• Nima@leminal.space
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    1 month ago

    my TV incurred my wrath by having the gall to show me a banner ad while I was in the middle of a game.

    so I promptly cut its balls off. (disabled the internet entirely). now it is a dumb TV. and it behaves like a TV. and not an ad machine.

    • lolrightythen@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I’ve never given a tv my wifi password.

      I’m not any techier than the average millennial. Maybe my trust issues are worse than average. I don’t regret my actions.

      Also - my xbox one s may have streamed more video content than provided rocket leaguery…until I tripped on a cord…

      Laptop now. Learning how to utilize these new capabilities.

  • rustydomino@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    pi-hole ftw. the vast majority of my pi-hole’s DNS drops are from various Roku and Roku-like devices. Also, put all your IoT stuff onto a guest network, or if your gear supports it, on its own VLAN.

    • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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      See, I just don’t connect it to the network. It complained when I set it up but now it just works as a screen.

      I’ve got a raspberry pi steaming my desktop to it with gamestream/sunshine/moonlight, and it’s now as smart as my computer. It can even stream from different computers no matter where they are in the house, watch anything with stremio, and play games from them too. It’s way better than using the youtube or netflix button on the TV, most of the services it offers I don’t use anyway.

      But actually pihole does sound like a good idea and maybe I should get that set up one of these days.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        So with all the recent drama I learned that some TVs look for other open networks or other same brand TVs in range, and if found will join those networks and still share data.

        So not connecting it isn’t enough in all cases.

        A pihole wouldn’t solve this either if it was smart enough to know it’s blocked and look elsewhere.

        • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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          1 month ago

          I’d be interested to see more information on that. I don’t doubt companies would do that, but some good information on when it happens and how to prevent it would be useful.

          • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            So I did some looking, and as far as I can tell, there’s no definitive proof of someone testing this and reporting on it. It might just be all rumors and speculation.

            • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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              1 month ago

              Thanks, I hope they don’t do it. I would expect the security community to be able to find something like this, since it’s not hard to hook up some devices and do packet sniffing to detect if they’re talking to each other.

              This would be an excellent use case for LTT’s faraday cage room for instance.

        • rustydomino@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          You could set up a dummy LAN with no internet access for the tv. Unless it actually has more than one network card, it would need to be able to have the ability to virtualize network interfaces to connect elsewhere, and I really doubt these TVs are that smart.

    • LoganNineFingers@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      I need to replace my router as it’s coming to end of life. I want one with vlan so I can put all my iot on a separate lan. Any recommendations?

      • wrekone@lemmyf.uk
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        1 month ago

        I recently picked up a GL-iNet Flint 2 because it’s a powerhouse and one of the easiest routers to flash Open-WRT onto. If you don’t want to mess with firnware flashing, it comes stock with their fork of Open-WRT. So, either way, you have a ton of control over your router, including setting up VLANs and running AdGuard.

        • LoganNineFingers@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          Thank you for the reply - you’ve offered a great opportunity to ask another question 😂

          I was looking at adguard. Is this something worth the subscription? I was looking at it because it seems to handle a lot of ads, including those on mobile games and stuff. But in my cursory glance, people are saying it’s not safe…

          I’ll look at the GL-iNet because a) I want a powerhouse and b) I want nothing to do with flashing firmware haha

          • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            AdGuard as a service is alright, but it’s essentially just a pihole that you don’t have any control over. It does DNS level blocking, which means the ads get blocked before they even load on your network.

            The issue is that since you’re routing all of your DNS traffic through AdGuard, you’re directly telling AdGuard which sites you are using. So there are concerns that you are just shifting the data collection from the ad companies to AdGuard instead, but AdGuard has the ability to be way more invasive in how the collect data.

            Just set up dual piholes (one for your primary DNS, and one for your secondary DNS) instead. You get the exact same end result, without any of the data collection worry.

            • LoganNineFingers@lemmy.ca
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              1 month ago

              Thank you for your detailed responses. Has adguard any track record of collecting data? Is there a way to know?

      • rustydomino@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I have the Ubiquiti Edgerouter X. I got it mostly because at the time it was on sale 😂 but it seems to have decent support. Note that you will have to get a wireless AP as the Edgerouter is a pure router without WiFi function. Lots of people also like Mikrotik products.

          • dai@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Mikrotik are really aimed at advanced users, ubiquiti brand themselves as prosumer products. I found the Ubiquiti interface a complete mess - but it could just be me.

            If it can run OpenWRT I’d suggest taking that path (if you like to tinker / the device supports it). My Google WiFi hubs are still humming away after all these years - now with way more features and a usable interface!

      • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        For consumer grade gear, Ubiquiti is probably the best bet. Unless you want to get into the commercial side of things, but that’s prohibitively expensive for the average person.

