Remember ye old life-hack that you can use earbuds as a microphone in a pinch?
Speakers and microphones are conceptually the same technology. If your tv can play sound then in theory it can be used by a malicious hacker or company to records sound.
Only the cone-magnet-coil-wires part is the same. All the electrical parts are different. There’s no way.
As far as i could research it is technically feasible though very impractical and low quality, way easier to sell people voice command features instead.
As i understand it also depends on whether its a “active” speaker or not, has an amplifier behind it.
Tvs usually use a speaker array, a bad actor company could design it in a way that one or two of those can be used to record sound in case the microphone is no longer detected.
An ad collector wouldn’t go that far on purpose, a state intelligence operator who is covertly part of the company might.
probably some mossad-level shit, not for the regular everyday leftist “domestic terrorist” eh ?
I hope not.
I think i can still trust my devices to not be actively listening trough every hole. I can, right?
This should be a web site or YT channel. How to remove such bits without bricking the item.
To be fair, OP didn’t claim that the remote wasn’t bricked…
It works! I was fully prepared for it to not work and explain to my wife why we need to order a new one, but no issue at all!
Looking up which part to nuke took an hour, but anything to calm down my paranoid ass haha
“Oh good, he fell for the decoy”
oh no
I think ill just jeep using my LCD from 2007
Yeah, that’s probably the smart move
No, it’s not smart, that’s the point! ;)
Nice one lmao
Just curious, what kind of batteries are powering the remote and if rechargeable, how often does it need charging? Not saying they wouldn’t do such things, still a good preventative measure, but I’d be surprised if it could sustain telemetry with only the power of AAA batteries in a typical remote.
Two AAA batteries and they weren’t changed in a year so yeah, ouch.
Smart enough to be able to remove the mic from the remote, not smart enough to figure out that its not constantly recording for a year on 2 AAA batteries.
If I don’t want to take the remote apart I guess covering the mic opening with tape would be the next best thing? (Apart from never connecting it to WiFi, which I’ve never done anyway.)
This remote didn’t even have an opening so I can only imagine how little covering it with a tape would do. I mean tape your phone’s mic and you will sound like shit, but you can still be understood. So yeah, never connect it in the first place but I chose to nuke the mics out of spite.
Is it really as much of a privacy problem as TV microphones? After all wouldn’t the battery die?
Well this remote is connected to the TV via Bluetooth and the mic is super energy efficient so yeah, to hell with it
How did you find out there was a microphone? And how did you figure out which chip?
The TV advetises voice recognition in both the TV itself and the remote.
If you look at it, it’s likely going to be a 2x4mm silver rectangle with a small hole in it. Not always, but they mostly look like that.
There will almost always be a hole above it in the plastic remote housing.
MEMs microphones are a silver or black rectangle and it has to have a small hole in the top of the package https://www.st.com/en/mems-and-sensors/mems-microphones.html
Generally you can also just put a dab of hot glue over the top of the hole and it won’t be able to hear shit, you don’t necessarily have to desolder it, but it is the most effective.
Or just don’t connect your TV?
To the WiFi?
You are often forced to in order to set it up at all, the damage is already done if you disconnect it or VLAN quarantine it after that.
It doesn’t stop the TV from spying on you. GN just proved that it runs STT and records your conversations in plaintext and has the memory to store them for eternity. It also gets your location from scanning WiFi, Bluetooth, and any other devices in the band and geolocating based off of their data.
Then if you ever sell the TV, it will dump the data if they connect it, or somebody with the same brand smart TV moved in next door, it will use that TV’s hidden SSID hotspot to jump the airgap and dump all if its (likely time and position stamped) transcribed spying data to the servers.
Hardware fix is literally the only fix.
Can you help me understand why i got downvotes for posting the following comment in this very same community 2 days ago?
I am not saying the following happens, i think there is no proof it happens, but its technically doable.
They are capable of scanning for local networks and bluetooth devices which can be used to identify a location. (This part they definitely do)
If your neighbour has an lg tv, or the presence of the tv is extracted through your phone. Then they know where it is and they also know of any open/public wifi networks around.
The researchers from gamers nexus can connect to 2 (ssid) networks at once for some reason.
In theory a neighbours lg tv could
broadcast their wifi credentials to your tv toconnect to upload the data.Damn I was not aware of that.
And hope no open networks are in range, ever. Or it will exfiltrate collected data.
Or another TV of the same manufacturer that has Internet access.
Why not both?
Because one is unnecessary of you do the other?
Out of fucking principle, yes it’s not connected, but I won’t tolerate a mic in my remote. Besides, you have heard of them being able to use your neighbour’s unsafe WIFI if you have to act so smart, right?
That is not my remote though
I lost mine yesterday so I’m thinking this is where it went to.
No, you’re all getting it wrong.
Collect books, and use the microplastic that you have ingested over the years to build a water-tight caccoon in a cave to protect them.
Everything else simply requires rocks and/or genitalia. Or the absence of rocks and/or genitalia.
Such is a way.
Don’t buy these kinds of TVs in the first place?
Sure thing, please look up what a 50 inch 4K dumb screen costs and report back to me.
I know you’re being sarcastic but I don’t know what you’re getting out.
Do dumb screens exist ? If they’re 4x the price, surely my browsing preferences can’t be worth 3x the price ?
That’s the thing, the average person’s value is waaay more than the discount you are getting. Imagine the screens without any smart bs built into them as being the real cost. Now you ADD the hardware and suddenly they cost 25-50%? If it wasn’t worth at least that (your data is worth more), the companies wouldn’t subsidize that much.
Just about 4x the price of a similar TV. Although, said monitor also has a higher refresh rate.
Oh wait! There’s one under 2x the price :
“LG 50UL3J-M 50” UHD 4K Commercial Monitor"
Ok sorry that one is “smart” too.
