I think the always watching/listening thing is the major hurdle a lot of these devices are going to have to overcome before a lot of people feel comfortable inviting them into their homes.
Unfortunately a lot of people are not going to read the privacy policies or even care about what their TV is doing beyond "it works" and being drawn in by the promise of convenience and new features... it's to the advantage of the companies doing this that their users remain as complacent and unknowing as possible.
This isn't even the government forcing mass-surveillance devices on its citizens; it's the citizens accepting and installing mass-surveillance devices themselves -- which in some ways is quite a bit more disturbing than the government doing it.
Well. . . . What if we find the attack vectors, notify the companies then when they dont remotely patch(or cant/ignore as i assume is the most plausable option), publicly release.
I have a "smart" tv my wifw purchased while i was away on business, but theres no way thats being connected.
I think you overestimate how many people are even going to be aware that their shiny TV is doing 1% of this stuff.
Non-techie people assume a TV is a TV -- which is to say, a dumb video terminal. Even "smart" TVs are understood this way, in no small part because most people never bother interacting with their "smart" features. It's all just items on a checklist full of marketing blather, safe to ignore.
I fear it's going to take a serious hack of these devices (or twelve) before people start to understand that their new TV is more like a giant, poorly secured PC that happens to be wall-mountable than it is like their trusty old CRT.
I have one of the latest sony televisions. I think of the internet features as something for newbs. I would never even consider putting my tv on my network. It doesn't have a camera for facial recognition or the mic for talk to use. It's a really nice tv though and I can access all the functionality and settings without accessing the internet. This aricle is a bit overblown, but I get the point. There is a reason my xbox one's kinnect will never see the light of day.
I don't understand your argument. Some of the most popular software in the world is free. Linux, Apache, OpenSSL, Firefox and more are used by millions and got built without charging people to use them.
On a personal computer, there is free software to accomplish any desktop computing task. How can you say that it wont get built when it already has been?
Those are all special cases, and are all subsidized heavily. Ordinary OSS authors are volunteers. You can only go so far that way, but people have to build a viable career around things or they will eventually be given up.
Meanwhile, the closed systems people do pay for have a monstrous advantage and will continue to be far ahead. Nowhere are they further ahead than design and user experience, which in my experience are harder and more work to get right than core code. When you make something work you are only maybe 25% of the way to making it usable. That last 75% is the no-fun stuff people have to be paid to do, and it's the stuff that separates products people use from geek projects only a tiny number of enthusiasts play with.
Those examples you mention exist mainly because interests with money decided it was cheaper to support communal infrastructure upon which they could build proprietary offerings. Even if they started for the joy of hacking, a lot of people were paid good money to make those projects what they are today.
That will not automatically happen for a lot of classes of software. You point out that any desktop computing task can be done with free software. So what? That doesn't even matter anymore. It's 2014 and we can't accomplish a significant amount of mobile computing tasks with free software, and those are more intimately connected to us than desktops ever were.
Those projects do have a lot of money behind them. The point there is that there is room to make money with open source projects. There are business models besides selling software directly.
You make an excellent point about mobile computing. However, interest in free mobile software is growing and we'll see more options available to mirror the demand.
Definitely. We've certainly seen great examples of open source projects turning into successful commercial ventures, while remaining committed to free software.
What I'm trying to say here is that I hope to see even more business models that work well so we can get free alternatives in more areas of computing sooner rather than later.
I hope that viable business models that support free software emerge. I have a feeling that the general public will be made to suffer by this surveillance system growing around us, and will learn that like convenient Starbucks, freedom is worth paying a few extra bucks for.
People pay for free (libre) software because there can still be service offered and sold. And people will pay for a free software TV because it's a physical object.
The morality of RMS is an abstraction that is disconnected from empirical truth, just like any religion is.
Maybe he would have done some good (other than the software he's written) if he had actually made the argument that we need open source for privacy reasons.
And you probably feel that way because you're deeply intimate with the inner-workings of computers and so having "control" means something to you. That's not true for most of the population. Let's replace "cars" with "computers" in the freedom slogan. I know nothing about cars, and to be honest, I don't really care to. Cars help me get from A to B, and I would gladly trade freedom to tinker with the inner workings of my car for greater convenience in accomplishing my goal (getting from A to B). I only have so much time in the day, and figuring out how my car works simply doesn't fit into the equation, and it wouldn't interest me even if it did. Now replace car with computer and you have a good idea of what an even larger portion of the population thinks.
The difference between cars and computers is that people are still relatively still in control of their cars (and they should be if they're driving them...), and there isn't all that much variability in what cars can do - "get from A to B" - nor is there currently much that the manufacturers can do to interfere with that ability to "get from A to B".
On the other hand, computers are how we communicate with and consume information from others; they are essentially how we view the world. Thus what power the companies-in-control have to limit, persuade, and otherwise manipulate the population who uses computers is far greater than what they can do with cars.
To come back to the car analogy, if the manufacturers had the same type of power those making computers and their software did, they would be able to remotely control your car to make it go not where you want it to, disable it if you tried to drive to "non-approved/licensed" locations or if you attempted to drive faster than they allowed, carried more passengers than licensed for, etc.
Of course, convenience and control are not disjoint either - and more control can also lead to greater convenience, as users customise the software they use to make their use of it more convenient.
> We should all feel deeply offended at not having that control, if we know what's good for us.
No, we should all choose to use products and services that protect our privacy (potentially by being open source), and educate others to do the same. NOT "get deeply offended." Getting offended is what you do when someone goes against your RELIGION. That is why Stallman's message does not work: it is like a religion.
> In the meantime, I’ll be in the market for a new tinfoil hat and cone of silence.
I know this is meant as a pseudo-joke and I know there are going to be a ton of comments here on why the guy is overreacting, but is the tin foil hat really useful anymore? We have demonstrated proof that things like this have been exploited on purpose in the past few years.
Instead of the tin foil being representative of the crazy person - it now almost seems like common sense. Is that scary to anyone else?
If anything, the tinfoil hat conspiracy wackos of yesteryear were far too conservative in their paranoid fever dreams. They'd never have believed this.
I wonder sometimes: if things like this had existed in the 50s and 60s would we ever have had a Martin Luther King? Or would such things have been picked up at their earliest stages by the data miners and nipped in the bud? Would Ginsburg have read Howl in Golden Gate Park? Would there have been a summer of love, underground basement punk shows, raves? What new civil rights movements or fascinating spontaneous emergences of culture are being silently suppressed today? Is that kind of culture jamming really going on? I really do wonder.
I also wonder about the seeming asymmetry. I see protestors in Hong Kong using mobile phones to organize, yet over here it seems as if the same technologies are being used to enforce the most toxic aspects of the status quo instead of challenging them.
The real problem here isn't Orwell. It's Terry Gilliam[1]. From Google to the NSA you have no recourse against the automated algorithms lumping you in a category which will never put you in jail but will add ridiculous restrictions to your life, for example no fly lists.
I worry more about the chilling effects. The things people leave unsaid, the stories that go unwritten, and ultimately the free thinking that never occurs. In addition, being able to completely data mine all communication gives enormous potential to control future action (in a similar/same way to how marketers can influence future choices). Orwell had a quote about that.
Here's a possibly-relevant excerpt from an article I wrote for CNET on the topic (before I left earlier this year to found http://recent.io/):
...Project Shamrock had a "watch list" of people whose conversations would be identified and plucked out of the ether by NSA computers. It was initially intended to be used for foreign intelligence purposes, but at its peak, 600 American citizens appeared on the list, including singer Joan Baez, pediatrician Benjamin Spock, actress Jane Fonda and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr....
No, tin foil hats work just fine. That study is about aluminium foil hats. Decades of government propaganda has brainwashed everyone into conjuring up images of aluminium foil hats when they hear the phrase "tin foil hat". /s
I was in the market for a new TV last year, and I found it difficult to find one that wasn't loaded with "smart" features. I didn't want the smart features since I already had a home theater PC, which I built myself. Plus from my limited prior experience with smart TVs, the UX on those is just awful. I didn't even consider the privacy issues, although I should have considering the Snowden leaks had just hit the news. Lucky me, the TV I ended up with was one of the LG Smart TVs that was caught leaking file names from USB devices (HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6759426).
there are 87 million broadband subscriptions (likely shared) vs 117 million households. So thats at least 30 million permanently un-TVed households. Which would probably be good for the nation.
My mother in law got a smart TV about three years ago. No internet access for her. At the time I couldn't figure it out, but it makes more sense now.
One interesting problem is there are a lot of TV models out there and none of the software will ever be upgraded in practice, its like Android phones, its unlikely it'll ever be upgraded from what it shipped with. Its likely the "smart" features of her TV are already unusable due to API changes over the years.
Something I've noticed about this however is most tech-literate people who actually care about their privacy tend to leave the wireless disconnected and simply attach the TV to their HTPC device which is from there connected to the internet.
Disconnecting it from the internet and possibly even sabotaging the wifi module will ensure that prying eyes will not have access to your information.
What other option is there? Same could be said about how knowing the internals of your car, or your house, your plumbing system, your electrical connection, hell even your health all matter because not knowing means the providers / maintainers / engineers can take advantage of you.
Caveat emptor doesn't go away with time. And I don't believe trying to use the hammer of legislation on the various hooks of businesses is an effective or even ethical way to try to "solve" it.
> Telescreens are fictional devices which operate as both televisions and security cameras [... and] are used by the ruling Party in Oceania to keep its subjects under constant surveillance, thus eliminating the chance of secret conspiracies against Oceania.
> All members of the Inner Party (upper-class) and Outer Party (middle-class) have telescreens in their homes, but the proles (lower-class) are not typically monitored as they are unimportant to the Party.
There are already several projects that have tried this. Probably most famous is Ubuntu TV. All of them crashed and burned, because the tv vendors have a vested interest in denying you your software freedoms on these things.
A quick search brings up SamyGO, which is apparently a custom firmware for Samsung TVs. Not sure I'm a fan of it not being fully open source but it at least shows that people are working on it.
They write an entire article on why we should be terrified but then they don't even mention the make or manufacturer of this scary new TV, so we can't check the details of the TOS. It's the hypothetical smart TV that everyone owns.
They also neglected to mention you could just not connect it to the internet - you know, like the ancient TV he just turned in?
Here's the full context of the personal information, for example:
>If you enable Voice Recognition, you can interact with your Smart TV using your voice. To provide you the Voice Recognition feature, some voice commands may be transmitted (along with information about your device, including device identifiers) to a third-party service that converts speech to text or to the extent necessary to provide the Voice Recognition features to you. In addition, Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features. Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.
They then go onto say you can disable this.
It's legal speak for working with a vendor to improve the accuracy of their voice recognition, but by taking it out of context you can make a scare piece. It's probably why they neglected to mention or link to the TOS.
They kind of did mention that you could not connect it:
"The device will not function properly or allow the use of its high-tech features. This leaves consumers with an unacceptable choice between keeping up with technology and retaining their personal privacy."
But more fear mongering there too. The features that smart tv's bring to the table are hardly so useful that you would declare it an unacceptable choice to turn them off.
I'm probably not normal, but frankly I would just leave it unplugged from the Internet.
At the end of the day my current tv does what I need to do (ie act as a big monitor) without an internet connection. Given the number of devices already floating around here for browsing the web, I don't really need my tv to do that. For streaming I have Chromecast or whatever.
I get that tv makers want to sell me something, but they're really bad anyway at the convergence - so the best option for me is just to use it as a screen and get devices to do what I want.
The only real motivation to get a new tv is if the current one breaks. I replace all the other living room devices a lot more frequently than the tv.
But the point of bothering to read the terms is well worth knowing so I appreciate the article.
I agree with you. Just bought a new TV myself, and I've disconnected it from the network. When it was connected my internet was seeing slowdowns every 30 seconds, completely destroying a hangout I was trying to have at the time.
If I didn't have an HTPC in front of my NAS, I would probably connect it again. But I don't need or want any of the network features. The apps are stupid. Browsing with the crappy remote is an exercise in extreme frustration. And I hardly ever watch youtube from my couch, so "throwing" content to the TV is pointless for me.
