Here are LG's contract terms for appliances.[1] They are awful.

Not only can they listen in. You have a contractual requirement to tell everyone in range of an appliance that they may be eavesdropped upon.

CONSENT REQUIREMENT: You acknowledge and agree that it is your sole responsibility to obtain all necessary consents from any third parties whose voices may be captured by the Product and to notify household members and guests that their voices may be captured and processed, in compliance with applicable wiretapping, eavesdropping, and privacy laws. If anyone does not consent, you should disable the microphone or voice features in the settings. LGE disclaims any liability for your failure to obtain such consent or provide such notification.

[1] https://www.lg.com/us/terms

I've bought an LG Smart TV 5 years ago, read t&c where I was supposed to grant them any data they wanted, decided to disagree and kept all network functions disabled. I was ridiculed by my friends for that. At some point, I thought - maybe I'm really crazy to do so? Who am I, a caveman, a luddite? Oh well, I'm not. Not a bad tv though, many HDMI ports!

Okay. This is insane. First the monitor that uses a windows feature to automatically install a small helper tool with root permissions and then starts showing adds in certain regions. Now a tv that is actually actively snooping around on top of the known fingerprinting. What else is next?

In the previous topic I got ridiculed for not wanting to buy LG anymore because I could use an agent to modify to strip out the offending bits.

But there must be something better than just keeping to buy things that invade our privacy and homes further and further. Which brands aren’t doing this? Sony? They also announced a partnership for the lower end TVs IIRC.

I'm surprised this hasn't run afoul of all-party wiretap laws. Even if you could waive your own rights via ToS other people in the house may not have agreed.

Theoretically I could see LG or even the TV's owner being culpable.

I'd love to see that case hit the media. Average citizen jailed over wiretap violations because they let their TV record a guest.

As an owner of 2 LG OLEDs, I am not surprised at all. I neutered these things the first day I was past the return policy. Opened the back and unplugged the WiFi/BT chip, bought a cheap dumb universal remote with no mic in it, disagreed to all T&C in the TV, updated the firmware via USB and just use an AppleTV over HDMI for streaming. Kind of silly to have to go through all of this but hey thats where we are in 2026 in the US. And I am fully aware that I am typing this on an iPhone thats probably doing the same things that this article is talking about LG doing ;-(

The source video is excellent: https://youtu.be/6IFVTcM28KA

I have two LG TVs so this freaks me out a lot. I guess I’m fortunate to have kept their network permanently disconnected (we use Apple TV for smart stuff) but who knows if they don’t do things like scan for open hotspots or connect without permission to networks you previously used to update firmware and then deleted from history.

This company needs to be nuked from orbit. Automatic content recognition is one thing, spying on conversations when switched off is a whole other level of violation.

I guess this is unavoidable on today’s internet, but…reading a story that decries the (admittedly really bad) data gathering techniques of an advertiser, from a site that itself is plastered with adverts…I don’t know the right word here, but it feels a bit shit.

Although I’m glad this is getting the visibility it deserves. I hope this hurts LG where it matters and sends a signal to other manufacturers, but I doubt it.

Funny, published on a site with 1745 'partners' who fully respect our privacy of course

Am I glad I blocked my CX from 2020 very early from accessing the internet!

Looked into rooting - my old firmware would be ideal, but other than a native ambient lighting tap I don't really see anything worth my time. That model probably doesn't have a wide field mic yet to use for home automation.

Disconnecting it from the internet isn't enough, because it will store spying data forever until it gets a connection, and it will connect to any open WiFi. You have to disconnect it from the power, and then use a sledgehammer on the remains.

The title undersells it.

The TV has multiple mics that can't be disabled, they constantly record everything and upload transcripts in plain text.

It gathers data and metadata of all devices on the network, including IP addresses. And even analyzes network data to understand which applications are being run.

Modems becoming super cheap is gonna be a big problem for this, because those make it even harder to prevent such snooping.

Just imagine having to jam the devices in your own home just to stop them from profiling you.

Better pray to your deer god that modem + data contract is gonna stay more expensive that the expected value from selling more data...

We really need regulation to stop this.

My TVs are on the IoT network so that I can control them from Home Assistant, but they're blocked from accessing the internet.

DNS lookups are redirected or blocked (53 redirected to my local DNS resolver, 853 blocked), and DoH is blocked as best effort though it's hard to block HTTP DNS traffic, which again is why the devices are blocked in the firewall.

All streaming is done via AppleTV, which is a platform I trust infinitely more than LG/Samsung/whatever.

Telescreens [1] are here!

