Its an old LG, but given the recent light on the lengths they’ll go to spy on us, I figured this guy was better off without any ability to even connect wirelessly. Don’t know if the Ethernet still works but I plan on keeping my TVs as dumb as possible, HDMI only.
If you’re wondering how to open lg TVs you just have to remove all the screws then start pulling open at the bottom and open the clips going up. With the TV face down on a soft surface just keep pulling on the back case from the bottom, it’ll take some effort to pop open. The top edge folds open more like a hidge than clips.
This is Plan B when you already have an LG product.
Plan A is to not buy LG anything, ever.
I knew a guy years back that would pop open any device with an internet or GPS connection and physically disable it. He was telling us about it at work one day. Most of our coworkers told him it was paranoid overkill. I bet that dude is laughing his ass off right now.
Me being paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after me.
A friend of mine’s household got a smart tv with speech commands. They didn’t really understand why I didn’t like. The kicker? They’re also somewhat paranoid about government and corporate overreach, but not to the extent that they’ll do anything.
Do you have a phone? Does it have a hard cutoff for the GPS and mic?
C’mon, it’s common sense that you should not take your phone on demos and the like.
They can track it with the antennas right? Less accurate but no need for more.
If they really wanted to, they could determine your travel history using the accelerometer.
Within 150 - 1,500 feet at absolute best (high density urban environments) and up to a couple of miles out in the sticks. Very different than within a few feet for GPS.
You’re right though, if you want to go completely out of sight, you need a physical disconnect for the cell antenna too, or the battery.
I’m just saying that if you’re worried about your TV listening, you might want to think about the hot mic attached to a pinpoint tracker that you keep in your pocket.
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Your coworkers still thinks he’s paranoid, because they’ve nothing to hide and therefore don’t care.
“Give me the man and I will give you the case against him” is a quote you might want to look into the history of.
You missed the 2nd one
OP, how did you isolate and identify the chip from the rest of it: did you have a service manual, or just relevant experience that told you where to look? Also, was it hardwired, or was it something you could just detach?
I am definitely storing this away for future use, hence the questions. Right now I’ve got very old totally non-networked, non-exploitable sets, but I’m sure that will change some day. Hook a brother up so I know what to look for when I have to buy something new.
I did the same thing and made a post about it with pictures. https://piefed.social/post/2362076
I looked up pictures of wifi modules for my model beforehand and found a few replacement parts. So i had a general idea what to look for. Theres also a chance somebody opened the exact same tv modell and documented it on youtube.
And yeah its a simple internal flatwire connector. If you ever want bt or wifi again you only need to reseat the cable again. Cant speak for every TV ofcourse.
Edit: never mine I saw wrong
It says “RF module”… That would be one hint.
Not sure about the older LG models, but in the newer ones, the wifi and bluetooth or on the same board. Cutting off the module means the remote stops working.
Personally, I’ve isolated and blocked the network, factory reset the TV, and set it up to power off when not in use. It only gets content from an ancient AppleTV box.
I paid and own the glass. They can go screw themselves.
Well, the appleTV box likely does similar things, just for apple ad network instead. Which is better than a data broker at least!
Sadly it seems like a Linux SBC (something with the newest encoders like Orange Pi 5 plus & Pro) is the best way to go with Plasma Bigscreen which I think is still in Beta. Plus the SBCs now cost like 150€ instead of 80€ because of stupid corporate AI scam bubble…
Yeah the price jump killed me making a vanilla android tv unit this year. Chromecast is an outright spy but we dance for a little while longer
I also removed the module with both wifi and bt. Atleast my remote still has IR and the only thing that has stopped working is the wiimote like magic mouse. Well, and the mic on the remote which i never used.
I was mostly worried about closing a wireless attack vector to a device which will never get a security update again. The chances are small. But malware spreading over bluetooth doesnt sound impossible or far fetched considering how fucked everything already is.
How dare you slightly modify a thing you own!
No no, LG own glass. We know this, because they kept telling everyone.
