5 ms·

LG says we're fake news [video]

407 points by HelloUsername 14d ago

PorciiVorbesc 14d ago
Original Youtube title of the video I got a few hours ago was: "LG’s Manipulative, Gaslighting Response to GN Report" Either they changed it for some legal reason, or Youtube allows for A/B testing of multiple titles for engagement.
- nodja 14d ago
  Youtube allows you to AB test with up to 3 titles and thumbnails.
- smashspectacle 14d ago
  YouTube encourages A/B testing of both titles and thumbnails, but it could be either.
- kouteiheika 14d ago
  It's almost certainly A/B test. Essentially everyone does it. You can even sometimes see when a list of videos on YT first loads and a given video has one title, and it suddenly switches to another without you reloading the page.
  - kowbell 13d ago
    On several channels I watch, I've noticed the top comment is always along the lines of "who was here when the video title was XYZ" because you know it's going to change.
  - neom 13d ago
    Have you noticed that has become more common recently? Because I have. It seems over the past 3/4 months, reload and see a new title happens pretty much daily to me (it also seems to work because sometimes it causes me to click the video I didn't click with the old title).
    - whstl 13d ago
      It was announced in December and took a while to catch. https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/393332200/you-can-now-a-b-test-titles-and-thumbnails-on-your-videos-?hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/393332200/you-can-...
- ehe78qhe 13d ago
  [dead]
- mcmcmc 13d ago
  I hate how this has become so normal. It degrades trust when people are fed different versions of the same experience without being informed. How are you supposed to reference something when the title changes without notice? Makes me feel like I’m going crazy sometimes.
ChrisArchitect 14d ago
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49645480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49645480
dgellow 13d ago
This „we own the glass“ idea is completely insane. How does an industry degenerate to the point where they consider acceptable to base their business model on owning part of the product they sell you?
- mc32 13d ago
  Marketing executives thinking “out of the box” is how. Ethics cannot contain them inside. They have breached the perimeter and now trample everyone for MRR.
- newsclues 13d ago
  Sony and Microsoft fought to own the living room in console wars
- oh_my_goodness 13d ago
  If you don't have laws, or don't enforce them, people will do whatever they want. I can remember when this simple point was obvious to almost everyone.
  - dathinab 13d ago
    yep one of the first rules of any market should be you sell a product -> you are responsible about the product with a ".. -> you must be honest about the product (/what the products does, provides, etc.)" to see how absurdly not followed this common sense(^1) is in the us look at supplements 1. provider are not hold responsible, non small parts of sold supplements are harmful in one way or another. Even cases like supplements advertised for pregnant woman with highly dangerous components for pregnant woman existed, no major change followed. 2. high amounts (AFIK 80% or so) of supplements sold in the US are severely dishonest and don't quite contain what is advertised. And this isn't just about it technically containing the supplements, but in a form the body can't absurd. But it goes so bad that "it's just sugar pills" is more on the harmless side... (and even that is dangerous given that many people take supplements for fixing health issues caused by to little of what the supplement). not only has the US not fixed it when it started going out of hand, they went explicitly out of their way to not fix it. (^1): (Common sense for anyone looking a bit into market dynamics/consumer protection etc.)
add-sub-mul-div 13d ago
The crazy part of this is that LG did not fear flat out admitting they do fingerprint the audio of what you watch. I already knew that, but I can't imagine it's common knowledge yet. How long ago was it that that would have been the crazy untrue accusation?
- hn_throwaway_99 13d ago
  Not defending LG's stance, but hasn't LG always said they do this as part of ACR (automatic content recognition) for the purposes of targeted advertising? LG says it's opt in, and I think the devil is really in the details about what the consent screen says, but the only way I think it would be a "crazy accusation" is if LG was doing this without consent.
  - bob029 13d ago
    They're not doing it with consent. LG still covertly takes screenshots of everything you display on your screen even when you set every available option that's supposed to stop this: https://www.reddit.com/r/LGOLED/s/x8iBNCPya5 https://www.reddit.com/r/LGOLED/s/x8iBNCPya5 And there are cases of LG re-enabling these ACR options without your consent when they push firmware updates, and even randomly without updating, at which point the TV will send all the past and present ACR data it's harvested from you to LG, without your consent: https://www.reddit.com/r/webos/s/Vn0jFhKsXO https://www.reddit.com/r/webos/s/Vn0jFhKsXO https://www.reddit.com/r/LGOLED/s/wRFMmQHXHG https://www.reddit.com/r/LGOLED/s/wRFMmQHXHG
- wmf 13d ago