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. [1]

Would you like to know more?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen

This is quite a mixed set of topics mangled together, which is a pity because IMO a cleaner separation would be more beneficial to get the point across.

1. The Ad data-collecting platform TV-manufacturers are operating, what data they collect and how they use it.

2. The vulnerabilities of the OS in a SmartTV, and the potential issues to exploit them for malicious purposes.

3. The general behavior of the device when connected to your network, with features like voice control, App control, Smart Home etc. enabled, and how it may expose information about yourself.

All the points and scenarios in the video might be valid, but they are not sufficiently grouped into one of the above categories.

Instead, it just mixes them all together to imply that its all the same, weakening the whole investigation.

--

The plain example: Using voice-input for a web-search on the TV [0], make long pauses and observe how it keeps populating the prompt-UI with everything you say. This is a matter of #3 above, accusing a malicious intent already on such a trivial implementation topic is harming the whole story

[0] https://youtu.be/6IFVTcM28KA?si=oVqX6NtkxPmqh6R-&t=2951

In an age where AI can search vast amounts of data having something in your home or workplace turning what it hears into text looks like a problem waiting to happen.

E.g. As soon as someone proves LG, Samsung, etc. recorded and stored credit card details and knowingly have weak security this is going to be a massive business liability.

That's an easy one to put a compensation figure on but there's probably all sorts of other exploits waiting to happen.

I think the most egregious thing here is that if you don't give the TV a network connection that it will actively search for other ways to get the data back to LG such as open WIFI.

I commented this only a few days ago on a different LG related thread. What LG are doing is indefensible and we should all vote with our wallets when considering a new TV... but for those who already own an LG TV you really owe it to yourself to jailbreak it and make it "yours", so to speak.

  > OpenLGTV[1] is a collective, non-commercial project for legal reverse engineering and research of LG (Smart and non Smart) TVs firmware, which is partially Open Source.
  > The main goal of the project is to improve the functionality of the TVs by adding new features, fixing bugs and providing new software.

[1] https://openlgtv.github.io

Watching the actual investigation video the article is based on, it turns out that alot of the statements in the article don't really hold up to closer scrutiny.

I couldn't find any "smoking gun" or discovery of malicious intent.

What's left in the end is the already-known fact in the tech-community: The most-common, most-vulnerable and most-equipped device to spy on you in your home is your Smart-TV.

1. It has all the compute-power and sensors it needs

2. It already does some spying for ad-profiling

3. If a hacker exploits it, it's a problem

After researching a new TV (where it only needs an Apple TV, no so-called smart features for spying purposes) the three contenders were Samsung, LG and Sony Bravia (the higher end models). Samsung was the least trustworthy, having played games with firmware updates and adding telemetry, LG was medium trustworthy, and Sony seemed the least likely. It looks like that heuristic was correct. For the Bravia, I put it on wifi just once temporarily to upgrade the firmware when I bought it, and I'm leaving it disconnected.

It can't just magically connect to an openwifi and update its firmware to start telemetry. It would need a new firmware to even try that.

Folks, never update a TV firmware unless it's necessary.

PSA for the home automation enthusiasts who keep smart TVs connected to the network to turn them on or off remotely: a lot of other sources that are likely connected to HDMI ports (Apple TVs, gaming PCs etc.) could do the same via HDMI-CEC, so unless you're truly using the 'smart' features there is less and less reasons to keep the TV itself connected to any network.

My TVs (Samsung) are the only devices on my network that are locked down and quarantined. But I wonder if there will come a day when TVs contain cellular or satellite modems so you can’t block the telemetry.

This is the same behaviour as the german secret police in east germany. The difference now its for ads and by tech. All collected data are probably ai transcribed from audio to text and is fused via data fusion to serve ads. Add collaborative filtering to find similar interests between users.

> They also found where the microphone was software disabled via settings, it was STILL recording things but had the dB level so low that it looked like nothing but when amplified to +50dB later the conversations were actually still there.

How is this legal? Can't we sue them or get the FTC against them? This seems like a ridiculous amount of spying, even if their TOS says so. That seems like exploiting complexity of TOS to let them spy on everyone.

I'm pretty sure that these TVs won't respect WIFI passwords and if you enter a wifi password in once, it will just remember it even when you clear it, and it will try to connect to the internet that way.

This should be sufficient to let LG go bankrupt… We've all become numb to this kind of craziness

It's good that at least one tech company still listens to its customers! Ba-dum-tss.

Only a matter of time before they ship with cell modems so you can’t disconnect them from the internet.

My LG tv post-update is never allowed on a network and it will never be updated again. Hopefully it never breaks…

I've one question: I've used android phone (realme, which is chinese). And i remember that whenever we used to discuss somethings among our friends, i started used to get ads realated to that on my laptop, phone within atmost a hour.

