Posted on November 21, 2013
Back when Samsung rolled out their first generation “smart” televisions. I questioned them about the ability to be spied on through them. They replied that “they do not have any documentation on that”. Read that article HERE.
Since that time nearly all television manufacturers have introduced “smart” TV’s. including the company LG. Which now finds themselves in the middle of a controversy about televisions spying on their customers.
“Doctor Beet was alarmed to notice that his LG TV was showing him ads on its home screen; he investigated and discovered a hidden, undocumented setting to switch off collection of his viewing habits. Still suspicious, he monitored the packets flowing from his TV’s network interface and discovered that even with the “data-collection off” setting engaged, the TV still phoned home with the name of every program it showed, as well as the filenames of every video he loaded over its USB interface. All of this data was sent in the clear to LG’s servers.
When he contacted LG, they told him that “unfortunately” he had consented to this by clicking through the EULA, and advised him that it was something he had to take up with the store where he bought the set, because they should have told him about the spying before selling it to him.”
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This comes at a time when Microsoft and Sony are having to answer about the Xbox One’s and Playstation4′s spying capabilities.
Of course these technologies are only on the surface of what kinds of spying is taking place in our homes. The smart grid coupled with smart appliances, and countless other “smart” technologies have been and are spying on us all daily. Below is a video we produced in 2011 outlining smart grid surveillance
http://canadianawareness.org/2013/11/are-smart-tvs-spying-on-you/