By Jeremy Hsu on September 24, 2024
Popular smart TV models made by Samsung and LG can take multiple snapshots of what you are watching every second – even when they are being used as external displays for your laptop or video game console.
Smart TV manufacturers use these frequent screenshots, as well as audio recordings, in their automatic content recognition systems, which track viewing habits in order to target people with specific advertising. But researchers showed this tracking by some of the world’s most popular smart TV brands – Samsung TVs can take screenshots every 500 milliseconds and LG TVs every 10 milliseconds – can occur when people least expect it.
“When a user connects their laptop via HDMI just to browse stuff on their laptop on a bigger screen by using the TV as a ‘dumb’ display, they are unsuspecting of their activity being screenshotted,” says Yash Vekaria at the University of California, Davis. Samsung and LG did not respond to a request for comment.
Vekaria and his colleagues connected smart TVs from Samsung and LG to their own computer server. Their server, which was equipped with software for analysing network traffic, acted as a middleman to see what visual snapshots or audio data the TVs were uploading.
They found the smart TVs did not appear to upload any screenshots or audio data when streaming from Netflix or other third-party apps, mirroring YouTube content streamed on a separate phone or laptop or when sitting idle. But the smart TVs did upload snapshots when showing broadcasts from the TV antenna or content from an HDMI-connected device.
The researchers also discovered country-specific differences when users streamed the free ad-supported TV channel provided by Samsung or LG platforms. Such user activities were uploaded when the TV was operating in the US but not in the UK.
By recording user activity even when it’s coming from connected laptops, smart TVs might capture sensitive data, says Vekaria. For example, it might record if people are browsing for baby products or other personal items.
Customers can opt out of such tracking for Samsung and LG TVs. But the process requires customers to either enable or disable between six and 11 different options in the TV settings.
“This is the sort of privacy-intrusive technology that should require people to opt into sharing their data with clear language explaining exactly what they’re agreeing to, not baked into initial setup agreements that people tend to speed through,” says Thorin Klosowski at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital privacy non-profit based in California.
My pi-hole blocks SO MUCH traffic from my Rokus. Never buying another Roku again.
No wonder these things operate slow as shit!
The only sensible way to operate these TVs is with no internet connection. We run our entertainment through an AppleTV. If that ever starts showing ads at rest, I’ll replace it with a Mac mini or a NUC. Fuck these companies and their race to the bottom.
Btw, is there a firmware hacking/flashing scene for smart TVs?
Buy a commercial TV. It’s a plain jane TV. I put one in as a SCADA, but it’s just a tv with no frills. When I saw what it was, I knew when I’d need to purchase a tv this would be the type I wanted.
I would love to able to able to put a different OS that does nothing but what I actually tell it to so on my smart TV…
Yes there is, believe it or not. It just depends on the kind of TV you have.
I setup my LG to be “jailbroken” so I could have it inject a python script into a PS4 to mod that.
https://youtu.be/zYoesrUsIj8?feature=shared
Interesting stuff.
The other option is to setup a PiHole and find the telemetry they are using to send the info off and blocking that.
Something doesn’t add up. How can a TV take 100 Screenshots of 4k content per second? No wifi has that bandwidth. No embedded processor has that capacity.
360p is probably enough. And that’s “up to” per second, average is probably far far far less.
It doesn’t need a 4K screenshot. It needs enough data/metrics from any given single frame to run it through analytics and an algorithm to tailor ads. Backend surveillance like this isn’t interested in fidelity to the human viewing experience. It needs identifying data. That can be had through a combination of low quality data scrapes done numerous times.
“Screenshot” is more like a metaphor here. Sort of like how your Apple or Google photos are “private,” but the data and analytics taken from them you’ve given away. It’s like if you told me I could look at all the photos on your phone and take as many notes and subject them to as much analysis as I wanted, but I promised not to actually physically keep your phone/photos. Probably makes you feel like your photos are securely still in your possession, but I got what I wanted. Your data is technically private, but my data about your data is mine.
I’m the OP, but not the author of this article posted.
After I dove deep into the study, the study said it records data at 500ms. And then it batches the data together, and only sent data once per minute back to Samsung. Between 8kB and 9kB of data per minute. So definitely not 4K screenshots.
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it doesn’t necessarily take full resolution images
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just because it can capture images a few hundred milliseconds apart doesn’t mean it’s continuously capturing images. It could be several in short bursts with a delay between groups of images.
You know when people say “I’ve only talked about this once, never searched for it, and then I got ads a few days later”?