  ACR is a documented feature so they can't deny that it exists. https://lgads.tv/technology/ https://lgads.tv/technology/ https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smart-tv-snooping-features-a4840102036/ https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/how-to-t... (note that this is from a year ago)
hadlock 13d ago
I deeply regret buying my LG. Originally the plan was to never connect it to wifi, and use an external device (chromecast, apple tv, or whatever) but my wife was too excited to try out whatever features. Unfortunately we can't sell the TV for anywhere what we paid for it new (to replace it with a different brand) so we're stuck with it for another ~7-10 years, or whatever the standard TV replacement interval is these days. New "apps" keep showing up on the main screen, which I have to "delete" from the main screen once a month or so (they're not deleted, they're just undeletable apps in some massive library of preinstalled spyware we can fortunately mostly hide). Apparently Sony OLED screens are LG "glass" but without the spyware.
- literallyroy 13d ago
  Why not reset it
- dessimus 13d ago
  >Apparently Sony OLED screens are LG "glass" but without the spyware. Without independent verification from someone like GN, I wouldn't trust "we installed rootkits" Sony not to be spying too.
  - wmf 13d ago
    Since Sony TVs run Android at least you can probably use ADB to remove a lot of junk.
    - nottorp 13d ago
      ... if they're rootable ...
      - ihsw 13d ago
        ... if they're rootable without the ability for Sony to revoke that rootability ...
      - hn92726819 13d ago
hn_throwaway_99 13d ago
Somewhat off topic but also ironic - I recently upgraded my version of Android, and when I opened YouTube for the first time on this video it asked for permission to detect nearby devices. I get why it would need that to cast, but at this point it's not paranoia to think that granting that permission just means it would scan whenever I have the app open and upload the data to YouTube servers for no good reason.
- StilesCrisis 13d ago
  YouTube can cast to TVs on a local subnet and is looking for them. This isn't new. What's new is that Android now warns when an app starts poking around on your LAN.
cute_boi 13d ago
We should start whitelisting the domains that is allowed from router. Otherwise, these smart shitty ads companies will never take responsibility.
- Terr_ 13d ago
  I just had a crazy idea: Are there any ways we (consumers) could leverage the (bad) DMCA "anti-circumvention" laws? Ex: 1. The noise happening in my house is copyrighted. 2. I protected my copyright by blocking the TV from transmitting it to known manufacturer domains. 3. By switching to obfuscated domains or alternate transmission paths, the manufacturer started circumventing my copyright controls. ... I suppose the boring answer will be that the literally-unreadable stack of Terms Of Service has some "everything we ever do is permitted by you" clause.
  - N_Lens 13d ago
    No. Now bend over, citizen
    - cindyllm 13d ago
      [dead]
MisterTea 13d ago
Who's selling dumb TV's again, Samsung? Who else? I'll happily pay a thousand bucks to not get screwed by my TV.
- Metricon 13d ago
  What you want to look for is called "Commercial Signage Display". These are basically large "TV" monitors that are sold to businesses like sports bars. On Amazon, you can find a few here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/industrial/18746933011/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/industrial/18746933011... (which are mostly Samsung).
- rpdillon 13d ago
  I used to go on here about Sceptre TVs, because they are relatively cheap and dumb as a brick. Was just shopping for one because of this LG news (wanted to replace my old one from 2014), and while Sceptre still lists them on their website, they tell me to go to Amazon or Walmart to buy one. Amazon and Walmart say they are out of stock, with no expected date. My conclusion is that Sceptre, the last holdout in the dumb TV industry, has quit in favor of focusing on monitors/displays for computers. Now I'm not sure if I'm going to ever replace my TV!
- amelius 13d ago
  panelook.com
- whstl 13d ago
  In Germany I like the "OK" brand from Saturn/Mediamarkt. They're Ok. The dumb models are very cheap and the picture is faithful due to lack of framerate-doubler and other picture-enhancement shenanigans.
- anon7000 13d ago
  Don’t you worry, mid/high end TVs cost thousands of bucks and have all the same spyware
- maxglute 13d ago
  TBH only hope at this point is for BOE/PRC panel makers to thoroughly involute and for bare panels + dumb connectors make it to aliexpress, i.e. like we have after market screens for everything else. Buy a screen, buy a case, get your dumb screen. TV manufactures will absolutely not pass up ad monetization, especially Korean ones that can't survive with lower margins.
nothrows 13d ago
I'm so tired of "smart" tech. I don't want my TV, or fridge, or dryer or anything connecting to wifi and bluetooth and having an app to manage settings. It's hard to believe there's demand for any of these terrible "features". The peak of smart tech were watches you could do math on.
- utopiah 13d ago
