Slashdot Mirror
Samsung Smart TVs Injected Ads Into Streamed Video
mpicpp sends this news from CNET:
Reports are emerging that Samsung smart TVs have begun inserting short advertisements directly into video streaming apps, with no influence from the third-party app providers. The news comes just days after Samsung made headlines for another incursion into users' lounge rooms, when it was revealed that its TV voice recognition software is capable of capturing personal information and transmitting it to third parties. ... The issue has been reported on the Plex streaming service — a brand of media player that allows users to stream their own video from a personal library or hard drive and push it to a smart TV.
Samsung says this was not intentional, and that they've fixed it so the ads should no longer show up.
What they mean by that is that they didn't intend for people to object to the ads or for their poor behavior to be called out.
It's really too bad, I have an older Samsung HDTV and it's really great. I was considering buying another Samsung when the time came to replace it. Now what am I going to buy? Sony? Vizio?
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Well, don't buy LG -- they do the same thing as Samsung. In addition to forcibly displaying ads, they have other problems, too -- they invalidated my HDMI cables because they updated the protocol ports without asking leaving me to buy new equipment so they could 'enforce copyright laws'.
This feature called "oops" has been rolled back for your enjoyment.
It was an accident? So all this ad injection tech was a typo by some developer? lol. Why is it that the more popular a tech company gets the more of a dick it becomes? Is that some sort of business law? Samsung's trustworthiness is zero as far as I'm concerned.
Samsung says this was not intentional.
If they can "accidentally" insert ads into video streams can we really be confident that the audio stream of conversations from the smart tv won't "accidentally" be passed to advertisers for targeting, listened to by employees, or even used to select victims of crime ("yes I'm going to be away next week but I'll hide the Rembrant under the bed")?
I am not sure that Samsung could have come up with features that would make me want to buy their TV less unless they simply went with slapstick comedy. Spontaneous combustion? Radiation hazard? Randomly calls in SWAT teams?
Or maybe they have more subtle comedy offering coming where they partially morph your face onto all the fat and ugly people who appear on your screen. Or send subliminal messages suggesting that your spouse should have an affair.
But for now they at least seem to be violating our privacy coming and going. I wonder what MBA thinking results in this crap. There are many reasons I would never buy a GM but onstar sits right at the top of the pile for similar reasons that I will not now buy a Samsung TV.
I have been in the market for an HDTV for a while now, but haven't been convinced that any aren't massive security holes. Yes, I could leave it unconnected from the network, but then I'm just pushing the problem to another device.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Between this and the privacy invasions I'd say there is no place for these TV's in my home. And I really wouldn't want to hang out in other people's homes if they had them, either. This application of technology needs to die in a fire.
Check the qualifiers. That behavior was intended, but for other markets. Samsung does have plans to introduce it to the Australian market, but in the long term.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The particular thinking involved goes something like this:
Jack nut 1: We don't have a recurring revenue model. People buy our TV and that is it. Can we get subscriptions or something for using it?
Jack nut 2: Well, we are a pane of glass; people won't subscribe to that.
Jack nut 1: What if we make it OUR pane of glass and show ads on it? Then we get revenue!
Jack nut 2: Profit!
So it goes like this:
1) Show ads over people's locally stored media
2) ???
3) Lose profit!
I mean, with the plethora of set-top boxes like AppleTV, Roku, FireTV, ChromeCast, why would anyone in their right mind buy an all-in-one, especially from a known UI offender like Samsung (TouchWiz?).
Samsung should focus on making a TV with sound that doesn't suck (i.e., integrated wireless speakers that auto-calibrate) or maybe focus on style and setup for differentiation.
Whatever... they are a low-price disruptor and they essentially kicked Panasonic and Pioneer out of the market so they could foist this "app crap" on us. Whoever buys a Samsung "smart" TV deserves one I guess.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I have been in the market for an HDTV for a while now, but haven't been convinced that any aren't massive security holes.
So quarantine it on the network just like you would any other untrusted machine. Firewall, DMZ, etc. I think it is only sane to regard devices like this as insecure and to behave accordingly. I think the same could be said for lots of so-called smart home devices. Anything you don't have a reasonable approximation of full control over should be treated as insecure by default
The one who leaked all those emails.
Don't buy a tv, spend more time on tracker sites and slashdot instead.
Vizio is a pretty solid brand... at least for their larger TVs. Decent contrast, good response time, and if you choose carefully, no Smart TV nastiness. Of course, we bought the Smart TV at the time, but it doesn't get in the way. The only way you'll see it is if you press a certain button. And personally, they did Smart TV right. If you need it, it's there and easy to access. If you don't want it, don't worry about it - out of mind, out of sight.
Check the qualifiers. That behavior was intended, but for other markets. Samsung does have plans to introduce it to the Australian market, but in the long term.