What if it hasn’t been phones that were listening (despite Siri/Google Assistant/Alexa mis-identifying something as a wake-word being the most sensible explanation), but TVs?
Why not both
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It may be snapping multiple in a small period of time. Compressing them in the background then trickling them back out.
Not mentioning taking 100 screenshots each second with what - 25 frames per second? - is kinda overkill…
I’m pretty familiar with how one particular brand of TV works, and you’re right, it’s absolutely not screenshots. It’s a handful of single pixels across the screen. By matching these pixels against known content it’s possible to identify what was being watched. Not too different than how Shazam can identify a song.
That’s not to say all TV manufacturers work that way.
Probably a data snapshot, not an actual screenshot.
It doesn’t say the screenshot must be full resolution and it doesn’t say the screenshot is immediately uploaded. A couple seconds to downscale and compress would work the same as far as content identification is concerned
Projectors > *
“When a user connects their laptop via HDMI just to browse stuff on their laptop on a bigger screen by using the TV as a ‘dumb’ display, they are unsuspecting of their activity being screenshotted,”
But if you never connected the TV to the internet, it’s not able to upload anything right?
They collect all this data and then still cancel the most watched/best shows.
Morons.
Friendly reminder that gaming console monitors, computer monitors, projectors, dumb TVs, and commercial displays exist.
Yes, I could hack a smart TV to disable its networking capabilities. (Merely withholding my wifi password is not reliable.) But that would still be showing the manufacturers that I find spyware TVs acceptable, and supporting the production of those models.
Also, this would be a good time to pressure our legislators into criminalizing this nonsense.
Why is withholding the WiFi password not enough? Could they somehow piggyback off a different device or something?
I’ve heard that some of them will connect to any wifi available. So if your neighbor does not have a password on their network. The tv will connect and upload the data.
Good question. Please see my follow-up comment.
this is why you get a separate apple tv/android box and not connect your tv to the internet
Like those things aren’t capable of the same shit?
anythings capable of it, but the companies behind the (premium) boxes have less of an incentive. While theyre all capable, its a matter if you have trust in them. At least for the Shield TV for example, go download a shield tv rom if you really don’t trust Nvidia. If you are paranoid that they all can do it, than any smart device can do it because its connected to the internet.
Connect it to a Linux PC for optimal privacy.
Again, Samsung and LG is sniffing the HDMI port… So especially if you use another device like an Apple TV or Android or HTPC running Linux, only then Samsung & LG will record this data and sent back to HQ.
If you use a PC, there is no need to connect the TV to your WiFi, which means it won’t send any data.
Correct. Assuming your TV doesn’t connect to open wifi access points.
And assuming you never want to use any of the smart features or apps.
So what do we do when smart TVs force us to connect to the Internet, and refuse to work until we do?
This is exhausting. We’re speeding towards a horrible, privacy-less future.
That’s a easy solution, here are the steps:
Step 1: Do not purchase a smart TV
Step 2: Yay, you did it! You did all the steps. 🥳
That’s getting harder to find by the day
Have you bought a TV in the last 5 years?
No. Did you read step one?
For example, it might record if people are browsing for baby products or other personal items.
Don’t mind baby products and dildos or whatever.
They could see bank activity and even login credentials when someone is temporarily displaying their own passwords.
This basically ignores all security measures regarding everything. Sensitive communication, company secrets and so on.
That’s fucking seriously huge. What the fuck?!
Right? But we’ve been convinced the Chinese government spying on us through Huawei is a problem.
Every major tech major brands and business, even cars like BMW and now also TVs like Samsung or LG are all spying on their customers. And why isn’t this forbidden by lawn already?
And why isn’t this forbidden by lawn already?
Money & Corruption, the movie.
Because that’s a chinese corporation making money.
It’s fine when a US one does it
They’re both problems.
I know right!?? I connected my htpc to my Samsung tv. Omg!
I never own a smart tv, but can you flash custom firmwares into it?
Well there are no non smart TVs anymore as far as I can tell, except the “monitor” version of TVs for 30% more money and maybe some antique 32" TVs with resolution of 1366x768
The divide between the tech savvy and the tech illiterate grows deeper.
And wider?
As a tech savvy person, it’s already a gaping chasm. Making it wider and deeper isn’t a huge change.
Hahah my friends made fun of me for buying some cheap as fuck “smart” TV instead of an expensive LG one like them, my TV can barely run a web browser, no chance in hell that things spying on me.
Maybe it can barely run a web browser because it’s working so hard spying on you?
Exactly. Since this comment doesn’t make sense. It’s most likely not only Samsung and LG doing it