So, was realme transcribing all conversations and uploading it? Can someone answer?

I managed to watch 14 minutes of the Gamer Nexus video (on my computer) before going into the living room and disconnecting the network cable, OMFG. If there's no legal consequences for LG for this I'll be surprised. I'm in Europe, not counting on the US for this, trust me.

Stuff like smart TVs always go in their own VLAN on my home network. Not because I don't trust the manufacturer, but I cannot be bothered to babysit some Android device on my LAN that I'll keep using years after end-of-support.

I know its important to put things down to coincidence whenever possible, but a very expensive Bang OLufsen ( I think they use LG ) TV would turn itself off at "the" most interesting split second moments during gameplay , to the point where I thought "if I am being pranked by a friend, does this TV even stream its contents?".

Much to my surprise I found out that many modern TVs do in fact come with dev mode that allow some sort of screen capture.

Safe to say I turned off all the "allow metrics and market/dev modes" and have been happier since.

EDIT> Incase anyone was wondering I did some more research about my model ( im NOT a TV guy ) and came across this regarding what screen content could technically be passed remotely: "Most probable raw grab: ThinQ/SSAP on the LAN after pairing — ~960×540 JPEG. Live Plus/ACR: most probably sends a fingerprint, not a retrievable raw frame." No idea what it means but thought it might be relevant. Remember Im saying in my case it was a coincidence.

I've got a 65" LG C2 OLED TV (from 2022) that I hacked with https://rootmy.tv shortly after I purchased it (and before LG updated the firmware to prevent the hack).

It seems pretty safe. When it's on, I can ssh into it. When it's off, it doesn't reply to ICMP pings, and doesn't appear to be using much power.

I guess the newer LG TVs have gone to shit.

this is not only LG. many of your favorite devices do this.

examine your network when you plug a roku in. then read their privacy policy if you want to see someone give LG a run for their money.

then there's our pocket PCs...

and don't forget about the biggest customers of this "advertising" data.

https://www.npr.org/2026/03/25/nx-s1-5752369/ice-surveillanc...

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/targeted-advertising-g...

This sort of blanket data collection needs to be made illegal in every single jurisdiction, and have _very_ robust penalties for anyone found in breach of them.

Almost all new hotel/hospital TVs have access to the internet, and more than half are LG TVs, and other half are Samsung.

It's been fun to see people re-writing and flashing their own smartwatch software with LLMs. Looking forward to the first TV OS rewrite video.

Is all of them, every "smart tv" does it, even after adb, permission restricting or rooting. Insert a (non infected) usb lamp in your tv and see the lamp turning on when your tv is off. It notifies you about the background activation activity :) Interesting to see when exactly get active (is it keywords or nearby devices or scheduled processes)? Can´t be keywords as that would mean 24/7 active and the lamp says otherwise.

This is automatic liability in California and the EU, correct? Does Illinois consider one’s voice pattern to be a biometric? If so, there, too.

What would the HN crowd recommend for a good linux streaming box + hardware with decent TV UX and remote?

My LG is completely offline and I'm using an nvidia shield to display any content, but I'm thinking maybe I need to go the extra mile, there nothing preventing an android tv box to do the same.

Obviously they'll get away with this in the US, but doesn't this break a LOT of EU privacy laws?

It's unfortunate LG screens are still the best in image quality, even though competition is getting closer. That said, the best way to use LG TVs is to immediately disconnect them from the internet and use an Apple TV 4K for streaming applications.

My 20+ year old dumb samsung TV needs replacing, and has done for a while. But it's stuff like this that makes me shy away from upgrading.

This is Hacker News - any suggestions for physically removing the microphone and/or blocking LG servers with a firewall/pihole?

TFW LG OLED without internet access probably flirting with neighbor's connected LG fridge and LG washer and sharing all my gossip to Chaebols anyway. Just waiting for Chinese OLED to commoditize far enough that you can ship a bare panel with outputs for development. Reality is Korean companies do have enough competition / incentive to value engineer down. There's no reason 5/10 years from you can't just buy a nice OLED panel and a 3D printed shell from ali like eink now. Except more sanctions I guess.Seems like just a matter of time gig work license plate scanners also wardrive around with open access points to harvest info from "unconnected" smart devices, if not already.

Now do a analysis on everything else, including the smart fridge in the kitchen.

Or what I am trying to say: Everybody has devices which have the potential to spy on you.

Unless your first name is Richard, only travel with open source hardware and software, and you have to ask someone to lend you a phone if you want to call someone even when you are at home.

