Hacker reverse engineers his Samsung TV and finds on-device AI listening for your dog and baby, watching what you watch, and borrowing your soundbar’s mic if the TV doesn’t have one. Then OpenAI banned him for reverse-engineering it.
Source:
Hacker reverse engineers his Samsung TV and finds on-device AI listening for your dog and baby, watching what you watch, and borrowing your soundbar’s mic if the TV doesn’t have one. Then OpenAI banned him for reverse-engineering it.
Source:
https://www.tomsguide.com/tvs/your-samsung-tv-is-watching-you-how-to-turn-off-data-collection
March 2nd btw, not that we haven’t known for years
Here’s Legal Eagle talking to Gamers Nexus about the LG TVs keeping their mics on when the TV is “turned off” and transcribing conversations in plaintext.
https://youtu.be/7kYn2x2Dt_A
tl;dr LG says they’re not doing targeted ads or such with it.
The mics in theory stay on but not recording to detect the activation phrase, but because they’re really just listening for “Hi” they turn the recording system on and then it stays on as long as sound is being made, all because you greeted someone in your home.
No. LG says they’re not recording your private conversations continuously. Their lawyers didn’t have them add that qualifier for nothing. As long as they take a break a few minutes a day they can still claim they aren’t continuously recording. And they absolutely are recording you, the law be dawned.
Until people are imprisoned and the fines are large multipliers of the money made off this bullshit, it will keep getting worse.
Soon enough, I expect TVs to have built-in cellular modems so they can collect and transmit data even when you don’t connect them to your network.
That’s when you open the tv up and drop a blob of solder on the modem
And then they’ll make TVs that refuse to boot if they don’t detect a working modem.
Sadly, I think this is where we’re heading if the arms race heats up.
Then what the fuck are they doing with it? Because ‘targeted ads’ are the relatively benign option. Any other use for spying on you is going to be darker and more harmful.
You will never be told what they do with it
Additionally, if they are collecting it, now they are sitting on a treasure trove of data. Someone else will want some of that. You think they give a shit about securing it? I’m sure these things aren’t even all that secure. If someone can vibe hack their TV, then someone else can too.
The only way this stops is if it becomes illegal or too expensive.