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Comment by Jonnax | Hacker News Reader

My perspective is that I don't really care.

If my smart TV gets hacked, what are they going to do? Take my Netflix and YouTube credentials?

I've got an LG TV, there aren't huge adverts. It's faster than switching on my PS5 to watch something.

It even has DLNA so I can listen to my music collection off my NAS.

If it starts hacking my network, what's it going to do? Public key SSH is pretty strong. And anything sensitive that could be snooped on would be HTTPS.

So this smart TV hack is going to require a second exploit to get into my windows PC? or Linux boxes?

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> My perspective is that I don't really care.

If this screed is just about telegraphing your own wilful disregard for online safety and profound disinterest/absence of knowledge about what a locally connected hostile network device is capable of, then it’s hardly worth responding to.

However, if you’re trying to deliver an implied suggestion that “no-one should care”, then this actively harmful message deserves solid rejection. The consequences range from turning households into spam drones, to placing at-risk folks in physical peril through commoditised surveillance.

It remains an extraordinarily privileged and wonderful thing to live without fear of the capabilities of a corporate- or state-level actor. What’s not so wonderful is being reminded that many folks with this privilege lack the self-awareness to appreciate it.

You're putting words into my mouth. And changing the topic of conversation.

I was responding to someone saying that their smart TV was full of adverts and how it's a requirement to block it. Where the convenience of the utility provided is greater than seeing an advert for a film on the menu page.

You've flipped it around to vulnerable people being surveilled by corporate/state level actors.

Why are Smart TVs singled out here? There's a tons of old Android phones that people use every day with sensitive information that are vulnerable to multiple exploits that will never get a patch.

Or Routers that never get a patch from their Vendor especially if it's a whitebox from an ISP and they've replaced it with a newer model.

It seems like Smart TVs have urban legends associated with them, I asked previously about the supposed "TV connecting to unsecured WIFI" thing that always comes up and nobody had any evidence:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25275350

Once again, trying to make this topic about you personally doesn’t work, doesn’t validate lazily considered scorn, and won’t validate doubling down on either.

lol, you're the one that's trying to say that I said that “no-one should care”

I've no idea what your point is. But you do you.

Ah, so it was the first case. You have a nice day, then.

> If my smart TV gets hacked, what are they going to do? Take my Netflix and YouTube credentials?

Leverage access to pwn everything else on your network?

Put the TV on its own NAT

A separate subnet is basic hygiene where it comes to IoT, but only a small fraction of IoT buyers have the capability to do that (both in terms of knowledge and having their home network set up in a way that allows this level of end-user control).

Like I said, what are they going to hack into?

And how? So they have an exploit for the smart TV and then another device as well?

Your desktop? Your laptop? Whatever you happen to have running in your LAN bound to 0.0.0.0? Quite many things still assume that your local network is more trusted than the wide Internet; breaching a smart TV gives an attacker a beachhead on your local network.

Well those things listening on the local network could also be exploited instead of the TV.

My Desktop/Laptop is supposed to be secured, and patched. Otherwise open wifi access points would be a bad idea.

Personally I think the the idea that the LAN is some walled garden where it's fine to relax security is a bad idea.

> Personally I think the the idea that the LAN is some walled garden where it's fine to relax security is a bad idea.

It is a bad idea, but it happens in practice. For instance, I can vouch for the security of my desktop (except for the times I run some random development stuff bound to 0.0.0.0, for convenient multi-machine access). I can't vouch for the security of my printer, or my IoT bridge. As long as it stays true, someone breaching a single device on your LAN is already creating extra security risk for your other devices.

> If my smart TV gets hacked, what are they going to do? Take my Netflix and YouTube credentials?

Turn on the camera.

just wait for smart TVs which are Zoom friendly and come with a camera and microphone built-in.

The TV in the article has two microphones built in!

Ultrasound 3D scanners is a thing.

In the remote, not the TV, unless I'm misreading.

> I've got an LG TV, there aren't huge adverts. It's faster than switching on my PS5 to watch something.

LG TVs from the past few years involve some level of voice control, so an attacker could be able to remotely turn on your microphone and listen in on conversations.

At least on my CX Series the mic is in the remote control. I'm not sure it can be turned on without pressing the mic button.

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