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Comment by anonuser123456 | Hacker News Reader

Oh the tyranny of having to pay…

Obviously that's not the point, here. The fact that Samsung has the ability to brick a TV remotely _at all_ is ridiculous. It's not hard to imagine this being used by an attacker to shut down all Samsung TVs remotely, or for planned obsolescence if you want to be more cynical.

Or.....against thieves. As someone who had stuff stolen, I'd pay money for electronics that catches fire once reported stolen, thieves are literally scum of the earth and only one step above murderers and rapists in my books. Great step by Samsung here.

I can't argue with your assessment of thieves, but if you're going to have self-destruct mechanisms in your devices, appliances, or car, do you really trust a company like Samsung with the red button? Wouldn't you rather have that under your own control?

You'd install a firebomb in your own home? I think you need to rethink this position.

I carry one in my pocket every day, so why not?

That's akin to a booby trap, and US law does not look kindly on such machinations.

That would be about as huge of a security failure as an attacker sending out a malicious OS update for any other device, except with a planned, controlled way to disable TVs, Samsung could reenable them promptly once they realize.

Intentionally disabling purchased devices to force them to buy new ones is called trespass to chattels and is illegal.

> Intentionally disabling purchased devices to force them to buy new ones is called trespass to chattels and is illegal.

You've never seen any IoT devices shut down remotely? It happens all the time.

Which part of the South African laws says that?

I am not a South African lawyer, but it is almost assuredly part of their common law if nothing else. Being based more on Roman-Dutch law, they probably call it an Aquilian action instead.

Some people will pay, not knowing the TV was stolen.

A batch of stolen TV's could end up in the ends of a legit distributors; someone could end up with that by walking into some established brick-and-mortar discount TV warehouse type place.

Gee, I hope that everything you own that you got off Craigslist in good faith and paid for is remotely disabled if it had been stolen, while the thieves enjoy the money. Because you're the bad guy!

>Gee, I hope that everything you own that you got off Craigslist in good faith and paid for is remotely disabled if it had been stolen, while the thieves enjoy the money. Because you're the bad guy!

You're not the bad guy, but you're also not entitled to keep the stolen goods. It has to go back to its original owner. I'd be pretty pissed if someone stole my bike, sold it, and I'm not able to recover my bike because somebody "bought" it at 80% off.

No, you aren't; it called "possession of stolen property".

However, Samsung is not the law, first of all. (If they have a court order to disable the equipment, that's fine, I suppose.)

Second of all, these TV's won't be recovered; they will probably just end up in the landfill.

You're not catching the thieves this way.

>However, Samsung is not the law, first of all. (If they have a court order to disable the equipment, that's fine, I suppose.)

Should apple require a court order to enable icloud lock on your stolen iphone?

>Second of all, these TV's won't be recovered; they will probably just end up in the landfill.

>You're not catching the thieves this way.

Same for stolen iphones, are you against icloud locks as well?

Do you not believe in property rights? If a stolen car gets resold that doesn’t automatically void the original ownership papers… and that’s the standard practice in every country in the world I think.

The standard practice in most countries is that the police and the court system are distinct from this entity called Samsung.

That doesn’t affect the principle that the original ownership rights cannot be affected by any subsequent resale after theft.

Apple remotely scanning our phones for "suspicious" content, Samsung remotely disabling our TVs on the suspicion of TV being stolen what is next?!

This is akin to Crypto Wars from the 1990s but this time the enemy is far more dangerous. In the 1990s we had a centralized enemy the government which decided to turn against us this time the enemy is decentralized in the form of private corporations which are turning against us one by one.

Government can be tamed but private corporations can not; they only see profit and now they think they can get more of it by lying to us they do it in the name of social justice.

I don’t have proof of purchase for 90% of the stuff I own. It’s insane to expect people to hang on to receipts for eternity.

Even more fun is that there’s some receipts where the ink fades/rubs off in a matter of days so even though you have the paper receipt you still have no proof of purchase.

You have a high-res camera on your person at all times. I take photos of all receipts for over $50 or so as a precaution.

And you're not expected to. This is for TVs that were recently stolen. Do people here actually think this will be used in the future for random ownership checks?

No bank statements?

I have bank / credit card statements, but those aren't itemized.

I could say I spent $1500 at BestBuy on some date, but not have concrete proof of exactly what I bought from that alone.

You might have paid the TV second hand, and not be aware of the theft. What recourse do you have then? You're out of pocket, the seller might not be reachable anymore, and you have no proof of purchase.

Supply chains matter and that has always been true. You have never had recourse for buying stolen goods under law. If you buy stolen goods, the police can seize them and you are out the money.

You did, if you did so unknowingly and had no reason to doubt you bought stolen merchandise.

Samsung is not a police agency. It should not be allowed to virtually seize something that belongs to me.

If it was stolen, it was never yours, even if you paid the thief for it. At least in the US, this is a settled matter; You have no right to a stolen good that you paid for.

I don't dispute that. I just don't like huge corporations in other countries acting like the criminal justice where I live.

Burning the buyer means they will be more careful who they buy from next time. This could be both good (reduces market for stolen goods), and bad (inhibits legitimate 2nd hand sales). In the long term I would expect some technology for proving provenance pops up but it might be a little painful until that happens.

I have a 10 year old Sony TV that I have NO proof of purchase for, I threw out that receipt with the box about 3 moves ago.

Well, since you didn't steal it why would they disable it?

But if you bought it off the back of some guys truck would you honestly expect it to work?

From the parent:

> "Should a customer’s TV be incorrectly blocked, the functionality can be reinstated once proof of purchase and a valid TV license is shared to serv.manager@samsung.com or click here for more information"

I don't know why they would block me, but apparently it is something they've created a process for, a process I wouldn't be able to participate in.

But they wouldn't. You have a 10 year old Sony TV. This is Samsung.

My point is that, I don't have proof of purchase for my 10 year old Sony. I would presume this also applies to Samsung customers.

oh the tyranny of having a product which you purchase and think you own have all functionality be remotely disabled—effectively becoming a multi thousand dollar paperweight—at the whim of a large international corporation with no real recourse...

You have recourse by showing proof of purchase. Or you sue them.

> You have recourse by showing proof of purchase

How does that help when the product is out of warranty?

> Or you sue them.

How exactly would you go about suing Samsung. Figure that out and let us know if it would be worth it for a TV.

> > You have recourse by showing proof of purchase

>How does that help when the product is out of warranty?

This is for TVs that were recently stolen. They'd definitely be in warranty (short of you not buying from an authorized reseller because you bought it out of the back of a truck), and you're reasonably likely to have the receipt.

While TFA focuses on recently stolen goods, the broader concern here is the invasive remote control that Samsung has over your device. The concerns I'm reading in this thread include Samsung turning on invasive advertising, remote bricking, and possibly monitoring your media consumption.

So in light of the relevant debate here, how exactly does a proof-of-purchase help if the product is out of warranty?

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