alt Hacker News216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]
Comments
I've bought an LG Smart TV 5 years ago, read t&c where I was supposed to grant them any data they wanted, decided to disagree and kept all network functions disabled. I was ridiculed by my friends for that. At some point, I thought - maybe I'm really crazy to do so? Who am I, a caveman, a luddite? Oh well, I'm not. Not a bad tv though, many HDMI ports!
Okay. This is insane. First the monitor that uses a windows feature to automatically install a small helper tool with root permissions and then starts showing adds in certain regions. Now a tv that is actually actively snooping around on top of the known fingerprinting. What else is next?
In the previous topic I got ridiculed for not wanting to buy LG anymore because I could use an agent to modify to strip out the offending bits.
But there must be something better than just keeping to buy things that invade our privacy and homes further and further. Which brands aren’t doing this? Sony? They also announced a partnership for the lower end TVs IIRC.
I'm surprised this hasn't run afoul of all-party wiretap laws. Even if you could waive your own rights via ToS other people in the house may not have agreed.
Theoretically I could see LG or even the TV's owner being culpable.
I'd love to see that case hit the media. Average citizen jailed over wiretap violations because they let their TV record a guest.
Am I glad I blocked my CX from 2020 very early from accessing the internet!
Looked into rooting - my old firmware would be ideal, but other than a native ambient lighting tap I don't really see anything worth my time. That model probably doesn't have a wide field mic yet to use for home automation.
As an owner of 2 LG OLEDs, I am not surprised at all. I neutered these things the first day I was past the return policy. Opened the back and unplugged the WiFi/BT chip, bought a cheap dumb universal remote with no mic in it, disagreed to all T&C in the TV, updated the firmware via USB and just use an AppleTV over HDMI for streaming. Kind of silly to have to go through all of this but hey thats where we are in 2026 in the US. And I am fully aware that I am typing this on an iPhone thats probably doing the same things that this article is talking about LG doing ;-(
The source video is excellent: https://youtu.be/6IFVTcM28KA
I have two LG TVs so this freaks me out a lot. I guess I’m fortunate to have kept their network permanently disconnected (we use Apple TV for smart stuff) but who knows if they don’t do things like scan for open hotspots or connect without permission to networks you previously used to update firmware and then deleted from history.
This company needs to be nuked from orbit. Automatic content recognition is one thing, spying on conversations when switched off is a whole other level of violation.
I guess this is unavoidable on today’s internet, but…reading a story that decries the (admittedly really bad) data gathering techniques of an advertiser, from a site that itself is plastered with adverts…I don’t know the right word here, but it feels a bit shit.
Although I’m glad this is getting the visibility it deserves. I hope this hurts LG where it matters and sends a signal to other manufacturers, but I doubt it.
Funny, published on a site with 1745 'partners' who fully respect our privacy of course
Disconnecting it from the internet isn't enough, because it will store spying data forever until it gets a connection, and it will connect to any open WiFi. You have to disconnect it from the power, and then use a sledgehammer on the remains.
The title undersells it.
The TV has multiple mics that can't be disabled, they constantly record everything and upload transcripts in plain text.
It gathers data and metadata of all devices on the network, including IP addresses. And even analyzes network data to understand which applications are being run.
Modems becoming super cheap is gonna be a big problem for this, because those make it even harder to prevent such snooping.
Just imagine having to jam the devices in your own home just to stop them from profiling you.
Better pray to your deer god that modem + data contract is gonna stay more expensive that the expected value from selling more data...
We really need regulation to stop this.
My TVs are on the IoT network so that I can control them from Home Assistant, but they're blocked from accessing the internet.
DNS lookups are redirected or blocked (53 redirected to my local DNS resolver, 853 blocked), and DoH is blocked as best effort though it's hard to block HTTP DNS traffic, which again is why the devices are blocked in the firewall.
All streaming is done via AppleTV, which is a platform I trust infinitely more than LG/Samsung/whatever.
Telescreens [1] are here!
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. [1]
Would you like to know more?
This is quite a mixed set of topics mangled together, which is a pity because IMO a cleaner separation would be more beneficial to get the point across.
1. The Ad data-collecting platform TV-manufacturers are operating, what data they collect and how they use it.
2. The vulnerabilities of the OS in a SmartTV, and the potential issues to exploit them for malicious purposes.
3. The general behavior of the device when connected to your network, with features like voice control, App control, Smart Home etc. enabled, and how it may expose information about yourself.
All the points and scenarios in the video might be valid, but they are not sufficiently grouped into one of the above categories.
Instead, it just mixes them all together to imply that its all the same, weakening the whole investigation.
--
The plain example: Using voice-input for a web-search on the TV [0], make long pauses and observe how it keeps populating the prompt-UI with everything you say. This is a matter of #3 above, accusing a malicious intent already on such a trivial implementation topic is harming the whole story
In an age where AI can search vast amounts of data having something in your home or workplace turning what it hears into text looks like a problem waiting to happen.
E.g. As soon as someone proves LG, Samsung, etc. recorded and stored credit card details and knowingly have weak security this is going to be a massive business liability.