  Oh no ... I think you do actually want those. It's quite amazing to receive a notification from your dryer that it finished its cycle. What you do not want instead is : - being mandatory - requiring a proprietary application - expecting the app to force onto you services - expecting the setup to fail and making the hardware unusable over time because honestly when it does work, it's great. It's really not the features that are problematic, it's the predatory surveillance and locking down way to provide them that is absolutely horrible.
  - masklinn 13d ago
    > I think you do actually want those. No, I rather know I do not. > It's quite amazing to receive a notification from your dryer that it finished its cycle. It’s really quite useless to me. What I may want is an ODB so I can plug in whatever external observation and possibly control plane I wish, were I so inclined (I am not), and could make my device smart. Hell for a dryer you could probably have a plug or panel feeding into HA and send an alert based on load. Anything that’s “smart” out of the box is rife for abuse and will eventually sink into that.
    - utopiah 13d ago
      Well that's the point, you do want information in and out, including the ability to send instructions. Call it "smart" or "connected" or whatever marketing words you prefer, the point is having affordances that give you agency. So yes I insist you do want those, just not in the way it's been currently forced. IMHO you are right to reject this as it is but wrong to reject the possibilities when done right. We are just so disgusted by the way it's currently done that we reject the entire possibly. Quite sad really. Edit: I have been using HA daily for years now. Smart plugs work and are useful but it's rarely enough. You can infer the device state based on instant consumption but you can't convenient control back.
kdmoyers 13d ago
I have an older LG Smart TV. It was cheap and big. I have never plugged it into my network, never let it on my wifi. When I turn it on, it complains for 5 sec, then displays what's on hdmi1. Works for me.
bpbp-mango 13d ago
Is there an open firmware for LGs?
- itherseed 13d ago
  I think this is the important question. I've been searching, but all I found were deprecated and incomplete projects. If anyone knows some actual current development, even incomplete ones, let us know.
- icelancer 13d ago
  Huh. I never considered this. Hacking TVs with firmware would be a great project for LLMs to fuzz.
  - nozzlegear 13d ago
    Heck, it'd be a great project for people too.
725686 13d ago
Boy, how I would like LG to be sued out of existence.
- OroPla 13d ago
  Not possible. They are part of the chaebol [1], meaning they are essentially part of the South Korean government. They can't really fail as long as the country exists. There's an old joke that South Korea isn't really a country, but five families/companies pretending to be one and there's some truth to this. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol
  - donkeylazy456 12d ago
    It is possible because South Korea does not have control in other states. Even if chaebol is powerful they still heavily depend on export profits. They can't help themselves if EU/USA consumers and governments take this scandal seriously.
    - IAmBroom 12d ago
      Bankrupting a whole, large national economy is a bit trickier than boycotting a company. I mean, someone like Trump is probably capable of doing it from the inside, but Korea's educational standards are too high to elect him...
      - OroPla 10d ago
        Remember the story about the South Korean female president or whatever their title is being a brainwashed puppet of a radical feminist cult and thus had to abdicate as this came out? I don't remember how many years ago that was, but it's not like their education prevented the situation.
Henchman21 13d ago
Question: if these run Android, and are rootable (unknown to me) is there open source software that can provide basic TV functionality?
sumedh 13d ago
I asked Claude to scan my network and check if LG tv is sending data, it said yes. Some domains were blocked by my router some were not, now Claude blocked all lg related tracking/ad domains on my router. Domains which are blocked now. prov-lg.alphonso.tv au.info.lgsmartad.com kic.cdpbeacon.lgtvcommon.com au.nextlgsdp.com kic.tv.wiselg.com kic.wiseconfig.lgtvcommon.com kic.homeprv.lgtvcommon.com kic.recommend.lgtvcommon.com au.elastic.lgwebostv.com
- deleted 13d ago
  [deleted]
- ButlerianJihad 13d ago
  I like how you've piecemeal blocked the same subdomain 4 times. Will you do the same for the other 4-component subdomains? In fact, I'm curious what it means to "block a domain at a router". Really? Did you give Claude the credentials to your managed switch so it could set up a mirror port? Did Claude enable promiscuous mode on your Ethernet interface? Did Claude get a master-mode WiFi AP to intercept all the frames, or did it use SDR? Tell us more about how Claude scanned your network. I am HN-curious about this!
  - sumedh 13d ago
    I gave claude ssh access to my router, the router has a block list where you can block domains. It monitored the network traffic from the router.
    - vrganj 13d ago
      So in trying to get one big corp from spying on you, you gave another the keys to the castle? I really don't understand how people give models run on somebody else's server these wide-reaching permissions. Do you really trust Anthropic that much? The government that's hosting Anthropic?
      - ranguna 13d ago