I can understand why some people would really like some of the "smart" tv features, but all my other devices that I connect to the tv have enough smarts in them anyway. Quite happy using my tv as a dumb monitor.
I can't believe that people buy integrated media players with their TVs. They are usually multiple hundreds of dollars on top of the base TV model price, have terrible interfaces, and are crippleware, using apps with very few services.
I suppose the economics aren't as straightforward, but I'm of the opinion that Chromecast, Roku, AppleTV, etc are the next layer of crippleware. A small form factor Windows box or a Mac Mini are superior to every set top media player on the market in every category but price. I've never seen a better interface on a media appliance. A wireless mouse always trumps a remote. But most importantly, you don't need the manufacturer to strike deals with Netflix/HBO/Hulu, you just need a web browser. The best interfaces for all of those services are the full websites. Not to mention all of the other features you get with a full blown computer.
> I can't believe that people buy integrated media players with their TVs. They are usually multiple hundreds of dollars on top of the base TV model price, have terrible interfaces, and are crippleware, using apps with very few services.
While I agree that the "media" capabilities of so-called smart tv's suck, it isn't necessarily a conscious decision of the purchaser.
TV's typically fall into various tiers:
Basic
Advanced
Premium
The Media/App capabilities are usually bundled into the higher tiers, along with other feature upgrades (including size). Eventually as manufacturers find new things to charge money for, what were premium features become standard features on all sets.
Sorry but that comparison is flawed. You are comparing 35$ Chromecast to a 499$ mac mini. I can buy 3 Chromecasts, 1 for every TV in my house and still spare 400$...
> you don't need the manufacturer to strike deals with Netflix/HBO/Hulu, you just need a web browser.
In theory, the same could be said for Chromecast, since the casting server isn't something that Google sets up, but rather a feature the media company adds to their own app / service (which is relatively easy to do). For all intents and purposes, it's an app-driven web browser for your TV with the ability to stream video.
Personally, I'm a huge fan of using the actual netflix app to stream things to my television - same goes for youtube, pandora, class6ix, plex, and all the other apps I use to cast to my TVs and Stereos around the apt every day. I don't miss the wireless keyboard / mouse in the slightest.
Manufacturers are adding these "features" to differentiate themselves in a marketwhere a dumb TV has lots of competition. The value is questionable but the user only really founds out when it's too late but they already got the actual tv part they wanted so they are not too disappointed.
My 50" Sony TV uses 35W of power. Adding a Mac Mini or a Windows Box would at least double that value. And no, PC connected to the TV is not superior, unless you have a mouse and a keyboard attached to it - which is already a subpar experience to using a TV remote/Smartphone. And I far prefer the Netflix interface on my TV to their web interface.
you don't need the manufacturer to strike deals with Netflix/HBO/Hulu, you just need a web browser I wish that were true, but silverlight does not work so well outside of windows and mac.
Absolutely not. I do not want a mouse being used at my couch. I do not want my movie interrupted with Windows Update. I do not want to fiddle with XBMC or some other hacked together, unintegrated system.
I subscribe to the Unix philosophy when it comes to my home entertainment. I have a stereo that only plays audio. I have a TV that only plays video. I have a set-top box that only streams content. I have a DVD player than only plays discs. The last thing I need is a computer sitting in my living room making demands of me that are not related to the function I need it for.
I can read ebooks on my phone or desktop, but a Kindle, as a dedicated device, is much better suited to that purpose. That's why I have a Roku. There will never be a mousepad on the arm of my couch.
Perhaps Windows would be a problem, but I've been using a Mac Mini in this fashion for 3 years now, and have never once been interrupted by OSX.
Would you at least concede that everything else being equal, there is no faster input to start media than with a mouse? Every TV/Set Top remote interface I've ever used requires at least 3x the steps of the equivalent with a mouse, because you have a D-Pad. Maybe DVD players are even, but any menu based system is crippled by design, because you cant scroll or point.
But I don't want to point. That's far too interactive for any media player design. Even PC-based things like Winamp, iTunes, or Windows Media player, it's just a list or at best, a grid. I don't need to have more than eight directions of movement, and just four is sufficient. If I'm going through a list with a mouse cursor, there's a chance I can move the cursor off that list, necessitating that I have to then move the cursor back to the list before making my selection. That's just poor UX.
A mouse is completely unnecessary when you just have a grid or a list, a directional pad is more than sufficient. You can scroll just by going to the bottom of the list and continuing to go past that, which is how all menus work. It's not about how many steps it takes with a remote vs a mouse, it's about the UX of that specific UI. I don't want a desk in front of my couch. That's what remotes solve. I have a computer in my office and a media player in my living room, and I don't want to trade that for anything.
Can media player UIs be improved? Yep. With a mouse? Not in my opinion.
Too interactive? That's like saying a type of food is too healthy. Pointing is essentially random access. It's the difference between RAM and cassette tapes. Why punish me for having lots of content?
Sure you can be too interactive. Consider paying by card, sliding the card thru the machine, then it prompts. 1 prompt, ok. 2, hm, 3 or more - get out of my face!
It can go the other way too. UI is there to get out of your way. Lesser clicks is ok; but not at the expense of too many option, because I have to think about options. Like the gas pump that asks if I want a car wash. Wha? How did car washes get into the conversation?
For certain definitions of healthy, food can certainly be too healthy. You wouldn't want to live off celery and iceberg lettuce, even though they are low fat, low carb, and high in fiber. Likewise, things can be too interactive. No one seriously looks at a car and says "if only I could turn my front wheels a complete 360 degrees." It's only safe to turn them a few degrees in each direction most of them time. Sure that might mean you need to put the car in reverse and try again, but at least you don't need to worry about getting yourself into unexpected situations like starting off with your wheels pointed straight (but straight behind you). However, I have seen some specialty vehicles (like some trucks, semi trucks, and forklifts) where these rules don't apply or only weakly apply.
I'm happy you have the options you want. I also have the options I want. I don't want a mouse to navigate my media player, and I can't agree that the mouse is the best option for that use. A mouse is great for navigating a web page where the links are scattered everywhere or through a document where you might need to click at any point to begin editing, but for structured lists, even on a computer, I navigate with the arrow keys (and occasionally pgup/pgdn/home/endm giving me an 8-way d-pad). My list is straight up and down and straight side to side, I don't need to go 10 degrees up and to the right.
I use an iPhone and iPad because I don't want to dick around with file structure and patching and rooting and rom'ing. I use a Roku because I don't want to organize my own content and make my own media player. I get enough of all of that when I'm working.
I use XBMC running on an R-Pi and control it with a cheap "media center" remote control [1]. While it does include a "mouse function" via a kind of d-pad I've only ever had to use it a handful of times to do things which are so rare I haven't bothered to bind a button to them; ie: force a video to a certain aspect ratio because it was encoded badly.
For the 99.9% of interactions with the system the remote is superior to a mouse.
My Apple TV is basically just an AirPlay receiver. My "workflow" is: navigate to video I want to watch on my iPad or iPhone. Select Apple TV as the output. Press play. Watch.
No remote control is going to come close to that sort of convenience. A wireless mouse certainly doesn't qualify.
>I can't believe that people buy integrated media players with their TVs. They are usually multiple hundreds of dollars on top of the base TV model price, have terrible interfaces, and are crippleware, using apps with very few services
Most of these devices are priced at less than $50. Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV Stick, a Roku. I don't know where you're finding multiple hundred dollar devices.
> A small form factor Windows box or a Mac Mini are superior to every set top media player on the market in every category but price
My Roku is cheaper, quieter, uses less power, uses a real remote, doesn't require any installation or maintenance aside from initially inputting my username/passwords. I can search Netflix/Amazon/Hulu from one search bar on my home screen. I don't see any advantages a full PC has other than "it does things unrelated to TV", which I just don't care about. I don't want to write emails or check Facebook from my TV.
>The best interfaces for all of those services are the full websites.
For using them on a computer, maybe. But interfaces need to be different for different devices. What works on a 14" laptop or 24" monitor does not work well on a 60" TV. For example, Steam's Big Picture mode vs the desktop mode for gaming.
> I suppose the economics aren't as straightforward, but I'm of the opinion that Chromecast, Roku, AppleTV, etc are the next layer of crippleware. A small form factor Windows box or a Mac Mini are superior to every set top media player on the market in every category but price.
Price is a pretty big deal. The SFF Windows box or Mac Mini, however, are inferior to Chromecast in a number of other ways, however: size, power consumption, setup effort, etc.
> A wireless mouse always trumps a remote.
A wireless mouse requires a surface. A remote doesn't. Nor does my phone (the main control I use with a Chromecast). So, no, I don't think a wireless mouse always trumps a remote, particularly for typical living room media control use.
> The best interfaces for all of those services are the full websites.
I've used Netflix on a number of devices, including using the full website. IMO, the full website certainly has the most appropriate UI for desktop/laptop use, but equally certainly is not the best UI for typical living room use.
> Not to mention all of the other features you get with a full blown computer.
Sure, a full blown computer is great, but tying it up as an STB isn't a particularly efficient use of resources given most people's STB use cases. Especially when with many much cheaper set-top devices you can get much of the effect of having the full-blown computer that you use connected to the TV without having it dedicated to that purpose as an STB.
>> I can't believe that people buy integrated media players with their TVs.
Seems like the old way of "buy a TV, buy a VCR, plug them together" was much better. It's like software: use components so that each can be the best of breed and can be updated independently.
I think you are the rule, not the exception. Most people won't bother connecting their TV to the Internet, if for no other reason than it's a huge hassle. Ever tried to type a WiFi password with a remote?
But if TVs start phoning home on their own terms, without my WiFi password or Ethernet cable, then it becomes terrifying.
Cell phone sized antennas are quite small, especially compared to a 40-70 inch typical US home TV these days. The electronics to connect to a cell network and send useful data over it is probably $10-20, tops, plus the cost of the usage (but that's all dependent upon usage and negotiation of rates).
I'd say, if there's a corporate reason to want data from the TV even if the consumer doesn't connect their Ethernet/wifi, the cost and complexity of adding in cell connectivity isn't very high these days.
A nice thing about "smart" TVs is that they come bundled with codecs and can play media off USB drives. This is really convenient, though you can of course get a monitor and something like WD TV box, but ultimately it'd be a wash.
How does the price of a monitor compare to the price of a televisions?
I looked into buying monitors without tuners or speakers in order to save money, but it seems that inch for inch monitors cost at least as much as a regular television.
Went through this recently at Best Buy. The salesperson said by next year they may no longer carry any "dumb" tvs. Currently, those options are almost gone. I didn't see any dumb tvs over 40" and there were no 4Ks without "smart" features.
I plan on just blocking it in my router, but who knows if the TV scans around for open hotspots. If I were a "smart" developer Id store everything locally if offline, then dump to the manufacturer if it ever does get a connection. Not my problem if the feds happen to be "selecting" for that dump somewhere upstream...really not my problem if they have a dragnet FISA warrant for the data.
Where is that noble hacker who'll make a tutorials on how to destroy smart TV WiFI radios?!
This is what I was going to say. Do you guys really find the "smart" features on your television to be useful? I just, you know... use it as a television.
I find Netflix and YouTube built into the TV extremely useful. Also the fact that it has a half-decent DLNA client (which I connect to Plex on my home server), and can accept screencasting from my phone. I considered building a HTPC, but realized these features cover 99% of what I would use it for, and for the rest I can just use a laptop.
I've had all these features for years thanks to a netbook with a busted battery and a projector I got off some business or other closing up shop. The netbook runs linux mint and runs what I wants it to, and no more.
This stuff doesn't need a butlerian jihad, it needs a DIY surge.
Certainly I could hook up a netbook or raspberry pi or whatever to my tv and get this stuff, after some amount of configuration and likely some amount of debugging now and then. And indeed I've gone that route in the past. But when the TV does it all for you, it's hard to argue that that isn't more convenient.