I'm practically certain that there was no ill-intent by LG when conceiving this feature. It was most likely just a convenience thing.

But I am also practically certain, that, eventually, any pile of data will attract ideas you do not want attracted.

I've been using a big monitor as a TV for 8 years now. That's all it takes, a big monitor.

I just didn't want to buy any TV that was available 8 years ago because they all seemed invasive to me.

This seems to be the worst case scenario, put into practice by a highly popular device manufacturer. Are they doing this with all of their other devices as well? Monitors, washing machines, fridges? If they can fit this into a TV, they can fit it into everything else.

There's also a fair bit of arrogance from LG: "We own the glass..." leading to this great piece of marketing:

"within an LG TV household we can help extend the ad campaign footprint to the other devices in the household" (at ~14:11)

Advertising is a mind virus. These people are fucking gross. And this seems to be what all technology companies are turning into. Advertising is the Paperclip Maximiser of the real world.

I recently divided much of my home network into VLANs (with "Entertainment" devices separated for this very reason), and this makes me happy to have done so, but now makes me want to do the same to my in-laws network, since they have an LG TV and I regularly connect various of my devices through their network...

Tangential point: I recall on a previous article someone commenting on their surprise at how good Gamers Nexus investigative reporting was. This seems to be another example. You go Gamers Nexus. Might have to buy a supporter pack.

They just won't stop, will they?

Is there a better answer (or brand) for the privacy-concerned user who is also a normie?

I don’t really watch tv, but my wife would want something somewhat modern.

Most TV sets should not normally need microphones, and if they have that in some models (as long as there are models without), then there should be a hardware switch to disable them. However, "continuously sweep home networks, map secondary devices, and log microphone audio while appearing to be turned off" is also stealing and wasting your power.

I absolutely loathe my LG smart TV. Just switching to another input requires 3 button press.

I hope someone uses their free time to hack the OS and offer a clean and simple interface to make it a “dumb” TV.

What about LG smart soundbars? I always kept the TV offline but the soundbar, if not connected to internet, exposes an unprotected hotspot that anyone can connect to and take control over the soundbar, forcing you to connect it to internet.

If we aren't there already we're well on our way to a bizarre dystopia where our own internet subscriptions somehow cost more than our devices, which somehow generate enough money for their makers to justify embedding wireless modems for constant surveillance. If you buys a device at loss, for them spend a monthly fee to give it access to spy on you, because the data is so valuable, what on earth are they using it for? Or is everyone losing money?

I know I'm just paranoid, but when I see LG and these big advertising companies taking bad press from Gamers Nexus, I can't help but think the reporters need to be concerned about their safety.

My old Vizio TV is probably too old to do much of that, and it doesn't have a microphone, but regardless it's never connected to the internet. In fact, I removed the Wifi module altogether, as the TV would sometimes lock up and make a very loud, annoying screeching sound. Some online searching suggested it was temperature related and removing the WiFi module would help. It's just a standard board like you might find in a laptop. Removing it did help a lot, the lockups still happen very occasionally but are much reduced.

Makes me glad I bought a Sony TV which has the microphone on the remote - and is compatible with older remotes without a microphone, so the new remote with its microphone and sponsored streaming service buttons gathers dust (without batteries inserted) while I use an old remote.

Wait, do LG Webos TVs have microphones in the TV and/or in the remote? I am aware of the latter only.

Is anyone else thinking of cracking open the back cover and desoldering any wireless chips found? I have had a firewall rule to deny my LG TV and related domains, but that doesn't look to be enough

I'm convinced Google TV firmware does something similar. I have an LED bar connected to the TV via USB and from time to time the bar turns on but the TV is "off". I think it's silently turning on to send some kind of telemetry.

I could buy a tv in late 2014 and happened to be the last batch of bravia tvs pre android tv. Back then I was kind of bummed out that just a few weeks after that they announced the first tvs with android tv and now i was hooked with a smart-but-not-that-smart tv with a bunch of crappy ads, an unusable web browser and a non-customizable os.

But they stopped updating it years ago, none of its apps work anymore and the only "smart" feature that still works is screen mirroring feature. The tv part itself still works great. Not a 4k oled 120Hz shiny impressive thing but the image quality is still great. What I thought was an unlucky adquisition back then turned out to be a pretty good one.

I wonder how many politicians, police, etc have these TVs and how sanguine they would be to find out all their conversations near the TVs have been recorded

Be interesting to know the true cost of smart TVs without the subsidized benefit of tracking that the "smart" element has.

A comparison of a dumb 4k panel vs the equivalent "smart" tv for example>

George Orwell imagined a 'Telescreen' that also spies on you in '1984':

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen

These are great if you just want an old fashioned tv that is just a monitor:

https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV-category1category73.htm...

