I never connect any “smart” device to wifi. If it doesn’t work without connectivity, I don’t want it. I use my TVs as display devices. They have HDMI-in and that’s it.

▲ graypegg 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I have a smart TV that's never spoken to the internet after exiting the factory, but it's a pretty tenuous state of affairs. I have this fear that someone staying over is going to see the "Services unavailable, press [menu] to troubleshoot" toast that shows up overtop the HDMI feed for a few seconds and think they're helping me by connecting it. 4-5 years worth of firmware updates all at once... half a decade of watch data somehow extracated from the HDMI feed and stored for precisely this moment... ads everywhere. Even if it doesn't happen instantly, I can only assume there's some flag deep in the OS called makeEverythingWorse just waiting to be flipped on the femtosecond The Beast catches a whiff of a slightly-higher patch number; now content in it's doomed state after having fufilled it's one true purpose of telling someone at samsung my favourite show is HDMI2.

I have had to back my mother down from that precipice on her own TV so I know it's worth worrying about. The siren call of an entirely empty TV homescreen beckoning us with a struck-out radio tower icon. "We have Disney+ and CraveTV too... press [menu]... pay no attention to the sticky note your son put on the coffee table"

▲ dawnerd 24 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I fear the same but made sure I block basically everything at the network level. First thing I do is hook the tv to the network and black hole its mac.

	▲	dreamcompiler 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Or open up the TV and disable its wifi hardware.

▲ dylan604 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I have this fear that someone staying over is going to

This happened to me. After they left, I tried a factory reset, but I don't have confidence there's not some code to remember previously saved wifi connections because my tinfoil hat is firmly in place. However, as you've said I only use the TV as an HDMI receiver. None of the TV's apps are used again. So I'm not sure how much they can detect from just the use of the HDMI port as the only thing being used. The games we play to get the subsidized pricing.

	▲	Eisenstein an hour ago \| parent [-]
		HDMI is heavily used for ACR (automatic content recognition) in smart TVs: "Our findings indicate that (1) ACR operates even when it is used as a “dumb” display via HDMI" "For both LG (a) and Samsung (b)TVs, the scenarios with the highest ACR traffic are Linear and HDMI." * https://dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10.1145/3646547.3689013

▲ archerx 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Find the TV’s MAC address and block it on your router. My brother home network had this system where your MAC address had to be whitelisted on the router to communicate with the network, as the days go by I see how in hindsight how this might be for the best in the end.

▲ onesociety2022 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I’m paranoid that actually blocking internet access to the TV will result in filling up the TV’s disk with all of this intrusive data they have collected waiting to be uploaded, eventually run out of space and brick the TV. This could be just bad software or actually malicious where they intentionally break something if it loses connectivity for too long and they can see you using it with other connected devices.

We really need normies to care enough about this to the point manufacturers will need to think they need to advertise on their TVs that they are privacy-friendly and don’t collect anything as a selling point. Until then, they don’t really care. I just wish someone like Apple made a TV with their Apple TV functionality baked in that I could trust.

	▲	elzbardico an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Lot's of people do it and I haven't seen nobody reporting this. Given the miser hardware specs most smartvs have, if this was a problem, it wouldn't take years to fill up the small storage space most of those TVs come with.

▲ m3047 12 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I split my network(s) into subnets (sharing the same wire, not to be confused with the actual subnets which don't share the same wire) which correspond to routability policies. This in turn involves firewall rules, routing table entries, and DHCP configs corresponding to those subnets.

I give away the software which does the following. I get this (and a lot more) for every host on my network, and I know what every host is.

