Cybersecurity bounty hunter says Samsung TVs use AI to record audio and screenshots for ads — 'Finally found a company that truly listens to its customers,' says hacker
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/hacker-finds-own-samsung-tv-collecting-scary-amounts-of-user-information-and-gets-banned-by-openai-for-cyber-abuse-tv-runs-an-ai-model-that-collects-audio-screenshots-and-plenty-of-other-user-data-for-ad-targetingOpen linkView original on lemmy.zip
69 replies
Find me in my living room, reading aloud SQL injection attacks and AI jailbreak promps like the newsreader from Rome
True Hacker SQL for True Hackers
Little Bobby DropTables has entered the chat.
Samsung is the second Electronics maker I've started boycotted, after Sony.
Sony was all the way back since the Rootkit scandal, Samsung was about a decade ago when a small tablet I bough from them have filled with unremovable applications and after a few updates became pretty much unusable because it's didn't have enough memory (clearly planned obscolecence).
Patting myself on back (and a little gloating) aside, Samsung has been clearly abusive towards their customers for a while (it was maybe the second electronics make to enshittify, after Sony) and this is not at all surprising.
Drink verification can!
Google has been doing this for years, by the way
If these tvs are capturing private conversations for advertising, where’s the consent for that?
EULA has T&C that the first users agree to when they fast forward with the accept accept accept accept screens
Doesn't matter if you technically consent, that shit is still illegal (at least in the EU)
Illegal only applies when the law is an enforced deterrence. If the fine is low enough, it's the price of doing business. If it's hard to sue or there's no enforcement, the law may as well not exist. Unfortunately, with these large companies it's been both: low fines and long lawsuits, so by the time they pay a fine, they have earned 100x the fine in a month or so
They don't need consent, none do us can afford to sue them.
Isn't that what class action law suits are for?
Or better yet, consumer protection laws?
The first doesn't exist in most of the eu and the second need to be enforced or they will be ignored
I really hope one day people will look back at those practices the same way we look back at the normality of cigarettes being pushed on everyone back in the 50's.
what about no. too many people are smoking today.
i mean, why wouldnt they?
life sucks, society sucks, world sucks, who wouldnt want to check out faster.
the same sucky life is even worse with heart disease, not that I don't sympathise with the desire to get out but that's a really dumb way to do it
One of my favourite people used to say "you gotta die from something" whenever the topic of his smoking would come up. Then he got a stroke that didn't kill him.
how about weaponizing your willingness to die against the world that made you want to instead of just dying peacefully
WHY BE THE [[Little Sponge]] WHO HATES ITS [[$4.99]] LIFE WHEN YOU CAN BE A [[BIG SHOT!!!]]
Look AI code gets a ton of hate. And rightfully so. But you can use a coding agent to basically completely take control of hardware you own. It takes minutes.
Could you go into more detail for those of us who don't want to brick their tv? I think you're over estimating some of our knowledge base.
There’s a repo with ready-made APKs for many TV models: https://github.com/Gathin23/cleanyourtv
And if your specific one isn’t supported, it has instructions how to do it with AI yourself
Was watching gamers nexus. Opened up codex. Gave it network permissions. It was able to fully take control of the TV in minutes. It even navigated to the admin panel and gave me the code to plug in. Very quickly had figured out some of the major API's. In a half hour, I was able to get a container/ program set up to just "send" any stream I wanted to the TV without having to use any Samsung services. Then, scramble/ poison telemetry data/ advertising data. Whatever you like. None of it is worth publishing. But I wanted to control the TV I bought. The one I own. In my house. That I paid for. And I think its royally fucked up the world we live in that there are any barriers to that.
Just don't use OpenAI or Anthropic cloud models for reverse engineering your TV's APIs. This guy got banned from OpenAI for doing this research on his Samsung TV, and there are reports of Anthropic models starting to refuse reverse engineering tasks, having been given new guidance. Apparently proles learning about the corporate surveillance they're under is a step too far.
