[ElFitz]

> "just don't connect it to the internet" is such a typical HN response that completely misses the point. A smart TV with no internet connection is still a smart TV. It still has an entire operating system that needs to load wifi, ethernet, Bluetooth, usb driver stacks. It still has an awful, flashy interface that adds unnecessary steps between changing inputs. It still tries to load god knows what apps every time you turn it on.

And that’s forgetting that some of those, when not actively connected to any specific wifi network, will just connect, on their own, to any nearby open wifi network.

See http://web.archive.org/web/20210828035115/https://forum.deve...

[ornornor]

> Because end user questions disrupt developer discussion this thread will be removed soon.

Lol. I’ve worked for Samsung’s TV (and ad business, I’m ashamed to say) and this doesn’t surprise me one bit. The culture was actively user hostile and gave zero fucks about security or quality. All that mattered was how much data we could suck out of the users home. That included automated content recognition so we’d know what you were watching at all time including porn even if it was streamed via your laptop, or reporting all the IDs of all hdmi devices connected to the tv, or scanning your internal network to find out what devices are there to then sell this info to advertisers and have you switch from Nintendo to Xbox for example.

Fwiw this was the first and last time I’ve ever worked in adtech, I’ve sworn to never ever enable this industry ever again.

[bspammer]

The automated content recognition thing is surprising, at least to me. That’s so invasive I’d assume it was illegal, but I guess I’m too optimistic about privacy laws.

[ElFitz]

It’s been documented

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/smarter-living/how-to-sto...

They also unilaterally decided to add a new "ad" feature to existing TVs

https://www.adweek.com/convergent-tv/samsung-ads-debuts-thre...

[ornornor]

It’s to sell analytics that are “better than Nielsen”, real-time, across devices, and for ad (re)targeting. There were also plans to detect commercial breaks on broadcast tv and dynamically replace them with whatever ads samsung wanted to show you instead but I think this was scrapped after all.

[feday]

You forget that there's ethernet inside the HDMI (1.4 and up) cable, it's called HEC (HDMI Ethernet Channel)?

It can just take network from whatever is attached and connected.

[sgtnoodle]

While Ethernet over HDMI is certainly a thing, is there any chance of a TV actually doing that without a consumer jumping through several hoops? As someone who would actually like that as a feature, I am 100% sure my 4 month old TV isn't sneaking internet access through its HDMI connection.