That's an easy one to put a compensation figure on but there's probably all sorts of other exploits waiting to happen.
I think the most egregious thing here is that if you don't give the TV a network connection that it will actively search for other ways to get the data back to LG such as open WIFI.
PSA for the home automation enthusiasts who keep smart TVs connected to the network to turn them on or off remotely: a lot of other sources that are likely connected to HDMI ports (Apple TVs, gaming PCs etc.) could do the same via HDMI-CEC, so unless you're truly using the 'smart' features there is less and less reasons to keep the TV itself connected to any network.
I commented this only a few days ago on a different LG related thread. What LG are doing is indefensible and we should all vote with our wallets when considering a new TV... but for those who already own an LG TV you really owe it to yourself to jailbreak it and make it "yours", so to speak.
> OpenLGTV[1] is a collective, non-commercial project for legal reverse engineering and research of LG (Smart and non Smart) TVs firmware, which is partially Open Source.
> The main goal of the project is to improve the functionality of the TVs by adding new features, fixing bugs and providing new software.
After researching a new TV (where it only needs an Apple TV, no so-called smart features for spying purposes) the three contenders were Samsung, LG and Sony Bravia (the higher end models). Samsung was the least trustworthy, having played games with firmware updates and adding telemetry, LG was medium trustworthy, and Sony seemed the least likely. It looks like that heuristic was correct. For the Bravia, I put it on wifi just once temporarily to upgrade the firmware when I bought it, and I'm leaving it disconnected.
It can't just magically connect to an openwifi and update its firmware to start telemetry. It would need a new firmware to even try that.
Folks, never update a TV firmware unless it's necessary.
Watching the actual investigation video the article is based on, it turns out that alot of the statements in the article don't really hold up to closer scrutiny.
I couldn't find any "smoking gun" or discovery of malicious intent.
What's left in the end is the already-known fact in the tech-community: The most-common, most-vulnerable and most-equipped device to spy on you in your home is your Smart-TV.
1. It has all the compute-power and sensors it needs
2. It already does some spying for ad-profiling
3. If a hacker exploits it, it's a problem
My TVs (Samsung) are the only devices on my network that are locked down and quarantined. But I wonder if there will come a day when TVs contain cellular or satellite modems so you can’t block the telemetry.
This is the same behaviour as the german secret police in east germany. The difference now its for ads and by tech. All collected data are probably ai transcribed from audio to text and is fused via data fusion to serve ads. Add collaborative filtering to find similar interests between users.
> They also found where the microphone was software disabled via settings, it was STILL recording things but had the dB level so low that it looked like nothing but when amplified to +50dB later the conversations were actually still there.
How is this legal? Can't we sue them or get the FTC against them? This seems like a ridiculous amount of spying, even if their TOS says so. That seems like exploiting complexity of TOS to let them spy on everyone.
I'm pretty sure that these TVs won't respect WIFI passwords and if you enter a wifi password in once, it will just remember it even when you clear it, and it will try to connect to the internet that way.
This should be sufficient to let LG go bankrupt… We've all become numb to this kind of craziness
I've one question: I've used android phone (realme, which is chinese). And i remember that whenever we used to discuss somethings among our friends, i started used to get ads realated to that on my laptop, phone within atmost a hour.
So, was realme transcribing all conversations and uploading it? Can someone answer?
It's good that at least one tech company still listens to its customers! Ba-dum-tss.
Only a matter of time before they ship with cell modems so you can’t disconnect them from the internet.
My LG tv post-update is never allowed on a network and it will never be updated again. Hopefully it never breaks…
I managed to watch 14 minutes of the Gamer Nexus video (on my computer) before going into the living room and disconnecting the network cable, OMFG. If there's no legal consequences for LG for this I'll be surprised. I'm in Europe, not counting on the US for this, trust me.
Stuff like smart TVs always go in their own VLAN on my home network. Not because I don't trust the manufacturer, but I cannot be bothered to babysit some Android device on my LAN that I'll keep using years after end-of-support.
I know its important to put things down to coincidence whenever possible, but a very expensive Bang OLufsen ( I think they use LG ) TV would turn itself off at "the" most interesting split second moments during gameplay , to the point where I thought "if I am being pranked by a friend, does this TV even stream its contents?".
Much to my surprise I found out that many modern TVs do in fact come with dev mode that allow some sort of screen capture.
Safe to say I turned off all the "allow metrics and market/dev modes" and have been happier since.
EDIT> Incase anyone was wondering I did some more research about my model ( im NOT a TV guy ) and came across this regarding what screen content could technically be passed remotely: "Most probable raw grab: ThinQ/SSAP on the LAN after pairing — ~960×540 JPEG. Live Plus/ACR: most probably sends a fingerprint, not a retrievable raw frame." No idea what it means but thought it might be relevant. Remember Im saying in my case it was a coincidence.
I've got a 65" LG C2 OLED TV (from 2022) that I hacked with https://rootmy.tv shortly after I purchased it (and before LG updated the firmware to prevent the hack).
