Not only this, but how long until they start including a cheap modem and paying for their own cellular connectivity?

Or they buy access to things like this: https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b?node=21328123011

No need to include a modem when your customer's neighbor has an internet-connected toaster within bluetooth range of the TV.

My god damn CPAP machine does this. Insurance required the modem in order for them to pay for it.

There a number of guides on disabling this. That being said you still need to bring the SD card to doctor every 6 months for review. This is a good thing. The doctor is trying to help you. I know someone that died because they went on a trip and forgot their CPAP and just stopped breathing in the middle of the night and did not wake up. It happens. When you get a CPAP there is a reason. Take it seriously.

If you are having issues because of physically fixable issues there are surgeries that can help (I had 2 things fixed). Most of the time however its just being fat and physical. Loosing the weight helps and the effect can be tracked in the data the CPAP collects. The doctor can then use the data to adjust then pressure down.

I am speaking from experience. My pressure setting has dropped as I took off the beer gut. This time next year I will likely be able to be done with it.

Ugh this is way worse and actually seems far more likely and easy to accomplish than the public wifi thing...

It's going to be time to crack the sucker open and burn out the traces to/from the modem, isn't it.

E: And in the ongoing arms war, then manufacturer's ship remotes that no longer use tried and true IR but instead go over the same bluetooth or 2.4ghz chip. Some probably already do, I would expect.

My new Panasonic TV has dual-mode remote control - IR+Bluetooth. Bluetooth means that you don't need to point the remote as accurately. Plus you can use a phone as remote control.

That's part of the push for 5G - the idea that it becomes much easier to have many more devices, hence you can drop a modem anywhere.

Jesus Christ, at that point I'd just go in the TV and snip a trace in it.

It won’t be long until we start taking a ddwrt approach and jtagging our tvs and replacing them with custom ROMs.

We’ll be okay for another 5-10 years before they securely start locking that down too.

I'm optimistic within 5-10 years we'll start to see the rise of open source tvs that'll save us. I have no sources to back this up but seeing the release of several open source laptops gives me hope.

See also Amazon Sidewalk.

Some also:

1. Scan the HDMI content and send information back to the mothership to help vendors know what you're watching.

2. Scan the local network for shares and look at media on them, again to send back to the mothership.

Do you have a reference for this? I’ve heard this too but have never actually seen a first hand account

This sounds crazily like science fiction. The TV wants to live so will do anything to stay alive. Isn't this what HAL did to the guy Dave in the end?

I’ve heard of this rumour and hope it’s true and that someone has evidence of a tv manufactor is doing this in the US. https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/wi-fi-connect...

I doubt these stories. The number of people who get a smart TV and don’t connect it to the Internet are a minority. It’s just not worth the cost for any company to develop advanced features to spy on that limited subset.

How would the TV phone home if it's not connected to the internet?

Amazon had (perhaps still has) whispernet - a global coverage of cellular networks. It was used to download books to your kindle, essentially anywhere in the world, without having to have a local plan or WiFi.

It was 2G iirc, enough for book download. Uploading a perceptive hash of what you are watching - e.g. a frame every few seconds - also fits on 2G speeds.

Ok, so...

TV phones home a lot, with info about stuff, some info big lots of bandwidth.

could there be an attack with buying some tvs and putting them on public WiFi - and could one find a way to increase the amount the tv was sending so it amounted to an attack - but still have plausible deniability.

If tvs were put on public wifi, which I guess there is no reason why you shouldn't put your tv on public wifi, and the tv is using lots of bandwidth, and your tv is popular in a country with lots of free wifi, is that tv manufacturer guilty of an attack on the free wifi infrastructure of that country?

I'm asking for a short story or several I might write some day.

Also maybe I'm mistaken, but don't most modern cars have a built in modem for sending telemetry to the manufacturer as well?

Yes. Toyota seems to like putting the transceiver behind the glove box, forcing you to introduce a bundle of rattles to your newly purchased vehicle to remove. Also, I'm pretty sure removing it disables some of the front speakers, requiring manual wire connecting to get them back. You could maybe leave the device in there but encase it in a Faraday cage, but still rattles are introduced.

Ford, iirc, places it on the floor under or behind some seats making it much easier to deal with.

I think MA just passed a law about not allowing vehicles sold there to sell your telemetry data or something.

> I think MA just passed a law about not allowing vehicles sold there to sell your telemetry data or something.

i believe they just have to share the data with others, which they don't want to do.

Whispernet is dead from what I understand. As countries began shutting down 3G networks, Amazon was no long able to get connectivity at a price point where it was economically feasible.

Not dead, just replaced.

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b?ie=UTF8&node=213281...

Why not use helium network?

"doing active scans for any unsecured wifi network in range"

This doesn’t seem like a practical thing for manufacturers to implement. How common are such networks in actuality? Literally the only time I ever encountered unsecured Wi-Fi networks in the past several years were guest networks, and all of those were gated by a capture portal that would have blocked any sort of attempt at telemetry or ad serving.

A deal with comcast and their ubiquitous pseudo public hotspots would simplify that.

xfinitywifi, the comparable similar functionality from CenturyLink, etc, or if you happen to live just a bit too close to a McDonalds or other business that has open WiFi. And of course the possibility of one of your neighbors screwing up his WiFi setup.

There are a lot of ways this can (and has) gone horribly wrong for privacy.

I doubt any TV does this but if I needed to implement it I would just do it the same way that I use wifi in hotels that have captive portals without paying for it: tunnel IP over DNS.

Pretty common.

https://finder.wifi.xfinity.com/

Xfinity requires login. It is not open.

> doesn’t seem like a practical thing for manufacturers to implement.

In terms of what, lines of code? Engineer days?

Like the parent comment says: scan for some open Wi-Fi in range and connect. If that provides Internet access, it's good to go.

Might have 4g or 5g chips in them. I'm sure they could get a good deal on data if they put it in millions of TVs.