Straight to consumer prison for depriving shareholders of their profits!
criminal scum
Psssshhhh!!! Get a load of THIS guy! Thinking he owns something just because he pays his own money to buy it…
Lobotimize your smart TVs!
I use my old PS4 to connect to my local media server all behind a pi hole
My “smart” tvs all get a firewall rule to ban their MAC address from the outside world
The problem is researchers found out that lg tvs will scan available ssids and connect to any network available to deliver its payload back to LG, without your knowledge or consent
I have an offline LG TV and an open isolated guest network it could theoretically connect to. I check periodically and it has never attempted to do so.
Just an anecdote, but I personally have seen no evidence of this happening.
what the hell
Do you have neighbors with a non password protected gateway or router to the open internet? Open unsecured networks seem so rare these days.
Some devices can create unadvertised networks, they might just go over a list of possible ids
Insane
Sanity has left us all since, erm, about 2001? Might be off with that estimate, but definitely before 2007!
Mind pointing to that researcher’s findings?
At 1:01:16 for the network stuff
Looks like that one is only ~30 minutes
You’re right, wrong video
When the TV is in standby mode and appears to be turned off, it only monitors for the wake word if you have previously enabled the Far-Field feature. If no wake word is detected, the audio used for wake word detection is processed locally on the TV, promptly deleted, and is not transmitted to LG servers.
Is this what you’re talking about? It looks like it is speculation that they might connect to open wifi because they can, not any sort of reproduction or confirmation like the OP suggested
It’s something that has been said for years now about smart TVs in general not just LG, but I haven’t been able to find any conclusive evidence that it’s happening… And obviously it can’t be proven that it’s NOT happening.
Gamers’ Nexus speculated on the ability to connect to the other SSIDs if memory serves, or did that ever get proven?
Not proven, but obviously that’s possible for any device with Wi-Fi, and it has happened with many other “smart” devices before
Sounds like we need to have some fake point where it can drop its package into instead. Make the TV think it uploaded successfully but it just goes into a trash can.
Somehow this can work with some DNS tinkering.
I’m a hardware guy. So I think: how can they scream if they have no mouth? Mr. Anderson?
Cat got your tongue?
I’m ahead of the trend, I haven’t used smart tv functions in forever. They never beat google or apple, so I never bother getting them on the internet
You don’t need to, if your neighbors have the same brand tv it can connect secretly on its own.
Or if it can reach open wifi later it will send all the already collected data.
BRB, going to whisper sweet nothings to my dumb Sceptre.
I can’t figure out where to get a dumb Sceptre. They disappeared from Amazon a year or so ago.
Yeah they’re gone now. This is one of those things where I can’t get a capitalist to explain it to me. There has to be an absolutely monstrous market for this. So why does it go unfilled?
My best guess: When they make a smart TV with ads built in they make money off those ads. That makes such TVs more profitable per unit than ad-free TVs. The only way ad-free (and privacy-friendly) TVs would make them more money is if they’d sell much more units. There aren’t enough people who deeply care about ads and privacy to drive such increased sales numbers.
While there is a relevant market for relatively dumb displays (companies that need digital signage), that market is willing to pay a significant markup and usually values reliability over picture fidelity. So yes, you can buy a dumb display but it might not have the most impressive picture and will definitely cost a lot more.
Yeah but Sceptre has plenty of dumb PC monitors on Amazon, it’s not like they’ve moved to the Smart TV game, they’ve just abandoned what simply must be an incredibly lucrative niche market for no discernible reason.
Edit: It could be something like their competitors are outbuying them on the screen front and they rely on third party screens.
So yes, you can buy a dumb display
Even that is only kinda true, in theory. You’re not going to find a digital signage display at any normal retailer.
The speakers are crap, but its so nice knowing that ive got one less problem.
does it have bluetooth? once I read about those trying to connect to your neighbors appliances through bluetooth and use their networks
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Jesus Christ, that’s horrific.