It seems pretty safe. When it's on, I can ssh into it. When it's off, it doesn't reply to ICMP pings, and doesn't appear to be using much power.
I guess the newer LG TVs have gone to shit.
this is not only LG. many of your favorite devices do this.
examine your network when you plug a roku in. then read their privacy policy if you want to see someone give LG a run for their money.
then there's our pocket PCs...
and don't forget about the biggest customers of this "advertising" data.
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/25/nx-s1-5752369/ice-surveillanc...
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/targeted-advertising-g...
This sort of blanket data collection needs to be made illegal in every single jurisdiction, and have _very_ robust penalties for anyone found in breach of them.
Almost all new hotel/hospital TVs have access to the internet, and more than half are LG TVs, and other half are Samsung.
It's been fun to see people re-writing and flashing their own smartwatch software with LLMs. Looking forward to the first TV OS rewrite video.
Is all of them, every "smart tv" does it, even after adb, permission restricting or rooting. Insert a (non infected) usb lamp in your tv and see the lamp turning on when your tv is off. It notifies you about the background activation activity :) Interesting to see when exactly get active (is it keywords or nearby devices or scheduled processes)? Can´t be keywords as that would mean 24/7 active and the lamp says otherwise.
This is automatic liability in California and the EU, correct? Does Illinois consider one’s voice pattern to be a biometric? If so, there, too.
What would the HN crowd recommend for a good linux streaming box + hardware with decent TV UX and remote?
My LG is completely offline and I'm using an nvidia shield to display any content, but I'm thinking maybe I need to go the extra mile, there nothing preventing an android tv box to do the same.
Obviously they'll get away with this in the US, but doesn't this break a LOT of EU privacy laws?
This is Hacker News - any suggestions for physically removing the microphone and/or blocking LG servers with a firewall/pihole?
It's unfortunate LG screens are still the best in image quality, even though competition is getting closer. That said, the best way to use LG TVs is to immediately disconnect them from the internet and use an Apple TV 4K for streaming applications.
My 20+ year old dumb samsung TV needs replacing, and has done for a while. But it's stuff like this that makes me shy away from upgrading.
TFW LG OLED without internet access probably flirting with neighbor's connected LG fridge and LG washer and sharing all my gossip to Chaebols anyway. Just waiting for Chinese OLED to commoditize far enough that you can ship a bare panel with outputs for development. Reality is Korean companies do have enough competition / incentive to value engineer down. There's no reason 5/10 years from you can't just buy a nice OLED panel and a 3D printed shell from ali like eink now. Except more sanctions I guess.Seems like just a matter of time gig work license plate scanners also wardrive around with open access points to harvest info from "unconnected" smart devices, if not already.
Now do a analysis on everything else, including the smart fridge in the kitchen.
Or what I am trying to say: Everybody has devices which have the potential to spy on you.
Unless your first name is Richard, only travel with open source hardware and software, and you have to ask someone to lend you a phone if you want to call someone even when you are at home.
I'm practically certain that there was no ill-intent by LG when conceiving this feature. It was most likely just a convenience thing.
But I am also practically certain, that, eventually, any pile of data will attract ideas you do not want attracted.
I've been using a big monitor as a TV for 8 years now. That's all it takes, a big monitor.
I just didn't want to buy any TV that was available 8 years ago because they all seemed invasive to me.
This seems to be the worst case scenario, put into practice by a highly popular device manufacturer. Are they doing this with all of their other devices as well? Monitors, washing machines, fridges? If they can fit this into a TV, they can fit it into everything else.
There's also a fair bit of arrogance from LG: "We own the glass..." leading to this great piece of marketing:
"within an LG TV household we can help extend the ad campaign footprint to the other devices in the household" (at ~14:11)
Advertising is a mind virus. These people are fucking gross. And this seems to be what all technology companies are turning into. Advertising is the Paperclip Maximiser of the real world.
I recently divided much of my home network into VLANs (with "Entertainment" devices separated for this very reason), and this makes me happy to have done so, but now makes me want to do the same to my in-laws network, since they have an LG TV and I regularly connect various of my devices through their network...
Tangential point: I recall on a previous article someone commenting on their surprise at how good Gamers Nexus investigative reporting was. This seems to be another example. You go Gamers Nexus. Might have to buy a supporter pack.
Most TV sets should not normally need microphones, and if they have that in some models (as long as there are models without), then there should be a hardware switch to disable them. However, "continuously sweep home networks, map secondary devices, and log microphone audio while appearing to be turned off" is also stealing and wasting your power.
Here are LG's contract terms for appliances.[1] They are awful.
Not only can they listen in. You have a contractual requirement to tell everyone in range of an appliance that they may be eavesdropped upon.
CONSENT REQUIREMENT: You acknowledge and agree that it is your sole responsibility to obtain all necessary consents from any third parties whose voices may be captured by the Product and to notify household members and guests that their voices may be captured and processed, in compliance with applicable wiretapping, eavesdropping, and privacy laws. If anyone does not consent, you should disable the microphone or voice features in the settings. LGE disclaims any liability for your failure to obtain such consent or provide such notification.
[1] https://www.lg.com/us/terms