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πŸ…°πŸ…»πŸ…ΈπŸ…²πŸ…΄ (πŸ—‘οΈπŸ”₯)

@eff my girlfriend and I were just in BestBuy this weekend and wondering if it's even possible to buy a "dumb" TV off the shelf anymore. They had one 720P dumb TV, and that was the only offering.

Especially if you want a large screen TV, your only option is spyware nowadays.

So I suppose the next option is to find one you can jailbreak and install a less invasive OS on.

@arstechnica

19 August at 18:27 | Wall-to-wall | Open on infosec.exchange
10 comments
Susanna
@alice_watson @eff @arstechnica No one forces you to connect it to the internet (yet). Most if not all smart TVs work just fine as dumb TVs when you don't connect them to anything.

If you want a dumb TV for ideological reason/whatever: look at commercial displays.

If you are looking for a small size TV then just get a monitor and a TV box.
@alice_watson @eff @arstechnica No one forces you to connect it to the internet (yet). Most if not all smart TVs work just fine as dumb TVs when you don't connect them to anything.

If you want a dumb TV for ideological reason/whatever: look at commercial displays.
19 August at 18:40 | Open on blob.cat
Xandra Granade πŸ³οΈβ€βš§οΈ

@alice_watson I'd be very curious how much of that can be blocked at the DNS level, given the relative proliferation of Pi-Hole. Still not a solution by any means, given the vast majority of TV owners don't and won't have access to such blocking, but I'm curious nonetheless.

19 August at 18:40 | Open on wandering.shop
dexternemrod

@xgranade

@alice_watson

This was also a solution that came into my mind. I think NextDNS has a dedicated filterlist for smartTVs

19 August at 19:28 | Open on troet.cafe
πŸ…°πŸ…»πŸ…ΈπŸ…²πŸ…΄ (πŸ—‘οΈπŸ”₯)

@xgranade I have a Pi-Hole set up to filter my network traffic at home, and it's glorious. I see almost zero ads on all my other devices, but some crap still comes through on my TV.

19 August at 19:30 | Open on infosec.exchange
Xandra Granade πŸ³οΈβ€βš§οΈ

@alice_watson We use pi-hole as well, with its upstream set to a local DoH proxy so that our ISP can't read any DNS queries going across our network. We don't use a recursive provider, so the upstream from the DoH proxy is still able to see queries, but at least they're in the EU and so will have some stronger privacy protections.

Really interesting that some of the TV ads get through, though. I wonder if that's the gravity lists not capturing that, or if they use a common domain to hide.

19 August at 19:57 | Open on wandering.shop
ansuz / ΰ€ΰ€°ΰ€¨

@alice_watson I vaguely remember someone on fedi tooting that some manufacturers still offer basic TVs without the spyware, but they're now branded as something different.

The LG website has some options branded as "Commercial Displays":

lg.com/us/business/commercial-

..and I've seen some products referred to as "Professional Displays".

I think these are basically what you'd use if you owned a physical shop and wanted to display some digital signage that was controlled by an external device.

I still haven't bought one of these myself, and it's entirely possible this market segment has been enshittified since I read about it, but it might investigating

@alice_watson I vaguely remember someone on fedi tooting that some manufacturers still offer basic TVs without the spyware, but they're now branded as something different.

The LG website has some options branded as "Commercial Displays":

lg.com/us/business/commercial-

..and I've seen some products referred to as "Professional Displays".

19 August at 18:54 | Open on social.cryptography.dog
amd

@alice_watson

I don’t know your specific objectives, but why not just never connect the TV to WiFi?

That’s what I do with my LG, otherwise it’s a terrible experience.

19 August at 20:50 | Open on social.amd.im
πŸ…°πŸ…»πŸ…ΈπŸ…²πŸ…΄ (πŸ—‘οΈπŸ”₯)

@amd because that's how I stream all my shitty walled-garden services 🀫

19 August at 20:54 | Open on infosec.exchange
amd

@alice_watson you’ll get no shame from me. I do my walled-garden streaming with a Roku or an AppleTV.

Same sin, less ads.

19 August at 20:56 | Open on social.amd.im
πŸ…°πŸ…»πŸ…ΈπŸ…²πŸ…΄ (πŸ—‘οΈπŸ”₯)

@amd my PiHole takes care of most ads and tracking that can be blocked with DNS filtering, and my VPN and browser plugins take care of the remainder. The issue is no browser plugins on my TV, so it misses those ones.

19 August at 21:03 | Open on infosec.exchange
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