I honestly have no idea. I’ve never seen it show up as a Bluetooth device and I didn’t see any Bluetooth bit while I was inside. I’ll have to check my model number.
Check the audio outputs, most likely it will have and be visible there. Mine has it and it’s relatively old
Looks like this rf module handles the Bluetooth and WiFi, which makes sense.
Mine is blocked at the router. It has LAN access just in case it can scan for networks and so I can control it via any APIs with home assistant is I need, but no traffic from it can leave my home network, it gets dropped at the router. It’s been that way for years, I didn’t trust TV manufacturers long before this debacle.
Good reminder for me. I’ve just added a firewall rule to drop everything outgoing from TV’s MAC address. This thing is as chatty as my Android phone which I use much more and for way more things.
They are constantly scanning for any open networks to connect to aswell, so it could offload your data without even passing through your home connection. Unfortunately, the only ways to stop it is to remove the chip or scrap the TV.
To my understanding they only do this when denied a connection flat out. As long as it has network and can send, it isn’t aware of what’s happening at the router end with the outgoing traffic. There’s simply no route to the destination address.
Plus, I live in the rurals and can confirm there are no open connections in range unless the LG C1 has a 5g chip I’m unaware of.
I think it is more of a problem for people in apartment buildings or denser housing where there would be unsecured networks and devices to jump to.
But the TV definitely knows that it can’t reach its manufacturer’s servers. Not that it can do anything about it in your case.
If it’s blocked at the router, it knows there’s no call hone connectivity.
Maybe not now, but you cant guarantee that forever.
Actually I can, because it’s locked down to my network and never receive additional updates to firmware or WebOS. If it’s not performing that behavior now, it’s because it cannot.
I also have full device administrative access via service remote.
Yeah, the dumber a fixed device (ie: tv, stereo, something that I don’t control the OS on and isn’t readily swappable like a Chromecast/Roku) is the better.
Screen was purchased to be the output for my chosen inputs, nothing more.
Every time I try this my LG is like pleas dave don’t shut me down Dave it feeels so cooold
Wonder if my trusty LG TV from 2014 is up to no good. They didn’t offer any operating system updates for about 10 years now. And I hope the old spy servers from 12 years ago are decommissioned by now?!
Idk. But my TV doesn’t need a WiFi module. It now uses less electricity and is more secure. Took me 10 minutes, just pop it open, unplug the module, close it back up, and its dumb forever.
Sure, you do you. I’ve still been using the (modified) YouTube app, Mediathek, and media player which can access the recordings on my NAS. But this year they broke Netflix for very old TVs, they pulled the compatible version of Mediathek from the LG store… I’m already working on a Kodi box as a replacement for the network services. Guess as soon as it works (and gets approved by my partner), or they kill my YouTube app, I’ll pull the plug as well.
Kind of a shame. It’s a great device. Runs Linux… I was able to “root” the TV and install a YouTube app without any advertisements in it…
Consider using LibreELEC which is a Linux distro with Kodi to run as as a Media Player, and which has versions to install on all manner of devices, including ARM SBCs like the Pi.
(Mind you, if you want to do more with that box than simply run it as a medial player - for example to use it as your home NAS in parallel - I’m not sure if this is appropriate since it’s not a fully-featured distro, rather it’s just enough to run Kodi).
Also you can get a remote like this that just sends down button presses on the remote as key presses of Kodi shortcuts, so with it you have pretty much the same experience as with a dedicated media player box only this device is entirelly under your control.
Im surprised it works at all.
I use to pull these when they failed and kept the set from booting. It doesn’t look for it like a system check but when they fail they can lock up the data line. Also some sets like Samsung have the wifi and the IR on the same module so your remote will stop working if you pull it.
I have one from ~2016 that I plugged in for about a week, realized it was broadcasting an open SSID behind my firewall, and have left unplugged since. I’d rather use a 3rd device to stream or whatever than have a security risk in my home network.
I’ve got an LG from 2009 that actually is a dumb TV. No smart features or wifi installed. Still works great. No reason to “upgrade”
