Comment on Big Surprise—Nobody Wants 8K TVs
nulluser@lemmy.world 2 days agoSome of these devices have even been known to look for other similar devices within WiFi range, and phone home that way (i.e., send analytics data via a neighbor’s connected TV as a proxy).
Ummm, wut? I’m going to need some quality sources to back this claim up.
BassTurd@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yea, this paragraph feels like fear mongering. I’m not saying OP didn’t see that somewhere, but from a tech standpoint, the TV still has to authenticate with any device it’s trying to piggy back off the wifi for. Perhaps if there were any open network in range it could theoretically happen, but I’m guessing that it’s not.
I do remember reading that some smart TV was able to use the speakers as a mic to record in room audio and pass that out if connected. It may have been a theoretical thing but it might have been a zero day I read about. It’s been some years now.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Actually, it’s true. Amazon’s sidewalk works in a similar way, where if the sensor is not connected to the internet, it will talk to local Echo devices like your speakers that are connected to the internet and pass the data to Amazon through your device’s network.
TVs will look for open Wi-Fi networks. And failing that, they could very well do this exact same thing.
BassTurd@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I forgot the Sidewalk is a thing. While that tech does kind of do what OP was saying, Sidewalk is limited to only Amazon Sidewalk compatible devices, like the echo line and ring. Just at a quick glance, there are no smart TVs that can connect to that network.
That said, it is an opt out service, which it awful. No smart TVs will connect, but I’d recommend disabling for anyone that uses Amazon devices.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Yeah, I was just using Sidewalk as an example of something a smart TV could use something like that.