4 ms·

Seems like this would be a good use case for a "TV Honeypot" that would intercept phone-homes, recognize the model, imitate whatever jank rpc is needed to keep

Seems like this would be a good use case for a "TV Honeypot" that would intercept phone-homes, recognize the model, imitate whatever jank rpc is needed to keep the unit happy, and dump all telemetry to /dev/null.

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
Imagine if it could replace the ads with pictures of your family, news, inspirational quotes…
- h2odragon 5y ago
  Get one into your neighborhood switch; and show your own ads to everyone. Local advertisers desperately want someone to hand their money to.
- mlok 5y ago
  Imagine if (when ?) the AI chip in each TV in the near future could smartmix© ads with pictures of your family, news, inspirational quotes...
  - oblio 5y ago
    Even better, product placement. Your 5 year old is now magically holding BrandNewKoolAid™ instead of the original Coke. You grandpa has a fishing rod from BobsFishingEquipment®.
    - Spivak 5y ago
      You don't need AI, just social media and reviews. It's been tried. Crazy effective but also feels creepy despite it just being a way to surface reviews and ratings from people you know on FB or Google+.
    - bentcorner 5y ago
      Oh god - there's the recent posts I've seen about people losing their social media accounts and then having deepfakes of themselves posting about BTC. But what happens when the platforms get into it themselves? Today using a loved one's image in a deepfake advertisement might seem invasive and wrong. But I wonder in the future if this would be seen as something acceptable. I'm sure somewhere there's a social media site that is carefully constructing their T&C's to allow them to do this if they so wish.
      - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
        You are definitely going to be proven right.
      - qchris 5y ago
        On the other hand, I think one protection against this particular scenario are the people who make their money using their likeness. Like, what if in that particular situation, Taylor Swift's dad (pick any celebrity) was the one browsing the internet. He just got served an advertisement with not just his daughter's face on it, but an ad with Taylor Swift's unlicensed likeness, where that likeness in most other situations is worth many millions of dollars. For some tiny group that's below-board anyway with hacking people's social media accounts, I guess maybe there's not much you could do. But for any social media site or other platform, I imagine that IP lawyers trying to protect their client's likeness would descend in packs, which is a probably a genuine deterrent to a group considering implementing something like this.
- artificialLimbs 5y ago
  With pihole you could. Have the ad domains pointed to your own webserver that served you such things.
- ldehaan 5y ago
  I don't know who you are, I can't prove to you I am real, but I love you. Have a nice day, and please, down vote this, I was doing so good being invisible until Someone upvoted me to a 1 again...
cmpb 5y ago
PiHole[1], with the default adlist/gravity configuration, actually works pretty well for removing ads from my LG smart tv from about 3 years ago. Doesn't keep it from updating, but you can easily configure pihole to block whatever domains you want [1] https://pi-hole.net/ https://pi-hole.net/
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  Some TVs have gotten wise to this, and are using IP addresses or serving ads from domains that are also needed for things like installing the various apps like YouTube/Netflix.
rtkwe 5y ago
Just don't connect your TV to wifi? That's what I did when I finally had to get one when I was replacing the ancient energy hungry plasma I'd been using. I already have other devices for watching Netflix/YouTube/ChromeCast.
- artificialLimbs 5y ago
  Also make sure there are no open access points anywhere nearby. Some models automatically connect to them.
- drexlspivey 5y ago
  That isn’t going to work for long, your neighbor’s Alexa is now automatically sharing his internet with you, it’s just a matter of your TV manufacturer striking a deal with amazon for access to their mesh network.
  - andrewjf 5y ago
    Thanks, I really hate this. But seriously, what can we do here? How to I inform people like my parents of this kind of thing without being an alarmist? Should I even care?
    - rtkwe 5y ago
      The damages are largely theoretical at this point. Most of the time the compromised devices just join a botnet and don't directly steal much from the owners because they don't have access to much. For the privacy concerns it's also largely theoretical at the moment because to our knowledge (at least mine) the government hasn't used SmertTVs to do spying (yet).

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago

Imagine if it could replace the ads with pictures of your family, news, inspirational quotes…

h2odragon 5y ago
Get one into your neighborhood switch; and show your own ads to everyone. Local advertisers desperately want someone to hand their money to.
mlok 5y ago
Imagine if (when ?) the AI chip in each TV in the near future could smartmix© ads with pictures of your family, news, inspirational quotes...
- oblio 5y ago
  Even better, product placement. Your 5 year old is now magically holding BrandNewKoolAid™ instead of the original Coke. You grandpa has a fishing rod from BobsFishingEquipment®.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    You don't need AI, just social media and reviews. It's been tried. Crazy effective but also feels creepy despite it just being a way to surface reviews and ratings from people you know on FB or Google+.
  - bentcorner 5y ago
    Oh god - there's the recent posts I've seen about people losing their social media accounts and then having deepfakes of themselves posting about BTC. But what happens when the platforms get into it themselves? Today using a loved one's image in a deepfake advertisement might seem invasive and wrong. But I wonder in the future if this would be seen as something acceptable. I'm sure somewhere there's a social media site that is carefully constructing their T&C's to allow them to do this if they so wish.
    - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
      You are definitely going to be proven right.
    - qchris 5y ago
      On the other hand, I think one protection against this particular scenario are the people who make their money using their likeness. Like, what if in that particular situation, Taylor Swift's dad (pick any celebrity) was the one browsing the internet. He just got served an advertisement with not just his daughter's face on it, but an ad with Taylor Swift's unlicensed likeness, where that likeness in most other situations is worth many millions of dollars. For some tiny group that's below-board anyway with hacking people's social media accounts, I guess maybe there's not much you could do. But for any social media site or other platform, I imagine that IP lawyers trying to protect their client's likeness would descend in packs, which is a probably a genuine deterrent to a group considering implementing something like this.
artificialLimbs 5y ago
With pihole you could. Have the ad domains pointed to your own webserver that served you such things.
ldehaan 5y ago
I don't know who you are, I can't prove to you I am real, but I love you. Have a nice day, and please, down vote this, I was doing so good being invisible until Someone upvoted me to a 1 again...

cmpb 5y ago

PiHole[1], with the default adlist/gravity configuration, actually works pretty well for removing ads from my LG smart tv from about 3 years ago. Doesn't keep it from updating, but you can easily configure pihole to block whatever domains you want [1] https://pi-hole.net/ https://pi-hole.net/

ceejayoz 5y ago
Some TVs have gotten wise to this, and are using IP addresses or serving ads from domains that are also needed for things like installing the various apps like YouTube/Netflix.

rtkwe 5y ago

Just don't connect your TV to wifi? That's what I did when I finally had to get one when I was replacing the ancient energy hungry plasma I'd been using. I already have other devices for watching Netflix/YouTube/ChromeCast.

artificialLimbs 5y ago
Also make sure there are no open access points anywhere nearby. Some models automatically connect to them.
drexlspivey 5y ago
That isn’t going to work for long, your neighbor’s Alexa is now automatically sharing his internet with you, it’s just a matter of your TV manufacturer striking a deal with amazon for access to their mesh network.
- andrewjf 5y ago
  Thanks, I really hate this. But seriously, what can we do here? How to I inform people like my parents of this kind of thing without being an alarmist? Should I even care?
  - rtkwe 5y ago
    The damages are largely theoretical at this point. Most of the time the compromised devices just join a botnet and don't directly steal much from the owners because they don't have access to much. For the privacy concerns it's also largely theoretical at the moment because to our knowledge (at least mine) the government hasn't used SmertTVs to do spying (yet).