsky 9y ago
> these services could not function without this information Why does Kindle NEED to know how long I've stayed on each page? Why does a smart TV NEED to store hover events in a persistent DB?
- friedman23 9y ago
  >Why does Kindle NEED to know how long I've stayed on each page? It doesn't, but every page turn event has a time stamp. Using that info it's pretty easy to know how long someone has been on a page. >Why does a smart TV NEED to store hover events in a persistent DB? When the company is doing AB testing to decide on the optimal page layout this information is important.
DavideNL 9y ago
> did you know that when you purchase an ebook using kindle software amazon knows exactly what page you've read to and how long you've stayed on each page. They also know exactly what books you have purchased. Yea :'( That's why i always purchase ebooks with my Laptop, then use Calibre + DeDrm plugin to send the ebook to my Kindle through usb. Also, my kindle is ALWAYS in airplain mode and has never been connected to any wifi. It's so sad we are forced to do these things, and most people probably don't even realise they are being spied on and have their info/profile sold... By the way, i hope my Pi-hole blocks all the smarttv trackers... but i'm not sure.

Fej 9y ago

Google did the Nexus Player with Android TV, and I haven't heard anything about it since it came out. There was also the Nexus Q a while ago but that was before Android TV and also a massive failure.

_bxg1 9y ago

> And this is where I wish that dumb panels were all the rage, and that the only "smart" functionality was external to the display itself. Could you not simply turn off WiFi on your smart TV and use an external device anyway?

kstrauser 9y ago

> If you have a "Smart TV" from any brand ...you should turn that crap off and replace it with a Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, or anything else external. The Amazon app on our Vizio was so out of date that it literally couldn't connect to Amazon's API. Later updates fixed Amazon but enabled some flat-out 1984 level spying: https://consumerist.com/2015/11/09/vizio-smart-tvs-are-watching-you-back-even-harder-than-most/ https://consumerist.com/2015/11/09/vizio-smart-tvs-are-watch... . That's when I hard reset the TV, banned its MAC from our Wi-Fi, and started treating it exclusively as a dumb display for other devices. Under no circumstances would I give any smart TV Internet access. It's not that I have great trust for any of the settop box manufacturers (although Apple's been doing a great job here), but I actively distrust all TV manufacturers.

techsupporter 9y ago
> you should turn that crap off and replace it with a Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, or anything else external. [...] Under no circumstances would I give any smart TV Internet access. I totally agree, though my only exception is for Roku TV devices. They're essentially a flat-panel LCD with a Roku permanently stuck in the case with software that supports different inputs as "apps." I've been doing some packet sniffing and, so far as I can see, my TCL Roku TV doesn't do anything different on the wire that my Roku Premiere does.
beezle 9y ago
I really do not know why you (and other commenters later) place such great faith in the add on devices, Roku in particular. Just from a couple months ago: "And that’s where streaming TV company Roku comes in. Today, the company is introducing a new measurement suite called Roku Ad Insights that lets brands and agencies measure how effective their marketing is on OTT in four ways." You really should assume that any app you run on any device is gathering data about what you are doing. Could be used in house and/or sold to third parties.
- Qub3d 9y ago
  I run my Roku TV behind a super-duper locked down VLAN because of this. I wish I didn't have to, and I no longer recommend them because of the things you've mentioned.

paulcole 9y ago

> Samba is not a feature for you, it is a snitch in your living room, snitching on everything you watch on your TV, it's a feature for corporations only. Serious question: so what? Lots of things don’t benefit me. Lots of things benefit corporations only. Why am I supposed to get outraged by this?

jra_samba_org 9y ago

Please don't call Samba.tv just 'Samba'. We (the Samba project) have trademark on Samba, which is for the file server, authentication and print server that runs on Unix boxes and allows interoperability with Microsoft Windows. Samba.tv is... Something else. It has nothing to do with us.

duncan_bayne 9y ago
Have you considered a cease and desist? I think the name is sufficiently similar to cause confusion.
- ouid 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_infringement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_infringement >"Infringement may occur when one party, the 'infringer', uses a trademark which is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by another party, in relation to products or services which are identical or similar to the products or services which the registration covers" this basically means that in order to have an infringement case, you need to show that both the name/brand/logo are confusingly similar, and also that the product/service/domain are close enough to each other. I don't know that "software" is a sufficiently narrow category to count.
  - TylerE 9y ago
    "Software" is a a WAY narrower category than, say, Cars vs Washing machines.
  - johnhenry 9y ago
    Might be along shot, but both seem to be relevant in the whole "watching digital video" space. (I'm imagining an a scenario in which an elderly version of myself becomes confused... Me: "Honey, I think we should watch a movie over the samba!". My elderly wife: "Did you mean the samba on the smart TV, or the samba on the PC?" Me: Dag Nabbit!)
    - 9y ago

gerdesj 9y ago

I do put TVs on a separate VLAN and also cameras, phones, IoT stuff (those get the SEWER VLAN). I run a pfSense router and am seriously considering SSL splice in Squid in transparent mode for some of that lot. SSL Splice is nearly a MitM but does not need trustable faked SSL certificates, but you do get more logging and the ability to make certain URLs vanish. Now if the security of the device is crap enough to believe faked certs then why not try the full Bump and see what the bloody thing is really up to ... If nothing else my SEWER VLAN has a very strange view of DNS (thanks pfBlocker) and a rather limited view of the internet as a whole. Squid docs on Bump etc: https://wiki.squid-cache.org/Features/SslPeekAndSplice https://wiki.squid-cache.org/Features/SslPeekAndSplice

stuaxo 9y ago
Is it possible to do this and have samba shares available on this VLAN and the standard VLAN at the same time ?

Zhenya 9y ago

You can find Nexus Players at some retailers and as used merchandise. Highly recommend the device!

megablast 9y ago

> My @Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app from https://samba.tv https://samba.tv and boy oh boy... this is worse than recent @facebook stuff. In what way do they force you to use it?

tjoff 9y ago

1. How is this in any sense even a fraction of how bad facebook is? 2. I can not fathom why anyone would connect their "smart" TV to the network at all.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

anavin 9y ago

@buro9, I'm Ashwin Navin, co-founder of Samba TV. As a company, we start from the principle of putting the consumer in control of the data he/she shares, and how it can be used. Samba TV’s analysis of viewership data follows a clear opt-in prompt when you setup your TV and settings to disable at any time from within your Smart TV settings. By opting out of our service, we will no longer collect your TV viewing information, and our functionality we’ve built to enhance your TV experience – like content recommendations – will be disabled. We believe there is a need for more guidance to discover new shows or be notified when a new season of your favorite shows come out. We also believe there is a need for better insights to guide the media industry, which is stuck with an antiquated system of measuring TV broadcasts. Our apps may not be for everyone, so when you disable Samba TV, your viewership data is not used in our media research or ad targeting offerings. As far as advertising, we like the privacy model Apple has for iOS: If you want to continue using the functionality, but prefer your data not be used for advertising, you may reset your advertising ID and/or choose to limit ad tracking at any time through your TV settings. Your Samba TV advertising ID is a device ID used to serve targeted ads. By resetting this advertising ID, we will remove the link between your Samba TV advertising profile and the content you previously watched, so interest-based advertisements will not be served based on such content. Limiting ad tracking will opt your Samba TV Advertising ID out of receiving targeted advertising based on your TV usage.

mousebender 9y ago
As your product shares its name with an open source product that was created in 1992, will you be renaming your product? Assumedly there are no barriers to going to your prior name, Flingo.

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