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Opening Up the Samsung Q60 Series Smart TV (2019)
- jnord 6y agoGreat write-up, thanks for sharing!
- frombody 6y agoThis article was far more interesting than I thought it was going to be.
- ianai 6y agoAgree. Seems a little more safe than I expected. I was looking for some hidden camera and didn’t spot it. The open ports seem the minimal needed.
- walrus01 6y agoI strongly advise everyone against ever giving their smart tv the wifi password. I have about a thousand times more confidence, that if I use my smart TV as a dumb screen connected to an Xbox one or PlayStation 4, that over a multi-year period of time, Microsoft and Sony will successfully keep their operating systems automatically patched, updated, and secure. As compared to any tv manufacturer. I have seen people resort to things like installing pihole on their home LAN so that their smart tv will stop showing ads covering 1/3 of the screen whenever they use the menus. At least the advertisements that one will see on the home screen of an Xbox or Playstation are relatively small, unobtrusive, and can be ignored without bother. In the future I think we will have problems with the fact that hdmi can also carry 100Mbps ethernet. Imagine if you plug your smart tv into some other device, intending just to send video to it, that gives it a dhcp lease and default route out to the internet. All in the name of consumer friendly "just plug it in and it works!" type functionality.
- gregmac 6y agoOf course, leaving it unconfigured with the open access point has its own risks, given the password is hard-coded to 1111122222: https://twitter.com/silascutler/status/1354521609692995585 https://twitter.com/silascutler/status/1354521609692995585
- walrus01 6y agoI have a Samsung smart TV from mid-2017 and it does not appear to be broadcasting a visible SSID, nor a hidden one. Presumably that has changed in the past couple of years? if it remains in that terribly insecure state by default until you give it a connection to a network, unfortunately the only thing to do might be to give it the password to a $20 mikrotik wifi router (in a 20MHz 2.4GHz channel) as an AP, so as to not pollute the empty radio channel spectrum in your house, that has no connection to the outside world. What an ugly hack. Or give it the password to a secondary ssid set up on your main wifi, that goes to a dead end VLAN with no route to anywhere.
- krastanov 6y agoOr desolder the (chip) antena which is usually easy notice on the board.
- foepys 6y agoAren't Samsung's QLED TV remotes Bluetooth only? Cutting the antenna would then also disable the remote and a modern TV without a remote is pretty useless.
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoIt's clear that the only solution is not to buy a TV.
- kawsper 6y agoCouldn't desoldering the antenna lead to it overheating and damaging components?
- 29athrowaway 6y agoI treat those devices and untrusted by putting them in a separate subnet that cannot talk to the subnet where I have my other devices (computer, printer, smartphones, etc).
- anonymousab 6y agoThey could eventually use ethernet over HDMI or simply include a cellular modem of some sort. The profit is there. But a simpler solution that we are already seeing a bit is to simply require a network connection to function at all; for now, it's just a periodic check, but a persistent connection requirement is all but inevitable in the medium term.
- est31 6y agoDevices having cellular modems isn't something new. Many cars already ship with them, for various purposes. WiFi will likely remain in use with smart TVs for a while as video content is data intensive so not really well suited for cellular, but likely stuff like your dishwasher or your stove might include cellular modems in the near future. The data they transmit is limited and you make setup easier as you don't have to type in a WiFi password any more.
- ignoramous 6y agoBaseband not for video streaming, but just for telemetry. I mean, this is a thing: https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim/getting-started-super-sim-raspberry-pi-sixfab-cellular-iot-hat https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim/getting-started-sup...
- SifJar 6y agoDifference between a car & a dishwasher is that a car is typically outside (at least during use) which would help it to get a signal. Anecdotally inside my house, phones generally get no/weak cell service but WiFi is accessible anywhere in the house. Obviously they could include both, but if it were relying only on cellular, my washing machine quite possibly couldn't get a connection
- cosmie 6y agoCarriers run IoT-specific networks[1], which are optimized for use cases such as telematics (low power consumption, low bandwidth usage, but high penetration and coverage). So it's entirely likely that your washing machine would be able to happily send along telematic data via the same carrier your cell phone can't even establish a connection to. [1] https://www.business.att.com/products/lpwa.html https://www.business.att.com/products/lpwa.html
- Jonnax 6y agoMy perspective is that I don't really care. If my smart TV gets hacked, what are they going to do? Take my Netflix and YouTube credentials? I've got an LG TV, there aren't huge adverts. It's faster than switching on my PS5 to watch something. It even has DLNA so I can listen to my music collection off my NAS. If it starts hacking my network, what's it going to do? Public key SSH is pretty strong. And anything sensitive that could be snooped on would be HTTPS. So this smart TV hack is going to require a second exploit to get into my windows PC? or Linux boxes?
