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I’ve worked extensively with ACR technology in an applied setting. Happy to answer any questions

by navaed01 2y ago

matheusmoreira 2y ago
How do I disable it and make sure it stays disabled?
buryat 2y ago
how much this data can sell for?
avidiax 2y ago
What types of titles can ACR match to? Can it do foreign titles? Adult titles? Can it OCR onscreen text, e.g. a computer desktop? Can it identify video conferences? Why do advertisers care what I watch? If I watch PBS mystery theater do I get ads for rich people?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- dewey 2y ago
  > Why do advertisers care what I watch? If I watch PBS mystery theater do I get ads for rich people? Thats precisely what’s happening and it’s nothing new. The only difference here is that the TV is the input vs your browsing habits.
  - card_zero 2y ago
    I read somewhere - I think in a previous thread, about the New Scientist version of this story, where somebody posted text from a site selling ACR services - that the real interest lies in empirical measurement of what adverts you're seeing, and the context that you see them in is of only secondary interest. I guess the ads you see could be matched up to what you buy. It's an "are our adverts working on this person?" question (and thus "can we show that our advertising service is worth buying"), more than a question of "what advert do we send this person next?"
card_zero 2y ago
Why do they (LG and Samsung) not fingerprint things streamed from a phone, but do fingerprint anything coming over HDMI? And why do they fingerprint their own FAST services, don't they know what they showed already?
- bottom999mottob 2y ago
  I'm trying to find more information about these 2 companies fingerprinting or hashing anything coming over HDMI. Do you have sources? I thought disconnecting my smart TV from internet to be enough to stop the transmission of any ACR data. My concern would be if they store any ACR data locally and queue it for data collection vs if they stream it.
  - Eisenstein 2y ago
    It is in the paper: "We find that: (1) ACR network traffic exists when watching linear TV and when using smart TV as an external display using HDMI"
    - card_zero 2y ago
      But also that they send it in batches every 15 seconds (Samsung) or every minute (LG). The question is whether an offline TV will lie in wait to send all the data it collected in one massive batch, when and if it gets online. That wasn't tested.
- NegativeLatency 2y ago
  Might be easier to aggregate data if it’s all coming in in a similar way?
  - card_zero 2y ago
    Coming back to this, I see it's in the paper. There's a mention of copyright, and then: > Netflix prefers to have ACR deactivated during its streaming “in order to preserve the integrity of its subscribers viewing experiences and maintain sole control over measurement of its viewership” (Verance, 2020). The same reasoning applies to FAST channels, which LG and Samsung consider to be ”aggregator apps” (Wolk, 2023), where providers may have agreements restricting ACR usage. In other words, FAST comes from other providers, who may complain. Random content over HDMI doesn't. However, this doesn't explain why they ignore video streamed from phones (tablets, laptops, etc) wirelessly.
bentley 2y ago
It’s often suggested in HN comments that keeping a TV disconnected from the LAN will soon be insufficient to prevent data transmission, because companies are on the cusp of including subsidized cell modems in the devices. Have you ever encountered this idea, and is it actually realistic?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
arcrwlock 2y ago
How does this interact with DRM? Does ACR still work if HDCP is being used?
- extraduder_ire 2y ago
  HDCP is stripped when a stream comes into the device and readded when it leaves, you need to do this for anything more complicated than dumb passthrough. (unless you're using that Bunnie Huang trick to add encrypted data without decrypting for some reason)
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
How long until I get revenge on this world full of immoral people?
card_zero 2y ago
What happened to stop you answering, were you kidnapped by LG?
xnx 2y ago
Could ACR be used against its creators by creating a tool to detect and automatically block-out advertisements? (e.g. via an HDMI pass-through) There should be enough tell-tale signals (text, sound, number of scene changes, etc.) to distinguish advertisements from non-ad content.

I’ve worked extensively with ACR technology in an applied setting. Happy to answer any questions

matheusmoreira 2y ago

How do I disable it and make sure it stays disabled?

buryat 2y ago

how much this data can sell for?

avidiax 2y ago

What types of titles can ACR match to? Can it do foreign titles? Adult titles? Can it OCR onscreen text, e.g. a computer desktop? Can it identify video conferences? Why do advertisers care what I watch? If I watch PBS mystery theater do I get ads for rich people?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dewey 2y ago
> Why do advertisers care what I watch? If I watch PBS mystery theater do I get ads for rich people? Thats precisely what’s happening and it’s nothing new. The only difference here is that the TV is the input vs your browsing habits.
- card_zero 2y ago
  I read somewhere - I think in a previous thread, about the New Scientist version of this story, where somebody posted text from a site selling ACR services - that the real interest lies in empirical measurement of what adverts you're seeing, and the context that you see them in is of only secondary interest. I guess the ads you see could be matched up to what you buy. It's an "are our adverts working on this person?" question (and thus "can we show that our advertising service is worth buying"), more than a question of "what advert do we send this person next?"

card_zero 2y ago

Why do they (LG and Samsung) not fingerprint things streamed from a phone, but do fingerprint anything coming over HDMI? And why do they fingerprint their own FAST services, don't they know what they showed already?

bottom999mottob 2y ago
I'm trying to find more information about these 2 companies fingerprinting or hashing anything coming over HDMI. Do you have sources? I thought disconnecting my smart TV from internet to be enough to stop the transmission of any ACR data. My concern would be if they store any ACR data locally and queue it for data collection vs if they stream it.
- Eisenstein 2y ago
  It is in the paper: "We find that: (1) ACR network traffic exists when watching linear TV and when using smart TV as an external display using HDMI"
  - card_zero 2y ago
    But also that they send it in batches every 15 seconds (Samsung) or every minute (LG). The question is whether an offline TV will lie in wait to send all the data it collected in one massive batch, when and if it gets online. That wasn't tested.
NegativeLatency 2y ago
Might be easier to aggregate data if it’s all coming in in a similar way?
- card_zero 2y ago
  Coming back to this, I see it's in the paper. There's a mention of copyright, and then: > Netflix prefers to have ACR deactivated during its streaming “in order to preserve the integrity of its subscribers viewing experiences and maintain sole control over measurement of its viewership” (Verance, 2020). The same reasoning applies to FAST channels, which LG and Samsung consider to be ”aggregator apps” (Wolk, 2023), where providers may have agreements restricting ACR usage. In other words, FAST comes from other providers, who may complain. Random content over HDMI doesn't. However, this doesn't explain why they ignore video streamed from phones (tablets, laptops, etc) wirelessly.

bentley 2y ago

It’s often suggested in HN comments that keeping a TV disconnected from the LAN will soon be insufficient to prevent data transmission, because companies are on the cusp of including subsidized cell modems in the devices. Have you ever encountered this idea, and is it actually realistic?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

arcrwlock 2y ago

How does this interact with DRM? Does ACR still work if HDCP is being used?

extraduder_ire 2y ago
HDCP is stripped when a stream comes into the device and readded when it leaves, you need to do this for anything more complicated than dumb passthrough. (unless you're using that Bunnie Huang trick to add encrypted data without decrypting for some reason)

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago

How long until I get revenge on this world full of immoral people?

card_zero 2y ago

What happened to stop you answering, were you kidnapped by LG?

xnx 2y ago

Could ACR be used against its creators by creating a tool to detect and automatically block-out advertisements? (e.g. via an HDMI pass-through) There should be enough tell-tale signals (text, sound, number of scene changes, etc.) to distinguish advertisements from non-ad content.