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Ask HN: Tips for hacking a TV?
I've got a spare television lying around (specifically, a Samsung UN24H4500), and I thought it'd be fun to take a crack at seeing what I can do with it. The only hitch is that I've never really done any hardware hacking before, so I don't really know where to start!
Any tips and pointers would be much appreciated, in terms of common ways to search for and exploit vulnerabilities, or the exploitation of other televisions. Alternatively, if this is an absolute fool's errand, and the whole thing is locked down tighter than Fort Knox, a firm warning that this is not a good thing to dick around with over a weekend would also be appreciated.
- walterbell 2y agoPrior work for LG televisions: https://github.com/RootMyTV/RootMyTV.github.io https://github.com/RootMyTV/RootMyTV.github.io
- fewgrehrehre 2y agoOh hey great! This might be really helpful. I've actually also got an LG TV upstairs, I'll have a peek at this, could be very helpful!
- laserstrahl 2y agoRootmytv is Not working anymore if you are above a specific webos version. You can also try fiddling around with a USB to USB device and ADB shell.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- purple-leafy 2y agoWhatever you do, don’t touch the capacitors, especially if it’s an old TV, even if it’s unplugged. Could kill you. Old TV caps pack a serious punch (even when unplugged)
- fewgrehrehre 2y agoThank you very much! I will keep that in mind.
- laserstrahl 2y agoYa, i can relate.
- dommer 2y agoMe too. I was about 8 when I took my TV apart and brushed my arm against that capacitor. Packed a wallop, and kept my arm in a ridged state for a bit.
- squidgedcricket 2y agoI think that's no longer true for modern flatscreen TVs. Older CRT TVs had caps charged to a dangerously high voltage, but all the caps on an LED/LCD TV should be a low enough voltage to be touch safe.
- purple-leafy 2y agoTouch safe, how about lick safe?
- throwup238 2y agoThat’s what flyback transformers were for. If you licked them, you’d fly back.
- ale42 2y agoExcept for the switching power supply, where you have capacitors charged at (rectified) mains voltage so around 155 or 325 volts depending on where you are. They should discharge relatively quickly, but they might be dangerous for a few minutes.
- KaiserPro 2y agoMains will still kill you, even if its not 3.3kv or what was needed to run a CRT. Its always best to work out where the mains PSU is, and either cover/isolate it so that you don't touch it by accident. Even if turned off, there is a non-insigificant risk that there is either mains power lying around or some other large charge/current ready to bite. THe back of the inlet is also tends to be a hazard, so be really careful around there too.
- onlinefields 2y ago[flagged]
- laserstrahl 2y agoTry xda forum.
- RandomCountry 2y ago[dead]
- robin_reala 2y agoSamyGO used to be the go-to place for Samsung OS hacking, not sure how active they still are though: https://www.samygo.tv/ https://www.samygo.tv/
- atoav 2y agoyou could try spamming/brute-forcing the IR spectrum with a IR diode in the hope of finding a debug access: https://hackaday.com/tag/smart-tv-hacks/ https://hackaday.com/tag/smart-tv-hacks/
- fewgrehrehre 2y agoOh hey, now there's an interesting thought! Thank you!
- madaxe_again 2y agoGood luck. I learned an enormous amount about hardware design from a Philips plasma display I got for free some 20 years ago as it wouldn’t show an image for more than a few seconds and multiple repair people had said “buy a new one” to the business that gave it to me. £10,000 piece of kit, working. Philips were actually enormously helpful. I just called them up (well, after going to a TV repair shop, picking the guy’s brains, and getting the number from him), got through to their technical service dept, got them to send me the full service engineer manual, schematics and all, and they were happy for me to quiz them on likely root causes - like, the guy I spoke to a few times seemed genuinely excited that someone was actually trying to repair a TV, and correctly pointed me in the direction of a group of oscillators, one of which had a blown cap. Fixed the thing. Lived on the wall of our office for a decade until it fell off one day. On me. There’s karma.
- Scoundreller 2y agoMust’ve been really nice for those cold days. Plasmas are great on someone else’s power connection.
- bombcar 2y agoWe had a great one that almost fully negated the need for a heater in the winter. Blackest blacks! Still miss it, but probably miss the $5k I shelled out for it.
