What's with the clickbait title?
This is not news, it has been happening since Smart TVs started being a thing.
One of the most common TV OSs is AndroidTV / GoogleTV. Google is the biggest ad company in the world.
this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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"A convicted felon and sex offender wants to control your next country"
Good thing I don't care about owning a tv I don't already know how to jailbreak.
I got a old dumb Toshiba tv lol.
What’s a TV? Is that like a monitor?
Ehm, it is already like that. Most of smart TVs use Android which is under Google control, a big (if not the biggest) ad company.
Solution: get a dumb tv
Is there a reason to go for a dumb TV as opposed to just not connecting your smart TV to wifi?
People smarter than me have already had that discussion in the thread and after some heated arguments the consensus is that smart TVs have been caught actively searching for same manufacturer hardware and open wi-fi networks to access the web and call home.
So...
So don't connect anything from the same manufacturer to wifi and check if any of your neighbour has an open WiFi network, then? I've checked my neighborhood and hasn't seen any open networks just yet, so I'm lucky.
Lucky of you, then. If not, what could you do? Go door to door asking your neighbours to close their wi-fi?
That might not actually be a bad idea. Telling them their open WiFi is easily connected to from outside might finally push them to put in some form of network security. Shouldn't be too hard unless you have a bad relationship with them.
If that opportunity arises, please try and come back to tell us how it went.
LMAO, that would be an interesting story to tell. Unfortunately, for now, all of my neighbours are at least technologically proficient enough to put in a WiFi password, or at least not stupid enough to not let the ISP technician add it during installation.
[...] Unfortunately, for now, all of my neighbours are at least technologically proficient enough to put in a WiFi password [...]
Fortunately, I'd risk. Let's be happy for the smallest of things.
[...] or at least not stupid enough to not let the ISP technician add it during installation.
What sort of evil is this? ISPs here just connect the router, call back to their operations center to set it up and go. The router has a very long and hard to memorize password to access the wi-fi and often comes hidden by default.
Fortunately, I'd risk. Let's be happy for the smallest of things.
You're right, it's a good thing in general, but bad for story telling purposes.
ISPs here just connect the router, call back to their operations center to set it up and go.
Do you mean the technicians don't setup the WiFi SSID and password for the user and that the router setup are done through the operation centre instead of on-site?
Routers only have to be connected and signed to the ISP network. They provide the equipments.
From the moment the device is authorized, it's connected to the web and you can connect your devices to it using the default wifi password assigned by the manufacturer (25 digits long); wired connections don't require passwords.
Oh, then thats the same thing. I thought you meant the routers can be accessed remotely by ISPs for the first time setups. In my case, the technician is just more involved while they perform the router setup by asking the users what the SSID and password will be. I suppose it makes it easier for non-technical users who'd probably never change their WiFi password after the first setup. The account password is still left as the default one shown under the router, though.
I think that is router management and not router authorization.
Getting increasingly hard.
I finally learned why those 50" tvs are so cheap, like $200. Buy a dumb TV that's the same size is easily 5x the price.
Then again, nobody needs a TV and I only bought one during the pandemic, then connected it to my pi hole.
unfortunately,
on some markets they are gone.
"Smart" TVs have squeezed them out.
You can find them. Look for digital signage. And then start crying at the cost.
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I want a TV with NO OS.
You'll see these marketed as monitors sometimes, from what I've seen. Mostly it's for businesses but if you want a dumb screen to connect things to, it might be called a "monitor" even if it has the form factor of a TV.
Look into Sceptre. 4K with no OS, no ads, doesn't ask for WiFi - just a TV.
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FYI for those using DNS-based adblocking: I discovered that my AndroidTV box asks 8.8.8.8 when my local DNS server blocks a request.
EtherNet over HDMI
Then block 8.8.8.8 and use 1.1.1.1 or Quad9
Block all port 53 traffic from your network outside of your DNS server/pihole itself.
Block all known DoH servers.
If you want to get REALLY fancy you can write a NAT rule that will force any outgoing request on port 53 to route to your dns/pihole.
I do all of this. It's actually funny to see the requests that were hardcoded to go somewhere. Giant fuck you to those companies.
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I always have issues with dns blocking so I tried something sneaky I redirected all DNS requests to 1.1.1.1/1.0.0.1 and it worked brilliantly, for about a month when it stopped working all together, I don’t know if a cache was wiped or google saw what I was doing and made a special exception just for me, obviously I want to believe I’m a special snowflake taking the world’s largest internet company head on in an epic battle of wits and skill but I think the cache thing might be more likely for some reason.
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Depending on your router you can forward all request on port 53 to your DNS server regardless of the IP they try to use.
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An ad giant already owns and controls my current TV’s OS
My current TV is clawing my firewall like squirrel with rabies. I'm sure the next one will too.
I don’t want an OS on my next TV…
I have an old 60 inch 1080p TV from the early days of smart tvs. It has a built in app for plex and youtube, a remote that works as a pointer, it's insanely slow but it has zero ads and I'm never ever getting a newer model.
Same here, one of our "smart" TVs needs Ethernet for networking, the other needs a Wi-Fi dongle. Rest aren't even smart. All 1080p.
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Don’t ever connect them to the internet. Period.
If it’s required, buy a different tv. It’s not difficult to look that up beforehand.
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Googles been a TV OS for a while now.
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