- netc 6y agojust wait for smart TVs which are Zoom friendly and come with a camera and microphone built-in.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago> If my smart TV gets hacked, what are they going to do? Take my Netflix and YouTube credentials? Leverage access to pwn everything else on your network?
- jychang 6y agoPut the TV on its own NAT
- frongpik 6y agoIirc, 5G is going to solve this problem: TVs will directly connect to a 5G network, without bothering the user with WiFi matters.
- grishka 6y agoBut who's gonna pay for the data? And what if you disconnect the antenna?
- frongpik 6y agoTVs will sign a deal with telcos that the latter give access to 5G to certain GUIDs hardcoded in TVs.
- grishka 6y agoYeah but it's a potentially perpetual ongoing per-unit cost that the manufacturers will incur for something they sell for a one-time payment. At some point it has to become unprofitable. There are connected cars but iirc you have to buy a subscription or supply your own sim card to use the online features.
- labawi 6y agoThe connection is there so that they can have a long-lasting income from ads/snooping etc. They can share a bit of the spoils to get the meat. If specific units are costing them beyond income, they can probably have telcos disconnect them, or just remote-disable the communication.
- hnburnsy 6y agoAmazon Sidewalk will solve this problem.
- joubert 6y ago> I have about a thousand times more confidence, that if I use my smart TV as a dumb screen connected to an Xbox one or PlayStation 4, that over a multi-year period of time, Microsoft and Sony will successfully keep their operating systems automatically patched, updated, and secure. As compared to any tv manufacturer. How do you feel about a Sony smart TV?
- iagovar 6y agoI have a dumb Toshiba TV, it's snappy, just plug in HDMI and it works. No loading times, no bloat, no ads, no Automated Content Recognition), not using my network when I don't want to... I invite everyone to buy dumb stuff, because if we don't, there won't be any market signal, and there all be smart TV, Fridges and so on. I don't have to explain to HN audience why this poses risks, problems, and the probability of intrusive ad ecosystem causing problems with stuff that should just work. It's important that tech communities like this one push for it.
- hnburnsy 6y agoI fear that when Amazon Sidewalk opens up to third parties, there will be no stopping devices, in fact I would imagine that Amazon could share the wifi passwords it collects with all Sidewalk devices.
- aquir 6y agoThis is why I will buy a commercial display instead of a TV. They are the same thing but without all the smart stuff. I can also avoid paying TV License (I live in the UK)
- mattowen_uk 6y agoDo you watch BBC iPlayer via any connected devices? If the answer is 'yes' then the BBC will still want their pound of flesh.
- aquir 6y agoNo, we don't watch television but we need a "big screen to watch stuff on" or play games
- iagovar 6y agoCommercial displays are very expensive though.
- aquir 6y ago£600 for a 4K 60 inches screen is not bad at all: https://www.ebuyer.com/910715-nec-60004548-50-large-format-display-4k-uhd-60004548 https://www.ebuyer.com/910715-nec-60004548-50-large-format-d...
- Nextgrid 6y agoI wonder why they couldn't just add a "malicious" (from the perspective of Samsung) binary into the partition on the flash chip to gain shell access that way which would allow them to interact with TrustZone and decrypt the main firmware image.
- 1970-01-01 6y agoCracking the TV's TrustZone would be a huge side project, akin to cracking the same secure enclave on all new Samsung phones and watches. Having said that, it actually has been done before: https://i.blackhat.com/USA-19/Thursday/us-19-Peterlin-Breaking-Samsungs-ARM-TrustZone.pdf https://i.blackhat.com/USA-19/Thursday/us-19-Peterlin-Breaki...
