Security → Smart TV owner "afraid" of using it after reading its privacy policy

“The only problem is that I’m now afraid to use it. You would be too — if you read through the 46-page privacy policy,” Price wrote. “The amount of data this thing collects is staggering. It logs where, when, how, and for how long you use the TV. It sets tracking cookies and beacons designed to detect ‘when you have viewed particular content or a particular email message.’ It records ‘the apps you use, the websites you visit, and how you interact with content.’ It ignores ‘do-not-track’ requests as a considered matter of policy.”

Furthermore, the device has a built-in camera with facial recognition and a microphone with voice recognition features, both tools that hackers or spy agencies could use to spy on unsuspecting buyers, Price says.

»news.yahoo.com/man-owns- ··· 097.html

Back in the day the FBI used to have to pay for bugs and get a court order.
Now people buy them and agree to let them bug their house....

»Smart TV from LG phones home with user's viewing habits, USB file names

»Researcher: Your Smart TV Can Be Easily Hacked

»European HbbTV Smart TV Holes Make Sets Hackable

»Samsung TV vulnerability could let a hacker change the ch..
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Don't feed trolls--it only makes them grow!

Maybe someone will figure out how to root one. Then you can put the OS of your choice on it. I'll stick to an offprice plain jane TV for OTA.

LG makes washers, dryers, refrigerators. Do they have spyware, too?

It seems to me to be a high price to pay for convenience. I'll stay with my dumb TV. I didn't see a privacy policy with the Blu-Ray player; time to scour the Internet on that one.
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Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

Most love their TV shows,movies,sports,and instant gratification and don't care about fine print.
People also love the Infotainment systems,Onstar,Sat.Radio,etc. in automobiles.
And communicating with appliances,doors,plumbing,electricity,heat/air,security systems,cameras,etc. in the home remotely.
Facebook,Twitter,super fast ibroadband,etc..

No need for the FBI to leave the office.
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The adventure continues...Sanctuary....

Me think, just too many IGNORANCE user in the world & another good job for security nerds {{{ GRIN }}}

Also - plus the others StuartMW has dug up.

»Crypto weakness in smart LED lightbulbs exposes Wi-Fi passwords

Yes then they complain about what they do!!!!!!!!



Most ppl have been so dumbed down/compromised they couldnt care less if thier privacy is compromised!! (OR ANYONE ELSES FOR THAT MATTER)



I saw this posted on davidicke.com/forum the other day also.........

www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=284339

Well, they bought WebOS and as an owner of a Palm-branded Pre cellphone, I've been wondering when or if I'd ever be able to interface it with my LG LED TV as many do with their Android or iOS devices.

Seems the list is never-ending on those who've got their prying eyes out for everything we see, do, visit or send.

So that's where Palm got to. I thought HP bought it.

I still have my Sony PDAs and all the apps. They work. I admired the Palm OS. What a comedown. Never used WebOS. Did play with the Palm Treo.

I don't interface with my TV. I'm OTA. It can't connect if I don't input wifi code. Usually only watch sports and PBS anyway. I figured out how to delete most of the channels from Roku. I can check online what's available and subscribe if I want to. Golf channel would be nice.

I can think of some funny video plots to satirize all this nonsense. What if someone is playing "slap and tickle" while the tv is on? Where is that recording going? Will you get commercials for sex toys?

WebOS is no longer support from HP. They dropped it when they sold off all their TouchPads a couple of years ago.
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Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian. Robert Orben

Don't let the smart TVs to the internet. :P

Regardless of the convenience factor, it seems way more modular to get a dumb monitor and hook up a $200 computer. That way you can upgrade the 'smart' part without replacing the entire TV.

Pro tip: when calling other people ignorant, it's best to use correct English, otherwise other people may conclude you're ignorant.

I prefer a dumb TV.

I bet this must be the reason why we can't buy a laptop, phone, or some monitors without a camera these days.

There's always tape.

Nothing should require a 46-page privacy policy. That in itself is a tipoff.

They know most ppl wont read it and thus wont see it...... (Even if they did,they have been conditioned TO NOT CARE)

My bet is that people that purchased a Smart TV did so to get all the bells'n'whistles and those require an internet connection.

As Dude111 said I doubt many even see or read the TOS. They just want to use their new toy.

. o O (I wonder how many of them read "1984" or saw the movie. Two way TV's aren't a new concept.)
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Don't feed trolls--it only makes them grow!

Ordinary television plus AppleTv is perfect for me...

Put a piece of tape over camera on your smart tv

Don't forget its mic(rophone)!

Im a person who doesn't give a shit with "who's" watching. It's truly not a big deal to me. Now if they started charging a monthly fee to have them track my browsing history,
etc. etc. ...then yeah, I'd have an issue with it.