        Personally I run a GL.iNet system. I like it being completely open source, and the Flint 2 is a workhorse of a router. But as far as ease of use and config, Ubiquiti is certainly more straightforward.

        • LoganNineFingers@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          This might be my ignorance, but the Ubiquiti stuff I’m finding seems to be all commercial. I ended up getting a good price on the Flint 2 and it should be here next Friday. I’m hoping to chunk out some time setting it up on the 20th

    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month ago

      So lucky my smart thermostat and door/window sensor are connected via DECT-ULE to my router/modem combo (for those interested AVM Fritzbox) and I can poll those via home assistant.
      And I don’t think they could phone home (and I hope AVM doesnt do bs).

  • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    One way to get Congress to act on this would be to remind them of how Robert Bork’s video rental history got released. They very quickly realized that they all had the same sleazy movies on their rental list and passed a law making it illegal to share them.

    Call your Congressmen and tell them that their smart TV is sending screenshots of whatever they’re watching back to home base, including stuff that’s not streamed, and there might be swift action.

    Better yet, hack Samsung and leak it to the press. That’ll definitely light a fire under them.

  • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I blocked my two TVs from phoning home via my pihole. They are the two noisiest devices on my network, by leaps and bounds.

    On a day of heavy usage, my phone and desktop may get ~2000 blocked requests combined. That’s high, but not unheard of. It just means I did a lot of browsing, with a lot of blocked ad requests. My TVs average somewhere around 7500 blocked requests per day, on days that I haven’t even turned them on. That’s an attempt to phone home every ~12 seconds. And it is much worse on days that I actually use them.

    • bob_lemon@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      Cars being online has some tangible benefits in that they can transmit location data to emergency services, especially if the driver is unresponsive. Might save someone from dying in a ditch in the middle of nowhere.

      Arguably, some of the data collected while driving is also very useful for maintenance and development (e.g. if a lot of vehicles start having a similar issue after X miles).

      That said, this data should be limited in scope and use (e.g. must not be sold, especially not to insurance companies), as well as anonymized as much as possible. Which is currently not the case, and that definitely needs regulation.

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        You don’t need a high bandwidth connection to do emergency notifications, and considering it might be in a remote area satellite would be better than LTE.

        For the diagnostics you could log events internally and then collect them with OBD-II readers, though I’d like to force car makers to use open data formats so people can see for themselves what’s collected.

      • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        That said, this data should be limited in scope and use…

        Yep, anonymized, limited, non-distributable, and secured, with severe penalties (on the order of tens of thousands of dollars per person, paid to the harmed party) for failure to adhere.

      • doingthestuff@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Civilians used to own canons. For blowing up ships. And the occasional home invader. Doesn’t matter if it has sailed if we sink it. We should sink that ship.

  • Wahots@pawb.social
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    1 month ago

    For example, Amazon Web Services and ad-tech company TripleLift are working with proprietary models and machine learning for dynamic product placement in streamed TV shows. The report, citing a 2021 AWS case study, says that “new scenes featuring product exposure can be inserted in real-time ‘without interrupting the viewing experience.’”

    Peacock is also working with TripleLift to develop “In-Scene” Peacock ads that owner NBCUniversal says it’s currently testing:

    When a user plays episodic content, your brand’s product or message is dynamically placed in the frame of targeted scenes, creating a non-interruptive ad experience that aligns the programming with your campaign theme/goals.

    This could be hilarious when your omegaverse softcore porn drama gets plastered with prune juice, old people pill adverts, and trump propaganda on everyone’s shirts, tattoos, jock straps, voice lines and whatever else the AI can scrounge up. “It totally fits with the narrative!”

    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      Am I reading this wrong or are they literally hijacking a shot in the content by placing a product in there?
      Sounds like they could literally go in there and replace the kid watching tele-shopping in a movie with watching a literal ad made to look like it’s genuinley in the movie.

      • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        It’s exactly that. Detect where there are ads in a scene ( a panel for example) and replace the space with their own ads.

        • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 month ago

          Tbh could be worse replacing an ad placement with another (say adidas to nike).
          Personally actually be worse would be replacing an ad relevant to the movie (like an advertisement for the newest tool the protagonist always needed to progress)

  • bean@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Why do we continue to be ok with this? Where is the outrage and call for change?

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      the overwhelming bulk of humanity cant be fucked to care about shit like this… until it personally affects them.

      Then they will wail like banshees about the great injustice of it all, and how could anyone let it happen to them.