With no real influx of 8K tvs one of these will last quite a while until you need to upgrade.

Telescreens.

Can anyone recommend a non-spying TV brand or a model? (Modern)

I pretty much assume every smart home device capable of doing this is doing it already.

Nothing gets connected to wifi. If temporary connection is required it gets a random one time use guest network SSID and pass that I remove after. (Yes they can collect and send setup metadata during this temporary access period but sometimes it is a worthwhile tradeoff)

I've just looked at the terms of service and privacy terms on an "old" C1 Oled, and it's "disgusting" the amount of spying they want to do. Turned everything off except for the minimum required to play Youtube on the tv. What a pos of a company. And yes I know (almost?) all of them are doing something similar

I wonder if in the EU, if you refuse everything, you're protected or screwed. Juridically, you should be okay, but is it rational to trust them to respect the law when breaking it is probably more profitable?

Just don't buy a smart TV. Buy a good "dumb" TV (or just get a good large monitor), then hook it up to a set top box (with TV capabilities as needed).

Almost 13 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6759426

If your TV is rootable, you should root it! See: https://cani.rootmy.tv/

I'm fairly concerned that at some point in the future is will be almost zero-cost to include eSIM with devices and we'll have virtually no way to prevent devices from working as discovery for advert targeting.

What is needed is accountability and transparency. Accountability is criminal charges. Transparency is warning labels on products similar to cigarette warnings. This is digital assault and needs to be treated that way.

I don't think the title (edit: of the thread merged into this one!) is accurate.

Starting at 16:04, they say that they merely claim that the TV has the capability to be used as a listening device. In the first 34 minutes, they don't seem to show that LG are actually recording audio from the surroundings (only from the content playing) and after that they start investigating whether you could record audio if you take control of the device (obviously yes).

So the video doesn't seem to support the claim in the article (edit: linked in the merged submission!) that "LG smart TVs continuously [...] log microphone audio while appearing to be turned off".

Of course, all the stuff LG are actually shown to be doing is bad nevertheless, particularly the "Automated Content Recognition".

The thing that everyone thinks their smart phones do is true of their televisions and they probably won't discuss it.

This is awful. I own a LG OLED tv which I love for its quality, but god I want to chuck it knowing all the sensitive conversations I’ve had in front of it. Literally all my personal calls happen in the room that tv lives. I’m livid.

Reminder: you can connect it to your network, but block it from the internet at the router. That way you can still use Airplay/Chromecast.

I have an LG. Great OLED panel. It's never seen the internet.

There needs to be a crowdfunded jailbreak of all these TVs firmware so all of these dystopian features can be hard disabled. I'm guessing the mainboards of these things have zero protection from someone clamping on their flash ROMs or tapping the bus; these are hardly X-boxen or Playstations with uber-DRM. (Assuming you can't just force new unsigned modified firmware directly into them via USB)

Can this be blocked with DNS / firewalls? Anyone done any work on that?

Is there a DNS setting in LG? Could it be as simple as switching to a local DNS server on your network running nextdns.io?

Well that's it. No more LG stuff for me. I bought the C1 OLED TV years ago, great TV, but with this BS, they lost me forever. And yes I connect the tv the wifi for YouTube and for my local media server. No, I do not want other intermediate devices , I want my TV to not spy on me.

Question: I recently upgraded my LG OLED and decided to not accept any of the terms and conditions. I just connect it to my Apple TV and it lives on that HDMI port permanently. How safe am I?

PS: I do have the TV connected to wifi for software updates (on a pi.holed network)

If I am ever well off enough to consider a home theater, it seems I will need to make it a faraday cage and open up the TV to snip all of the microphones and disconnect the Wi-Fi antennae (or maybe even drill any modem chips on the circuitry if we want to go bonkers) as well as any webcams.

Do they make audiophile grade aluminum foil yet? Seems like a neat business opportunity for customers like me

I just use the LG screen for my Apple TV.

No network connection, apparently the BBC thinks I should use the LG app to watch UHD TV, perhaps they’re in league with LG

Related: What’s the story with Chrome continually triggering the “Chrome would like to access devices on your local network” prompt on MacOS?

It frequently happens when opening ChatGPT on web.

“We’re listening?…”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8duCxY-gnZ0&t=5s

They used to make some nice equipment but I’ve stopped buying anything from LG and share that recommendation to friends and family.

I know I’m not the only one so I’m sure LG are experiencing the results of consumer democracy.

LG TVs have the best OLED displays and the most questionable privacy policy. So I picked best of both the worlds and left the TV off the internet. Apple TV is the way to go for me.

