News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Face... by jamesponddotco on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @05:52PM (#21010647)
I got a Samsung "SmartTV", turned it on and the first thing I saw was advertisement and an insane amount of calls to Samsung servers on my Pi-hole. On the TV I just paid for.

Opened it up, disconnected the WiFi module, connected my Apple TV to it and am pretty happy.

Re:Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Face... by EpicEng on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @06:03PM (#21010748)
Why did you give it access to Wi-Fi in the first place? I have a Samsung smart TV and I just skipped that step. Performing a HW mod seems unnecessary.
Re:Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Face... by jamesponddotco on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @06:12PM (#21010859)
Because I was curious to see what it would try to do and I did not have an Ethernet cable in the living room at the time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Re:Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Face... by zik on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @06:28PM (#21011061)
It might make sense to connect it to get a firmware update. And some bug fixes, hopefully.
Re:Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Face... by takeda on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @11:17PM (#21012940)
If you don't want any of those smart features, chances are you don't have the need to update anything.
Re:Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Face... by amdelamar on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @05:59PM (#21010719)
Did you disable WiFi in the menu, or physically remove the WiFi card/chip?
Re:Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Face... by jamesponddotco on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @06:13PM (#21010874)
Physically removed the Wi-Fi module.
Re:Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Face... by beamatronic on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @06:19PM (#21010958)
I see a niche value-added service business here
Re:Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Face... by xxs on Thursday September 19, 2019 @01:44AM (#21013621)
this works of course, but blocking in on the router by mac address is way easier.