Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by alacritas0 on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @07:58PM (#28296521)

The average customer doesn't even know what spyware or telemetry is. I'd even argue that broadcast TV is dying making some form of video streaming service necessary which the smart TV accomplishes in a nice form factor.

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by michaelmrose on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @09:23PM (#28297098)

They know what ads are, they know what poorly designed laggy interfaces are, and they know about TVs that weirdly behave slowly if you load to many apps without rebooting your TV.

It really makes more sense for smart functionality to be a different box so you can pick it independently

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by CrazyCatDog on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @08:38PM (#28296792)

What do the smart ones in possession of a smart TV do? Because I constantly bleed time fine tuning pi-hole to limit telemetry and retain functionality…

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by hackerfromthefu on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @09:54PM (#28297258)

Don't give it network, and use it as a dumb terminal connected via hdmi to a secure pc

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by loonster on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @11:53PM (#28297880)

Eventually they will all likely have cellular modems.

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by TedDoesntTalk on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @12:54AM (#28298172)

But if you are using an external video source and the tv as a dumb display via hdmi, what is that cellular modem going to transmit? Screenshots?

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by vages on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @01:25AM (#28298317)

The TVs track the content you’re watching by sampling a subset of the pixels. So yes.

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by donmcronald on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @02:38AM (#28298618)

Wow. I never knew about that. It’s called ACR (automatic content recognition).

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by IG_Semmelweiss on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @08:01AM (#28300539)

I remember reading some tvs will actively search (open?) networks to connect on their own.

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by zimpenfish on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @06:08AM (#28299715)

Turn off the WIFI, unplug the ethernet, ban the MAC from DHCP, and then plug in an Apple TV 4K.

(I trust Apple more than Samsung. Except when it comes to remote control design.)

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by dnissley on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @10:21PM (#28297399)

This might be unpopular in these parts, but... just don't do anything and actively choose not to care about things like telemetry which have no tangible effect on my experience.

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by throaway46546 on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @01:08AM (#28298235)

I removed the WiFi card from mine.

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by touisteur on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @03:22AM (#28298881)

Do you remember which model it was and the format of the card? M.2? Card-express?

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by throaway46546 on Saturday August 28, 2021 @03:07AM (#28336196)

Sorry for the late response. I don't check this account every day. It isn't my main TV it is a TCL 49S405. It wasn't any form factor I recognize. I looked up the replacement part and found an image.

https://i.imgur.com/FlbKQEu.jpg

It was super trivial to remove. There is actually a removable panel on the back of the TV that lets you access it. Once I saw the antenna connector I knew what it was.

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by touisteur on Tuesday August 31, 2021 @02:10AM (#28364488)

Hey, no big deal. Thanks a lot for coming back and even posting a picture. Now I know what to look for. Didn't even think they'd have the wifi as an separate module, what with integration these days.

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by robotnikman on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @11:30AM (#28302895)

Probably M.2 since its the most common form factor for them

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by vincentpants on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @08:10PM (#28296615)

… while also making a product out of the user through data collection.

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by hulitu on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @09:01AM (#28301097)

> The average customer doesn't even know what spyware or telemetry is.

The average customer doesn't know what telemetry is. They usually know what spyware is, and, if they don't, they will find out very quickly. Of course there are exceptions like your favourite Smart TVs or Google (MS, Apple) products.

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by MomoXenosaga on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @08:43PM (#28296819)

Yes TV channels are being replaced by apps.

I think smart TVs are great, the chips that they put in the €1000 models are good enough for 4k streaming now. No more cheap mediatek crap. The only remaining problem that needs to be solved is long term support.

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Re:Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African w... by kevin_thibedeau on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @05:40AM (#28299564)

Roku TVs have handled 4k for years with much lower price points. They also have the best track record for supporting their product lineup.

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