My question is: Can you block the IPs it’s phoning home to without breaking other TV functions, like OS/app updates, etc? Is there a list of IPs available for smart TVs specifically that keep the fingerprint from being received by the mfg?
My question is: Can you block the IPs it’s phoning home to without breaking other TV functions, like OS/app updates, etc? Is there a list of IPs available for smart TVs specifically that keep the fingerprint from being received by the mfg?
There’s no need. This is a very simple fix. Block your TV from the internet using your router. Then plug in a $20 Google TV box or Apple TV. Problem solved.
Exactly.
“Sometimes, when I have a problem - I throw a molitov cocktail. Then pretty soon, I have a completely different problem!” - Jason, The Good Place
(Referring to blocking Samsung’s telemety, by embracing Google’s or Apple’s. Honestly, I trust Apple the most of the three, but I don’t thrive inside a walled garden, myself.)
The difference is, if the TV box does something I don’t like, I can unplug it and plug something else in. If the TV does something you don’t like, theres nothing you can do to stop it.
Case in point, Roku’s forced arbitration nonsense. If your TV was disconnected, there’s no way they can force any changes at all on you.
Agreed. It’s definitely an improvement.
Some TVs have been found to continually scan for open wifi networks to connect to in order to ship back the telemetry they gather.
Do you happen to have a source for this claim? I did some cursory searches on this just now and found nothing except for one reddit thread where one person said the same thing but again with no source.
I would also love a source. I keep seeing the claim made over and over. It’s certainly plausible, and should be easily provable.
I read it originally from a poster on a privacy/security reddit who was reporting their personal experiences. It isn’t the most reliable source but in this context I consider it worth accounting for anyway, as what the person described experiencing is both possible and plausible. For anyone who is serious about preventing these sort of privacy breaches, the open wifi vector should absolutely be considered and guarded against if possible (easy but less comprehensive approach would be to see if there is an airplane mode on TV, harder but more reliable is to physically disable or shield the wifi module on the TV itself).
Who has unsecured networks anymore?
Public Wi-Fi hotspots are typically unsecured, and if you happen to live in a city that has a lot of Wi-Fi hotspots, it could hop onto one of those networks.