Of course, one could certainly rationally choose to forgo that convenience in favour of increased privacy. I'm just saying the smart features aren't worthless.
Normal folks are simply going to want this stuff integrated into the TV. It's convenient and doesn't require any more assembly.
Heck, I can DIY it myself but I don't, because smart TVs have the apps and features that are baseline useful. And because it's integrated, I don't need to make sure to turn on some other device to get access.
It just takes one neighbor to temporarily create a public WiFi connection for your regularly-scanning-for-open-hotspot "smart TV" to dump its entire cache of logs over HTTP.
(Now it may not be designed to do that, of course, but we're both responding to <lurchpop>'s hypothetical.)
Or plug it in to a dumb network so it thinks it's connected and just never succeeds, or log everything that it saves about you, so it thinks it's connected AND is sending traffic, but doesn't get anywhere. There's plenty of options
The market would produce privacy TVs if people would not buy spy TVs. I would think there is enough of a market to produce such TVs and advertise them that way.
But what matters is if someone that is in a position to actually provide such TVs (and do a decent enough job producing and marketing them) to let the market decide. I know the HackerNews community has much more awareness of this issue than most people but it is something a fairly large number of people care about.
>The market would produce privacy TVs if people would not buy spy TVs.
Bear in mind the vast majority of consumers never even glance at a privacy policy, and would only interpret a "privacy TV" as "a TV with fewer features"
A manufacturer only needs to provide an opt-out on these smart tvs for the few people who care about their illusory privacy anyway, and that 'privacy tv' market dies before it's even born.
You can already buy non-smart tvs anyway. I have one. It cost ~$100.00 and was made by some company I've never heard of. The only selling point for such things is their cheapness.
Have you looked into screens marketed as monitors? You might be able to find one of sufficient size with sufficient inputs, and they tend not to be infected with the "smart" garbage.
Most of the "smart" features aren't going to be used anyway, so I assume that they are dirt cheap to put in or that most manufacturer tries to add them to differentiate from the competition. Since most TV manufacturer put in "smart stuff" it isn't really a differentiating factor, at least not to the extent that they would like.
Most of the features are also stuff that I don't even know what does, it's just confusing. The plan might be to confuse customers into buying the most expensive TV, so they don't feel like they're missing out on something.
The first manufacturer to produce a cheap TV marketed as "HD TV, it does Netflix too" should in my mind be able to get a good number of customers.
The only reason I feel comfortable connecting things like consumer network-connected cameras, TVs, Bluray players, game consoles, or anything else "Internet Ready" to my network is because I perform outbound filtering, and it's a big eye-opener to see first-hand what these devices are trying to connect to.
Luckily most things use HTTP so you can actually filter based on the URL it's trying to access. For example, permitting software updates, but denying any kind of analytics reporting.
And with VPN on your phone (especially Always-On VPN) you can filter the requests from your phone with the same granularity, which is even more eye-opening.
Outbound filtering is incredibly useful if you value your security and privacy.
I currently use a Mikrotik 750GL as my main router to the internet. In it i have a list of static DNS entries to send AD networks, and things like google-stats to a local http server to block the traffic. I also use it to block devices that i can not control from connecting to the internet (this is how i will block any "internet if things" crap). I dont need a internet connection on all the "things" in my house.
Also, there is no reason why all these functions should be built into a TV. I believe that the TV should be a monitor and thats it. We dont even need to have a TV tuner anymore. Just add 6 HDMI ports or more and I will add whatever function i want.
Every time I say this I feel like a shill because I worked for them briefly, but Sophos has a Home version of their UTM firewall (0). It has pros and cons, but overall I think it's pretty good (even after working there).
Some other options include Sonicwall and pfsense, and I encourage others to post their suggestions as well. I haven't used SonicWall, though I have used pfsense strictly as a firewall.
If you do not want to financially support pfSense, you can buy hardware from Netgate directly, starting from $299. Even cheaper as a kit or with older hardware, but you decide for yourself whether it will be adequate for you. I'm planning on buying an assembled APU from Netgate for myself; right now I'm using m0n0wall on a separate P3 PC (Celeron 1000), modded for silence. Probably will try out pfSense beforehand, on a separate CF card I just ordered.
The Netgate APU2/APU4 devices don't appear to be available directly from pfsense. They do say money from them goes to pfsense though (and they advertise them on the pfsense site)
There are some nice form factor cases out there now-a-days, and I would like to explore using those to make a firewall I could offer to friends and family to protect them too, but I'm just using an old desktop right now.
I've been looking at this AMD-based barebones machine with dual LAN:
newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856107110
Reviews suggest pfsense runs well, and with 4GB RAM and a decent SSD one could probably run snort and squid as well. Probably about $330 all assembled.
If anyone wants to build it, I would love a website where you could look up any device/program and see a profile of what data it sends out of your house, or what it brings in. Pair it with an open source app to collect the profiles and upload them to the website (somewhat ironically).
Relatively few people run gateway devices with the ability to do what you're describing, but pcap is an open format and there are existing utilities for dumping (tcpdump/wireshark) and visualization (https://www.sans.org/security-resources/idfaq/visualize_data...).
Thanks for the useful list. The only problem with these things is that they require some time, effort and expertise to set up, which the average citizen may not have. I understand you are just being pragmatic, but we definitely need to work towards solutions, which works for more than the educated tech folk.
The irony is that as people justifiably push for "more security", more and more of them are going to use HTTPS or other encrypted transports, making it impossible to determine what information they're transferring just from network inspection.
End-to-end encryption is a good thing only if you trust both endpoints and don't want MITMs to interfere. Otherwise, it's security being used against you.
When these smart device manufacturers "smarten up" and start encrypting everything (likely with no options to disable and/or e.g. install self-signed certificates - naturally, because of "security reasons"), it'll be all-or-nothing.
Yeah but theoretically, you should control your own devices, and be able to decrypt what they're sending because you have access to the keys they're using. (of course I realize this is complete bs, they're black boxes). Richard Stallman is looking less crazy now with all his warnings about "tivoization"
When I said HTTP, I meant to include HTTPS. Intercepting HTTPS and filtering it is actually rather simple, and avoiding certificate warnings only slightly less so by deploying your own CA.
You're correct that some devices may use certificate pinning to prevent me from doing this, but for those devices my solution is simple: They're denied Internet access entirely.
Edit: As a manufacturer/vendor you have zero expectation of privacy from me the consumer. I bought the device, I bought the equipment that runs the network, I pay to keep the device connected to the Internet, I get the final say on which packets your app receives. Any vendor who believes otherwise is mistaken and should be named and shamed.
If you're looking for a "dumb" TV, projectors may be one of your last options.
I just got a great Sony projector and 92" screen for less than an equivalent quality large TV would cost. The only other consideration is the size of the room and ability to limit ambient light entering the room.
You know what will never stop this? Posts on hacker news. Letters to your congressman (LG can donate a fuqton more to his re-election campaign than you can). Voting with your dollar (people who know what a privacy policy is are few and far between).
You know what will? Taking these TVs into the street, smashing and burning them. Mobs storming Best Buy and smashing the surveillance cameras built into these telescreens. Bricks through the window of every mercenary selling your privacy, selling a live feed right to your living room, to the NSA/FBI/creepy internet hackers.
It's really hard to get people to commit to sustained, long-term action -- that's why boycotts are not effective and why this trend has continued. But people are actually angry about this and that anger can be fueled into displays of acute disapproval. Like burning a pile of spy TVs in the street and then flipping the cop car that comes to defend the surveillance state and burning that too.
Pretty sure this will get downvoted because anything outside the blandly acceptable boring-as-fuck politics always gets downvoted. But just keep in mind that you need to break a few eggs to make an omelet, and the power structures of the world pretty much only respond to Arab Spring-esque events now. We need to make every digital dictator afraid of becoming the next Gaddafi.
Well, in my "bat shit insane" reality, the Arab Spring was actually mainly a cyber-intelligence operation on Facebook designed to get Mubarek out of the way so they could get better access to Libya. Mubarek had blocked a previous Libyan invasion attempt in the 80s.
And actually Gaddafi was the ultimate non-boring active protester. If you knew what he actually did, instead of the mythological version of events, he is basically your poster child. Gaddafi got got because he wanted to get away from the petrodollar dictatorship.
The reality is that there are very serious challenges, not insurmountable, but problems that haven't actually had solutions engineered yet. And the institutions and even deeper, the belief systems that form our global operating framework, are completely outdated.
Leading edge technology has already made governments obsolete in some sense. Eventually, I believe that distributed technologies will make traditional governments, and a traditional operating mode based on deadly force and amoral behavior, irrelevant and passe.
All those are almost impossible to comprehend if you were brought up with the same BS "US national interests" version of the News since the eighties, but laughably trivial for most Europeans.
That's how you get Bush twice re-elected, or believe that Obama is some kind of great "hope".
>You know what will never stop this? Posts on hacker news. Letters to your congressman (LG can donate a fuqton more to his re-election campaign than you can).
Plus it's not just LG that wants that kind of data. It's the government itself.
Do you think destroying technology and flipping cop cars is going to end the surveillance state? While an interesting thought experiment, it seems unlikely. If anything, it would give the pro-surveillance lobby enough political capital to further reduce whatever legal privacy protection we already have.
There is no "privacy protection". The organization that supposedly protects our privacy is the exact same one we need protection from. It's like a bunch of sheep trusting that wolves will protect them from getting eaten by wolves.
but if the wolves are smart a bit, the sheep can trust that the wolves would eat them in moderation and in orderly fashion as to avoid starving themselves when all the sheep are suddenly eaten.
I'm totally fine with your exciting-as-fuck politics but it will be difficult to get people to that point any time soon, me thinks. I think the problem is that when you say things like "these things don't work" you're glossing over the key to why they don't work: people aren't organized. That's it. It may not be glamorous or fun like tossing over the pigmobile but it's proven to work every single time throughout history.
Let's look at boycotts. The problem with boycotts isn't that they're not effective; they can be. My family participated in a successful one against Iceland's whaling policies in the 80s and even though I was young, I never forgot why we did it and that it was right. So what's the problem? They ignore institutional structures that persist despite our actions. If one particular corporation strays too far, boycott pressure is effective. Don't forget how it played into bringing down South African apartheid.
My point here is that we don't need to go looking for new solutions. Good old fashioned organizing works. It does combat LG's bought politicians--remember my friend, we still have democratic institutions and we can vote anyone we want into office. People don't like to be reminded of what really works, I think. We need socialism. We need to vote them into office and make good privacy laws. That's that. No need to reinvent the wheel. Then we can talk about an informal technocracy democratically dissolving the state into libertarian socialist anarcho-communism.
He already pointed out that voting or writing to "your" representatives doesn't work, but ypu're still calling for some sort of democratic solution. Please stop.
Actually it's interesting to watch you take the contrary position on an internet forum, but without a concrete call to action. That was his point: what are you going to _do_?
I work on a solution to this particular problem every day. I don't just write on the internet about it.
My "solution" is to wake people up to the fact that we should not have rulers at all. That's the only way to achieve a non-nightmarish future in the long term.
People see tyranny creeping up all over the West, for example, but it doesn't occur to them that instead of asking our rulers to please not oppress us, we should stop believing in their authority altogether.
What are some historical examples of "waking" people up to a "fact?"
I'm not so sure lack of belief is enough to dissipate authority. As the old saying goes, you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. Within my lifetime, the surest way to invite a tiny war into your life is act as if political and/or legal authority doesn't exist. Hell, just implying that authority should change was enough to get projectiles and tear gas loosed in Ferguson MO.
If a large enough percentage of people decide to disregard govts and forcefully defend themselves against their enforcers if necessary, then govts just cease to function and exist. I'm not saying we're there now, or even near a point where that's feasible, but it is one way out.
Good luck trying to convince people to merely get rid of their government. We need an alternative, and the mere lack of government is not it. It will be perceived as chaos, and few people actually want chaos.
In other words, even if we don't want rulers we still need rules. We need a system. Actually, we will have a system, anyway. even "no system" is a system. It's just not clear how it would actually work at the moment (possibilities ranges from "Libertarian Utopia" to "mob rule", including "gang rule" and "local warlords").
We keep having to tell people that having no ruleRs doesn't mean having no ruleS. If by "no system" you mean "freedom", that's fine with me. Sure, we need rules and negative consequences for breaking them, but that does not require rulers.
You're different from that straw-man libertarian I once met.
"Freedom" is an ideal, not a mechanism. The question is, which mechanism promotes freedom?
Personally, I currently bet on democracy. Not representative governments, but democracy, which we don't currently have. Like in ancient Athens, where people where chosen by random trial, instead of elections. (Plus a host of checks and balances, before during, and after whatever short mandate was given.)
Freedom just means that no one forcefully intervenes in your life, assuming that you're not harming anyone yourself, of course.
Demoracy is just mob rule. You'll find it unacceptable any time you're being forced to comply with what the majority wants. You know most people are idiots, right? You don't want idiots making decisions that affect your life. Does that help?
Rulers monitor us to cement their power over us, but in a free society without political power, with free-flowing information available to all, companies would have to be careful about what they do, lest they lose their customers, ie. their income.
And, how would we make that happen? How, once you remove the rulers, do you prevent new ones from rising up? How do you prevent companies from flooding customer under a wealth of irrelevant information? How do you prevent things like cartels, now that there is no regulator?
It's all well and good to postulate a free society, but do you have any idea what a free society actually looks like? (Neither do I, by the way.)
A tiny elite can't rule over millions if the millions are opposed to being ruled at all. Today, no one sees governments as the rulers they are, but everyone considers dictatorships illegitimate.
But from our point of view, what's the practical difference between being forced to comply with a King's royal edicts and being forced to comply with a bunch of politicians'?
Cartels can't be maintained in a free society. We know everyone participating in one is a scumbag, and the more lucrative the cartel's position is, the more motivated the participants are to betray the others (because there's lots of room for competing on price and taking away all the captive customers, thus making shitloads of money).
Or, the rest of the cartel can launch a denigration campaign against the defector, or poach the defector's employees, or other shady means that money can buy, even in a "free society". And of course, I wouldn't rule out outright criminal behaviour. I recall being told about a board meeting where they discussed triggering an "accident" to get rid of polluting chemicals, because it was cheaper than abiding to the countries safety laws. Totally illegal, very expensive if they get caught (both for the company and the board submerse themselves), but still within the bounds of a cynical cost/benefit analysis.
Cartels are a difficult thing to break. The light bulb cartel for instance still exist, even though it has officially been dissolved: light bulbs still only last a couple thousand hours, despite the existence of designs that can last 10 times longer. (Heck, that's one of the few things the centrally planned economy of the USSR got right: long lived light bulbs.)
Strength lies in numbers. Fascists knew that, popular movement know that, and cartels know that. Betraying the cartel is to fin yourself alone. The financial incentive may not overcome the need to be part of the same team. And sometimes, as is the case in the light bulb industry, it is not clear that you could actually take away the cartel's customers: light bulbs are fairly cheap, at face value. It's the planned obsolescence that's the real cost, and that cost is not disclosed to the customer.
You can only make your purchase decisions based on what you know. If the cartel is based on deceit, rather than on price regulation, it can be difficult to convince people based on durability concerns. People don't care about sustainability, because of hyperbolic discounting. (Why do you think we're trashing on the planet with little regard for future generations? It's not because of our rulers. It's because we just don't care about the future as much as we should.)
How would the remaining cartel members cause harm to the defector by badmouthing him?
If the guy is selling X for half the cartel price, and can point to the cartel members and tell people how they've been screwed by them, what do people care aboit what the cartel scum is saying anymore? Nothing. They'll just buy X for 50% cheaper. You know you would too.
Who are trashing the planet? Ordinary people, or big corporations who've paid politicians off to let them pollute? What about militaries all over the world? Do you really think ordinary people are the problem here, or govts the solution? Really?
It's not just about price. It's about quality, durability, planned obsolescence or lack thereof, external costs (like pollution overseas or child labour). Many important things that are often hidden from the customer, preventing a fair evaluation of the true price: total cost of ownership, including external costs.
> Who are trashing the planet?
Everyone of course. Some people more than others, and as you suggested, some people are more responsible than others. But in the end, we're all caught up in this system. Heck even writing and reading this comment takes energy, and sits on top of one of the most polluting industries (computing).
"It" what isn't about the price? If you feel like pointing out that cartels are more specifically about the profits (increased through raising the price), I'm afraid that's an irrelevant distraction.
We both know how cartels work. I pointed out that cartels don't last without state support. You don't feel like accepting that, just like you still haven't addressed my point about rulers.
Cartels are created and maintained by governments through prohibitively costly licences that are just denied to pesky outsiders that would actually compete with the other producers.
We're not going to get anywhere if you keep side-tracking the conversation, but that's exactly what staunch statists always do. Why? Because they can't handle reality.
It does. The "freedom of assembly" is very powerful, even if it doesn't get as much attention as the freedom
of speech or the press. Seeing that there are others that share your outrage is an amazing motivator, as it shows, in a very personal way, that you don't have to accomplish everything yourself. Even better, it becomes easier to get others to join in and help as the group grows. Many are reluctant to be a first-mover, but will join a group once they see they will have the support of allies.
Unfortunately, FVEY agencies are not stupid. Mapping relationships to find the focal points that start or enable this kind of social organizing so they can be disrupted is a very good strategy. Even just the phone call-record and COTRAVELER[1] are likely enough to be able to find the leaders/organizers among any particular group. If you add in a few of the other tools we've seen recently, it must have been trivial to create a modern variant of COINTELPRO. Compared to the FBI's efforts under Hoover, GCHQ's "JTRIG"[2] is probably a lot easier and far more effective.
So yes, I totally agree - good old-fashioned organizing is something we need, and we need it fast. More importantly, we need it as a sustained effort to focus on a couple key topics, and we might actually see some progress.
I am not sure this is possible as long as "most" people still have food and a roof over their head. Groups start to form and ideas start to spread, but these efforts inevitably get distracted[3] or sidetracked with off-topic political minutia or divide-and-conquer wedge issues. Unfortunately, I suspect that technology will make organizing people effectively impossible until this mess impacts them personally in big, obvious, painful and/or expensive ways.
Of course, I would absolutely love to be proven wrong sbout this entire topic...
White people love to talk about South Africa. But white people had fuck-all to do with South Africa. The thing that stopped Apartheid wasn't a boycott, it was sustained armed and unarmed struggle on behalf of the black majority in South Africa. It was Nelson Mandela's property destruction, sabotage, and open contemplation of guerrilla warfare.
>It does combat LG's bought politicians--remember my friend, we still have democratic institutions and we can vote anyone we want into office. People don't like to be reminded of what really works, I think. We need socialism. We need to vote them into office and make good privacy laws. That's that. No need to reinvent the wheel. Then we can talk about an informal technocracy democratically dissolving the state into libertarian socialist anarcho-communism.
I have to think this is sarcasm. But it's well-done though. Anarchist communism via liberal reform? Classic. The 'good old-fashioned organizing works' is such a great layer on top of that.
The thing that's missing in this is not that people don't care , it's that a lot of these things are attached to _useful things_.
I like my webcam. I can have a skype video chat with someone halfway across the world. Sure, the NSA might watch me in my sleep, and that sucks (I do think rule of law works), but hey.
I like that google is data mining my emails. Google Now is amazing, reminds me of things like my flights because it goes through it. If that allows them to show somewhat creepy ads, so be it (google is a lot more subtle with their ads than they could be). The service is cool
Also, Rule of Law works. Consumer privacy protection laws exist in the EU, and companies that don't respect it can suffer greatly. So the NSA might not fall under that, but I'm much more comfortable with the NSA looking at me than corporations (though I'd rather have neither). And we _can_ push back on the surveillance apparatus (Church Commission and the like).
Really don't need to burn down everything to get things done.
I said more comfortable, not comfortable. I'm for legislative pushback on recent actions of the NSA (as have happened in the past with them or the FBI).
It's absolutely ludicrous to claim that the Rule of Law™ works when, as a random example, highway patrol officers are routinely stopping drivers for the express purpose of confiscating any money they find.
If you don't think you're going to be able to get people riled up enough to stop purchasing the TVs, what makes you think you're going to have them vandalizing private property?
That would be a little thing called wishful thinking.
Personally, I think the reason people aren't up in arms is pretty clear. People get up in arms about things that harm them -- oppressive governments (Arab Spring), desperate economic conditions (Ukraine), etc. Real stuff.
People don't get up in arms about tracking because it does not hurt them. Not: does not hurt them except in subtle ways they don't even notice. It doesn't hurt them at all, with very few exceptions. That's all there is to it.
Pretty sure this will get downvoted because anything outside the blandly acceptable boring-as-fuck politics always gets downvoted.
I love how people set themselves up to 'win' like this if people don't like what they're saying. "If people vote me up, I'm right. If people vote me down, I'm right". Frankly, it's a 'boring-as-fuck' ploy and unfortunately it's on the rise at HN.
Learn to take your lumps like a damned adult, and don't make passive-aggressive remarks about people who might downvote you. People can think that you're full of shit without having to subscribe to mainstream viewpoints.
You can look at my post history and see I'm totally comfortable with getting downvoted. Downvotes or upvotes don't make me right or wrong, though. I'm actually totally shocked that comment is above negative right now. But it doesn't make me any righter.
> But just keep in mind that you need to break a few eggs to make an omelet
No, no. The full quote is, "But you can't make an omelette without ruthlessly crushing dozens of eggs beneath your steel boot and then publicly disemboweling the chickens that laid them as a warning to others."
I just don't understand why I'm not allowed to give away my privacy for convenience, in your eyes.
I think you'd be surprised at a) how many people realize they're having their data collected and b) how few people care. Is it a risk? Yes. So is driving a car, but I'm not willing to put up with the inconvenience of not being able to drive somewhere.
This is true, but there's a bigger problem than the mere fact that a lot of data is being collected. It's how transparent companies are about the data that's collected, along with how long it's stored and who has access to it.
One might be fine with having their TV scan their face, but does that mean they're okay with that scan being transported to someone else's servers? Who now owns that information? Can the manufacturer sell that to someone else without telling you?
This kind of information shouldn't be buried in 46 pages of legalese.
Many people aren't aware that Siri functions by sending your voice off to Apple's servers for processing, let alone knowing whether that means that Apple now owns those recordings of their voices. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but the Average Joe isn't going to read the 50 page ToS, let alone be able to accurately parse it. And if Apple chooses to keep that data for themselves, they aren't exactly incentivized to tell people that they now own this information and can resell it.
I think the readers of this website vastly underestimate how much the average person understands, and vastly overestimate how much the average person values their privacy.
It's starting to get annoying, the folks who want to start a "privacy revolution" even when no one's asking them to.
I think it would be more accurate to say that people vastly underestimate how they actually value their own privacy.
Remember the Holocaust? Well, one thing that helped was an initially mostly harmless ethnic census conducted by Napoleon. Then the Nazi got hold of that data, and used it. Oops. Not that you or your descendants actually risk being put down in the gaz chamber because you turn on your TV, but there's a whole range of nasty stuff that can happen between nothing and summary execution.
What really annoys me is that people have a right to not care or see past their own nose. If their opinion was free of negative consquences for me -- and more importantly, the people who already are feeling the boot -- I would consider accepting them having it. But that is far from the case.
What makes people think they have the right to be ignorant and/or opportunistic, when I never asked them to? :P
There's the joke about anecdata to be had here, but I've found the people I talk to do care and value their privacy, and they are coming to a slow realization that there's a creeping ... creepiness to it. At least with the people I interact with regularly (most of whom aren't technologists), the average person is getting slightly annoyed by having to keep an eye on their gizmos as they slowly hear more about the devices betraying their trust in a myriad small ways.
And I think that's where the revolution foments. Momentum builds slowly, but it seems to be there, simmering and slowly heating over the years. Those folks calling for revolution now are just impatient and louder.
I disagree. With 1.23 billion users[0], Facebook is easily one of the most visited websites on the planet. Also up there? Google.
Convenience is winning the war, and that's only increasing. All data points to even more invasiveness of products, and even more acceptance by people. The people you talk to simply don't outweigh the greater voice of the sum total of users of the Internet.
There is no revolution. Nothing is fermenting, and there is no momentum, except from the hacker elite (us), and that's not going to change, if stock prices and usage rates are any indication.
What do I know about the difference between my data being on a machine in the headquarters of Samsung or the headquarters of the Golden Lucky Data Brokers Pty?
There may be a slightly-strained analogy to be made here with vaccinations and herd immunity. Just as refusing vaccinations makes others in more danger of contracting infections, willfully allowing yourself to be surveilled makes it more difficult for others to avoid surveillance.
Anyway, are you saying that you personally have no problem with a TV that listens to you, or that you don't like it but other people might not object?
Out of curiosity how many aspects of this TV could also be applied to your laptop.
1) It has a webcam
2) It has a microphone
3) You install software all the time that has access to both of these things.
3) Practically everything you do on it is tracked, cookied, and shared. (Sure some companies probably respect Do-Not-Track, but everyone?)
4) Do you realize that facebook knows your age, all of your friends, your demographics, and has like buttons on most pages on the internet. They are also about to launch a big ad platform to help others leverage that knowledge to place ads.
5) Google knows everything in your inbox.
Your Xbox has gesture control and voice command too.
If you are going to smash TVs, you probably should smash your laptop, and your xbox.
I don't think a few burning TVs in the streets are going to change anything. You'll need to think bigger :-)
yeah, but there are answers for a laptop to nearly every one of your bullets.
I can't modify the hardware on a television reasonably, I can't change the operating system reasonably, nor can I modify the loaded software. I can't choose to run the server that it phones home to.
I can remove my laptop's webcam, or order one without. Same for a mic (lenovo/dell/hp have 'government specials' -- laptops without mics/cams/antennas), I can review the software I install, I can change it, etc. I can run my own email server.
One system enables the user to have power over the system itself, one doesn't. We need to stress the importance of users' power and ensure it for the future.
Don't buy such walled systems until the walls are removed so as to enable them to be functioning members of our user-centric society, rather than their profit-centric walled garden.
To most people everything feels like a walled garden, their phone, their computer, their TV. Sure you can install software on them, but very few people actually install new operating systems on anything at a low enough level that it would actually help their privacy.
As the technological elite, something like a TV that has so much embedded junk seems extra walled off. But I'd argue that most people have no clue how to stop websites from tracking them or to protect their privacy on any device. Most people have no IDEA what a cookie or an IP address is.
You happen to be familiar with software. To many people putting a piece of thick tape over the TV screen's camera, and microphone might be much easier than installing TOR. Dealing with the underlying embedded OS is probably super annoying, but hopefully you can still use your TV as a direct display using something similar to a Roku.
If a market for do-not-track devices exists someone will fill it, but I worry that the general population will have no idea that it's necessary or even care.
There's something very powerful when I know what you think, and then you know that I know what you think. When mass understanding foments, common knowledge kicks in and there will be (it's already in the works) a sort of large scale adknowledgement that this is the will of not only us as individuals, but also us as masses.
[I will leave my usually blurb about documented programs in the US and elsewhere that specifically target and derail the forming of such community consensus and on the flip side manipulate media to create desirable consensus.]
Posts on Hacker News will only go so far, but as a community that makes recommendations and gives technical advice and knowledge to the broader community - and as patriots and democratic citizens - we can (and I do) discuss these issues without bashfulness to everyone we are close with.
People care. Old people care and young people care. Democrats, Republicans, Centrists, and Populists care. Religious people care. So do atheists.
Information is key and the media has a really poor record - even (especially) with the handling of the Snowden disclosures. The EFF and ACLU can only bring so many cases to court. _We_ need to be the reliable source of information - for those who look to us for technical advice and information.
And we need to demand an option during elections. This next (national) election is going to be another 'security year'. Screw that. Neither Ebola nor ISIS pose a credible threat to the United States. The real issues are class issues, democratic issues, police state issues, social issues, etc.
Your vote doesn't count for a whole lot. But all of our voices (for the most part) do. Man, it's depressing I had to qualify that... Anyway - posting to HN absolutely contributes. It just isn't the only place you should have your voice heard.
Let's not forget that if you're a hacker news reader who works for a consumer electronics manufacturer, you have an opportunity to come up with creative technological solutions that are privacy preserving, opt-in, respectful of home boundaries and good for business. There is no technical reason why good for business must mean bad for consumer.
> You know what will never stop this? [...] Voting with your dollar (people who know what a privacy policy is are few and far between).
I disagree. I think voting with your dollar works pretty well actually. Case-in-point: The recent uproar over the Xbox One's Kinect. The original plan called for the Kinect to be a required component and for the microphone to always be on. Thanks to consumer backlash, Microsoft backpedaled on the always-on requirement pretty quickly, and they've started selling Kinect-less Xbox Ones as well.
Part of this is because Sony did an excellent job of capitalizing on these mis-steps with the PS4. Because there's no reason a competitor can't do the same against these smart TVs. You don't need customers to read the privacy policy; you just need to tell them that "the TV is telling Uncle Sam when you have sex."
Come on, this is bullshit.
I cannot say about your congressmen but any enterprise will care if their goods will not get bought.
And there comes the first step: You must educate people about their needs of privacy.
Just smashing things to peaces does not help at all, it's maybe attracting hateful activists but not giving understanding.
My only question is why, knowing all that, he still bought that particular TV? Because when I bought my set I saw all that crap and got the dumbest one I could fine.
Even if none to be found, I'd totally pay for a large format display instead of a TV just to save the headaches.
You know you can buy a TV without ethernet or wifi right?
If you think your TV is bad, try powering on a windows phone for the first time and go through the dozen privacy waivers and turn off all the defaults of all the data it sends to Microsoft and Nokia. Pages and pages worth.
I don't even care that much about my personal privacy and yet I'm terrified of "Smart TVs" because I spent time working on many different models across various manufacturers and they are all horrible, horrible devices in their own ways (some far more horrible than others). I still have nightmares about the Insignia 'Smart' TV we wrote some apps for while working at chumby, the Samsung and LG models were only mildly better.
My TV should not require a 30 second bootup time before it can do anything if powered on cold, my TV should not crash because it has been on too long and there is a memory leak in the YahooWidgets/JavaScript engine it uses for apps, my TV should just focus on doing a really good job of displaying images from one or more sources of other boxes which are small and cheap enough to be upgraded every couple of years (unlike a TV which I upgrade far less).
Let me worry if those external boxes are invading my privacy or not, but my TV really needs to be stupid enough that it isn't even possible, if only for practical reasons.
The author is afraid of his smart TV, but probably doesn't think twice about carrying around a smartphone.
Smartphones have virtually all of the capabilities that make the author fear his smart TV, only the smartphone is, if anything, even more dangerous because it is more ubiquitous.
People carry their phones around everywhere, and the phones are usually constantly on and equally capable of monitoring your every word and action that you perform on them.
If you value privacy but own a smartphone, you've already lost.
The more powerful and well connected a device is, the less privacy its users tend to have.
Unlike dumb phones, today's smartphones usually have built-in GPS capabilities, with relatively high-speed internet connections, powerful processors, a wealth of apps for their users to put their personal data in, and tight integration with social media.
There was a time when spy agencies would have killed to plant devices with these sorts of surveillance capabilities on their marks. Today billions keep them on their persons at all times -- willingly, gladly even.
In the so-called Internet of Things we're headed for, computers may be all-pervasive, wearable, embedded in everything, unobtrusive, practically indetectable and inescapable.
They are likely to be always communicating with the other computers all around them, and privacy will be a dream of the past.
Unfortunately, counter-surveillance technology does not appear to be keeping pace with surveillance technology, and since most people don't yet seem to care about being surveyed, there isn't much of a market for it.
On the other side, most companies (and their oh-so-helpful tech enablers) love to spy on their users, and see nothing wrong with doing so (or at least don't let any moral qualms stand in the way of a profit). So there is a lot of incentive for spying and little incentive for not spying.
Consciousness is slowly starting to emerge among the general population that this is happening, but there doesn't seem to be much of a backlash. Few are taking a stand.
"Unfortunately, counter-surveillance technology does not appear to be keeping pace with surveillance technology, and since most people don't yet seem to care about being surveyed, there isn't much of a market for it."
Your point about a smartphone's capabilities is well taken. But the TV straight-up says that your personal information will be captured and transmitted to a third party.
I value my privacy, and trust (hope?) that my phone isn't transmitting that sort of stuff. If it did, I think it would be discovered and made public very quickly, and I would switch phones! But since the TV straight out says that it transmits my personal information, and I have no reason to doubt it, I'll be sure to not use that TV, or at least not connect it to the Internet.
We can trust others to safeguard our privacy, as a sort of calculated risk. But this TV is just saying out loud that it won't do that, so I'll avoid that model.
The Moto X has a "Google Now" functionality where the continuously listens for you commands. Whatever is ships your sound off the Google server is another question.
Smart phones are self-limiting though, because they mostly can't afford to be recording literally everything that is being said and then sending it off somewhere, because of battery concerns, and also the fact that majority of people are on limited data plans, so if the phone was constantly sending something it would have been noticed. Not so much with a TV - it's connected to mains power, and usually a broadband connection where sending some data is not going to be much of a problem.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 288 ms ] threadThis isn't even the government forcing mass-surveillance devices on its citizens; it's the citizens accepting and installing mass-surveillance devices themselves -- which in some ways is quite a bit more disturbing than the government doing it.
I have a "smart" tv my wifw purchased while i was away on business, but theres no way thats being connected.
Non-techie people assume a TV is a TV -- which is to say, a dumb video terminal. Even "smart" TVs are understood this way, in no small part because most people never bother interacting with their "smart" features. It's all just items on a checklist full of marketing blather, safe to ignore.
I fear it's going to take a serious hack of these devices (or twelve) before people start to understand that their new TV is more like a giant, poorly secured PC that happens to be wall-mountable than it is like their trusty old CRT.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=smart+tv+voice+facial+recognition
RMS was right all along. We need free software, or we will have no control over our computers. And our computers are going to be everywhere.
Free as in beer is the enemy of free as in freedom.
On a personal computer, there is free software to accomplish any desktop computing task. How can you say that it wont get built when it already has been?
Meanwhile, the closed systems people do pay for have a monstrous advantage and will continue to be far ahead. Nowhere are they further ahead than design and user experience, which in my experience are harder and more work to get right than core code. When you make something work you are only maybe 25% of the way to making it usable. That last 75% is the no-fun stuff people have to be paid to do, and it's the stuff that separates products people use from geek projects only a tiny number of enthusiasts play with.
That will not automatically happen for a lot of classes of software. You point out that any desktop computing task can be done with free software. So what? That doesn't even matter anymore. It's 2014 and we can't accomplish a significant amount of mobile computing tasks with free software, and those are more intimately connected to us than desktops ever were.
You make an excellent point about mobile computing. However, interest in free mobile software is growing and we'll see more options available to mirror the demand.
What I'm trying to say here is that I hope to see even more business models that work well so we can get free alternatives in more areas of computing sooner rather than later.
I hope that viable business models that support free software emerge. I have a feeling that the general public will be made to suffer by this surveillance system growing around us, and will learn that like convenient Starbucks, freedom is worth paying a few extra bucks for.
The morality of RMS is an abstraction that is disconnected from empirical truth, just like any religion is.
Maybe he would have done some good (other than the software he's written) if he had actually made the argument that we need open source for privacy reasons.
We should all feel deeply offended at not having that control, if we know what's good for us.
Looking at the current state of affairs, I'm starting to think RMS wasn't radical and fanatical enough!
On the other hand, computers are how we communicate with and consume information from others; they are essentially how we view the world. Thus what power the companies-in-control have to limit, persuade, and otherwise manipulate the population who uses computers is far greater than what they can do with cars.
To come back to the car analogy, if the manufacturers had the same type of power those making computers and their software did, they would be able to remotely control your car to make it go not where you want it to, disable it if you tried to drive to "non-approved/licensed" locations or if you attempted to drive faster than they allowed, carried more passengers than licensed for, etc.
Of course, convenience and control are not disjoint either - and more control can also lead to greater convenience, as users customise the software they use to make their use of it more convenient.
No, we should all choose to use products and services that protect our privacy (potentially by being open source), and educate others to do the same. NOT "get deeply offended." Getting offended is what you do when someone goes against your RELIGION. That is why Stallman's message does not work: it is like a religion.
I know this is meant as a pseudo-joke and I know there are going to be a ton of comments here on why the guy is overreacting, but is the tin foil hat really useful anymore? We have demonstrated proof that things like this have been exploited on purpose in the past few years.
Instead of the tin foil being representative of the crazy person - it now almost seems like common sense. Is that scary to anyone else?
I wonder sometimes: if things like this had existed in the 50s and 60s would we ever have had a Martin Luther King? Or would such things have been picked up at their earliest stages by the data miners and nipped in the bud? Would Ginsburg have read Howl in Golden Gate Park? Would there have been a summer of love, underground basement punk shows, raves? What new civil rights movements or fascinating spontaneous emergences of culture are being silently suppressed today? Is that kind of culture jamming really going on? I really do wonder.
I also wonder about the seeming asymmetry. I see protestors in Hong Kong using mobile phones to organize, yet over here it seems as if the same technologies are being used to enforce the most toxic aspects of the status quo instead of challenging them.
[1] http://youtu.be/YeY1dxlC7Sg?t=1m40s
Here's a possibly-relevant excerpt from an article I wrote for CNET on the topic (before I left earlier this year to found http://recent.io/):
...Project Shamrock had a "watch list" of people whose conversations would be identified and plucked out of the ether by NSA computers. It was initially intended to be used for foreign intelligence purposes, but at its peak, 600 American citizens appeared on the list, including singer Joan Baez, pediatrician Benjamin Spock, actress Jane Fonda and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr....
Edit: It was also logging network folders. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6778397
How can we make the wifi module inside the TV unusable?
I mean something that connects to that WiFi and smothers it with so much data that no other device can get a word in edgewise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...
there are 87 million broadband subscriptions (likely shared) vs 117 million households. So thats at least 30 million permanently un-TVed households. Which would probably be good for the nation.
My mother in law got a smart TV about three years ago. No internet access for her. At the time I couldn't figure it out, but it makes more sense now.
One interesting problem is there are a lot of TV models out there and none of the software will ever be upgraded in practice, its like Android phones, its unlikely it'll ever be upgraded from what it shipped with. Its likely the "smart" features of her TV are already unusable due to API changes over the years.
Disconnecting it from the internet and possibly even sabotaging the wifi module will ensure that prying eyes will not have access to your information.
Caveat emptor doesn't go away with time. And I don't believe trying to use the hammer of legislation on the various hooks of businesses is an effective or even ethical way to try to "solve" it.
> All members of the Inner Party (upper-class) and Outer Party (middle-class) have telescreens in their homes, but the proles (lower-class) are not typically monitored as they are unimportant to the Party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen
http://sourceforge.net/projects/samygo/
http://www.samygo.tv/
They write an entire article on why we should be terrified but then they don't even mention the make or manufacturer of this scary new TV, so we can't check the details of the TOS. It's the hypothetical smart TV that everyone owns.
They also neglected to mention you could just not connect it to the internet - you know, like the ancient TV he just turned in?
http://www.samsung.com/us/common/privacy.html
Here's the full context of the personal information, for example:
>If you enable Voice Recognition, you can interact with your Smart TV using your voice. To provide you the Voice Recognition feature, some voice commands may be transmitted (along with information about your device, including device identifiers) to a third-party service that converts speech to text or to the extent necessary to provide the Voice Recognition features to you. In addition, Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features. Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.
They then go onto say you can disable this.
It's legal speak for working with a vendor to improve the accuracy of their voice recognition, but by taking it out of context you can make a scare piece. It's probably why they neglected to mention or link to the TOS.
"The device will not function properly or allow the use of its high-tech features. This leaves consumers with an unacceptable choice between keeping up with technology and retaining their personal privacy."
But more fear mongering there too. The features that smart tv's bring to the table are hardly so useful that you would declare it an unacceptable choice to turn them off.
At the end of the day my current tv does what I need to do (ie act as a big monitor) without an internet connection. Given the number of devices already floating around here for browsing the web, I don't really need my tv to do that. For streaming I have Chromecast or whatever.
I get that tv makers want to sell me something, but they're really bad anyway at the convergence - so the best option for me is just to use it as a screen and get devices to do what I want.
The only real motivation to get a new tv is if the current one breaks. I replace all the other living room devices a lot more frequently than the tv.
But the point of bothering to read the terms is well worth knowing so I appreciate the article.
If I didn't have an HTPC in front of my NAS, I would probably connect it again. But I don't need or want any of the network features. The apps are stupid. Browsing with the crappy remote is an exercise in extreme frustration. And I hardly ever watch youtube from my couch, so "throwing" content to the TV is pointless for me.
I can understand why some people would really like some of the "smart" tv features, but all my other devices that I connect to the tv have enough smarts in them anyway. Quite happy using my tv as a dumb monitor.
I suppose the economics aren't as straightforward, but I'm of the opinion that Chromecast, Roku, AppleTV, etc are the next layer of crippleware. A small form factor Windows box or a Mac Mini are superior to every set top media player on the market in every category but price. I've never seen a better interface on a media appliance. A wireless mouse always trumps a remote. But most importantly, you don't need the manufacturer to strike deals with Netflix/HBO/Hulu, you just need a web browser. The best interfaces for all of those services are the full websites. Not to mention all of the other features you get with a full blown computer.
Don't forget convenience. That is not a little thing.
While I agree that the "media" capabilities of so-called smart tv's suck, it isn't necessarily a conscious decision of the purchaser.
TV's typically fall into various tiers:
Basic Advanced Premium
The Media/App capabilities are usually bundled into the higher tiers, along with other feature upgrades (including size). Eventually as manufacturers find new things to charge money for, what were premium features become standard features on all sets.
In theory, the same could be said for Chromecast, since the casting server isn't something that Google sets up, but rather a feature the media company adds to their own app / service (which is relatively easy to do). For all intents and purposes, it's an app-driven web browser for your TV with the ability to stream video.
Personally, I'm a huge fan of using the actual netflix app to stream things to my television - same goes for youtube, pandora, class6ix, plex, and all the other apps I use to cast to my TVs and Stereos around the apt every day. I don't miss the wireless keyboard / mouse in the slightest.
Absolutely not. I do not want a mouse being used at my couch. I do not want my movie interrupted with Windows Update. I do not want to fiddle with XBMC or some other hacked together, unintegrated system.
I subscribe to the Unix philosophy when it comes to my home entertainment. I have a stereo that only plays audio. I have a TV that only plays video. I have a set-top box that only streams content. I have a DVD player than only plays discs. The last thing I need is a computer sitting in my living room making demands of me that are not related to the function I need it for.
I can read ebooks on my phone or desktop, but a Kindle, as a dedicated device, is much better suited to that purpose. That's why I have a Roku. There will never be a mousepad on the arm of my couch.
Would you at least concede that everything else being equal, there is no faster input to start media than with a mouse? Every TV/Set Top remote interface I've ever used requires at least 3x the steps of the equivalent with a mouse, because you have a D-Pad. Maybe DVD players are even, but any menu based system is crippled by design, because you cant scroll or point.
A mouse is completely unnecessary when you just have a grid or a list, a directional pad is more than sufficient. You can scroll just by going to the bottom of the list and continuing to go past that, which is how all menus work. It's not about how many steps it takes with a remote vs a mouse, it's about the UX of that specific UI. I don't want a desk in front of my couch. That's what remotes solve. I have a computer in my office and a media player in my living room, and I don't want to trade that for anything.
Can media player UIs be improved? Yep. With a mouse? Not in my opinion.
It is _completely_ about how many steps it takes.
It can go the other way too. UI is there to get out of your way. Lesser clicks is ok; but not at the expense of too many option, because I have to think about options. Like the gas pump that asks if I want a car wash. Wha? How did car washes get into the conversation?
I'm happy you have the options you want. I also have the options I want. I don't want a mouse to navigate my media player, and I can't agree that the mouse is the best option for that use. A mouse is great for navigating a web page where the links are scattered everywhere or through a document where you might need to click at any point to begin editing, but for structured lists, even on a computer, I navigate with the arrow keys (and occasionally pgup/pgdn/home/endm giving me an 8-way d-pad). My list is straight up and down and straight side to side, I don't need to go 10 degrees up and to the right.
I use an iPhone and iPad because I don't want to dick around with file structure and patching and rooting and rom'ing. I use a Roku because I don't want to organize my own content and make my own media player. I get enough of all of that when I'm working.
For the 99.9% of interactions with the system the remote is superior to a mouse.
1: http://www.amazon.com/Ortek-Windows-Infrared-Receiver-Ultima...
No remote control is going to come close to that sort of convenience. A wireless mouse certainly doesn't qualify.
Most of these devices are priced at less than $50. Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV Stick, a Roku. I don't know where you're finding multiple hundred dollar devices.
> A small form factor Windows box or a Mac Mini are superior to every set top media player on the market in every category but price
My Roku is cheaper, quieter, uses less power, uses a real remote, doesn't require any installation or maintenance aside from initially inputting my username/passwords. I can search Netflix/Amazon/Hulu from one search bar on my home screen. I don't see any advantages a full PC has other than "it does things unrelated to TV", which I just don't care about. I don't want to write emails or check Facebook from my TV.
>The best interfaces for all of those services are the full websites.
For using them on a computer, maybe. But interfaces need to be different for different devices. What works on a 14" laptop or 24" monitor does not work well on a 60" TV. For example, Steam's Big Picture mode vs the desktop mode for gaming.
Price is a pretty big deal. The SFF Windows box or Mac Mini, however, are inferior to Chromecast in a number of other ways, however: size, power consumption, setup effort, etc.
> A wireless mouse always trumps a remote.
A wireless mouse requires a surface. A remote doesn't. Nor does my phone (the main control I use with a Chromecast). So, no, I don't think a wireless mouse always trumps a remote, particularly for typical living room media control use.
> The best interfaces for all of those services are the full websites.
I've used Netflix on a number of devices, including using the full website. IMO, the full website certainly has the most appropriate UI for desktop/laptop use, but equally certainly is not the best UI for typical living room use.
> Not to mention all of the other features you get with a full blown computer.
Sure, a full blown computer is great, but tying it up as an STB isn't a particularly efficient use of resources given most people's STB use cases. Especially when with many much cheaper set-top devices you can get much of the effect of having the full-blown computer that you use connected to the TV without having it dedicated to that purpose as an STB.
Seems like the old way of "buy a TV, buy a VCR, plug them together" was much better. It's like software: use components so that each can be the best of breed and can be updated independently.
But if TVs start phoning home on their own terms, without my WiFi password or Ethernet cable, then it becomes terrifying.
I'd say, if there's a corporate reason to want data from the TV even if the consumer doesn't connect their Ethernet/wifi, the cost and complexity of adding in cell connectivity isn't very high these days.
None of my tvs have anything but video inputs.
I use dell monitors, and for my large screens, NEC commercial displays. They are as dumb as dumb can be.
I plan on just blocking it in my router, but who knows if the TV scans around for open hotspots. If I were a "smart" developer Id store everything locally if offline, then dump to the manufacturer if it ever does get a connection. Not my problem if the feds happen to be "selecting" for that dump somewhere upstream...really not my problem if they have a dragnet FISA warrant for the data.
