An investigation by Gamers Nexus found LG smart TVs sweep local networks to map phones and nearby devices. Tests also showed the sets can capture microphone audio with the screen off — they then upload data once reconnected to the internet.
The logging was shown using shell commands running on a rooted OS. I don’t doubt the companies can or are doing this, but it’s akin to showing that installing malware exfiltrates your crypto wallet info.
Anything with a CPU, WiFi module, and microphones is capable of this.
Which is why we need to be wary of products that have those things in them. Which this article highlights.
Instead we’re being asked to just accept that these “features” are going to be hard baked into literally everything we own whether we like it or not.
This is why my tv’s don’t get internet access.
Yep an isolated vlan with no internet access. Cast your media from a dongel or computer connected via hdmi.
Bingo. No need to connect your display.
This is why I don’t buy smart TVs in the first place.
This fucking chaebol has gone too far with this shit on their TVs.
there was a time… long past I suppose …when this would have been an outrage and politicians would be holding press conferences where they took crowbar swings to such devices. Things sure have changed.
I thought I had disabled everything but mine was still connected to WiFi. Thanks for the reminder. I disconnected it and blocked it at the router.
Tired of doing this for so many devices. We truly live in a full on surveillance state.
For what I saw in the video, even that way, the fucking TV try to connect to any available wifi to comunicate your data. Its insane
Yeah, I went with LG because I wanted to try an OLED, and the price was right. Never buying anything from them again, and whatever tv I do buy next I’ll disable all the shit from the get-go.
I’ve always been privacy minded, but things have gotten so bad, and I’ve gotten complacent. Hell, I just bought a connected smoke alarm system because my wife and kids needed something they can mute remotely. Should have just bought a stick instead.
I need to replace my WiFi, about time I get one with real VLAN support, so I can build an isolated guest/IoT network.
my wife and kids needed something they can mute remotely
But… why?
connected smoke alarm
What the fuck? I would have simply bought a wall powered smoke alarm, opened it up, and wired an auxiliary button to the snooze button’s pads and put that button lower down as one of those wall switch buttons.
You really just need to complete the circuit to make it shut up.
“The toaster is listening” in 2006 🤣
“The toaster is listening” in 2026 😬
Frakking toasters.
username checks out
is it same with very old lg? (20 years i think)
This is perfectly legal for a reason.
Are they monitoring everyone closely? No.
Are they monitoring those running for office, those they find “of interest”, certain key words and phrases, and so on?
CERTAINLY.
AI helps them to sort through the noise; this is the Patriot Act manifest. Companies are eager to comply.
Decades ago, they would have to “wire” your house to monitor you, tapping your phone and the like.
Today, they simply have to notice you, and they can get all of the data they want at will.
If your goal is political and unpopular with the powers that be, using the internet or phone will never be even vaguely secure. The TV is watching you… and the fridge and the washing machine and so on.
Good luck
Correct vibe but many unfounded assertions that cannot possibly be correct in technicality
Suggestions for people who only need and want a good screen instead of an ad infested spy station?
Use them as such, why would you give your screen Internet? Attach a Mediacenter of your choice, e.g. Kodi.
Update firmware over USB.
you would think its as simple as that, but i have seen reports of lg automatically connecting to open networks if they are available
theres also the possibility of them adding some cellular transmitter in the future
maybe the only way is the desolder all the wireless antennas…
Faraday laminate around the antenna also.
Why? Why would I accept a device in my home that will snoop on me if I use it as intended?
I think the point is they can’t upload anything if they’re not connected. Unfortunately, they’re some of the best OLED TVs right now in terms of the display
I do understand that but I don’t think it’s something we should accept. Next thing these fuckers have their own 5G antenna and connect to mobile with zero config, then what, rip out the antenna or literally wrap it in tinfoil?
My TV is 15 years old and works fine. Getting the best TV out there is not very meaningful anymore.
Ironically LG still makes good screens. Just don’t ever connect their TVs to the network.
Edit: If you must connect it to a network connect it to a different VLAN (Guest network) with no other devices.
It might be best to connect it to a network that just blackholes the traffic so it doesn’t go hunting for some open wifi.
However their budget models (under $400) are very uncompetitive.
TCL and Hisense are much better at those, and you can disable Wi-Fi then plug in your own box.
A screen that records audio without your consent? Maybe, they got inspiration from 1984
yeah how is that not wire tapping?
in capitalist America , you don’t listen to tv , tv listen to you !
It’s fair to make it “you don’t watch TV, TV watches you!”
Which I feel like might have been a real Yakov Smirnoff joke way back when.
Kind of — Bob Hope made the joke in the late 1950s:
Bob Hope, back from his Russian junket, noted that there had been TV in all the rooms of his Moscow hotel–”only it watches you”
Brilliant!
I think my TV is too old to be doing this, I hope
“We own the glass, we own the TV, we own the living room. We know who is in an LG home.” –LG President of Ads
These are the Gamers Nexus videos btw. Support them and their work. Get some cool shirts and physical media while you’re at it.
Luigi