I have a rooted LG C4. Beyond blocking things at the DNS level, not accepting terms, not using AI, I wonder if there’s some existing software solution or a documented step-by-step to remove this bloatware/spyware.

Can somebody attest or falsify that we’d all be better off with a huge gaming monitor plus an Apple TV? Expensive, of course, but privacy is the main consideration here.

Granted, I only watched one hour of the original video, but I get the feeling the way it is presented is a bit dishonest.

A lot of the "silent listening" they show in the video is on a TV they rooted. They start recordings through arecord manually. Or, when they show the transcripts from the recording, the AI voice search is clearly visible on the screen and was manually triggered by something.

Now, does a smart TV need all that hardware? Is a compromised TV a security hazard and smart TVs need to learn more in terms of security from modern smartphones in terms of privacy indicators, attested boot and more?

Sure.

But I do not see enough evidence that the TV is actually voice capturing all this stuff on its own, without any notice.

There is plenty of stuff on the video regarding the network scanning, ACR and more that is definitely concerning. And this is something LG actually does by themselves (when you agree to their ToS / privacy policy).

However, I think that mixing the ACR / network scanning in with "let's root the TV and actively start recording ourselves" mixes the narrative of "what LG actually does" versus "what a compromised TV can actually do", and makes it seem like LG is just recording, transcribing and submitting voice transcript automatically by themselves.

This was not proven here. And I feel that GamersNexus is just risking a lawsuit here by not separating these different concerns clear enough.

We are on our second Sceptre dumb tv. Cheap, good picture, happy. We handle streaming via Apple TV, though pivoting very slowly to jellyfin.

Is there a difference between a LG TV in EU and in USA?

We should start a movement #NoSmartDevice

We have sugar-free, lactose free I want Smart free devices!!!

I hate this. I hate having to be scared of every damn piece of technology spying on me. Of everything becoming a subscription. Of everything being sold to the highest bidder to be enshittified and gutted leaving a wake of low quality trash. This isn’t the future I worked for. This is a flea market for the Epstein class.

When the first TV ships with a battery to keep running while unplugged, I'm dusting off my soldering iron and my digital circuits handbook.

Isn't observation of LG's operation a violation? I mean it may fit the category "Intercepting live telemetry packets as they travel from the client machine to the company's servers can violate the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Wiretap Act)"

Is there a list of which LG tvs do this?

Related:

LG TVs aren't the only ones spying on you [video]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49575176

As an owner of a (2020?) LG WebOS TV, to what degree can I fight this? Any point in trying Pihole with targeted blocking of certain IPs?

has anyone tried to pwn an lg smart tv using a coding agent? would love to turn mine into a dumb tv.

Why does that company still exist?

Just don't by anything from LG. It's easy.

The only appliance that should come from the factory with a microphone is the telephone.

Is there a site showing us where to drill?

where could this heavy privacy infringement be reported in EU?

should we all report this illegal behaviour and contract terms?

Every smart TV is dumb if you don’t connect it to a network

Goddamnit, I have an LG TV. The panel panel itself is beautiful, but the software is complete shit and I only use an apple TV on it.

The snakes in charge of this should be thrown in jail. They talk about "owning the glass and the living room" and you can just tell they've sold out their soul long ago.

What kind of access can the government get, I wonder...

All devices in my home sit behind adguard. The TV can try all it wants.

I've had several conversations about this over the years, usually about the EU and how they keep harping on Apple (for instance) because it's a highly visible brand while they completely ignore LG (and others) and their massive data collection devices that (by the way) are in every single European institution.

And many government officials' households, too.

Just saying.

Pihole blacklist, would it be enough to mitigate this?

My LG C5 is in a separate VLAN, with no access to the rest of my home network. I've never accepted the terms and conditions, and I don't need anything from it other than to be a display for my 4k player and PC. I guess now I'm going to remove Internet access from it altogether!

The thing I'd like is if the remote didn't have 4 buttons for crappy streaming services I will never use, but instead had 4 buttons to select the HDMI inputs directly; but no, I have to press a button, wait for the stupid laggy UI to load, navigate or point and click at input I want, then do the same to the preview window. A tedious pain in arse for basically the one main thing I use the remote for. It annoys me no end, and it seems to me that the last thing LG care about is the UX; they've put all their efforts into underhand and user-hostile profiling.

I also have a Roku Ultra for streaming, which I very rarely use. I don't expect they treat their users any better and they use ACR too

Can we please agree on calling devices with a cpu and os that spy on the owner smart? I personally think that closed operating systems with spyware is quite dumb for user privacy.

