Submitted 1 day ago by lousyd@lemmy.sdf.org to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
It should be a thing because most (all?) “smart TVs” run some variety of Linux, which, as Free Software, is supposed to guarantee the device owner’s right to modify the software running on the thing. However, in most (all?) cases, the practical ability to do that has been destroyed by subverting encryption functions against the owner in a process called Tivoization.
In other words:
Thanks for teaching me a new concept to be angry about, I guess.
I mean, they did it with phones too. Android is just Linux. That was one of the main attractions, for me at least.
At first, many people and groups supplied their own phone OSes. There was a whole thriving community ecosystem. Then they started to make it really hard, locking bootloaders and including critical pieces of hardware that didn’t or couldn’t have open source drivers (look up WinModems for a very early example of this technique, it remains really effective) or otherwise required extremely convoluted methods to access and the phone might function marginally without some of these fully functional, but at least you could still install a custom ROM on it if you were stubborn enough.
But even that wouldn’t last. Nowadays they’ve made it literally impossible to defeat the security on most phones, in the name of keeping hackers and criminals out, but really a big part of their motivation is blocking these pirate OSes that let you actually control the hardware and software in your phone, doing criminally nefarious things like stopping them from downloading ads (the horror!) and preventing them from funneling all your data and activities back to Big Brother (how rude!) and worst of all updating it with modern functionality after they’ve declared it “obsolete”. The goal going forward is to sell you things that you don’t and can’t control, so they can shut them down or make them gradually more and more useless and make you buy new ones forever. They want you to have a subscription for everything including physical objects without realizing that you’ve been forced to subscribe to their regularly-scheduled-disposable-device-replacement-plan for no actual reason.
They’re coming for computers too, or at least they’ll try. They want control of everything we interact with. For profit, mostly, but I wouldn’t rule out other motives. It’s a powerful thing when you have control of everything people see and do.
Woah woah woah, slow down partner, you’re not done yet.
It’s interesting to see some of the back-and-forth on this topic between different proponents of free software.
I listened to this talk by Linus Torvalds a while back and it relates to the GPL license used by the Linux kernel and why the kernel hasn’t changed to GPLv3. Apparently Linus doesn’t find this practice by Tivo and other hardware manufacturers to be an issue.
Yes, it’s a damn shame that Linus is weak on property rights.
Because that’s what this actually is, by the way: violating the device owner’s property rights in order to prioritize the manufacturer’s temporary monopoly privilege over the software – which was only created for the sole and express purpose “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts” in the first place – above them.
Linus is kinda infamous for being a dick.
The Free Software Foundation explicitly forbade tivoization in version 3 of the GNU General Public License. However, although version 3 has been adopted by many software projects, the authors of the Linux kernel have notably declined to move from version 2 to version 3.
How come Linux doesn’t use GPL v3?
Linux copyrights are owned by many different people, so it would be prohibitively difficult to ask every person to agree to a GPLv3 change. Even if you could, Linus Torvalds is not a fan of the v3 license.
Count me in for #3.
It’s similar to console hacking. If there is no known exploit, the device is not yours. LG patched the exploit that made that possible for my smart TV and know I need to wait for another to be doscovered. Unfortunately the Smart TV hacking community is not that active.
Nvidia shields with an alternate home screen have been a good solution for me? TV isn’t connected to the network directly, just to the shield.
bingo. never put the tv on the network, just budget for adding something else. tvs have been known to update after a year and start injecting ads outside return policy LOL. fucking scam’s man. my shield fucks up, it get flashed. or traded out.
Do people actually use their TV without a console or computer of some sorts connected? That’s absolutely feral behavior. Like boomers avoiding self checkout cause it’s too complicated.
Yeah I use a GoogleTV and don't let the set itself connect to the internet. I held onto an HTPC as long as I could but it just got too troublesome to coax high quality streams out of it after a while.
Yes, something like that would work. The stock OS would still be on the TV but as long as you don’t connect the TV to WiFi it should be fine.
In principle, yes, and I believe a few small hobby projects have attempted to do this. However, interest developing a custom Smart TV platform tends to get siphoned away into a project where the output is displayed on the TV simply because it’s easier to develop and maintain support across different model TVs.
Why would you develop a custom TV OS that runs on one TV when you could develop it for any mini PC and immediately support all TVs? You’d have to develop your OS to run on each specific TV model which will make it quite hard to reach a critical mass sufficient to attract attention from developers and users alike.