        "Giving the keys" doesn't necessarily mean outright cat the private key to Claude. You setup the key, configure SSH config to use it and you can just SSH to the machine without ever seeing the keys. Stop fear mongering unnecessarily.
ButlerianJihad 13d ago
Gamer Nexus videos are hackneyed and their methodology is haphazard. There was no systematic analysis or procedure. There was no structured explanation of the situation. Various risks and capabilities and actual activity has been conflated. If IoT devices like this do connect to open WiFi and use those connections, without asking or notifying the user or seeking consent, then that is a breach of ethics. My neighbor's open WiFi, my employer's open WiFi, have not authorized LG to access. But if LG does connect to random and unknown networks, then they should not be surprised when they find themselves in a forest of pineapples, so to speak. I would like to see some Smart TVs set up in a cyberwarfare range, and what activity could be elicited when they elect to connect to a non-standard network.
- FabCH 13d ago
  The hours of video evidence overlaid with network capture and interviews with security researchers and lawyers they released is not enough for you? I’m curious, what would meet your bar for investigativ journalism if that didn’t?
karim79 13d ago
Honestly an incredible and educational video. The sheer effort of what went into this is astounding. All my TVs are LG and I bought a fancy one for my mother and sisters. Now I'm having nightmares and trying to figure out what the hell to do.
- OroPla 13d ago
  Taking them off the wifi and changing your wifi password seems to be all you need to do. While they are technically capable to look for open wifi, this is not something they do out of the box, as far as my understanding goes.
  - qlte 13d ago
    Correct, no one has ever provided a case of this actually happening on any TV model. But that doesn't stop people from repeating it any time someone gives the incredibly straightforward suggestion to just disconnect WiFi if you're concerned about intrusive monitoring.
InsomniacL 13d ago
~"ACR is an OPT-IN feature" If ACR is turned on when I install an app, and click 'next', 'next', 'open' then that is not an OPT-IN feature. If I have to perform an action to not have ACR during normal use of the TV then that is OPT-OUT in my opinion.
antibarbarus 13d ago
I’m seeing that the old mantra is alive and kicking: "If the product is cheap/free, you are the product! Pay for the product!" Turns out that now both is true—they’ll charge you a steep price comparative to other brands, and they’ll _still_ spy on you. Why are some still defending corporations? It’s incredible how these brands are, one by one, destroying any affinity and good will left for them (LG, Sony, Microsoft, etc.). Nowadays whenever I hear a company has a custom OS I think custom what? Custom tracking and ad pipeline? This just makes me turn elsewhere entirely, not want to "upgrade" to an even more expensive product that _might_ not track me. Might isn’t good enough. I’ll take a cheap TCL panel with all the latest bells and whistles, and be done with it. Sure, the software will be janky, but it will be cheap and just as good at showing moving pictures, if not better. If I suspect something nefarious, I’ll get an old Android box and install a rooted system on there that I control, and use that instead of the inbuilt Android TV. But I _won’t_ be paying extra for the trouble.
- ozgrakkurt 12d ago
  It would have to be a fight to the death against trlion dollar companies, It can’t just be “don’t buy it”. What you are suggesting means companies like google meta etc. Get wiped out. There is no way they would go naturally.
tomkarho 13d ago
I wonder if the following scenario ever occurred inside LG when they were designing this spyware. 1. Teenagers exist 2. Teenagers hook up with other teenagers 3. Sometimes that might happen on the couch in front of the TV If that TV records and transmits anything, who is on the hook for production and distribution of illicit materials? The parents? The kids? Or LG? PR/legal wise this might be the worst case scenario and might even get some of those legislators and law enforcement people interested.
- Yizahi 13d ago
  4. Wait for anyone to come knocking regarding illegal spying. 5. Discover there is absolutely zero enforcement if you are govt. intertwined oligarchy owned conglomerate. 6. Sell collected data (akshully it will be synthetic data "of course", wink-wink) to a legal front to a Nexus darknet laundromat. Also known as "identity verification provider or other somesuch. 7. Insurance companies legally partner with a different legal Nexus front corpo, which will ingest stolen data and make it "sythetic data" again, wink-wink; then provide it to the insurance corpos. 8. Insurance is opaquely "adjusted" to those same teenagers. 9. Profit :)
  - tmtvl 12d ago
    > Insurance companies legally partner with a different legal Nexus front corpo, which will ingest stolen data and make it "sythetic data" again, wink-wink; then provide it to the insurance corpos. And, of course, sell it to the Epstein class behind closed doors for undisclosed kickbacks and favouritism.
gbraad 12d ago
Devices that connect to open wifi networks is insane; not sure if LG does, but other devices do. Scary, as this is illegal/leads to legal liability, exposure, leakage, etc when you are close to a neighbors open network.

