wouldn't be easier just not set internet connection in first place? I don't think TV can hack into secure WiFi network

They have been caught trying to connect to unsecured WiFi before.

I bet you aren’t going to be able to provide a source for this.

> I bet you aren’t going to be able to provide a source for this.

They can't, but I do have this saved

https://web.archive.org/web/20191224122714/https://www.reddi...

Even if not, it's only a matter of time before it does happen. Not an if.

I suppose the same can be said about your TV turning into a sentient killer robot.

That would be illegal. However people here sometimes report that they connect to any nearby open wifi network even if you don’t explicitly connect them to your own.

Fair, though you might want to make some exceptions at some point. Or prevent it from randomly connecting to an unsecured wifi.

If they did it sounds like a great way for someone doing something nefarious to get off the hook. Some smart TVs are even able to act as wireless access points.

Give it an IP with no gateway, or a bad gateway.

they can still hack into open networks around you and monitor the SSIDs to get a sense of your position.

Amazon Sidewalk is what worries me for the long term.

That sounds illegal and awaiting lawsuit to me, device connecting to unsecured network by itself without my knowledge doing there whoever knows.

Imagine my neighbor has unsecured WiFi network set for himself, I'm pretty sure he could call police on anyone connected to his network abusing his connection just because it's not locked.

By this logic you can steal unlocked car with key in engine or unlocked bike and that's what these TV would be doing.

You would be probably excused if TV done by itself, but it would land the brand lot of negative publicity and you could try to reimburse defense lawyer expenses on them. They would probably argue you agreed with terms of service when first launching TV, so don't do that if you want dumb TV.

> Blocking the MAC address from making connections outright seems like a more sensible way to prevent surveillance.

That won't protect against DNS data exfiltration. Extremely low-bandwidth, but works in a lot of cases - people have even written proxy servers to get slow but working Internet on public hotspots that normally require login.

How does that work if you block the internet at the router level?

Simple: most router firewalls only block traffic that has source:<IP of device> and destination:<anything in the Internet>, but traffic from source:<IP of device> to destination:<IP of router, IP range of home network> will be allowed.

That is enough for the device to emit a DNS query like "pbs.12345.metricservice.example.com" to notfiy some tracking service that the device with serial 12345 just switched to a channel labeled "PBS". The router will resolve that name record at the DNS server for metricservice.example.com, which gets the request and logs it away.

Are you suggesting that devices connected to a network that has blocked their MAC can still make DNS requests?

How many consumer routers go that length? For most of these, as long as they are on the network, they can communicate over DNS, using the router as "middleman".