Just out of curiosity, if this technology was the helpful tool in bringing down a terrorist network consisting of hundreds of thousands of people, that was planning a mass extinction event using dirty bombs and such.

Would people still frown on it?
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Insert thoughtful/witty/meaningful/poetic/funny/deep/rude/stupid/random/comment here.
Be unique...ya know, like everyone else.

Yes. A 100,00 member terrorist organization would leave a significant footprint without the intrusive spying.
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Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

Not if the organization is *white* Americans. Larger foot print, practically invisible, in all levels of society. ..that's some scary shit.

I guess I just truly do not give shit who sees what I do. I have nothing to hide, and as long as identity isn't stolen or framing for a crime not committed isn't happening, well then I'm cool with it.
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Insert thoughtful/witty/meaningful/poetic/funny/deep/rude/stupid/random/comment here.
Be unique...ya know, like everyone else.

Please post your recent bank statements.

If serious, this has to be on of the saddest things I have read around here in a while (even leaving aside the whole narcissist/exhibitionist/voyerist factor (whose sufferers delude themselves into believing that it is all in the name of "documentation"), which has become a huge driver, itself).

Here's a question: What if "they" had hundreds, hundreds I tell ya, of really extra humongous trucks, each overloaded, bursting even, with far more than 30,000 Pounds of Bananas, all careening down, down, down, right down towards the bottom of Moosic Street, were a congregation of immaculately impregnated nuns are attentively watching over hundreds of orphan asthmatic toddlers and quite a few rare and endangered species of (baby) seals, and kittens, kittens, yes, kittens, AND using "this technology", all could be saved from the certain squishy "yellow death" that awaits, BUT only IF just your immediate family, and _YOU_ are tortured, and very slowly maimed and eventfully, eventually killed, over in there in Reading.

A sort of "Sophie's Choice", though "the good of the many" and their, alas also being so cute, cuddly, photogenic, and so so innocent, balanced against your few questionables, over there in Reading. No choice really, you all graciously loose, for the greater good, right! The "technology" certainly exists to open it up to voting (start with Twitter, FB....) . Now, that would be Democracy In Action Securing the Homeland For Democracy...

Just as ridiculous a postulation as the one you present. Alan "The Ticking Time-bomb" Dershowitz would be very proud.

And, it is very probable that _you_, like most citizens, have done, are doing, or will be doing something "wrong" ((transgressing some local, country, state, federal, administrative, insurance (health, auto, home, life, commercial), employer, HOA, lease, TOU, EULA, Warranty) law/rule/SOP/guideline/recommendation/ best practices, custom...)) at some point. It's very, very, very difficult not to. Who defines "wrong", and when, and for what purpose? Please check out "Plenty To Hide".

But the above ridiculousness only matters, if it's just about _you_, and what you care about, which, thankfully, and paradoxically unfortunately, it is not.

Please, please, please check out the Constitution and it's Bill of Rights (Fourth Amendment), and the prior history leading up to them.

For those about to say, hey, wait, that stuff you are talking about in those ancient papers only (mostly) applies to the government, not "private" actors, please understand that to the extent that there even remains much of a substantive difference between those that buy and pay for 'The Best Congress' and 'The Best Presidency' 'that Money Can Buy', and to the diminishing extent that the Government even feels compelled to follow the rule of law, the "private" sector, in all of it's wonderful Randian glory can, and does, provide the government, often for profit, with that which the government is constrained from obtaining directly on it's own. If you give it up to one, you give it to both, which is another reason why _we_ are years and years late in reigning the "private" collection in. Focusing on the NSA without including Google (and the rest) is a fucking joke (actually it's not a joke, and probably not accidental).

Here are just a couple quick finds that may help you, and others understand why this matters to _us_all_:

"The Eternal Value of Privacy by Bruce Schneier 05.18.06"

"Q&A with Daniel Solove on How Bad Security Arguments Are Undermining Our Privacy Rights"

The Authoritarian strain that has always existed amongst us is very real, and those with the most to gain by it's furtherance are reinforcing it, nurturing it, day-by-day, minute-by-minute, right over the media the OP has mentioned.

These self-moderated, yet gently guided themes expressed in posts like these are exactly what Mark Crispen Miller meant, way back in the run-up to the calendar event of 1984, when he theorized that with the current trends in U.S.A. citizen conformity and submission, there may not even be a need for the "All Seeing Eye", or Telescreens, or the "camera in every room", for it seemed that with just enough of the right assistance, from just the right folks, the citizens themselves could be the "You" in his prescient "Big Brother Is You, Watching...." for The Georgia Review.

There is no secret white American terrorist group numbering 100,000. It is a practical impossibility. Somebody would talk, and the group would be exposed.
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Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum