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LG TV logging filenames from network folders
- shmerl 13y agoDid anyone think DRMed systems can ever be trusted? If you are using one, expect stuff like this by default.
- rak 13y agoGenuine, question. How does one actually go about sniffing traffic from a device like this? This is really interesting stuff.
- batbomb 13y agoIf it's unencrypted (it is): Use a network hub + ethernet (not a switch) OR: use wireless OR: Make your router/switch replay the packets to a port of your choosing. Then most people use wireshark. But you can use tcpdump/pcap or whatever else you want.
- josephlord 13y ago1) Install Wireshark 2) Connect laptop to Wifi network 3) Connect TV to laptop's Ethernet port (and set TV to use wired Ethernet) 4) "Share" your wifi connection with devices on the Ethernet port. 5) Run Wireshark and start a capture session on your [edit: Ethernet] port. Edit: recommend capturing from Ethernet port as there will be less other traffic.
- chmars 13y ago… or use http://fritz.box/html/capture.html http://fritz.box/html/capture.html if you have a Fritz!Box router – it's a great device anyway but especially useful for capturing your own LAN and WAN traffic.
- LongLurker 13y agoWOW! I have a fritz box and never knew it could do that.......... mind blown!
- sankoz 13y agoYou would need a Ethernet crossover cable for step 3, not the regular cable, correct?
- josephlord 13y agoMost ethernet ports auto-detect these days so there isn't really much need for crossover cables any more.
- cclogg 13y agoNot sure how he got it 'connected to his laptop', but probably through that he ran a packet sniffer like Microsoft Network Monitor or something? (I could be way off though lol) P.S. man this really brings to light the scary world where every device is connected to the net and feeding data to big companies... not that they care about our personal stuff (I'm sure they are just computing data analytics), but it's creepy nonetheless.
- code_duck 13y agoThe companies probably don't care about your personal data, but if they're collecting it and storing it, organizations who may be interested (FBI, NSA, IRS...) can then obtain your info from them.
- pwg 13y ago> through that he ran a packet sniffer like Microsoft Network Monitor or something? The screen cap's look like it was Wireshark: http://www.wireshark.org/ http://www.wireshark.org/
- smtddr 13y agoHere's my write-up watching Nintendo Wii traffic, but using ethernet port. What I do for wireless devices, is I have an extra router. I connect the secondary router to my laptop's ethernet port then my primary-router(the one connected to the modem) I join with my laptop's wifi. Then, any devices connected to the secondary-router, wired-or-wifi, will have its traffic sniffed by my laptop's wireshark/ngrep. http://blog.sanriotown.com/minusworld:hellokitty.com/2011/02/10/linuxandwii/#more-3 http://blog.sanriotown.com/minusworld:hellokitty.com/2011/02...
- Amadou 13y agoCan anyone recommend a consumer grade router that has a good GUI for tracking outgoing connections in real-time and setting up rules to control them? I am imagining some kind of add-on to DD-WRT or derivatives that will put up a real-time graph of devices on my home network and draw lines representing outgoing TCP and UDP connections while also logging them in a tabular format. Both forms would be clickable to drill down for more details (including session packet captures if enabled) as well as set policies like a per device white-list of acceptable IP addresses to connect with. I know all of this is possible with individual tools like tcpdump or wireshark and ip-tables configs, but that is too painful. I'm looking for a robust GUI on top of all that.
- atmosx 13y agoCarambola2[1] runs FreeBSD[2] and thus a version (it's way different than OpenBSD's these days) of Packet Filter[3]. Putting the ADSL modem in bridge mode and this very cheap device as an advanced firewall can keep you safe. You have to write the rules manually, it's a time-consuming procedure (a little bit like programming) because it takes a lot of reading, etc. But once you get the hand of it, writing rules your self gives an absolute control of what goes in and out of your network. [1] http://8devices.com/carambola-2 http://8devices.com/carambola-2 [2] https://code.google.com/p/freebsd-wifi-build/wiki/Carambola2 https://code.google.com/p/freebsd-wifi-build/wiki/Carambola2 [3] http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/firewalls-pf.html http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/firewalls-pf.html
- dmix 13y agoI tried analyzing all outgoing traffic on my laptop for a couple days, there is a surprising amount of noise [1]. Very hard to spot anything nefarious. It's challenging to find anything meaningful without some sort of automation. Unless it's a low traffic device, like a TV. But in my research I didn't come across any router level software that did this in a meaningful way (with a GUI). Maybe a startup opportunity here? +1 with network intrusion detection for home networks. I'd donate to a crowdfund for that. [1] http://www.tcpdump.org/ http://www.tcpdump.org/
- firebones 13y ago
- noonespecial 13y agoThe implications are troubling. Your TV collects and broadcasts for the permanent record of anyone who can snoop the cleartext (your neighbors, your ISP, whatever the NSA looks like in your country, etc) all the media it can find on your network. We used to need firewalls at the edges of our home networks to keep bad actors out. Now we need firewalls that point the other direction to keep the bad actors on our networks in.