Where is that noble hacker who'll make a tutorials on how to destroy smart TV WiFI radios?!
This stuff doesn't need a butlerian jihad, it needs a DIY surge.
Of course, one could certainly rationally choose to forgo that convenience in favour of increased privacy. I'm just saying the smart features aren't worthless.
Heck, I can DIY it myself but I don't, because smart TVs have the apps and features that are baseline useful. And because it's integrated, I don't need to make sure to turn on some other device to get access.
(Now it may not be designed to do that, of course, but we're both responding to <lurchpop>'s hypothetical.)
But what matters is if someone that is in a position to actually provide such TVs (and do a decent enough job producing and marketing them) to let the market decide. I know the HackerNews community has much more awareness of this issue than most people but it is something a fairly large number of people care about.
Bear in mind the vast majority of consumers never even glance at a privacy policy, and would only interpret a "privacy TV" as "a TV with fewer features"
A manufacturer only needs to provide an opt-out on these smart tvs for the few people who care about their illusory privacy anyway, and that 'privacy tv' market dies before it's even born.
You can already buy non-smart tvs anyway. I have one. It cost ~$100.00 and was made by some company I've never heard of. The only selling point for such things is their cheapness.
Most of the features are also stuff that I don't even know what does, it's just confusing. The plan might be to confuse customers into buying the most expensive TV, so they don't feel like they're missing out on something.
The first manufacturer to produce a cheap TV marketed as "HD TV, it does Netflix too" should in my mind be able to get a good number of customers.
Luckily most things use HTTP so you can actually filter based on the URL it's trying to access. For example, permitting software updates, but denying any kind of analytics reporting.
And with VPN on your phone (especially Always-On VPN) you can filter the requests from your phone with the same granularity, which is even more eye-opening.
Outbound filtering is incredibly useful if you value your security and privacy.
Also, there is no reason why all these functions should be built into a TV. I believe that the TV should be a monitor and thats it. We dont even need to have a TV tuner anymore. Just add 6 HDMI ports or more and I will add whatever function i want.
[Edited]
Some other options include Sonicwall and pfsense, and I encourage others to post their suggestions as well. I haven't used SonicWall, though I have used pfsense strictly as a firewall.
(0) http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-utm-h...
I don't like the idea of having to keep a desktop/laptop computer on 24/7.
Reading the forums there are some dual LAN Atom based mini PCs that seem OK.
Edit: Also http://store.netgate.com/Desktop-Systems-C83.aspx has some preconfigured options at under $300.
If you do not want to financially support pfSense, you can buy hardware from Netgate directly, starting from $299. Even cheaper as a kit or with older hardware, but you decide for yourself whether it will be adequate for you. I'm planning on buying an assembled APU from Netgate for myself; right now I'm using m0n0wall on a separate P3 PC (Celeron 1000), modded for silence. Probably will try out pfSense beforehand, on a separate CF card I just ordered.
Reviews suggest pfsense runs well, and with 4GB RAM and a decent SSD one could probably run snort and squid as well. Probably about $330 all assembled.
It's almost analagous to the "nutrition facts" that you get on food. A standard baseline so you can know what's going on.
The irony is that as people justifiably push for "more security", more and more of them are going to use HTTPS or other encrypted transports, making it impossible to determine what information they're transferring just from network inspection.
End-to-end encryption is a good thing only if you trust both endpoints and don't want MITMs to interfere. Otherwise, it's security being used against you.
When these smart device manufacturers "smarten up" and start encrypting everything (likely with no options to disable and/or e.g. install self-signed certificates - naturally, because of "security reasons"), it'll be all-or-nothing.
When I said HTTP, I meant to include HTTPS. Intercepting HTTPS and filtering it is actually rather simple, and avoiding certificate warnings only slightly less so by deploying your own CA.
You're correct that some devices may use certificate pinning to prevent me from doing this, but for those devices my solution is simple: They're denied Internet access entirely.
Edit: As a manufacturer/vendor you have zero expectation of privacy from me the consumer. I bought the device, I bought the equipment that runs the network, I pay to keep the device connected to the Internet, I get the final say on which packets your app receives. Any vendor who believes otherwise is mistaken and should be named and shamed.
Wish I had the money to drop hundreds of dollars on a product, and figure out what it does afterward...
I just got a great Sony projector and 92" screen for less than an equivalent quality large TV would cost. The only other consideration is the size of the room and ability to limit ambient light entering the room.
You know what will never stop this? Posts on hacker news. Letters to your congressman (LG can donate a fuqton more to his re-election campaign than you can). Voting with your dollar (people who know what a privacy policy is are few and far between).
You know what will? Taking these TVs into the street, smashing and burning them. Mobs storming Best Buy and smashing the surveillance cameras built into these telescreens. Bricks through the window of every mercenary selling your privacy, selling a live feed right to your living room, to the NSA/FBI/creepy internet hackers.
It's really hard to get people to commit to sustained, long-term action -- that's why boycotts are not effective and why this trend has continued. But people are actually angry about this and that anger can be fueled into displays of acute disapproval. Like burning a pile of spy TVs in the street and then flipping the cop car that comes to defend the surveillance state and burning that too.
Pretty sure this will get downvoted because anything outside the blandly acceptable boring-as-fuck politics always gets downvoted. But just keep in mind that you need to break a few eggs to make an omelet, and the power structures of the world pretty much only respond to Arab Spring-esque events now. We need to make every digital dictator afraid of becoming the next Gaddafi.
And actually Gaddafi was the ultimate non-boring active protester. If you knew what he actually did, instead of the mythological version of events, he is basically your poster child. Gaddafi got got because he wanted to get away from the petrodollar dictatorship.
The reality is that there are very serious challenges, not insurmountable, but problems that haven't actually had solutions engineered yet. And the institutions and even deeper, the belief systems that form our global operating framework, are completely outdated.
Leading edge technology has already made governments obsolete in some sense. Eventually, I believe that distributed technologies will make traditional governments, and a traditional operating mode based on deadly force and amoral behavior, irrelevant and passe.
That's how you get Bush twice re-elected, or believe that Obama is some kind of great "hope".
Plus it's not just LG that wants that kind of data. It's the government itself.
Let's look at boycotts. The problem with boycotts isn't that they're not effective; they can be. My family participated in a successful one against Iceland's whaling policies in the 80s and even though I was young, I never forgot why we did it and that it was right. So what's the problem? They ignore institutional structures that persist despite our actions. If one particular corporation strays too far, boycott pressure is effective. Don't forget how it played into bringing down South African apartheid.
My point here is that we don't need to go looking for new solutions. Good old fashioned organizing works. It does combat LG's bought politicians--remember my friend, we still have democratic institutions and we can vote anyone we want into office. People don't like to be reminded of what really works, I think. We need socialism. We need to vote them into office and make good privacy laws. That's that. No need to reinvent the wheel. Then we can talk about an informal technocracy democratically dissolving the state into libertarian socialist anarcho-communism.
I work on a solution to this particular problem every day. I don't just write on the internet about it.
Put up or shut up.
People see tyranny creeping up all over the West, for example, but it doesn't occur to them that instead of asking our rulers to please not oppress us, we should stop believing in their authority altogether.
You have your activism, and I have mine.
I'm not so sure lack of belief is enough to dissipate authority. As the old saying goes, you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. Within my lifetime, the surest way to invite a tiny war into your life is act as if political and/or legal authority doesn't exist. Hell, just implying that authority should change was enough to get projectiles and tear gas loosed in Ferguson MO.
In other words, even if we don't want rulers we still need rules. We need a system. Actually, we will have a system, anyway. even "no system" is a system. It's just not clear how it would actually work at the moment (possibilities ranges from "Libertarian Utopia" to "mob rule", including "gang rule" and "local warlords").
"Freedom" is an ideal, not a mechanism. The question is, which mechanism promotes freedom?
Personally, I currently bet on democracy. Not representative governments, but democracy, which we don't currently have. Like in ancient Athens, where people where chosen by random trial, instead of elections. (Plus a host of checks and balances, before during, and after whatever short mandate was given.)
Freedom just means that no one forcefully intervenes in your life, assuming that you're not harming anyone yourself, of course.
Demoracy is just mob rule. You'll find it unacceptable any time you're being forced to comply with what the majority wants. You know most people are idiots, right? You don't want idiots making decisions that affect your life. Does that help?
Is it really? When has it happened before?
A world with unfettered unregulated markets sounds more nightmarish to me than what we have now.
It's all well and good to postulate a free society, but do you have any idea what a free society actually looks like? (Neither do I, by the way.)
But from our point of view, what's the practical difference between being forced to comply with a King's royal edicts and being forced to comply with a bunch of politicians'?
Cartels can't be maintained in a free society. We know everyone participating in one is a scumbag, and the more lucrative the cartel's position is, the more motivated the participants are to betray the others (because there's lots of room for competing on price and taking away all the captive customers, thus making shitloads of money).
Cartels are a difficult thing to break. The light bulb cartel for instance still exist, even though it has officially been dissolved: light bulbs still only last a couple thousand hours, despite the existence of designs that can last 10 times longer. (Heck, that's one of the few things the centrally planned economy of the USSR got right: long lived light bulbs.)
Strength lies in numbers. Fascists knew that, popular movement know that, and cartels know that. Betraying the cartel is to fin yourself alone. The financial incentive may not overcome the need to be part of the same team. And sometimes, as is the case in the light bulb industry, it is not clear that you could actually take away the cartel's customers: light bulbs are fairly cheap, at face value. It's the planned obsolescence that's the real cost, and that cost is not disclosed to the customer.
You can only make your purchase decisions based on what you know. If the cartel is based on deceit, rather than on price regulation, it can be difficult to convince people based on durability concerns. People don't care about sustainability, because of hyperbolic discounting. (Why do you think we're trashing on the planet with little regard for future generations? It's not because of our rulers. It's because we just don't care about the future as much as we should.)
If the guy is selling X for half the cartel price, and can point to the cartel members and tell people how they've been screwed by them, what do people care aboit what the cartel scum is saying anymore? Nothing. They'll just buy X for 50% cheaper. You know you would too.
Who are trashing the planet? Ordinary people, or big corporations who've paid politicians off to let them pollute? What about militaries all over the world? Do you really think ordinary people are the problem here, or govts the solution? Really?
> Who are trashing the planet?
Everyone of course. Some people more than others, and as you suggested, some people are more responsible than others. But in the end, we're all caught up in this system. Heck even writing and reading this comment takes energy, and sits on top of one of the most polluting industries (computing).
We both know how cartels work. I pointed out that cartels don't last without state support. You don't feel like accepting that, just like you still haven't addressed my point about rulers.
Cartels are created and maintained by governments through prohibitively costly licences that are just denied to pesky outsiders that would actually compete with the other producers.
We're not going to get anywhere if you keep side-tracking the conversation, but that's exactly what staunch statists always do. Why? Because they can't handle reality.
It does. The "freedom of assembly" is very powerful, even if it doesn't get as much attention as the freedom of speech or the press. Seeing that there are others that share your outrage is an amazing motivator, as it shows, in a very personal way, that you don't have to accomplish everything yourself. Even better, it becomes easier to get others to join in and help as the group grows. Many are reluctant to be a first-mover, but will join a group once they see they will have the support of allies.
Unfortunately, FVEY agencies are not stupid. Mapping relationships to find the focal points that start or enable this kind of social organizing so they can be disrupted is a very good strategy. Even just the phone call-record and COTRAVELER[1] are likely enough to be able to find the leaders/organizers among any particular group. If you add in a few of the other tools we've seen recently, it must have been trivial to create a modern variant of COINTELPRO. Compared to the FBI's efforts under Hoover, GCHQ's "JTRIG"[2] is probably a lot easier and far more effective.
So yes, I totally agree - good old-fashioned organizing is something we need, and we need it fast. More importantly, we need it as a sustained effort to focus on a couple key topics, and we might actually see some progress.