Hence the point about not fucking advertising it.
They are saying that if you are using a cloud model, you are advertising it by default.
I assume all your interactions with AI are being analyzed continuously and they will keep getting more restrictive about what you can use it for.
Which models would you recommend from whom to get this done?
True, but it may also allow malevolent people to take control of hardware they do not own.
Well the malevolent people I'm concerned about are the ones who sold me a TV I can't control and who stole the Internet to make you rent our collective knowledge we built together.
Examples/HOWTO?
Just open up any coding agent you like, locally hosted or otherwise, give it network permissions and the model number, and let it cook. These TV's are basically unsecured.
Assume I’m a newb. What kind of prompt would you give it? “ I have model x. Please find it and fix the apps on it to not record my information”?
My conversation literally started like:
I have a local Samsung TV that is a good TV, but the Samsung software is absolute shit and I hate it. I dont want ads. I don't want their shit software. And I want to poison any telemetry streams they might be using to spy. I recently watched a gamers nexus video on hacking TV's. Can you look on my network and find the TV. and then do a research project to look into what it would take to de-shittify this TV?So, "local" would require a pretty powerful machine here and "cloud" might eventually stop being an option because they don't want you to do such things using their cloud models.
Other than that, you are starting to attain that tone of a person who thinks they are starting to understand something in depth, like a Linux convert that has learned that one can write shell scripts. Don't. You've used a glorified combination of Google and StackOverflow copypaste and it worked.
Your prompt*
One can’t converse with a non-entity
Well, if you're being pedantic: prompt doesn't seem to fit as it refers to the "user" turn, and not the thread resulting of the back and forth communication between the "user" and "assistant".
Prompt is the generally accepted terminology in the relevant professional field
Language policing is very Woke 1.0
I’m not policing
I’m trying to help you not look like one of those dumbasses who thinks their computer is sentient
I was considering buying a Samsung OLED, but crossing that brand off my list.
I just need a TV I can hook my PS5 up to and, once I set it up, an old desktop that I'll use for SmartTube and Emby.
That's it.
i mean, Samsung has enough bad practices and bad rep to wipe off your list long before this current shit
I just haven't been paying attention, so this has been a good wake up call.
You can always just not connect it to the Internet.
I wasn't planning on it, but, many models try to find open networks to connect to.
Tv reaches some unprotected wifi and there goes your data.
remove the network card
There's no card, the modem is inside the and you have to perform surgery and peel off the panel, because they're super fucking thin there's no unscrew it and grab it from the empty middle part, which will very likely crack it if you're not good and lucky.
Get a cheap projector and connect it to a pc with jellyfin
I have an old desktop that I'm going to do that with.
Unfortunately, a projector won't work in my room. There's a whole list of reasons but it boils down to I need a bigger space that I own, not rent.
That hasn't been the same since OLED which are better
You don't need the world's best display to watch your prestige tv slop. Projectors are a pretty good viewing experience with some minimal setup.
You can think something is shit but if someone wants to watch it with HDR and deep blacks your opinion doesn't matter.
If they want to watch something with slightly better quality for ten times the cost plus included spyware it is indeed up to them lol yes.
just don't connect it to the internet.
Tv reaches some unprotected wifi and there goes your data.
why would it reach an unprotected WiFi access point?
I can barely get WiFi to work in my house let alone one of the neighbors.
Look at the tech Jesus video, they aggressively scan networks and connect to anything they can because doing so makes them money.
Guest with open hotspot on phone.
Because someone having better devices than you or your neighbor getting some long range access point.
Y’all think my 2017 is okay? 😬
Had a Samsung from 2014 (iirc) that was absolutely collecting telemetry to feed supplemental ads.
It may not use ai but I'd be shocked if it wasn't still collecting
It’s never been allowed internet access. I suppose it could be looking for open networks 😳
if it is android, you could have a look at this: https://github.com/Gathin23/cleanyourtv
How do I find the camera to cover it?