I have a ham radio license. If/when this happens, I eagerly look forward to using what I’ve picked up to figure out how to kill this with fire. In all likelihood, a piece of thin metal plate taped to the case in the right place will probably be all that’s needed.

And then the next generation will have signed firmware that doesn't allow the device to start until the spy packets go out and the response is received.

We need to kill these companies and their business models. As fun as it is for smart people like us to perform one-off lobotomies, it doesn't solve the problem.

> And then the next generation will have signed firmware that doesn't allow the device to start until the spy packets go out and the response is received.

Some Chromecast products already won't function unless they can talk to Google DNS servers[1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19170671

It's possible to redirect DNS requests to a server of your own choosing in order to get around this.

But the fact that doing so is severely limited to those with the technical knowledge and ability means it's still not a forgivable situation.

It also scares me as to what the future holds when such devices are hard coded with a DNS server using DoH.

> It's possible to redirect DNS requests to a server of your own choosing in order to get around this.

I've dug into this, and this is true for certain models and firmware versions, but not for others.

"License check failed. Please contact an authorized service center. Shutting down.."

But sir, I’m on a ship!

SpaceX is working on a solution for that...

Curious; How to test and verify it is working?

This is the only thing that mildly concerns me. Now I can just not connect. In the future, it may simply not be an option.

I’m sure the antennae will be impossible to physically disconnect as well. I really hoped we’d never get to Fahrenheit 451 but the wall to wall TVs that watch you are pretty close at hand.

One terrible but effective solution is to turn your home into a Faraday cage.

Why terrible? Your own wifi would still work inside the cage, would it not? As would your Internet uplink over cable/fiber/DSL/whatever. The only downside would seem to be cell phone service, but you could just use VoIP and Wifi for that while inside the house.

The real downside of course would be the cost. Shit, maybe I'll need to get a real job again after all...

I'd like for just one of these people offering the "solution" of turning our homes into faraday cages to show us that they've actually done this with their homes.

I would do it. I get cell service over WiFi. It has absolutely no downsides for me.

They'll be traces in a PCB, you will probably be able to cut the trace (and fry the transmitter).

Fahrenheit 451? That was book burning. I think you mean 1984, and its telescreens.

No, those are present - part of the commentary of the book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451

Montag awakens ill the next morning. Mildred tries to care for her husband but finds herself more involved in the "parlor wall" entertainment in the living room – large televisions filling the walls.

Beatty recounts the history of how books lost their value and how the firemen were adapted for their current role: over the course of several decades, people began to embrace new media (in this case, film and television), sports, and an ever-quickening pace of life.

It’s also a plot point in how they hunt the protagonist down, iirc. He wasn’t as engaged to the programming as he was supposed to be engaged.

I've literally never had a TV break or stop working. Ever. Especially with the new mass produced panels, what sort of Diagnostics or remote analysis could they POSSIBLY be doing?

That's sarcasm and/or corporate-speak, just like every software nowadays has telemetry and diagnostics and yet the quality of it is much lower than a decade ago before any of this BS. Just that if they called it by stalking and/or marketing tracking there would be an outcry, so "diagnostics" it is.

One of my TVs would regularly lock up when trying to decode a particular iffy signal over the air. In theory, a core dump could have helped fix that. In reality, that tv got zero updates.

Another tv had some bad joints on the panel, but remote diagnostics weren't going to help with big giant vertical lines.

With more than a hint of irony, the only TV I had 'break' was when Sony's telemetry server went down, and my Bravia TV failed to turn on. It wasn't until I happened to unplug the Ethernet cable that it suddenly started working again.

This was a little under ten years ago.

Had one fail: a flex cable went loose.

Just reinserted them all back in and voila.

The LEDs or drivers sometimes die, but replacements are usually available from ebay or aliexpress.

Funny how one of the repairers found that his 120V only LCD TV had a 120/240 power supply board nonetheless.

My dumb Samsung did way back in 2011. It was a POS and I vowed never to buy another Samsung TV ever again. This gives me further reason to hate Samsung.

Exactly

What makes 5G so much different than an LTE modem for this type of application? If they were going to do this why wouldn’t it already be happening with LTE.

Everyone is all hyped up about 5G and its "potential" for IoT which means carriers could offer cheaper plans making it viable for these devices to come with a cellular connection out of the box.

But I agree, on a technical level, 5G isn't necessary for this. In fact, given the low data rate and non-interactivity of it (it doesn't really matter if the screenshot takes 10 minutes to transfer) they could even get away with GPRS or EDGE.

The slower protocols usually get the more penetrating frequencies since they’re better optimized for getting a link in the first place.

I think the real push for 5G is that it could replace physical infrastructure and regulators only have policies for forcing availability of physical infrastructure. At least in Canada anyway.

Funny enough, 5G is not much better than 4G other than 1000x device density. There is no 1000x increase in population on the horizon, but IoThieves is around the corner.

> IoThieves

Hah, love it! I’m buying a TV today actually, I’ll use this when I have to convince the Micro Center guys that a dumb TV is really what i want

The signal should travel through walls better.

It’s wider bandwidth and faster nitrate so it should be cheaper.

All things equal with both factors above it should take less power (if for nothing else radio is on shorter time).

If not part of the spec itself, it likely will coincide with from the get go.

I have to agree that IoT (bleh. Coming from someone with an in-development connected device) will only become bigger with 5G.

> The signal should travel through walls better.

I'm pretty sure this is exactly the opposite: the shorter wavelength signals in 5G are line of sight, much more so than 4G.

While the higher frequencies (shorter wavelengthS) dont penetrate as well, they’re less likely to be impacted by obstructions because of narrower fresnel zones.

In other words, you don’t need your antennas to be as tall to get around curvature of earth (or that building in the way) with higher frequencies.

So one tall tower and a bunch of receivers on the ground in the desert: 5.8ghz is probably a better choice than 2.4.

Of course there are other factors.

I think this is why there is a decidedly specific marketing push talking about how 5G is going to really bring high speed to rural areas.

Its slightly subtle, but not so much, in the commercials - but you can see that its there - and I believe its a CYA thing.

Now imagine when 5G is mature, and coverage is blanketed AND the Drone ID legislation is passed.

I think the reality is that 5G could would enable telecoms to bypass physical to the home infrastructure entirely, further locking you into them.

Until regulators force them to become dumb pipes; as they often have for physical infrastructure.