    # peers upstairs-roku.m3047 +addr +serv
    dns.google [8.8.4.4]                                              domain [53]     
    dns.google [8.8.8.8]                                              domain [53]     
    athena.m3047 [10.0.0.220]                                         domain [53]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.46.228.133]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.46.228.134]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.46.228.135]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.46.228.137]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.46.228.138]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.46.228.139]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.46.228.140]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.46.228.142]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.46.228.143]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.46.228.144]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.46.228.145]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.213.34.169]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.213.34.176]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.213.34.178]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.213.34.185]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.213.34.186]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.213.34.187]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.213.34.188]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.213.34.193]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.213.34.196]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.213.34.201]                       https [443]     
    mediaservices.cdn-apple.com [23.213.34.203]                       https [443]     
    nrdp.push.prod.netflix.com [35.81.198.46]                         www [80]        
    ec2-35-86-100-253.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com [35.86.100.253] psbserver [2350]
    austin.logs.roku.com [35.212.27.142]                              https [443]     
    scribe.logs.roku.com [35.212.34.174]                              https [443]     
    austin.logs.roku.com [35.212.72.105]                              https [443]     
    austin.logs.roku.com [35.212.119.44]                              https [443]     
    display.ravm.tv [35.212.178.254]                                  https [443]     
    logs.netflix.com [44.226.179.188]                                 https [443]     
    logs.netflix.com [44.228.67.58]                                   https [443]     
    nrdp.push.prod.netflix.com [44.229.50.4]                          www [80]        
    logs.netflix.com [44.229.122.169]                                 https [443]     
    nrdp.push.prod.netflix.com [44.232.75.216]                        www [80]        
    api.roku.com [44.249.213.211]                                     https [443]     
    nrdp.prod.ftl.netflix.com [45.57.40.1]                            https [443]     
    nrdp.prod.ftl.netflix.com [45.57.41.1]                            https [443]     
    nrdp.push.prod.netflix.com [52.24.26.117]                         www [80]        
    logs.netflix.com [52.33.247.19]                                   https [443]     
    themes-service.sr.roku.com [54.200.214.141]                       https [443]     
    occ-0-1009-1007.1.nflxso.net [198.38.112.135]                     www [80]        
    occ-0-1009-1007.1.nflxso.net [198.38.112.144]                     www [80]        
    occ-0-1009-1007.1.nflxso.net [198.38.112.145]                     www [80]        
    occ-0-1009-1007.1.nflxso.net [198.38.112.165]                     www [80]        
    occ-0-1009-1007.1.nflxso.net [198.38.112.169]                     www [80]        
    occ-0-1009-1007.1.nflxso.net [198.38.112.170]                     www [80]        
    occ-0-1009-1007.1.nflxso.net [198.38.112.172]                     www [80]        
    occ-0-1009-1007.1.nflxso.net [198.38.112.178]                     www [80]        
    mdns.mcast.net [224.0.0.251]                                      mdns [5353]     
    239.255.255.250 [239.255.255.250]                                 ssdp [1900]

▲ Innittech 32 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's fine! With technologies like Amazon Sidewalk and cheap and cheerful 4g/5g radios nobody NEEDS to ask your permission to connect any more. You COULD use an older device but you don't want to be left behind, do you? And your peers will think you're poor or possibly a C.H.U.D. if you don't just accept your digital yoke.

▲ jon-wood 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Frustratingly I do want some of the functionality that comes with connecting my TV to the network - specifically the ability to control things like turning it on and choosing which input its set to via an API it exposes. That's manageable by putting it on a VLAN which isn't allowed access to the outside world, but its also really annoying to me that I have to do that.

▲ lelandfe 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

On my TCL TV, you have to connect it to read the Google policies you are agreeing to. If you don't, you agree to policies unread.

Thankfully, the blast radius of this is nothing without connectivity.

▲

elzbardico an hour ago | parent | next [-]

If I don't connect to the internet ever, my agreement to Google policies is probably a moot point.

▲

drhike 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If it has an Ethernet port I would use that then unplug it. It still gets to phone home once but you don't have to worry about it maliciously saving your Wi-Fi password for later

	▲	tamimio 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You can create a guest wifi with temporary password, I do that when I need to connect devices that might store the password like kindle or such.

▲

idiotsecant 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

But it lets you continue without reading them? There's a lot of questionable terms of service rules but this one has to be unenforcable.

▲

lelandfe 3 hours ago | parent [-]

You must check a checkbox in agreement to continue. To read the policies one agrees to, an internet connection is required. You may check the checkbox without reading.

As far as I have found from a lot of menu spelunking, this agreement is irrevocable. If I ever go online, it will be used.

	▲	trumpdong 16 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That's the kind of thing that doesn't always hold up in court.

▲

secretsatan 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]