    • nexusband@lemmy.world
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      Because it works and provides a use case. Most “simpletons” do not want to invest any more time in than putting some Account Data and start watching netflix or whatever. “We” (e.g. the people that care about data privacy and stuff) never have been okay with that shit…

      • misk@sopuli.xyz
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        1 month ago

        Apple TV doesn’t try to do much other than being a very technically capable passthrough. You get pretty much every streaming service, multiple Plex clients etc. And no ads.

        My 1st Gen ATV4K is 7 years old now and was buttery smooth until last tvOS update, now it’s only slightly smoother than most high end TVs. That’s quite a good run.

          • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Why do I doubt this.

            Because you hate Apple (for likely justifiable reasons) and thus at a basic level of intuition assume everything Apple does is bad.

            But while Apple certainly isn’t good (there is no “good” when it comes to the way corporations monetize their customers), Apple is significantly better in some areas than their competitors (while being worse in others). iPhones are much better than Pixels for privacy, for example.

            The Apple TV is a product that needs to do very specific things: show media, and run a few types of apps. This isn’t very computationally heavy. My smart TVs were always great until future updates added advertisements and features that slowed them down. The Apple TV doesn’t get bogged down by shitty advertisements.

            • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              My experience with Apple is that it doesn’t play nice with other ecosystems. Cludgy workarounds are usually possible but if you are doing that you may as well go for Linux.

              • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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                Yep. Like I said, likely justifiable reasons to hate Apple. Despite now being thoroughly in their ecosystem, I still hate them for iMessage exclusivity and it being easier for me to confirm than convincing 20+ people across my family and my wife’s family to switch to WhatsApp or something. Fuck them for that.

                But there are things they do well. Apple TV is one of them, in my experience.

              • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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                1 month ago

                What other ecosystems do you need your TV to interface with? It has a remote, or you can use your phone to control it. And it has all the major streaming apps you would want in a smart TV.

                • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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                  Plex, cable, ps4, Wii, switch, NAS drive, android phone, PC, DVD home theatre, pi-hole + all existing and future streaming services.

        • Kekzkrieger@feddit.org
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          1 month ago

          You mean the same Apple that was found guilty to artificially slowing older devices with software updates?

          • Zink@programming.dev
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            I always found it tough to get upset with them much for that one. They had to deal with battery aging because they were the ones to support their devices long enough for it to matter. Plus I had a Nexus 6P at the time, and when its battery started getting weak the damn phone would just shut off while at 30% or whatever.

            Them sneaking it in was obviously bad though.

          • misk@sopuli.xyz
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            Yes. Have you ever used Apple TV? This thing is leaps and bounds ahead everything of else, even Shield in terms of pure performance.

  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    I’m more than happy to buy a TV that uses post-purchase monetization, because I am never going to connect that fucker to the internet. It’s a display. I shall use it as a display. I do not care that it can replace my streaming box. I fully control my streaming box, and I will use that.

    If I catch it doing any sketchy shit like trying to use unsecured/Comcast/etc WiFi to phone home, it’ll be time to pull out the screwdriver, though.

    • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month ago

      What happens when it no longer needs your WiFi and uses something like LoRa to phone home with your data and location? It may not know who you are exactly but it’ll have a good guess.

      • dtrain@lemmy.world
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        What happens when it no longer needs your WiFi and uses something like LoRa to phone home with your data and location? It may not know who you are exactly but it’ll have a good guess.

        I mean…what happens when it becomes sentient, sprouts legs and you catch it sleeping with your spouse?

        Let’s deal with the here and now.

        • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          You know LoRa hardware is getting cheaper and the reliability of these TVs are just terrible. This is likely to happen sooner rather than later. For now just don’t plug it in to WiFi unless you’re willing to go further and desolder its module? I don’t think we can do much via legislation other than write to our congressional reps.

        • AWildMimicAppears@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 month ago

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa (Long Range)

          It’s a low power, large range connection technology, working a bit like a mesh network. It can achieve data rates between 0.3 kbit/s and 27 kbit/s and enables geolocation services. According to the LoRa Development Portal, the range provided by LoRa can be up to 3 miles (4.8 km) in urban areas, and up to 10 miles (16 km) or more in rural areas (line of sight).

          As soon as your LoRa-Device is in range of another LoRa-Device, it will probably be able to phone home.

  • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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    Technical fixes only work for the technical and often it’s technically working against the law. We need the law on our side, not the corporations. So we need to engage with law as much as technology. Or we end having to break technologies like secure boot and laws.

    • xthexder@l.sw0.com
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      1 month ago

      It’s also slightly confusing because CTV is a major TV station in Canada. I’ve never heard CTV to mean Connected TV.

      • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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        I’m not even Canadian and the CTV television station is what came to mind. Have also never heard “CTV” to mean connected TV.

  • zzz711@lemmy.ml
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    Of course they are without any data privacy laws companies are going to collect and then sell as much of your personal data that they can get away with.