this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2026
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Privacy
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Or just don't connect your TV?
To the WiFi?
You are often forced to in order to set it up at all, the damage is already done if you disconnect it or VLAN quarantine it after that.
It doesn't stop the TV from spying on you. GN just proved that it runs STT and records your conversations in plaintext and has the memory to store them for eternity. It also gets your location from scanning WiFi, Bluetooth, and any other devices in the band and geolocating based off of their data.
Then if you ever sell the TV, it will dump the data if they connect it, or somebody with the same brand smart TV moved in next door, it will use that TV's hidden SSID hotspot to jump the airgap and dump all if its (likely time and position stamped) transcribed spying data to the servers.
Hardware fix is literally the only fix.
Can you help me understand why i got downvotes for posting the following comment in this very same community 2 days ago?
There was a study just recently about exactly this, smart devices creating a rogue mesh and routing traffic across neighbors' devices until they could phone home with all your data anyway
Could you link to it?
Maybe @caseyweederman was thinking about the Sidewalk Application Layer from Amazon Wikipedia page
I was hoping someone else would remember it, I've been looking for it too.
Humans are fickle and undependable and it is probably best to not take them seriously.
People want their decisions reinforced. Humans HATE when their time is wasted. I don't know the comment, but I can speculate.
If you told a bunch of people that all of their hard work in isolating their TV was pretty much for nothing and it is quite possible for the TV to simply skip over the measures that they set. Then respond emotionally with "this person sounds paranoid, I did a good job, it will be good enough to protect me and my family" instead of reasoning through "would the company gain something from this that might cause them to implement this?"
I don't know why people choose to bury their head in the sand, but also this technology isn't CIA/NSA spy stuff. They aren't building a new Amazon Sidewalk-esque mesh network. It is basic, cheap, single-point WiFi repeater technology that has been around for at least a decade and a half. Cheap, easy, profitable. Cars have been shown multiple times to do all of this too...
Damn I was not aware of that.
No you are not required to connect to WiFi to set it up.
I have seen complaints of this happening. It is possible they all lied, but it'd be kinda weird.
And hope no open networks are in range, ever. Or it will exfiltrate collected data.
Or another TV of the same manufacturer that has Internet access.
Keep hearing these claims got any proof about them?
I personally haven't seen any proof that they are actively doing this, but I've seen enough about Amazon Sidewalk and from the Gamer's Nexus video to be certain that they are capable of these methods, and if they aren't doing it now they'll probably do it soon.
In most cases by the time the evidence breaks, it's years after the fact, and so better to be on the precautionary side.
I haven't watched it all yet, but most of it is demonstrated on the latest Gamer Nexus video "216,000,000 Spy TVs | The LG Smart TV Problem". In case you haven't seen it yet:
Non YT link
Interesting timestamps:
00:16:33 - Intercepting LG's Data Transfer
00:22:04 - Dark Patterns
00:46:19 - Plain Text Transcript and Ambient Conversation
Why not both?
Because one is unnecessary of you do the other?
Out of fucking principle, yes it's not connected, but I won't tolerate a mic in my remote. Besides, you have heard of them being able to use your neighbour's unsafe WIFI if you have to act so smart, right?
What year is this that there is Open WiFi all over the place. Everything is encrypted now by default.
Xfinity broadcasts open wifi networks by default through their gateways and can be connected with authentication through Xfinity. It is entirely feasible to have a deal that allows them to connect through that network.