3 ms·
My TV doesn't know my router's wi-fi password.
by glimshe 3mo ago
My TV doesn't know my router's wi-fi password.
- aussieguy1234 3mo agoThis is the best approach
- walrus01 3mo agoI've said it before on HN a long time ago but I'll repeat myself, I have about a thousand times more confidence that Sony and/or Microsoft will keep their PS5 and Xbox operating systems secure and not crapped up with stuff like this, than I do that random TV manufacturers will not result in a cybersecurity or privacy disaster. Yeah, the PS and Xbox OSes show you ads, and they have telemetry. But both companies also have an extremely important core functional need of keeping them secure, because possible fuckery with the OS could result in game piracy/DRM bypasses and a direct threat to their revenue models.
- thewebguyd 3mo agoThe gaming consoles aren't subsidized via the data collection like smart TVs are via content recognition (selling everything on your screen to advertisers). Consoles are sometimes sold at a loss, but the revenue model is different. Playstation plus/game pass, a cut of game sales and microtransactions, exclusives, and accessories. No one should ever connect their TV to the internet. There just isn't any reason to, get access to your streaming apps another way.
- amazingman 3mo agoHope you don't have any open WiFi networks nearby. IMO it's better to put it on one of your networks and isolate it from the internet and other devices.
- MrDrMcCoy 3mo agoIf it connects to another network, it's somebody else's problem. Unless of course, it has a built in webcam or microphone.
- stvltvs 3mo agoIt does, at least for any media played through the device. Read up on automatic content recognition. https://www.howtogeek.com/its-not-just-streaming-content-your-smart-tv-collects-data-on-everything/ https://www.howtogeek.com/its-not-just-streaming-content-you...
- account42 3mo agoIts your problem if it updates itself to show ads (and of course exfiltrate whatever it can see / hear).
- tyre 3mo agoYes. I bought a Samsung TV and there isn’t a way to set up Art Mode without the internet. So first you have to get a raspberry pi, install pi hole, then switch your router’s DNS. What a wild experience 2026 is. But I do feel like a wizard.
- entropie 3mo agoThey might hardcode DNS. It's not certain that this will work.
- slau 3mo agoThis is why I’m a bit conflicted about DoH and ODoH. Firefox and Chrome have defaulted to DoH for years if I’m not mistaken (although I’m in Europe so I believe my FF still uses regular DNS instead of DoH by default). This also means that DoH effectively sends all your queries to CloudFlare on FF. Chrome is slightly smarter and tries to map your DNS provider to a DoH implementation if known.
- tkel 3mo agoI have my router set with iptables rules to block/redirect all port 53 and you can also add known DoH to a blocklist to try and force LAN devices to use your router DNS.
- lodovic 3mo agoI have a separate lan for untrusted devices, I only use whitelisting. No public DNS for these devices.
- TeMPOraL 3mo agoThat's why I'm not a fan of DoH or certificate pinning. Those are tools of control.
- inigyou 3mo agoDoH in your resolv.conf wouldn't be a problem. When the browser ignores system settings it's a problem. Guess what though? resolv.conf doesn't have syntax to specify DoH.
- RiverCrochet 3mo agoI haven't seen any open WiFi networks around me in years. I don't think it's a thing anymore; it's definitely not something a TV company can rely on.
- baby_souffle 3mo agoThey're not unheard of in cities. Hotels and shopping malls have them. Some residential ISPs will also broadcast a public access point using a slice of each customer's bandwidth allocation...
- dhosek 3mo agoWhen I had Comcast internet, I could get on those, but it required a network profile to actually connect to the internet. That said, I wouldn’t put it past TV makers and Comcast to collude on using this to allow backdoor network exfiltration.
- RiverCrochet 3mo agoTV makers would have to collude with every ISP for that to be worth depending on. Not to say it couldn't happen - but it wouldn't be a backdoor thing, it'd be very up front. All that's needed is for ISPs to create/join some SSO-like standard that lets you use ISP credentials as smart TV credentials (e.g. Your Xfinity account is automatically your Vizio account, sign on with your Xfinity account to get free streaming deals now). I feel like if TVs start doing that, they'll display a network ID and signal bars at the top of the screen like cell phones do, so the TV maker doesn't get blamed for ISP problems.
- drnick1 3mo agoAnother reason not to use ISP hardware. That's on top of a well-known backdoor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-069 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-069).
- prmoustache 3mo agoThey all have captive portal for regulatory reasons though.
- Hamuko 3mo agoI have an open guest network with a captive portal, and not once have I seen my LG TV try to connect to it.
- qlte 3mo agoThis is an urban legend. (And made way more sense 15 years ago when smart TVs were just starting to become common and open WiFi without captive portals actually still existed).
- gboss 3mo agoPretty sure they can get internet through the HDMI cord from Roku or similar device
- MrDrMcCoy 3mo agoSource? HDMI includes Ethernet in the spec, but I've never heard of any devices actually implementing it.
- RiverCrochet 3mo agoThat would require the Roku to specifically be set up to act as a router. You can't just connect to a random device that's not specifically a router/AP and use its internet connection. Since Roku like other smart TV companies makes money off of user data captur, it's not incentivized to enable those conditions for a downstream device, especially if not specifically advertised as a feature.
- toast0 3mo agoIf this was a feature they wanted to provide, it would simplest to set the Roku up as a bridge. No dhcp, no nat, just a virtual switch. Roku devices run on Linux, if their HDMI chip supports Ethernet and that's plumbed to a Linux supported MAC (probably not), it might take an hour to build and test the feature. Longer if the wifi interface doesn't like being bridged (I've seen that on some openwrt devices). There's esp-idf examples from espressif for doing bridging on an esp32 if you have one with a MAC and a PHY and/or spi mac+phy. Or for wired ethernet, they could include a three port switch IC.
- walrus01 3mo agodoes a roku provide a dhcp server, issue a dhcp lease, do NAT and routing to things that are plugged into it over the 100M ethernet built into a current gen HDMI link?
- mikestew 3mo agoThis again? Yes, it’s in the spec. No, no one has been shown to have actually implemented it. No streaming box is going to allow random devices to use their connection.
- declan_roberts 3mo agoMy TV thinks it's January 1st 1970.
- mc3301 3mo agoEvery time anything asks for a DOB or anything like that, I enter the earliest date their system allows. Been doing it for decades. I guess that might make me more trackable?
- ahartmetz 3mo agoAt least you could get some interesting ads. Do you want to participate in a longevity study?
- laughing_man 3mo agoHeh. Steam thinks I'm 126.
- inigyou 3mo agoOuch. I wouldn't risk lying to Steam, given what it has the ability to delete.
- laughing_man 3mo agoI've never had a website do more than the equivalent of "Try again, smart guy" when I put in a ridiculous age.
- kazinator 3mo agoAnd so it thinks it is fairly new, then, and doesn't require any tubes replaced. Should that change, it will let you know.
- charles_f 3mo agoMy TV isn't even connected to power