Samsung Says Their TVs Aren't Really Spying On You

lightbox32 writes "Samsung has finally responded to an article recently published by HD Guru titled 'Is your TV watching you?' [See this related Slashdot post] which discussed the fact that new features in Samsung's top 2012 models — including built-in microphones, HDTV camera, wireless and wired Internet connection, built-in browser with voice to text conversion, face recognition and more — could be used to collect unprecedented personal information and invade our privacy. Samsung has now provided their privacy policy, which may or may not lay the issue to rest." I vote for "not" — conspiracy theories about mandatory (or just secret) surveillance equipment in consumer electronics is just too persistent, even when the technical capabilities turn out to be a hoax; when the equipment is actually all in place and the user is protected only by a corporate honor policy, it's hard to be sanguine. (I recall there was a much rumored secret capability for law enforcement agencies to secretly and remotely turn on the internal microphones in PCs meeting the PC 97 spec, and this was an integral part of the plan. Since the government insists that telecom equipment have built-in backdoors, why should that sound all that crazy?)

Comments

Re:Paranoid?

[hairyfeet]

And there are plenty of people that still have the 30 day trial of Norton that ran out 5 years ago and haven't updated their OS in just as long...the point? this discussion was about the government, not dumbasses being dumbasses. At least in most cases with the TV they have to go an extra length to be dumbasses as most current routers are IP V4 and are NATed so you can't just waltz in, 5 will get you 10 those Trendnet cams are using the crappy routers you get from the ISPs that usually have every kind of possible security measure turned OFF so they don't have to deal with support calls.

Thanks for the link though, as it does show that what I said about NAT being a good thing is correct. while NAT wasn't originally meant to be a security measure it really does help the really stupid from just blasting all their shit all over the net. But hell if you want to see lists of people being incredibly fucking stupid just look up the Quickbook file formats on any major P2P, you'll see moron after moron that have shared their entire drive with the planet, including their tax records, account info at the bank, just incredible the amount of ignorant shit, but that don't mean we throw out the baby with the bathwater do we?