I am not sure this is possible as long as "most" people still have food and a roof over their head. Groups start to form and ideas start to spread, but these efforts inevitably get distracted[3] or sidetracked with off-topic political minutia or divide-and-conquer wedge issues. Unfortunately, I suspect that technology will make organizing people effectively impossible until this mess impacts them personally in big, obvious, painful and/or expensive ways.
Of course, I would absolutely love to be proven wrong sbout this entire topic...
[1] http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/how-the-nsa-is-t...
[2] https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/14/manipulating-o...
[3] For an example relevant to this crowd, see PHK's "PSYOPS For Nerds" regarding yet another useless and distracting "BSD vs GPL" argument.
>It does combat LG's bought politicians--remember my friend, we still have democratic institutions and we can vote anyone we want into office. People don't like to be reminded of what really works, I think. We need socialism. We need to vote them into office and make good privacy laws. That's that. No need to reinvent the wheel. Then we can talk about an informal technocracy democratically dissolving the state into libertarian socialist anarcho-communism.
I have to think this is sarcasm. But it's well-done though. Anarchist communism via liberal reform? Classic. The 'good old-fashioned organizing works' is such a great layer on top of that.
10/10 trolling, comrade.
I like my webcam. I can have a skype video chat with someone halfway across the world. Sure, the NSA might watch me in my sleep, and that sucks (I do think rule of law works), but hey.
I like that google is data mining my emails. Google Now is amazing, reminds me of things like my flights because it goes through it. If that allows them to show somewhat creepy ads, so be it (google is a lot more subtle with their ads than they could be). The service is cool
Also, Rule of Law works. Consumer privacy protection laws exist in the EU, and companies that don't respect it can suffer greatly. So the NSA might not fall under that, but I'm much more comfortable with the NSA looking at me than corporations (though I'd rather have neither). And we _can_ push back on the surveillance apparatus (Church Commission and the like).
Really don't need to burn down everything to get things done.
Personally, I think the reason people aren't up in arms is pretty clear. People get up in arms about things that harm them -- oppressive governments (Arab Spring), desperate economic conditions (Ukraine), etc. Real stuff.
People don't get up in arms about tracking because it does not hurt them. Not: does not hurt them except in subtle ways they don't even notice. It doesn't hurt them at all, with very few exceptions. That's all there is to it.
I love how people set themselves up to 'win' like this if people don't like what they're saying. "If people vote me up, I'm right. If people vote me down, I'm right". Frankly, it's a 'boring-as-fuck' ploy and unfortunately it's on the rise at HN.
Learn to take your lumps like a damned adult, and don't make passive-aggressive remarks about people who might downvote you. People can think that you're full of shit without having to subscribe to mainstream viewpoints.
No, no. The full quote is, "But you can't make an omelette without ruthlessly crushing dozens of eggs beneath your steel boot and then publicly disemboweling the chickens that laid them as a warning to others."
I think you'd be surprised at a) how many people realize they're having their data collected and b) how few people care. Is it a risk? Yes. So is driving a car, but I'm not willing to put up with the inconvenience of not being able to drive somewhere.
One might be fine with having their TV scan their face, but does that mean they're okay with that scan being transported to someone else's servers? Who now owns that information? Can the manufacturer sell that to someone else without telling you?
This kind of information shouldn't be buried in 46 pages of legalese.
Many people aren't aware that Siri functions by sending your voice off to Apple's servers for processing, let alone knowing whether that means that Apple now owns those recordings of their voices. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but the Average Joe isn't going to read the 50 page ToS, let alone be able to accurately parse it. And if Apple chooses to keep that data for themselves, they aren't exactly incentivized to tell people that they now own this information and can resell it.
It's starting to get annoying, the folks who want to start a "privacy revolution" even when no one's asking them to.
Remember the Holocaust? Well, one thing that helped was an initially mostly harmless ethnic census conducted by Napoleon. Then the Nazi got hold of that data, and used it. Oops. Not that you or your descendants actually risk being put down in the gaz chamber because you turn on your TV, but there's a whole range of nasty stuff that can happen between nothing and summary execution.
What makes people think they have the right to be ignorant and/or opportunistic, when I never asked them to? :P
And I think that's where the revolution foments. Momentum builds slowly, but it seems to be there, simmering and slowly heating over the years. Those folks calling for revolution now are just impatient and louder.
Convenience is winning the war, and that's only increasing. All data points to even more invasiveness of products, and even more acceptance by people. The people you talk to simply don't outweigh the greater voice of the sum total of users of the Internet.
There is no revolution. Nothing is fermenting, and there is no momentum, except from the hacker elite (us), and that's not going to change, if stock prices and usage rates are any indication.
[0] - http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/04/facebook-1...
Anyway, are you saying that you personally have no problem with a TV that listens to you, or that you don't like it but other people might not object?
Letting JDate know my ethnicity isn't quite the same as losing one's agency.
1) It has a webcam
2) It has a microphone
3) You install software all the time that has access to both of these things.
3) Practically everything you do on it is tracked, cookied, and shared. (Sure some companies probably respect Do-Not-Track, but everyone?)
4) Do you realize that facebook knows your age, all of your friends, your demographics, and has like buttons on most pages on the internet. They are also about to launch a big ad platform to help others leverage that knowledge to place ads.
5) Google knows everything in your inbox.
Your Xbox has gesture control and voice command too.
If you are going to smash TVs, you probably should smash your laptop, and your xbox.
I don't think a few burning TVs in the streets are going to change anything. You'll need to think bigger :-)
1) Use a blob-free OS like Trisquel. Heh, your webcam may not have drivers in Trisquel. Or tape over it.
2) Trisquel also.
3) Trisquel also. Another good alternative is TAILS.
4) Use IceWeasel (Firefox source code) and the RequestPolicy extension.
5) Use DuckDuckGo or another anonymizing proxy.
I agree with you though, that we must think bigger than buying TVs so we can smash them.
I can't modify the hardware on a television reasonably, I can't change the operating system reasonably, nor can I modify the loaded software. I can't choose to run the server that it phones home to.
I can remove my laptop's webcam, or order one without. Same for a mic (lenovo/dell/hp have 'government specials' -- laptops without mics/cams/antennas), I can review the software I install, I can change it, etc. I can run my own email server.
One system enables the user to have power over the system itself, one doesn't. We need to stress the importance of users' power and ensure it for the future.
Don't buy such walled systems until the walls are removed so as to enable them to be functioning members of our user-centric society, rather than their profit-centric walled garden.
To most people everything feels like a walled garden, their phone, their computer, their TV. Sure you can install software on them, but very few people actually install new operating systems on anything at a low enough level that it would actually help their privacy.
As the technological elite, something like a TV that has so much embedded junk seems extra walled off. But I'd argue that most people have no clue how to stop websites from tracking them or to protect their privacy on any device. Most people have no IDEA what a cookie or an IP address is.
You happen to be familiar with software. To many people putting a piece of thick tape over the TV screen's camera, and microphone might be much easier than installing TOR. Dealing with the underlying embedded OS is probably super annoying, but hopefully you can still use your TV as a direct display using something similar to a Roku.
If a market for do-not-track devices exists someone will fill it, but I worry that the general population will have no idea that it's necessary or even care.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_knowledge_(logic)
There's something very powerful when I know what you think, and then you know that I know what you think. When mass understanding foments, common knowledge kicks in and there will be (it's already in the works) a sort of large scale adknowledgement that this is the will of not only us as individuals, but also us as masses.
[I will leave my usually blurb about documented programs in the US and elsewhere that specifically target and derail the forming of such community consensus and on the flip side manipulate media to create desirable consensus.]
Posts on Hacker News will only go so far, but as a community that makes recommendations and gives technical advice and knowledge to the broader community - and as patriots and democratic citizens - we can (and I do) discuss these issues without bashfulness to everyone we are close with.
People care. Old people care and young people care. Democrats, Republicans, Centrists, and Populists care. Religious people care. So do atheists.
Information is key and the media has a really poor record - even (especially) with the handling of the Snowden disclosures. The EFF and ACLU can only bring so many cases to court. _We_ need to be the reliable source of information - for those who look to us for technical advice and information.
And we need to demand an option during elections. This next (national) election is going to be another 'security year'. Screw that. Neither Ebola nor ISIS pose a credible threat to the United States. The real issues are class issues, democratic issues, police state issues, social issues, etc.
Your vote doesn't count for a whole lot. But all of our voices (for the most part) do. Man, it's depressing I had to qualify that... Anyway - posting to HN absolutely contributes. It just isn't the only place you should have your voice heard.
I disagree. I think voting with your dollar works pretty well actually. Case-in-point: The recent uproar over the Xbox One's Kinect. The original plan called for the Kinect to be a required component and for the microphone to always be on. Thanks to consumer backlash, Microsoft backpedaled on the always-on requirement pretty quickly, and they've started selling Kinect-less Xbox Ones as well.
Part of this is because Sony did an excellent job of capitalizing on these mis-steps with the PS4. Because there's no reason a competitor can't do the same against these smart TVs. You don't need customers to read the privacy policy; you just need to tell them that "the TV is telling Uncle Sam when you have sex."
>"people are actually angry about this"
So which is it? Do people care or not? Would the purpose of storming Best Buy be to inform the masses or to scare the management of LG?
I'm going to get a projector anyway. Of course, they keep getting "smarter" too.
Even if none to be found, I'd totally pay for a large format display instead of a TV just to save the headaches.
If you think your TV is bad, try powering on a windows phone for the first time and go through the dozen privacy waivers and turn off all the defaults of all the data it sends to Microsoft and Nokia. Pages and pages worth.
My TV should not require a 30 second bootup time before it can do anything if powered on cold, my TV should not crash because it has been on too long and there is a memory leak in the YahooWidgets/JavaScript engine it uses for apps, my TV should just focus on doing a really good job of displaying images from one or more sources of other boxes which are small and cheap enough to be upgraded every couple of years (unlike a TV which I upgrade far less).
Let me worry if those external boxes are invading my privacy or not, but my TV really needs to be stupid enough that it isn't even possible, if only for practical reasons.
Smartphones have virtually all of the capabilities that make the author fear his smart TV, only the smartphone is, if anything, even more dangerous because it is more ubiquitous.
People carry their phones around everywhere, and the phones are usually constantly on and equally capable of monitoring your every word and action that you perform on them.
If you value privacy but own a smartphone, you've already lost.
The more powerful and well connected a device is, the less privacy its users tend to have.
Unlike dumb phones, today's smartphones usually have built-in GPS capabilities, with relatively high-speed internet connections, powerful processors, a wealth of apps for their users to put their personal data in, and tight integration with social media.
There was a time when spy agencies would have killed to plant devices with these sorts of surveillance capabilities on their marks. Today billions keep them on their persons at all times -- willingly, gladly even.
I use Paranoid Android, and I know my S4 can still use its radio to spy on me, but at least the OS itself isn't.
In the so-called Internet of Things we're headed for, computers may be all-pervasive, wearable, embedded in everything, unobtrusive, practically indetectable and inescapable.
They are likely to be always communicating with the other computers all around them, and privacy will be a dream of the past.
Unfortunately, counter-surveillance technology does not appear to be keeping pace with surveillance technology, and since most people don't yet seem to care about being surveyed, there isn't much of a market for it.
On the other side, most companies (and their oh-so-helpful tech enablers) love to spy on their users, and see nothing wrong with doing so (or at least don't let any moral qualms stand in the way of a profit). So there is a lot of incentive for spying and little incentive for not spying.
Consciousness is slowly starting to emerge among the general population that this is happening, but there doesn't seem to be much of a backlash. Few are taking a stand.
EMP ?
I value my privacy, and trust (hope?) that my phone isn't transmitting that sort of stuff. If it did, I think it would be discovered and made public very quickly, and I would switch phones! But since the TV straight out says that it transmits my personal information, and I have no reason to doubt it, I'll be sure to not use that TV, or at least not connect it to the Internet.
We can trust others to safeguard our privacy, as a sort of calculated risk. But this TV is just saying out loud that it won't do that, so I'll avoid that model.