- PaulWaldman 6y agoDoes anyone actually prefer the experience of an integrated Smart TV compared to a separate device? If these users exist, they probably wouldn't be found around these parts. I do find it interesting because conversely in a car I absolutely do prefer an OEM integrated infotainment system as opposed to after market. Granted my experience with after market head units is kinda old, but I recall them seeming fairly antiquated with an OEM unit from the same vintage. Their real appeal was to "modernize" a legacy vehicle.
- neogodless 6y agoTo your first question, yes and no. At least in the short term, yes. My previous Smart TV experience was a Sony from 2014. The "smart" experience was barely usable let alone ideal. I just plugged in other things - PS3 and then various Roku devices. But a year ago I got a TCL Roku TV, and it's a pretty good experience. The one downside now is that it seems just a tiny bit slower than, say, a Roku 3. And of course no way to upgrade that. Down the line, that could be annoying. But it was also a 65" 4K TV with a pretty good picture all for $500. shrug In five years, I'll get a nicer screen and maybe a separate device, depending on the state of things. As a side note, I got a sound bar with wireless subwoofer and surround that uses HDMI ARC. So I never need a second remote, or a universal remote, or anything like that. It all... just works. Anyway, built a small TV room for my spouse this fall, and we picked up a 40" TCL Roku TV. Just perfect for the situation. Easier to install, fewer wires, one remote. No complaints really. Perhaps if Roku goes the way of the dodo, and I want that TV screen to last longer, it could be annoying, assuming the "screen" part and the UI that lets me pick the inputs stopped working, I'd be out of luck, but that could be true of any TV. Of course, if updates were malicious and blocked those features, that would be nasty!
- marzell 6y agoIt really depends on the quality of the interface. My lower-end Samsung TV is laggy and buggy, maybe there are better Samsung TVs though. I have seen far more expensive LG TVs with decent interfaces that are snappy and work well with a remote. I generally prefer using a PS4 to the TV apps. But, for instance, in theory the TV could be on standby and I could still use Spotify to cast to the TV and it would perk up and start playing in a way that my PS4 wouldn't, because I'd still need to turn the TV and the PS4 on. However even that doesn't work with my TV -- I have to manually turn it on, then launch the Spotify app before I'm able to cast to it. Additionally, the Spotify app on my TV works in such a way that the optical audio out to my stereo doesn't produce any LFE/sub-bass, but the Spotify windows app on my PC through HDMI to the same TV, outputting through the same optical does it just fine. And the Netflix app on my TV outputs LFE just fine. Even changing my stereo to output LFE+Main to the sub, the sub gets no signal for some reason if I'm using the TV Spotify app. AND, still with this crap Spotify app on my TV, I have to set the TV audio to TV+Optical Out (and turn the TV volume all the way down) otherwise it doesn't send the sound through the optical. Clearly I'm dealing with a variety of poor integrations and actual bugs; on my friends' LG TVs most/all of these issues are not present, and everything 'just works'. All I'm trying to do, is open Spotify on my phone and play a song, which I can then cast to a device that will output to my stereo with full audio (including sub) without having to first turn on a bunch of devices and load specific apps.
- pabs3 6y agoI wonder if anyone has run a standard Linux distro on one of these smart TVs?
- dawson 6y agoI set NextDNS as the DNS Servers in my Samsung Q60R QLED, one week later, and guess who the number one offender is for telemetry.
- brlewis 6y ago> It doesn’t take much imagination to see how dangerous a remotely-hacked smart TV can be, since they are usually equipped with microphones (and occasionally webcams) Based on this security concern, I've compiled an exhaustive list of things people should look for when opening up a smart TV to assess its suitability as a spying device: 1. battery In an age where people typically carry smart cell phones everywhere, there's only one question for people with privacy concerns about smart TVs: If I'm concerned about state actors hearing my conversation, is it sufficient to unplug the smart TV? I searched for the word "battery" and didn't find it in the article. That's not useful. I guess if I ever need to have a conversation where I'm concerned about government spying, I'll just put all the other microphone-equipped devices in the room with the smart TV and go talk somewhere out of earshot of it.