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Comment by kitestramuort | Hacker News Reader

Buy any tv with CEC support (almost all of them) and never connect it to the internet. Never. Never start any app on the tv. Hook a Kodi box to the hdmi port and use that, and only that.

For the Kodi box get series-7 Intel NUC with Kabylake-era processors, gen 7. They don't run Windows 11, so come very cheap second hand, but decode h264 and hevc in hardware and drive a 4K screen like charm. You can install a modern Wifi card in the NUC and a PCIe SSD.

Then buy one of these: https://www.pulse-eight.com/p/154/intel-nuc-hdmi-cec-adapter and put it in your NUC, so you can use the TV remote to control Kodi.

That's it.

Bonus, you can take your TV with you when travelling.

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This is what I do already but aside from the "neighbors open wifi" problem I'm more concerned about:

-In-laws or other visitors "finishing setup" to use their netflix while I'm at work or something.

-Future TVs including 5G modems.

-TVs demanding internet access to work at all or worse working but with a hidden time out that waits until after the return period to activate and disable the TV until I give in and let it on the internet.

Most TVs seem to have removable wifi modules, or at least they did. But throwing away the warranty removing it on day one doesn't sit great with me. And that doesn't protect me from point 3b.

Those hypotheticals sure would suck, if they ever happen. Until then you can easily avoid worrying about 2 and 3, and for 1, simply leave the PC's remote out, and put the TV's remote somewhere inaccessible.

Also for extra confidence on 1, you can often disable the TV's wireless/bluetooth scanning (so other devices can't access it), at the "cost" of the TV's own remote no longer working. At least my Samsung (QN90B) offers that.

I find the most important point just to be "and never connect it to the internet".

No matter which smart-tv you use, this is the one and only thing you have to do - just don't give it any way to exfiltrate any data. Use as suggested HDMI and your good to go. Extremely simple and safe. Can it still sniff and log data locally? Sure - but it will never leave your home.

Are there zero unlocked wifi networks in your area?

I don't know if they're communicating over a cellular modem but if I was them and could get a low-priced deal I would.

Keep in mind some smart TVs will attempt to connect to open networks automatically so if your neighbor’s WiFi is open, you might end up connected anyway. I had a Vizio TV that connected to my neighbor’s fridge open WiFi (but not connected to the internet) and my TV operations became very laggy. I would buy a TV without smart features and without Wireless connectivity from a reputable brand (more a digital display than a TV) if privacy is your concern…

What a future. Now not only any fridge has wifi, no, my chinese tv will run an local agent swarm that will try to break into any wifi available to download ads. Maybe it's better if we hand sama all our DRAM and accept our fate.

At this point we need faraday cages. Shit.

I wonder how likely it is though? The consumer access points don't come without passwords by default. Where I am, having an open access point without identifying the users is illegal, so it's unlikely a regular person would do that, and if some cafe does - it'd just have a captive portal asking for a phone number. And even if the business owner doesn't want to bother with that identification - there would 100% be a password on such a hotspot.

Fully anonymous open WiFi remains legal and common in many countries, including the US.

Even many guest or public WiFi captive portals in the US only seek to enforce agreement to a terms of service and/or privacy policy, not necessarily gathering identifying info and not locking behind a password. (Yes, there are also those which do require a password or identifying info, but that’s not due to a legal requirement.)

It’s relatively rare nowadays that I see a guest or public WiFi network with neither a captive portal nor a password, but again, those do still sometimes occur and are fully legal in the US. Organizations (and their insurers) do tend to like the protections of legalese and/or identifying users, but US law doesn’t generally force them into it in this context.

Can you cite even one reliable source for your claim?

Yes, this is technically possible but to claim that there are TVs that actually do this is something else.

We know cable providers sell access to networks through their customers. Wireless companies do directly as well.

If it is technically possible, encouraged, and worth money, you can bet someone is doing it in the 2020s. No need to wait for journalistic confirmation, a dying industry. Internet surveillance capitalism is quite mature these days.

At best we can say no one has gotten around to it, but that is just one update away from being false.

Did your TV connect to the fridge, or did your neighbor connect their fridge to your TV? Without some evidence I would be far more inclined to believe that a neighbor did something dumb (I've seen multiple of my neighbors try to connect to my offline TV via bluetooth) than that TVs connecting to fridges are slipping under the radar of tech journalists in the era when scrutiny has led to negative press for LG. Either way it's dumb that that network connection is possible, and concerning it could be possible without your consent, but it's also not nearly as bad.

They don't "connect" per se, they scan, report, and sell the data as they map your home.

But before they can report that data, they need to be connected to the internet.

Which will happen at the first opportunity.

But did it happen specifically in the situation described in the comment I initially replied to?

LG wants my data. Well Craftsman wants my data too. Current evidence suggests that the TV without network access is going to have as much luck reporting my data to corporate headquarters as the tools I used to mount it on the wall.

Faith in opsec against a determined and capitalized adversary—zero. One slip up and you're done. You will slip up eventually (they help with the banana peels) and probably already have.

Indeed, and just use Apple TV or so. Or Chromecast. Or whatever you do trust. I have never plugged in my TV network connection.

These would be my preference unless I setup the Kodi box myself. Theres repeated, almost monthly, uncovering of supply chain compromise of cheap Kodi/android TV boxes.

This is what I'm doing, but we also have to admit that kodi kinda sucks.

It's really unstable, I can't find a browser, can be janky, unstable and don't forget unstable.

I can't even identify if it is some plugin that is causing the instability or not. Which should not be an excuse, because poor architecture is still the project's problem.

Is anyone working on alternatives? I would accept vibecoded stuff at this point.

> I would accept vibecoded stuff at this point.

You might as well start you own project. Buy a $200 subscription from one of the major AI providers. And guide it towards your goal.

It is likely that within a week you will have something that suits your needs, is fast and reliable.

An example of a prompt that you might use to start:

> Please build a home TV frontend similar to Kodi or Apple TV. But nicer, faster, more modern and with cooler features. Use modern software engineering practices. Keep the code well-organized, performant and readable.

If you have a spare android phone, you can buy a usb-c hub and plug the phone into hdmi.

Vibecoding android apps is easy. The Android SDK has built in components for web views and media players, so you can get it set it up with netflix, disney, whatever.

I've got mine set up with that, a weather display widget, and some vibecoded edutainment games for my kids.

The only tricky bit is keeping the android ui off the tv, so tell the AI to use Android's "Presentation API".

I'm not sure if it fits your usecase but I'm using Jellyfin and it works really well.

I have mine connected to wifi, isolated network, no cross client communication, and no internet access. That way I can still control it from Home Assistant, and the TV doesn't need any connectivity as all streaming happens from an AppleTV.

Depending on your usage that may not be an option, as appliances eg a gaming console (xbox/PlayStation) can require you to update their firmware through their DRM. So unless you keep updating the TV it only shows a black screen

I could have sworn NUCs come with CEC built in?

I'm sure I've seen it in the BIOS menus of either my 8th gen or 12th gen.

Raspberry Pi definitely comes with it, and a Pi 4 does 1080p x264 and x265.

This is the way.

Treat the thing as a giant peripheral. Dumb monitor.

Vero V is IMO the best Kodi box you can get.

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