- bookofjoe 2y agoMy 50" 2007 Pioneer Kuro Elite ($5,000 in 2007) still has the best picture I've ever seen. Almost 3D. No repairs/service ever.
- tetris11 2y agoI guess it's the kind of excitement one gets when someone else actively reads the documentation you painstakingly put together.
- freedomben 2y agoThis is probably obvious, but so important that I feel it's worth saying: do not connect it to the internet! The last thing you want right now is up-to-date software, and chances are very good that if it goes online it will update its software and install all the latest security patches. You will need to connect it to a network in order to scan it for vulnerabilities, but make that a network that has no internet access. I would start by doing some searching on the exact make and model, especially searching through the CVE database to see what may be out there. There. If your TV has been connected to the internet, it may have had its software updated to patch any cves, but if it has not been connected, then there's a good chance it is still vulnerable and you can exploit them to get root or further access. You can also throw scans at it. I would start with nmap and scan all the ports, also do service recognition to try and figure out what exact service is running on the other side of the port. For something like a TV, I would not expect a high success rate with identifying, but it's easy to run. What you can identify, the most important part is typically the version number. You can take that version number and compare it with CVEs with a lot more precision to see if there are vulnerabilities. You can also try any number of scanners on it, such as nessus or openvas. There are tons of scanners out there so it's definitely worth doing some searches. I would suggest looking at the Kali Linux list of scanning tools, and either running Kali on a machine you have laying around, or use it with docker. If one of these scanners actually crashes the TV, that is ironically a great sign for your purposes. If the TV has been connected to the internet, and you aren't able to find any vulnerabilities, it might be worth keeping it off the internet for a while to give some time for new vulnerabilities to pop up. That does require a long-term commitment to this project, but it's not like you can't use the TV. I don't connect mine to the internet ever anyway, because I don't want it spying on me and I hate its ads and crappy built-in software. I just use it with a Chromecast with Google TV and good old HDMI. Depending on what you want to do, it's also worth going thoroughly through the menu and looking for any sort of developer or debug options. Sometimes these menus are very hidden, requiring on occasion weird keyboard incantations in order to even appear as options, but once you get these enabled you can connect using tools like ADB or SSH, and get a shell on the machine. All in all, good luck! It sounds like a very fun project. It's a shame we don't live near each other because this sounds like a fun weekend project :-)
- 2y ago
- Benjamin_Dobell 2y agoHacking TVs was a favourite pasttime of mine. There's nothing quite like flashing a TV with AOSP such that it thinks it's 55" smartphone. Lock screen and all. See if you can find a service manual for your TV. You'll want to get UART as soon as possible. Just remember crashes are for chumps: https://gist.github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/bb13f6169aaa486254537c5e973e53ec https://gist.github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/bb13f6169aaa48625453... PS. I think that may be my favourite piece of code I've ever written. Mostly because it's completely absurd but worked just fine.
- rubyfan 2y agoI have a Samsung smart tv which I’ve never accepted t&c and never connected to wifi. I’d love to make it dumb or at least get rid of the nags to accept t&c or connect when someone accidentally hits the wrong button on the remote. Anything out there to do that?
- phkahler 2y agoSame. I'd be happy to turn it on and not have a menu over half the screen every time.
- rubyfan 2y agoIn a world where Raspberry Pi exists you’d think we’d be able to make such a TV happen.
- Loughla 2y agoI want that, so bad. Mine brings up the sign in screen every time you turn it on. I also want the ability to just change channels when you hit the channel button. My TV brings up a mini-guide when you hit the channel button, so that the down button goes up in station number and vice versa. Then once you select a channel, because it's not connected to the web, it blinks on and off for 5 seconds or so while it's trying to find program information from the internet connection it does not have. It's absolutely asinine. I miss the days when TV's were just screens to show whatever input I have connected to them.
- stoobs 2y agoAnyone know if there's anything for non-android Sony and Panasonic tv's?
- fph 2y agoNot an answer but a follow-up question: is there open firmware for TVs like Openwrt for routers? I have never heard of such a project, but it sounds like it would be useful.
- jonwinstanley 2y agoYes. I’d love this. The software on tvs is awful. Plus many new tvs have ads baked in. An open source OS would be a dream.
