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by stallmanite 2080 days ago
So if I’m using a Samsung TV as a monitor and working on sensitive or classified material the damn thing is taking screenshots and uploading them? Yikes
4 comments

It's funny, but I bought a dell monitor and I downloaded the manuals.

One of them was an unexpected white paper, which contained this statement:

  Statement of Volatility – Dell U3219Q Monitor

  The purpose of this document is to certify that the Dell
  U3219Q monitor will not save, retain, or reproduce a signal
  to any internal or external component after power has been
  removed and reapplied to the unit.

  The Dell U3219Q monitor contains both volatile and
  non-volatile (NV) memory ICs. Volatile memory(s) lose their
  data immediately upon removal of power. Non-volatile memory
  ICs continue to retain their data even after the power has
  been removed. However, no input video data is written into
  these memory ICs during operation.

  List below contains volatile and non volatile memory ICs
  used in the Dell U3219Q monitor."
Then it had a table for each storage chip within the monitor with its purpose and characteristics including:

  - system eeprom
  - hdmi edid eeprom
  - system flash rom 
  - usb hub eeprom
  - pd controller flash rom
If the user doesn't control the software, the software controls the user. Don't give them network access.
10 years from now

"All smart TVs come with a 5G network adapter built in to keep in touch with the ad networks"

"How to desolder power from your built in 5G network adapter"

I give it 20 years before we have to root our TV's to disable tracking while keeping it functional - and that might be optimistic - the industry could get there in under 10 if they tried hard.

Not exactly. They upload fingerprint to see if it matches known content. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_content_recognitio...
If you're using it as a monitor, why would you still connect it to the internet?
Hypothetically because I’d be using it as a monitor part time and using the built in shit the other part of the time? In actuality I do as you suggest and don’t ever connect the thing to the internet. Operation Weeping Angel was enough to convince me of that.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/weeping-angel/