407 points by HelloUsername 14d ago

Original Youtube title of the video I got a few hours ago was: "LG’s Manipulative, Gaslighting Response to GN Report" Either they changed it for some legal reason, or Youtube allows for A/B testing of multiple titles for engagement.

nodja 14d ago
Youtube allows you to AB test with up to 3 titles and thumbnails.
smashspectacle 14d ago
YouTube encourages A/B testing of both titles and thumbnails, but it could be either.
kouteiheika 14d ago
It's almost certainly A/B test. Essentially everyone does it. You can even sometimes see when a list of videos on YT first loads and a given video has one title, and it suddenly switches to another without you reloading the page.
- kowbell 13d ago
  On several channels I watch, I've noticed the top comment is always along the lines of "who was here when the video title was XYZ" because you know it's going to change.
- neom 13d ago
  Have you noticed that has become more common recently? Because I have. It seems over the past 3/4 months, reload and see a new title happens pretty much daily to me (it also seems to work because sometimes it causes me to click the video I didn't click with the old title).
  - whstl 13d ago
    It was announced in December and took a while to catch. https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/393332200/you-can-now-a-b-test-titles-and-thumbnails-on-your-videos-?hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/393332200/you-can-...
ehe78qhe 13d ago
[dead]
mcmcmc 13d ago
I hate how this has become so normal. It degrades trust when people are fed different versions of the same experience without being informed. How are you supposed to reference something when the title changes without notice? Makes me feel like I’m going crazy sometimes.

ChrisArchitect 14d ago

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49645480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49645480

dgellow 13d ago

This „we own the glass“ idea is completely insane. How does an industry degenerate to the point where they consider acceptable to base their business model on owning part of the product they sell you?

mc32 13d ago
Marketing executives thinking “out of the box” is how. Ethics cannot contain them inside. They have breached the perimeter and now trample everyone for MRR.
newsclues 13d ago
Sony and Microsoft fought to own the living room in console wars
oh_my_goodness 13d ago
If you don't have laws, or don't enforce them, people will do whatever they want. I can remember when this simple point was obvious to almost everyone.
- dathinab 13d ago
  yep one of the first rules of any market should be you sell a product -> you are responsible about the product with a ".. -> you must be honest about the product (/what the products does, provides, etc.)" to see how absurdly not followed this common sense(^1) is in the us look at supplements 1. provider are not hold responsible, non small parts of sold supplements are harmful in one way or another. Even cases like supplements advertised for pregnant woman with highly dangerous components for pregnant woman existed, no major change followed. 2. high amounts (AFIK 80% or so) of supplements sold in the US are severely dishonest and don't quite contain what is advertised. And this isn't just about it technically containing the supplements, but in a form the body can't absurd. But it goes so bad that "it's just sugar pills" is more on the harmless side... (and even that is dangerous given that many people take supplements for fixing health issues caused by to little of what the supplement). not only has the US not fixed it when it started going out of hand, they went explicitly out of their way to not fix it. (^1): (Common sense for anyone looking a bit into market dynamics/consumer protection etc.)

add-sub-mul-div 13d ago

The crazy part of this is that LG did not fear flat out admitting they do fingerprint the audio of what you watch. I already knew that, but I can't imagine it's common knowledge yet. How long ago was it that that would have been the crazy untrue accusation?

hn_throwaway_99 13d ago
Not defending LG's stance, but hasn't LG always said they do this as part of ACR (automatic content recognition) for the purposes of targeted advertising? LG says it's opt in, and I think the devil is really in the details about what the consent screen says, but the only way I think it would be a "crazy accusation" is if LG was doing this without consent.
- bob029 13d ago
  They're not doing it with consent. LG still covertly takes screenshots of everything you display on your screen even when you set every available option that's supposed to stop this: https://www.reddit.com/r/LGOLED/s/x8iBNCPya5 https://www.reddit.com/r/LGOLED/s/x8iBNCPya5 And there are cases of LG re-enabling these ACR options without your consent when they push firmware updates, and even randomly without updating, at which point the TV will send all the past and present ACR data it's harvested from you to LG, without your consent: https://www.reddit.com/r/webos/s/Vn0jFhKsXO https://www.reddit.com/r/webos/s/Vn0jFhKsXO https://www.reddit.com/r/LGOLED/s/wRFMmQHXHG https://www.reddit.com/r/LGOLED/s/wRFMmQHXHG
wmf 13d ago
ACR is a documented feature so they can't deny that it exists. https://lgads.tv/technology/ https://lgads.tv/technology/ https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smart-tv-snooping-features-a4840102036/ https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/how-to-t... (note that this is from a year ago)