Understood: never buy LG devices again.

Send the PMs that greenlit this to jail.

"we own the glass" "We own the living room"

How disrespectful one can be towards its customers. I am honestly disgusted by such behaviour. I know the cheeky confidence biz talk, but is that really what you want your customers to hear? And what about the guys making such disgusting business possible. Is that what you want to build?

the only TV I have connected to the home network (guilty, I admit), Sony OLED 65, ARP floods my network about 12-15 hours after "turning off". On a plus side, it doesn't appear to be streaming anything out: no local DNS hits, not enough outgoing traffic for any meaningful audio stream

The choice between privacy concerns and ineptly coded network stack is tough. But that's the choice we're forced to have

wow i'm surprised sn0wd3n only revealed this about 20 years ago

notebookcheck.net:

> We value your privacy

Shares my browsing info with 1745 "partners" with no clear way to opt out (which ought to be opt-in by the way to be compliant with ePrivacy and GDPR).

Another proof of how much our data is worth. But I think they make a loss on me, I can remember only a handful occasions that I bought something based on an ad I saw, which were more informative than seductive, like a monthly bike rental service.

But I guess they still sell my data. I wish they would flag the data of rational people like me as "worthless", and not sell my data.

GDPR compliance lawsuitssss in 3...

SKorean intelligence on China (and Japan). This will not be easily regulated. The intelligence value is huge.

"Samba unites TV, digital, and behavioral data through AI to power faster, more accurate media decisions. We help the world’s leading brands and agencies reach the right audiences, measure real outcomes, and access signals no one else has."

https://samba.com/

What will we do when these devices start shipping with their own sim cards and we can’t simply just not connect them to WiFi?

These are spy devices. It is sad that the industry has become so addicted to sniffing - the problem I see is that they can no longer stop doing so, as they built an additional network around that yielding money to them.

Clearly the penalties for this are not high enough, because the scumbags keep doing it.

Vizio TVs were caught taking screen grabs and phoning those home years ago.

Why I don’t have a tv

Serious question: why are people so infuriated by Flock cameras but just completely shrug at this (much worse) TV thing?

I want the public to get upset about this.

Also, can anyone articulate exactly what data the TV is scraping about your other network devices? IP, name, what else?

Cool when having 3 LG tvs in our office

I wonder if this applies to large LG Monitors too.

This is also why I won't buy any watch with a microphone

Even if the manufacturer doesn't do something evil, they may have an exploit or allow 3rd party apps that do whatever

Garmin literally keeps the microphone on 24/7 listening for "OKAY GARMIN"

There should be a consumer law that any device with a microphone must have an LED physically in series so that if the mic has power, the LED is lit, not software control of the LED which can be disabled. Europe might do that someday but unless California does it too it will never happen in USA

A friend was working at an adtech company over a decade ago, processing smart tv data. Needless to say he advised buying the dumbest tv possible.

If tech giants could stop trying to make the telescreens from Nineteen Eighty Four for five fucking seconds, that'd be great.

This is a known feature that is not hidden which is not automatically turned on by default.

You must set your TV to a different standby mode and enable LG voice control.

When you do this, it very plainly tells you that it can listen with the screen off so you can control the TV with voice.

Failure of User Awareness, not some nefarious spyware.

I'm so disappointed at the lack of dumb TVs and privacy focused streaming boxes.

Why are people so infuriated by Flock cameras but just completely shrug at this (much worse) TV thing?

Nothing is going to change until people are that enraged by it.

I posted two comments on similar threads recently. This is only going to get worse.

> Not long until companies partner with Amazon and others to send traffic automatically through their near-by devices like smart speakers, disconnecting will be impossible.

Not surprised if this is happening already. I don't want to remove radios out my TV..

> Samba, a media intelligence company have several partnerships with manufacturers to take screenshots and collect metadata.

Viewer analytics are valuable to companies like Samba, they aren't the only ones. Laws ASAP, these companies will lobby hard to stop anything of the sort.

That was a long two hours. 15 minutes longer than two hours actually. It was well spent overall since Gamers Nexus covered the privacy intrusions that LG has built into the OS for their smart TV line and likely all of their other smart home devices. "We own the glass" and "we own the living room" don't tell the whole story.

The enshittification of TV ownership and usage through smart TVs and the apps and other software that runs without user knowledge is a huge problem wherever these devices are sold. The TVs track and log every device on owner networks - smart watches, thermostats, smart phones, etc, anything that uses wireless or that accesses the internet from inside the home.

I am so glad that I have avoided "upgrading" our TV, almost montly, for years now by simply sending all the Best Buy texts to spam or deleting them. The best way is to opt out of Best Buy communications and after watching that video I will do that.

