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Comment by gumby | Hacker News Reader

I was about to post "this is overkill — just don't connect it to your access point" but then realized that my neighbor has an xfinity router that advertises the public xfinity subscriber SSID. And it could be using an unadvertised SSID for which they've done a deal with the US carrier cartel members.

If this data is worth enough, they could be using IOT 4G service.

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We to date have had no proof of this happening. The best I found was someone on a Samsung forum years ago claiming their TV auto-connected to a public WiFi without proof.

Not saying it isn’t happening, nor that it won’t ever happen.

Anyway - Faraday living room?

I heard you can buy really expensive paint that you can use on your walls, ceiling and floor to get this effect, that you then can paint over whatever color you actually want.

So far the only benefit other than shielding you from electrosmog was to stop having to compete with your neighbors in an apartment complex for wi-fi bands.

I mean there is proof that this does happen, to my knowledge there's no proof with larger brands such as this. But also it's not like every device is tested for that sort of thing by some competent user safety guidelines organization or whatnot.

If you know of a TV that automatically connects to networks without the user's permission, even some tiny brand, please share. I mean that sincerely, I feel like I talk about this every other month with someone.

We have proof they have no moral qualms or other guardrails, and they have incentive. We also have a decent idea how much it costs to connect to ambient WiFi or cell/5gnetworks. It’s a matter of time, which may or may not be already in the past.

I think it’s not worth it to them as long as 99.9% of the users hook up the TV to their home WiFi. Connecting to other networks without user confirmation probably opens a can of worms in many countries.

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