hadlock 13d ago

I deeply regret buying my LG. Originally the plan was to never connect it to wifi, and use an external device (chromecast, apple tv, or whatever) but my wife was too excited to try out whatever features. Unfortunately we can't sell the TV for anywhere what we paid for it new (to replace it with a different brand) so we're stuck with it for another ~7-10 years, or whatever the standard TV replacement interval is these days. New "apps" keep showing up on the main screen, which I have to "delete" from the main screen once a month or so (they're not deleted, they're just undeletable apps in some massive library of preinstalled spyware we can fortunately mostly hide). Apparently Sony OLED screens are LG "glass" but without the spyware.

literallyroy 13d ago
Why not reset it
dessimus 13d ago
>Apparently Sony OLED screens are LG "glass" but without the spyware. Without independent verification from someone like GN, I wouldn't trust "we installed rootkits" Sony not to be spying too.
- wmf 13d ago
  Since Sony TVs run Android at least you can probably use ADB to remove a lot of junk.
  - nottorp 13d ago
    ... if they're rootable ...
    - ihsw 13d ago
      ... if they're rootable without the ability for Sony to revoke that rootability ...
    - hn92726819 13d ago

hn_throwaway_99 13d ago

Somewhat off topic but also ironic - I recently upgraded my version of Android, and when I opened YouTube for the first time on this video it asked for permission to detect nearby devices. I get why it would need that to cast, but at this point it's not paranoia to think that granting that permission just means it would scan whenever I have the app open and upload the data to YouTube servers for no good reason.

StilesCrisis 13d ago
YouTube can cast to TVs on a local subnet and is looking for them. This isn't new. What's new is that Android now warns when an app starts poking around on your LAN.

cute_boi 13d ago

We should start whitelisting the domains that is allowed from router. Otherwise, these smart shitty ads companies will never take responsibility.

Terr_ 13d ago
I just had a crazy idea: Are there any ways we (consumers) could leverage the (bad) DMCA "anti-circumvention" laws? Ex: 1. The noise happening in my house is copyrighted. 2. I protected my copyright by blocking the TV from transmitting it to known manufacturer domains. 3. By switching to obfuscated domains or alternate transmission paths, the manufacturer started circumventing my copyright controls. ... I suppose the boring answer will be that the literally-unreadable stack of Terms Of Service has some "everything we ever do is permitted by you" clause.
- N_Lens 13d ago
  No. Now bend over, citizen
  - cindyllm 13d ago
    [dead]

MisterTea 13d ago

Who's selling dumb TV's again, Samsung? Who else? I'll happily pay a thousand bucks to not get screwed by my TV.

Metricon 13d ago
What you want to look for is called "Commercial Signage Display". These are basically large "TV" monitors that are sold to businesses like sports bars. On Amazon, you can find a few here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/industrial/18746933011/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/industrial/18746933011... (which are mostly Samsung).
rpdillon 13d ago
I used to go on here about Sceptre TVs, because they are relatively cheap and dumb as a brick. Was just shopping for one because of this LG news (wanted to replace my old one from 2014), and while Sceptre still lists them on their website, they tell me to go to Amazon or Walmart to buy one. Amazon and Walmart say they are out of stock, with no expected date. My conclusion is that Sceptre, the last holdout in the dumb TV industry, has quit in favor of focusing on monitors/displays for computers. Now I'm not sure if I'm going to ever replace my TV!
amelius 13d ago
panelook.com
whstl 13d ago
In Germany I like the "OK" brand from Saturn/Mediamarkt. They're Ok. The dumb models are very cheap and the picture is faithful due to lack of framerate-doubler and other picture-enhancement shenanigans.
anon7000 13d ago
Don’t you worry, mid/high end TVs cost thousands of bucks and have all the same spyware
maxglute 13d ago
TBH only hope at this point is for BOE/PRC panel makers to thoroughly involute and for bare panels + dumb connectors make it to aliexpress, i.e. like we have after market screens for everything else. Buy a screen, buy a case, get your dumb screen. TV manufactures will absolutely not pass up ad monetization, especially Korean ones that can't survive with lower margins.

nothrows 13d ago

I'm so tired of "smart" tech. I don't want my TV, or fridge, or dryer or anything connecting to wifi and bluetooth and having an app to manage settings. It's hard to believe there's demand for any of these terrible "features". The peak of smart tech were watches you could do math on.