Our TV is a Panasonic plasma TV from 2012. I need to exit the last streaming service that we subscribe with and that will get it set to an OTA device used when weather int he area is bad enough that having that real-time local weather channel adds value.

From the video - RCE vulnerabilities could allow anyone to drop code on your TV that enables them to use it as a surveillance device. Lots of microphones in the device and no way for the user to disable them. The TV is listening all the time and, using the very sensitive microphones, can detect and record voices in conversations happening in other rooms more than 60' distant. They are effectively whole-house listening devices probably using MEMS microphones due to excellent sensitivity of the devices. Users are fingerprinted and everyone in the house can be identified, even children and those who are frequent enough guests to have been ID'd. Everything that happens triggers the recording.

I suspect Amazon's and Google's devices were the same with their voice triggers. LG does not allow the user to disable that functionality even after the user has disabled it (apparently) through the deeply buried menu option.

LG pushes updates to TVs that improve the tracking ability for LG and their "partners", which includes Microsoft through MS's ownership of Nuance. LG tried to separate their data collection/advert business to circumvent restrictions on ...

Man there is so much there. Fortunately the only LG product I own is a dumb monitor. I will be contacting relatives to offer advice about what to do with their smart devices, LG or others, so I know this starts another round of investigation for me.

No Samsung or LG at my house. Almost done canceling subscription-based "services" like TV content and gaming (XBox) stuff. I don't have software subscriptions so that's great. And, I should be finished with MS OSes pretty soon and flipped to Linux on new devices.

A lot of the shit and shit infrastructure that some of you build is destructive. One day, you will get your just desserts after shafting people with Binding Arbitration agreements, huge TOS and Privacy Policies, and other types of enshittifying end results.

It seems Alex Jones was right again

Extremely concerning!

People have always said the idea of the devices listening to conversations was all a conspiracy theory.

Welp, looks like it is a fact.

I mean, I’m not disagreeing, but it’s a bit rich for a site that logs data to 1,745 “partners” to be complaining too much.

Why does anyone trust any device? The surveillance capitalism is just sleepwalking towards disaster, but nobody cares because of the pretty screen and the goddamn brainrot content.

Ad executives in early 2010s took note of the public response to whistleblowing of the NSA PRISM program and Edward Snowden leaks.

10+ years later, this is their response. They have learned a large majority of people just don't give a shit. We are sheep. A majority of people just want "cheap" shit, no matter the cost.

This world is cooked man. Need an asteroid to wipe this planet clean, bro.

The only thing I hate more than “smart” quotes are “smart” TVs. I groan whenever my LG interrupts. Now I have to spend Labor day wading through a “smart” UI I avoid like the plague to disconnect the internet.

Sceptre dumb TV bros still winning

> During bench tests, they found the TV could capture clean microphone audio while the screen was (or at least looked to be) powered down in standby mode. When the team disconnected the TV from Ethernet, the set continued saving voice input locally and uploaded the stored files once network access was restored.

Lawyers: If it is true that the company is secretly recording voices when the device appears to be off, and then uploading the recordings, does that sound like a felony in many US states?

(And a felony that is bumping into different laws than the "unauthorized computer access" ones that tech industry has been getting leeway with?)

Ad Tech is a cancer that is / has destroyed society. It is responsible for almost everything that is awful today. Conflating attention for interest and rewarding sensationalism has created a giant stinking hole in our lives.

It must be eradicated.

Do everything in your power to destroy these companies and their immoral business practices.

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I will remind everyone again that weev was raided by the FBI, arrested, and had all electronics seized, before getting a chance to defend himself in court, all for the crime of publishing emails he found on unsecured URLs he was able to guess.

But we're allowing 1000x worse things, because what, there's a vague line about it buried deep in some EULA, which means laws no longer apply?

Lets treat them the same. Raid LG, seize all of their electronics, at least in the US (other countries are encouraged to do their own raids), arrest the executives, and after they're all in jail, and digital forensics are poring over their products and servers to find what else they did, they can argue in court how actually all these crimes are legal.

It's only fair.

So in the living room I should fap less... or more?

Why would you ever connect a TV to the internet in the first place?

It is a screen. You plug an HDMI cable into your source device and another into the TV. Job done.

Are there really that many people technical enough to know what an HDMI cable is without also knowing all TVs are subsidized by spyware with no security protections?

Why would anyone connect a screen to the internet in the first place?

Like, if suddenly computer monitors started asking for wifi credentials would everyone just compulsively punch them in just to see ads and give the manufacturers lots of data just because?

I must be fundamentally disconnected from how consumers think about technology.