Watch What You Say Around Your Smart TV

[2EVES]

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/samsung-privacy-policy-watch-smart-tv/story?id=28829387

 

 

anyone find this creepy?

[ava]

Nothing anymore shocks me.  I am all for technology as there are many good things about it, but I think it's gone a bit overboard.  

 

I can't even begin to understand how we will discuss this world to ones who are resurrected from 20 years or more ago, lol.  How do we explain selfies and twitter and google spy glass and all the other stuff, lol.  One thing for sure, it will be some interesting conversations.

[Stavro]

Just in case anyone misinterprets the article, this only applies when two specific condition are met:

 

1: You must have this specific make/model of television.

 

2: You must intentionally turn on this feature of the television.

 

Certain individuals and media outlets in the past have tried to use these reports to claim that even computer monitors and 1960s tube-TVs have been secretly retrofitted with "Obama's NSA spy gear", but that is simply not true. If you don't own this TV, or even if you do own this TV but you have not turned on the voice recognition feature, then your home is just as private as it would be with no television of any kind.

[SunnyG]

I was recently on the phone for a work based conference call.

A little while later I picked up my Android tablet and looked at the screen.

 

At some point in my phone conversation I must have said "OK", and the "OK Google" app opened, recorded my voice and sent it to Google for interpreting!

There was a web site up on the screen with information relevant to the conversation I'd just had!

 

So what about these smart TV's that you control with hand gestures, are they watching as well as listening 

[Greg Dent]

Um sorry but thats not what they are saying about this app in the tv. You have to go into the program and actually turn it off when the tv is delivered. Other wise it is on by default. If you have a tv with voice recognition just go in and turn it off. No big deal. 

[1gemstone]

I'll keep that in mind when I buy a TV to deactivate that feature.

[Witness1970]

I've heard people claim that, if you have an outdoor antenna that is commercially manufactured that your TV could be transmitting data to *someone*.  I knew this was not true.  But now with TV's that can be connected to internet it is possible to actually transmit things about you to others.

 

What if someone one day manages to find a way to hack into your TV, turn the voice recognition on and have the data sent to them instead of the manufacturer?  Could be an invasion of privacy.

[Stavro]

What if someone one day manages to find a way to hack into your TV, turn the voice recognition on and have the data sent to them instead of the manufacturer?

 

Changing the firmware would require, at minimum, physical access to the TV, which most people don't have. And if they did, chances are they would leave behind their own device rather than make an easily discoverable and highly unstable hack that would only be disabled in the next update.

 

The easiest fix IMO is to leave the TV disconnected form the internet and use separate streaming devices. Even if the device is hacked, it has no camera or microphone, so the hacker would only cause a slight inconvenience for the user and gain no useful information for himself.