utopiah 13d ago
Oh no ... I think you do actually want those. It's quite amazing to receive a notification from your dryer that it finished its cycle. What you do not want instead is : - being mandatory - requiring a proprietary application - expecting the app to force onto you services - expecting the setup to fail and making the hardware unusable over time because honestly when it does work, it's great. It's really not the features that are problematic, it's the predatory surveillance and locking down way to provide them that is absolutely horrible.
- masklinn 13d ago
  > I think you do actually want those. No, I rather know I do not. > It's quite amazing to receive a notification from your dryer that it finished its cycle. It’s really quite useless to me. What I may want is an ODB so I can plug in whatever external observation and possibly control plane I wish, were I so inclined (I am not), and could make my device smart. Hell for a dryer you could probably have a plug or panel feeding into HA and send an alert based on load. Anything that’s “smart” out of the box is rife for abuse and will eventually sink into that.
  - utopiah 13d ago
    Well that's the point, you do want information in and out, including the ability to send instructions. Call it "smart" or "connected" or whatever marketing words you prefer, the point is having affordances that give you agency. So yes I insist you do want those, just not in the way it's been currently forced. IMHO you are right to reject this as it is but wrong to reject the possibilities when done right. We are just so disgusted by the way it's currently done that we reject the entire possibly. Quite sad really. Edit: I have been using HA daily for years now. Smart plugs work and are useful but it's rarely enough. You can infer the device state based on instant consumption but you can't convenient control back.

kdmoyers 13d ago

I have an older LG Smart TV. It was cheap and big. I have never plugged it into my network, never let it on my wifi. When I turn it on, it complains for 5 sec, then displays what's on hdmi1. Works for me.

bpbp-mango 13d ago

Is there an open firmware for LGs?

itherseed 13d ago
I think this is the important question. I've been searching, but all I found were deprecated and incomplete projects. If anyone knows some actual current development, even incomplete ones, let us know.
icelancer 13d ago
Huh. I never considered this. Hacking TVs with firmware would be a great project for LLMs to fuzz.
- nozzlegear 13d ago
  Heck, it'd be a great project for people too.

725686 13d ago

Boy, how I would like LG to be sued out of existence.

OroPla 13d ago
Not possible. They are part of the chaebol [1], meaning they are essentially part of the South Korean government. They can't really fail as long as the country exists. There's an old joke that South Korea isn't really a country, but five families/companies pretending to be one and there's some truth to this. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol
- donkeylazy456 12d ago
  It is possible because South Korea does not have control in other states. Even if chaebol is powerful they still heavily depend on export profits. They can't help themselves if EU/USA consumers and governments take this scandal seriously.
  - IAmBroom 12d ago
    Bankrupting a whole, large national economy is a bit trickier than boycotting a company. I mean, someone like Trump is probably capable of doing it from the inside, but Korea's educational standards are too high to elect him...
    - OroPla 10d ago
      Remember the story about the South Korean female president or whatever their title is being a brainwashed puppet of a radical feminist cult and thus had to abdicate as this came out? I don't remember how many years ago that was, but it's not like their education prevented the situation.

Henchman21 13d ago

Question: if these run Android, and are rootable (unknown to me) is there open source software that can provide basic TV functionality?

sumedh 13d ago

I asked Claude to scan my network and check if LG tv is sending data, it said yes. Some domains were blocked by my router some were not, now Claude blocked all lg related tracking/ad domains on my router. Domains which are blocked now. prov-lg.alphonso.tv au.info.lgsmartad.com kic.cdpbeacon.lgtvcommon.com au.nextlgsdp.com kic.tv.wiselg.com kic.wiseconfig.lgtvcommon.com kic.homeprv.lgtvcommon.com kic.recommend.lgtvcommon.com au.elastic.lgwebostv.com

deleted 13d ago
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ButlerianJihad 13d ago
I like how you've piecemeal blocked the same subdomain 4 times. Will you do the same for the other 4-component subdomains? In fact, I'm curious what it means to "block a domain at a router". Really? Did you give Claude the credentials to your managed switch so it could set up a mirror port? Did Claude enable promiscuous mode on your Ethernet interface? Did Claude get a master-mode WiFi AP to intercept all the frames, or did it use SDR? Tell us more about how Claude scanned your network. I am HN-curious about this!
- sumedh 13d ago
  I gave claude ssh access to my router, the router has a block list where you can block domains. It monitored the network traffic from the router.
  - vrganj 13d ago
    So in trying to get one big corp from spying on you, you gave another the keys to the castle? I really don't understand how people give models run on somebody else's server these wide-reaching permissions. Do you really trust Anthropic that much? The government that's hosting Anthropic?
    - ranguna 13d ago
      "Giving the keys" doesn't necessarily mean outright cat the private key to Claude. You setup the key, configure SSH config to use it and you can just SSH to the machine without ever seeing the keys. Stop fear mongering unnecessarily.