- 1qaz2wsx3edc 13y agoOr boycott LG and any businesses that acts in this manor.
- ZoF 13y agoHey man; it's manner, not manor. Manor is more akin to a large house or mansion. I am often hesitant to offer this kind of correction because I feel like it sometimes sounds conceited, or as if I am trying to be superior to you somehow. I honestly don't feel that way and am just offering the correction because I feel like I would like to be corrected myself. I respect you for having learned a second language, it's more than I can say for myself.
- dschuler 13y agoUnless he lives in a manor, then it works actually. But my witty jokes aside, that reminds me of Little Snitch for Mac OS, which keeps installed programs from opening unauthorized connections to the outside. Is there a firewall setup that works this way for an entire home network? Possibly something that could be run on a small device/router?
- JonnieCache 13y agoThat's just called a firewall. You will probably enjoy http://www.pfsense.org/ http://www.pfsense.org/
- Amadou 13y ago
- dredwerker 13y agoComing soon to an episode of CSI
- sdfjkl 13y agoSeems it's time to put your closed-source consumer devices into a DMZ, with carefully limited access to both the internet and your home network.
- Silhouette 13y agoI've been looking into this possibility myself, as we're currently upgrading our home entertainment systems and I was unpleasantly surprised by the lack of alternatives to "smart" TVs. Unfortunately, typical home or SOHO Internet and wireless set-ups tend not to support something like shoving all your AV equipment on a separate VLAN when it hits a wireless router. Ideally, you'd probably want either direct access from that router to the Internet, isolated from your main network, or if you've got a slightly more advanced set-up, the ability to set up a static route that will only allow traffic from the AV part of your network to your Internet router, again fully isolated from your main network. Sadly, playing with VLANs tends to need a step up to a more serious level of networking equipment and in particular routing hardware, and the price for that is prohibitive at present. It would certainly be interesting to see some advances in basic routing coming down into the home/SOHO markets, though, and potentially developments of consumer-friendly hardware firewalls as well. As homes become increasingly networked and automated, I suspect there is going to be a growing market for dealing with these kinds of security issues but with minimal set-up and as few different items of networking equipment as possible.
- beagle3 13y agoOpenWRT (and dd-wrt, and I'm sure most other wrt variations) let you set up another "virtual" HotSpot. If your AV equipment can do wireless, that's an option. Also, I just bought my mom a TP-Link device capable of running openWRT for $25 (don't recall the model). If you care about privacy, it's relatively cheap in enabling hardware - it's your time that is going to be expensive.
- Terr_ 13y agoYou'll still find some manufacturer who slips the nefarious content right in along with the same datastream that offers a legitimate service... I'd rather pursue legal mechanisms than technical ones in this case.
- munger 13y agoHere is the list of domains from the original doctor beets post linked in the this story to block on your router to stop this: ad.lgappstv.com yumenetworks.com smartclip.net smartclip.com smartshare.lgtvsdp.com ibis.lgappstv.com
- Cameron_D 13y agoThanks, was looking for a list like this. I've blocked them all via DNS, hopefully doesn't break anything too important.
- JakeSc 13y agoWhat sort of communication between your TV and these domains would you feel is important?
- josephlord 13y agoI don't specifically know the services the TV expects from those domains but: You may want to receive software updates for the TV. You may also want to access services that the are launched by the LG apps. Those services may only run correctly when the appropriate pre-roll advertising (quite possibly from Smartclip) are allowed to play.
- ushi 13y agoWhy not just blocking traffic originating from the device in question?
- ddeck 13y agoThat's okay for some, but many people use the built in apps for Netflix, Livefilm etc.
- mike-cardwell 13y agoFWIW, all of these are in Dan Pollocks ad blocking hosts list: http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ On my network, I use the following script to convert the hosts file he provides into an unbound config file which I include from my main unbound config, using this script: https://github.com/jodrell/unbound-block-hosts https://github.com/jodrell/unbound-block-hosts This provides ad blocking for my entire network, including my smart tv.
- philthesong 13y agoGreat work by Samsung!
- Wingman4l7 13y agoThe dangerous precedent set here is inclusion of Terms & Conditions on multipurpose electronic hardware.