- phantomathkg 2y agoSoftware on TV (and worst, set top boxes) is awful is due to the fact that it is an under power CPU and limited memory. The app you saw is either web app in Webkit Embedded or similar embedded, Android app (Android TV) or Roku brightscript app.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- WithinReason 2y agoThere is this: https://github.com/RootMyTV/RootMyTV.github.io https://github.com/RootMyTV/RootMyTV.github.io
- Kirby64 2y agoNot open source OS, just a homebrew store. Not quite the same thing.
- phrotoma 2y agohttps://www.samygo.tv/ https://www.samygo.tv/
- xattt 2y agoThat project has fallen victim to people losing interest. A section for 2011 model year TVs has WIP tags for the last 9 years. This might as well have a perpetual under construction shovelling man GIF. After I install it, then what?
- alfiedotwtf 2y agoI shit a brick when you said TV and thought you were talking about old CRTs. If you're going to hack on an OLD TV or microwave, please don't unless you know what you're doing. If you're still going to continue, at least unplug it for over 24+ hours before cracking it open. Those capacitors may still be charged and will not tickle.
- grepfru_it 2y agoMicrowaves are easy, the schematics are online and usually there is more than enough room to see something dangerous before touching it. An unshielded microwave won’t kill you but will destroy the WiFi noise floor in your dwelling. If your microwave doesn’t turn on, it’s likely due to a $0.25 switch that has failed (use the stop or off button folks, the emergency stop on the door switch takes the full brunt of the magnetron)
- memcg 2y agoPer https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57528450/adb-connection-to-samsung-smart-tv https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57528450/adb-connection-... newer Samsungs (after 2015 per https://news.samsung.com/us/six-advantages-of-tizen-os-on-samsung-smart-tvs/ https://news.samsung.com/us/six-advantages-of-tizen-os-on-sa...) run Tizen https://www.tizen.org/ https://www.tizen.org/
- memcg 2y agohttps://developer.samsung.com/smarttv/develop/tools/tv-extension/download.html https://developer.samsung.com/smarttv/develop/tools/tv-exten...
- pabs3 2y agoI read Vizio TVs run Linux/systemd, after this lawsuit concludes, you should be able to get the source code and reinstall Linux at least. https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html
- pabs3 2y agoFirst step would be to contact Samsung and ask for the Linux kernel and other open source code for your TV. Without it you won't be able to replace the original OS properly. Also mention to them that they have to allow you to update Linux on the TV or they have to stop using Linux on their TVs. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/
- fensgrim 2y agoAnd they will provide it as required per law. Note that the law does not require them to provide that in a form that would be usable for anything practical without doing moderate to heavy amount of reverse engineering (e.g. here's the source, here's the toolchain that was released in approximately same period of time, go figure out if this can even be built without recreating part of their internal build system, missing configs, etc).
- pabs3 2y agoSee the blog post, the GPLv2 goes further than what you suggest.
- minhaz23 2y agoSo if my Toyota head unit has FOSS they can provide that source code to me if I ask?
- ChocolateGod 2y agoFor the parts covered under GPL, yes, which includes the kernel (if it uses Linux). If they're covered under a more permissive license (e.g. Apache, MIT) you're out of luck as these don't require redistribution of derivative work source code, only attribution.
- numpad0 2y agohttps://www.denso.com/global/en/opensource/ivi/toyota/
- beretguy 2y agoGet an axe.
- rgovostes 2y agoA decade ago my LG plasma TV had a serial port for using it as digital signage (I think). If I spammed the serial port during boot I could interrupt U-Boot but they had disabled echoing out. I never figured out if I could do something useful or not.
- bigbaguette 2y agoSerial ports on tv are usually for screen control, as in turn on/off, change input, set volume... Like what you can do with the OSD and the remote
- RandomCountry 2y ago[flagged]
- caseyy 2y agoWhat is legally complex about hacking your own TV that you own, in the comfort of your own home? The device and all its components are yours. If Samsung or anyone else wants to tell people their TVs are licenses/rentals or some corporate delusions like that, they are welcome to lose in court(s).
- zhrvoj 2y agoIt's fun reading all that posts about dangerous caps, dangerous flyback transformers... Those fears, and your findings I can read - were/are something normal in my world. I was paid to do that. But faked technology advance, ruined service techicians job. And now mices take over... So you have it. Deal with it. And be afraid - be very afraid :)