ButlerianJihad 13d ago

Gamer Nexus videos are hackneyed and their methodology is haphazard. There was no systematic analysis or procedure. There was no structured explanation of the situation. Various risks and capabilities and actual activity has been conflated. If IoT devices like this do connect to open WiFi and use those connections, without asking or notifying the user or seeking consent, then that is a breach of ethics. My neighbor's open WiFi, my employer's open WiFi, have not authorized LG to access. But if LG does connect to random and unknown networks, then they should not be surprised when they find themselves in a forest of pineapples, so to speak. I would like to see some Smart TVs set up in a cyberwarfare range, and what activity could be elicited when they elect to connect to a non-standard network.

FabCH 13d ago
The hours of video evidence overlaid with network capture and interviews with security researchers and lawyers they released is not enough for you? I’m curious, what would meet your bar for investigativ journalism if that didn’t?

karim79 13d ago

Honestly an incredible and educational video. The sheer effort of what went into this is astounding. All my TVs are LG and I bought a fancy one for my mother and sisters. Now I'm having nightmares and trying to figure out what the hell to do.

OroPla 13d ago
Taking them off the wifi and changing your wifi password seems to be all you need to do. While they are technically capable to look for open wifi, this is not something they do out of the box, as far as my understanding goes.
- qlte 13d ago
  Correct, no one has ever provided a case of this actually happening on any TV model. But that doesn't stop people from repeating it any time someone gives the incredibly straightforward suggestion to just disconnect WiFi if you're concerned about intrusive monitoring.

InsomniacL 13d ago

~"ACR is an OPT-IN feature" If ACR is turned on when I install an app, and click 'next', 'next', 'open' then that is not an OPT-IN feature. If I have to perform an action to not have ACR during normal use of the TV then that is OPT-OUT in my opinion.

antibarbarus 13d ago

I’m seeing that the old mantra is alive and kicking: "If the product is cheap/free, you are the product! Pay for the product!" Turns out that now both is true—they’ll charge you a steep price comparative to other brands, and they’ll _still_ spy on you. Why are some still defending corporations? It’s incredible how these brands are, one by one, destroying any affinity and good will left for them (LG, Sony, Microsoft, etc.). Nowadays whenever I hear a company has a custom OS I think custom what? Custom tracking and ad pipeline? This just makes me turn elsewhere entirely, not want to "upgrade" to an even more expensive product that _might_ not track me. Might isn’t good enough. I’ll take a cheap TCL panel with all the latest bells and whistles, and be done with it. Sure, the software will be janky, but it will be cheap and just as good at showing moving pictures, if not better. If I suspect something nefarious, I’ll get an old Android box and install a rooted system on there that I control, and use that instead of the inbuilt Android TV. But I _won’t_ be paying extra for the trouble.

ozgrakkurt 12d ago
It would have to be a fight to the death against trlion dollar companies, It can’t just be “don’t buy it”. What you are suggesting means companies like google meta etc. Get wiped out. There is no way they would go naturally.

tomkarho 13d ago

I wonder if the following scenario ever occurred inside LG when they were designing this spyware. 1. Teenagers exist 2. Teenagers hook up with other teenagers 3. Sometimes that might happen on the couch in front of the TV If that TV records and transmits anything, who is on the hook for production and distribution of illicit materials? The parents? The kids? Or LG? PR/legal wise this might be the worst case scenario and might even get some of those legislators and law enforcement people interested.

Yizahi 13d ago
4. Wait for anyone to come knocking regarding illegal spying. 5. Discover there is absolutely zero enforcement if you are govt. intertwined oligarchy owned conglomerate. 6. Sell collected data (akshully it will be synthetic data "of course", wink-wink) to a legal front to a Nexus darknet laundromat. Also known as "identity verification provider or other somesuch. 7. Insurance companies legally partner with a different legal Nexus front corpo, which will ingest stolen data and make it "sythetic data" again, wink-wink; then provide it to the insurance corpos. 8. Insurance is opaquely "adjusted" to those same teenagers. 9. Profit :)
- tmtvl 12d ago
  > Insurance companies legally partner with a different legal Nexus front corpo, which will ingest stolen data and make it "sythetic data" again, wink-wink; then provide it to the insurance corpos. And, of course, sell it to the Epstein class behind closed doors for undisclosed kickbacks and favouritism.

gbraad 12d ago

Devices that connect to open wifi networks is insane; not sure if LG does, but other devices do. Scary, as this is illegal/leads to legal liability, exposure, leakage, etc when you are close to a neighbors open network.