- kenrose 13y agoPrevious discussion from the original DoctorBleet finding: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6759426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6759426
- nemik 13y agoThis was only found because LG was stupid enough to use plain HTTP instead of HTTPS. I wonder how many devices use SSL/TLS for this same thing that just haven't been caught yet.
- skyebook 13y agoUnless they offer a way to accept certificates and use a proxy server. Neither are particularly uncommon, and something like Charles[1] makes this laughably easy. [1] http://www.charlesproxy.com http://www.charlesproxy.com
- msoad 13y agoCan you self sign other people packages with Charles? That's crazy!
- skyebook 13y agoYup, as long as you can get the sending device to trust the invalid certificate. This is how I keep an eye on my iPhone traffic.
- icebraining 13y agoIt's a common feature nowadays. The venerable Squid has had that feature for a long time. http://wiki.squid-cache.org/Features/DynamicSslCert http://wiki.squid-cache.org/Features/DynamicSslCert
- Nursie 13y agoNot really, you can do that with any decent SSL tool. Getting the client to accept your trusted certificate is all that is needed. Once you have that you have the keys to the kingdom. I've written similar software myself. Now on a closed device it can be very difficult to add root certificates to the store, but it's often possible. For instance when the PS3 firmware was first cracked I took the opportunity to flash mine with a firmware I made that contained my root authority certificate. Then I wrote a python program to intercept and MITM all the traffic. Result? I found out that on boot your PS3 tells Sony every game (or other thing) you run on the ps3, what times you run them and how long for.
- fat0wl 13y agoreminds me of the old sony rootkit cd stuff. But i think a lot of these companies know that it would be legally hairy to get into vigilante DRM justice, so instead they just surreptitiously collect data that will let them plot their next move. maybe that's paranoid, but comeon in this day & age everything is logged. Even if they are serving 404s, it's trivial to log that data anyway (as was pointed out) or maybe it goes straight to server logs and someone in LG analytics says in the future "well, that data is there somewhere... we may as well use it" it's hard for me to imagine someone at a corporation standing up and going "NO! that's violating our users' privacy". they pretty much consider any info they can get to hit their servers to be their property no questions asked
- vijucat 13y agoAlso, my LG TV's WiFi password text box doesn't accept anything other than letters and numbers and not more than 8 chars long. What is this? A 10th grade programming assignment?! Having to change my router's password to something insecure just to accommodate LG's retarded software sealed the deal : I will never buy anything LG again.
- salient 13y agoIsn't Windows 8.1 logging local filenames, too, thanks to the integrated Bing search and advertising platform, so then it can serve you ads based on your local files?
- birger 13y agoThe dutch website tweakers.net contacted LG and confronted them with this behaviour. They replied that it was a left over from some functionality that was never fully implemented and it will be removed in an update. Most of the commenters there don't buy that story, just like here. Full story (dutch): http://tweakers.net/nieuws/92747/lg-erkent-versturen-privacygevoelige-data-smart-tv-en-belooft-firmware-fix.html http://tweakers.net/nieuws/92747/lg-erkent-versturen-privacy...
- cientifico 13y agoThe only possible way to fix this in some way, is having Open alternatives. Will love that when you buy a tv, you buy just the monitor. Without the tunning hardware or the crappy ooss. Like when you do with projectors. Then you buy any chromecast, raspberrypi, or something that you can hack. I can see for 2014/15 having a lot of startups creating small devices to connect to monitors only that tune internet in the same way they tune digital-tv. Once you have competition in that market, you can start thinking in security.
- Nursie 13y agoYou can already do all of that if you want. It's not a 2014/15 thing, it's a 2011 thing. There are a variety of USB-powered android-on-a-stick-with-hdmi solutions out there. You can also buy separate tv tuner boxes pretty cheap. And many tvs run some form of FOSS and are hackable/flashable already.
- rmc 13y agoSure, you or I can do that. But there is a large majority of the population who are unable to do that.
- nathan_long 13y agoWhat is this even supposed to be doing? Monitoring the user's watching habits is evil but unsurprising. But why do they even want your filenames?
- nathan_long 13y ago"Dear LG, I've really enjoyed using my LG TV/network informant. I'm wondering whether LG has any other exciting products I could use. Do you happen to sell a camera that monitors my location? What about a vacuum that phones home with my fingerprints? Or perhaps a washing machine that steals my dreams? Thanks for developing the products of The Future!"
- mjolk 13y agoI cut my finger on this edge.
- ris 13y agoSo who's going to be the first to start sending bogus data to LG's endpoints? Could do some very fun things to their statistics.