My work health insurance recently offered a free scale and blood pressure monitor, I thought that's a nice perk, I'll use that, so I ordered with the intent of never using their app, just using it for my own tracking. The first time I used it, I got an email from my insurance company congratulating me and giving me suggestions. Both devices have a cellular modem in them, and arrived paired to my identity.

I destroyed them and threw them in a dumpster like that Ron Swanson gif.

All to say, little cellular modems and a small data plan are likely getting cheap enough it's worth being extra diligent about the devices we let into our homes. Probably not yet to the point of that being the case on a tv, but I could certainly see it getting to that point soon enough.

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kotaKat 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Similarly, I had a workplace dental provider ship me a ‘smart toothbrush’.

Turns out they track the aggregate of everyone’s brushing and if every employee brushes their teeth, the plan gets a discount.

”Lower rate based on group's participation in Beam Perks™ wellness program and a group aggregate Beam score of "A". Based on Beam® internal brushing and utilization data.”

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matheusmoreira 4 days ago | parent [-]

Technology is starting to become genuinely terrifying. Computers used to sit on desks in full visibility, and we used to be in control. Now they're anywhere and everywhere, invisible, always connected, always sensing, doing god knows what, serving unknown masters, exploiting us in unfathomable ways. Absolutely horrifying.

	▲	morgan814 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Time to turn your house into a giant Faraday cage

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anonym29 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'd have tried to disassemble it, locate the SIM card or cellular modem, and see if it could be used for other traffic. A wireguard tunnel fixes the privacy problem, and I can always use more IP addresses and bandwidth.

Until people start abusing these "features", they will not go away.

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tzs 4 days ago | parent [-]

Be very very careful if you do that.

The data plans on some embedded modems are quite different from consumer plans. They are specifically designed for customers who have a large number of devices but only need a small amount of bandwidth on each device.

These plans might have a very low fixed monthly cost but only include a small data allowance, say 100 KB/month. That's plenty for something like a blood pressure monitor that uploads your results to your doctor or insurance company.

If you are lucky that's a hard cap and the data plan cuts off for the rest of the month when you hit it.

If you are unlucky that plan includes additional data that is very expensive. I've heard numbers like $10 for each additional 100 KB.

I definitely recall reading news articles about people who have repurposed a SIM from some device and using it for their internet access, figuring that company would not notice, and using it to watch movies and download large files.

Then the company gets their bill from their wireless service provider, and it turns out that on the long list of line items showing the cost for each modem, a single say $35 000 item really stands out when all the others are $1.

If you are lucky the company merely asks you to pay that, and if you refuse they take you to civil court where you will lose. (That's what happened in the articles I remember reading, which is how they came to the public's attention).

If you unlucky what you did also falls under your jurisdiction's "theft of services" criminal law. Worse, the amount is likely above the maximum for misdemeanor theft of services so it would be felony theft of services.

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andrewf 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2509967 (the original source is gone and not in the Wayback Machine)

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15155 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Through what technical or legal mechanism is the company identifying or locating you - assuming you never logged in or associated the product with your identity?

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fn-mote 4 days ago | parent [-]

They shipped it to you. They associated a machine UUID with you at that time, as well as the SIM card.

Now maybe you mean the TV? That’s not what this particular thread is about.

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15155 4 days ago | parent [-]

> That’s not what this particular thread is about

This thread is about removing the SIM from a TV.

If I bought that TV in cash (or even credit card, sans subpoena) at a Best Buy and removed the SIM, how is any corporation identifying me?

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abdullahkhalids 4 days ago | parent [-]

What law is preventing Best Buy from telling TVManufacturer that a credit card with these last 4 digits bought the TV with this exact serial number?

And once the SIM connects near your house, what is preventing the phone company from telling TVManufacturer the rough location of the SIM, especially after that SIM is found to have used too much data?

Then use some commercially available ad database to figure out that the person typically near this location with these last four digits is 15155.

That's just a guess, but there is enough fingerprinting that they will know with pretty high certainty it is you. Whether all this is admissible in civil court, idk.

	▲	15155 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> What law is preventing Best Buy from telling TVManufacturer No law: reality and PCI standards prevent this. And of course, the manufacturer could get a subpoena after enough process. This also assumes the TV was purchased with a credit card and not cash. > And once the SIM connects near your house > what is preventing the phone company from telling Again: reality and the fact that corporations aren't cooperative. A rough location doesn't help identify someone in any urban environment. Corporations are not the FBI or FCC on a fox hunt. Can you cite a single case where this has happened on behalf of a corporation? These are public record, of course.
	▲	anonym29 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Anecdotally, you may want to avoid Best Buy either way. There's a chance the TV box contains just rocks, no TV, and that they refuse to refund your purchase. https://wonderfulengineering.com/rtx-5080-buyer-opens-box-to... I know I'm sure never shopping there again.

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sidewndr46 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why not just remove the cell modem?

	▲	_dain_ 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		We shouldn't have to.

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aquir 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Holy shit! I would’ve done the same! This is pure evil! I guess the box never had this info on it