[Gamers Nexus] - LG Says We're Fake News
TL;DW:
- LG fails to do damage control and continues to act in bad faith.
If you own a LG tv you should really get rid of it as it's a security and privacy nightmare device in your home.
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View original on piefed.ca
33 replies
Man I love GN for these projects and bringing actual attention to issues that otherwise get ignored, in the tech world were lucky that there are many with principles
Is hilarious that LG essentially says "nuh uh" with 0 refutations. XD
Why get rid of it if you already own it rather than block the undesirable traffic through a pihole/router?
Your average person isnt going to set up a pihole
Most people who are aware of the issue and also care about it would probably rather figure out setting up a pihole than replacing an otherwise okay TV. Like me.
I believe the OG gamer nexus article did say that a pie hole isn’t quite enough as LG can hide the data within legit data and nothing short of a firewall would suffice and the best solution is to never connect it to the internet not even for updates.
This is the answer. My Samsung “smart tv” doesn’t know WiFi exists. A separate box for all the smart apps, that too blocked from accessing most tracking networks using NextDNS.
It doesn't need to be your wifi. Neighbor turning on hotspot without password on their phone is enough to send the recorded data.
Damn. Didn’t think of that.
you can remove the wifi adapter in some models
Your average person isn't subscribed to GN either. My comment was in that context.
The average person should at the very least be able to remove it from the network and connect a separate streaming device.
It would locally store the logs forever and when you sell it or pass it on, that person might connect it to the internet which will send the backlog.
It actually tries to connect to networks around you and if successful phones home that way.
Does it respect the wifi toggle?
It would respect disconnecting the antenna wire.
Is there a source on that? I haven't seen one.
Yes there is just watch the videos they put out
You can also disconnect the wifi/bt daughterboard.
Depends on whether you can identify and cleanly block the traffic you don't want, while still allowing the traffic needed for the online services. I'd instead keep the TV offline and use an external streaming device (ideally something like Kodi, but more realistically a Google TV streamer or similar)
I wouldn’t even hook it up to internet.
It connects to open access points on its own
This is a good overview of the problem across the industry;
https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/research/smart-tv-tracking
Goddamn that is a janky website.
It is a decent article, if you whitelist enough of the site for it to render.
I believe they were purchased recently and all of the previously free content was put behind a paywall
Them being purchased is news to me. I'm pretty sure they just announced that the current model wasn't sustainable due to decreased traffic from Google and getting their results scraped for AI training.
I found a good video from that team. Not very detailed, but it was honest content, well produced.
Their website would probably be better if I wasn't blocking half of their resources.
This got me to look through my Insignia FireTV. Found some new settings to disable since the last time I did so.
I don't mind the Fire, it allows sideloaded installs, so I mostly use my own software. The processor, ram, and storage space are quite good. It performs well, looks good, and its loud. (Cops recently showed up at my door with a noise complaint.) Plus, its fukin huge and only cost like $200.
I do intend to continue to use the FireTV as such. I put it on an isolated network, but I've not done any traffic filtering with it. I could look into firewalling it and blocking dns and tracking data. I did some web searching today, and all I came up with was a list of the same settings I just configured. No list of shit to block.
It sure sounds like Gamer's Nexus and that 1stLevel guy are continuing to test other models. I'll be watching for them to get around to Fire stuff.
What is "bullsh"?
Bullshit, YouTube doesn't like profanity, so they edited out the last two letters
Lol I thought they misspelled bullish and was like what, and then realized it and thought i deleted the msg in time to avoid everyone pointing and laughing at me... 🤷♀️