The juice isn’t really worth the squeeze. It’s not like TV vendors are publishing detailed hardware specs and drivers. Writing or even porting an OS is hard. Look at the state of the Android ROM scene, and that’s about as good as it gets when some vendors are actually attempting to open source their drivers. The difficulty is much higher and the interest lower due to the existence of a viable alternative.
Usually that means trying to get Android TV working through USB, but it depends on what tv you have. If you already have an Android TV, just use a launcher like Projectivy. Most people just buy a media box: either an Android based one or apple tv and disable the “smart” tv altogether
I’d imagine you could probably get into the android developer settings and disable all the telemetry stuff through adb and install a custom launcher like projectivity and that’d be the closest you could get to running a custom tv OS at least if you can’t flash it.
Get a dumb TV and plug in a cheap computer where you can pirate everything
I’m not sure they exist, but either way, just plug something in and don’t connect the TV itself to the internet.
Sceptre has some dumb TVs. You can also still get the display TVs that companies use. I’m drunk so I forget what they’re called.
They simply don’t exist anymore. The only choice is to do this with a smart TV and never connect it to the internet.
If it has an HDMI port, it can be a dumb TV. Just don’t connect it to wifi, easy
What I did was bought a “commercial” television that’s intended to either be put in a waiting room and tuned to Fox News all day, OR used as digital signage. It’s not quite an Arby’s menu board because it’s still obviously a television, has a tuner and such, but it has no “smart” TV in it and the backlight isn’t as “won’t survive a run of Breath of the Wild” like the TCL televisions my parents own. Then I slapped a Raspberry Pi 4 on the back with OSMC on it. Meanwhile I did replace my small form factor desktop gaming rig, so I have a Ryzen 3600/GTX1080 rig sitting unplugged under that television waiting for me to build up the gumption to switch over to it.
It’s much easier to run a HTPC on something small like a Raspberry Pi, or an NVIDIA Shield. The hardware on your TV is probably the bare minimum to run its own smart features, and replacing the firmware doesn’t guarantee that the TV isn’t still phoning home with your data.
If you literally replaced the firmware, what else could possibly be phoning home?
The lower level firmware, your pc is probably doing the same eff.org/…/intels-management-engine-security-hazar…
This is a damn good question that I would also love an answer to!
Best is to try to get the dumbest TV you can and plug in an android tv streaming box to it imo
I believe that’s called a monitor. Just buy a bigass monitor or projector.
A TV usually comes with a remote, a monitor doesn’t. Additionally, you can use it to watch linear TV if you don’t feel like making an election.
Like a TV that flunked kindergarten? j/k
A Phony
Why has no one mentioned Projectivy?
It’s a regular app, doesn’t require root (though it benefits from it). It’s free unless you want complicated parental controls (I pay for it but otherwise have no relation to it).
I have a Bravia TV, and with it I no longer have ads, I can change exactly what apps show up, including hiding Sony apps, and can totally customize the whole window.
Finding it was a huge relief for me, as there’s no point setting up parental controls for a small child when ads showing horror products show up anyway.
Hope that helps.
if it’s an app, it’s not n OS, and does not replace an OS.
People want to replace the OS to get rid of forced data mining, forced updates, other limitations, and to be able to install other software
You aren’t wrong, that’s all true. But also there are a lot of reasons to want to “free your TV”. The literal answer is that rooting your TV is difficult or impossible depending on the brand, and the technically true answer is that you can at least get away from the horrible manipulative interface pushed on you by the manufacturer without doing anything difficult. Better than nothing, IMO.
I’d think most people woud go for a cheap used ultra Small Form Factor pc or raspberry pi set up as an htpc. Plug in to either tv screen (via hdmi ) or monitor / projector directly. Never connect the tv to the internet - or even to your LAN if you’re really paranoid. You can arse around with a remote control a bit bodgy, or just use wireless Keyboard/mouse.
I cant imagine spending the time to jailbreak a tv to get less functionality for more hassle - but i’m sure some crazy will have done it - good luck finding them though.
Some TVs will connect to the internet anyway
Yes, it’s called jailbreaking. That said it basically never happens because TV’s are pretty much shitty monitors with cheap digital encoders, and you can buy an encoder and a good monitor for way way cheaper than rewriting an OS.
Yes. What brand or model number do you have?
I was thinking that if somebody knows how to do that, they probably also have an opinion on which brands of TV are better or worse for it.
I don’t own a TV right now but plan to in the future.
Ah, well, the biggest thing you have to worry about is that most vulnerabilities that would allow users to get ROOT access have been patched for old and new TVs, so you might want to be selective if you don’t want to do it the hard way. You need to know which TV OS you’re dealing with before you can look for the necesary tools.
The hard way is removing the SoC processor from the board, buying a custom mount for it, and using the debug pins to flash the OS. Most of the legwork has been done already for this method. www.synacktiv.com/en/publications/i-hack-u-boot
Something to keep in mind is that the processors in smart TVs are almost always pathetically slow. Also, the streaming services compatible with these TVs require hardware encryption so if your modified OS mimics the old one but isn’t verified then they will refuse to run. You would get better performance from using a computer connected to the HDMI port, or even a Raspberry Pi as your TV Box.
I have another question.
Can we reprogramme the remote buttons that open Netflix, YouTube etc., so that they open other apps like Jellyfin or something?
you can! (at least on googles android tv, not sure about amazon’s bastardized version) I use an app called button remaster, available from the play store, to switch my chromecasts youtube button to smart tube and netflix button to stremio
I don’t know how remotes work, physically, but they gotta send some sort of code to the TV. If your TV’s OS can intercept that message it can choose its own response mapped to whatever you want to happen. Something akin to remapping keys in your keyboard.
I would assume, anyway. I could be wrong.
Seriously, buy an AppleTV. It works standalone without the need for other apple products. Has a fast processor, ability to disable telemetry, good track record of software update support etc. and NO.ADS.IN.THE.OPERATING.SYSTEM.
Using an Android box will result in the same issues you’re trying to get away from with SmartTVs.
If you’re technically capable enough you can build your own HTPC, but due to DRM you’re going to run into issues streaming 4K content from streaming services. And PC and Linux HDR and Dolby Vision support is a rabbit hole.
Except you have needed to have an iPhone to use an Apple TV, and to get around it required a workaround that wasn’t disclosed. It’s happened before, it can happen again.
Apple also telemetries the hell out of your data. The best they offer against this is to prevent them from using it for “targeted” marketing, but that doesn’t really mean much as Apple clearly states:
We provide some non-personal data to our advertisers and strategic partners that work with Apple to provide our products and services, help Apple market to customers, and sell ads on Apple’s behalf to display on the App Store and Apple News and Stocks.
Seriously, this myth of “Apple = Privacy/no ads” needs to go away.
That’s their general privacy policy. Here’s the specific information on appleTV settings:
support.apple.com/en-tm/guide/tv/…/tvos
You can share analytics data with Apple or app developers in order to improve their software. Sharing this data is completely optional
yes and no, but mostly no
If you have a samsung tv there would be stuff like: www.samygo.tv
webos has an open source version: www.webosose.org
but anything else is even fewer and farther inbetween
It is possible but it needs people to develop the OS for each brand of TV and jailbreak the TVs to run another OS.
Most TVs are like phones in that they have a locked down system and their bootloader/BIOS/UEFI is also locked down which is what ultimately needs to be unlocked to allow another OS to be installed.
Why there isn’t?
Just not really many developers interested in creating an OS for it. Probably because of so many different brands and models of TVs that would require lots of work since each one is pretty different from another.
i’m in the EU. if i order a screen/panel that can do tv or is smart i pay more on import taxes. so the obvious is to buy the dumbest panel you can get and slap some SBC on it yourself. still want to use cable and sat? tv headend is just great for that amd more as you can mix cable, sat and ip tv. your sbc (or nuc etc) can run stuff like kodi and you’re good to go. you still want android apps for a tv? go add some cheap fire tv stick. i dont know of any droid app i still would need. used to have “pluto” but turns out thats just boring too.
you can yes but it us hard
rootmy.tv
I would think that’d be pretty tough!
Install pi hole at home, force the TV to use that for dns, block some shit but not all, build on that, report back
This would be awesome, but something else I thought of would be DRM. If you don’t have the correct version (like Linux and a few android custom roms) then you would stream at really low quality. So if you even came up with a free smart tv os, it would lack quality streaming
jagged_circle@feddit.nl 38 minutes ago
Also cars. I want a custom, privacy respecting OS for an EV please