That's exactly it. There's no way for them to claim it's unintentional, as it takes intentional code to create this behavior. I don't know what on earth these people are thinking, but I won't be buying any "smart" TV that decides to share my conversations and injects ads where they don't belong. Same thing goes for Keurig and their DRM'd coffe makers or any other "smart" applicances. It seems that every "smart" appliance has a lot of foolish thinking behind it.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Unfortunately above a certain screen size it's basically impossible to get a non-"smart" TV. Personally I can do without all the extra fluff and would prefer they just give me lots of input ports and great picture and drop the price a lot. If I want to stream something I'll get a separate device (Roku, Bluray etc) to do that. I already have a TiVo and it does pretty much 90%+ of what I want out of a TV.
Personally all I want is a huge screen with excellent picture and sound features and lots of input ports. Basically just a big monitor. Good luck getting that in 60+ inch screen size though...
Surely we've reached the point where advertisers can be classified as a highly invasive species of mammalian pests and our attentions turned to exterminating them, no?
It could conceivably be that focus testing said that people hated it, but the programmer forget to set the switch that disabled it. Although it's loooking increasingly likely that Samsung just want to sabotage their TV sales.
Television is not, nor was it ever arguably, designed with your education or entertainment in mind. Ever since Winston Cigarettes the primary objective of television has been to deliver flashing lights and colours in order to captivate viewers. These viewers would then be marketed a product, and as television advertising grew the methods and systems used to achieve this goal would change. most TV is drama, and peddles fear uncertainty and doubt as powerful emotions to ensure you'll consume related products and services to either fictitious (house, ER) plots, or "real" stories (Dr. Oz, or Gupta.)
when people marvel, "gee, i cant believe how cheap a $n inch tv is these days" what they fail to realize is the only entity capitalizing value off the television is advertisers. That consumers are literally paying money to be offered goods and services which in turn consume more of their income is laughable. So when we come full-stop to samsungs offering of what basically amounts to a fist clenched cash grab from the viewer its almost offensive to think we've ever cared what the television did before, let alone now. This one listens to your conversations, where as the old "dumb" tv's would just use market research to determine what you could be forced into consuming. This one injects ads, whereas before tivo, the hopper, and every major DVR from a cable company did the exact same thing.
on an unrelated note: siri, amazon, and google have all offered a product that listens to your conversations but doesnt provide the distraction of television. The problem isnt that a product we've always trusted is becoming unweildy, is that a product thats never served us is becoming an affront to privacy.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Yep! After a firmware update for my LG that basically told me "allright, now I'm going to report on what you watch to whomever I damn well please", I blocked its access to the internet on my firewall (I keep my Wifi on a separate subnet), so sorry LG TV, no more Internet access for you (but I obviously can still stream stuff from my own LAN)
You're probably thinking of Insignia. Visio TVs are also sold by Walmart, Target, Costco, BJ's and others.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Why would Sony be getting paid for adverts on a Samsung TV?
It's clearly a bug. The idea is that developers of streaming video apps can use an API to add advertising to their videos. The flag to enable it was being set by default, incorrectly.
Even Samsung isn't mad enough to piss people off by inserting adverts into random video streams. Their lawyers probably wouldn't let them anyway, as inserting ads into other programming is likely to be copyright infringement.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
when something like a TV will require accepting an EULA in order to use it as intended. No doubt, buried in the EULA will be your agreeing to let them send ads whenever they want. What's next, a coffee machine that can insert other brands of coffee into the brew cycle?
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
this really needs to be made illegal by some consumer protections group. displaying ads, breaking hdmi, recording your voice these are all huge points your product did not do when you purchased it.
sadly, government will not likely do squat about that. oligarchies are like that. guess i'll be going back to the HTPC + dumb tv next purchase
Welcome the Internet Of Things!
Wat they didn't tell us, things suck!
Seriously in this day and age of advertising dollars I cannot fathom anyone that is shocked by this....
Don't get between of the consumer and the content.
At least it should be.
DMZ is the opposite of a secured network.
I think you don't understand the point then. You keep the outward facing stuff you don't trust away from your secured network. A DMZ is a tool (among many others) for doing that. A DMZ is where you place outward facing devices you don't entirely trust or which are likely to be attacked but still need to interact with. It helps you to limit the vectors of attack on your internal secured network.
Nice! For once the bad news passes me by! I use my Panasonic plasma TV merely as a monitor for DVD, BluRay and mostly my own mediacenter pc.
It's 42 inches and since I've never thought "gee, having a bigger TV would sure be nice), I'm guessing if I ever have to replace it it's going to be with a computer monitor, which get bigger by the year anyway.
No SmartTV nonsense. All I need is a HDMI input of some kind.
No no no, you got it all wrong! It was not intended that they get caught! The whole injecting their own ads into the stream, that's a feature!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It seems that every "smart" appliance has a lot of foolish thinking behind it.
AKA greed. I'd be surprised if I'm the only person who avoids companies that keep finding ways to get around ad blockers.
VENDORS: Wanna advertize to me? Do it DISCRETELY while I'm SEARCHING for YOUR product; and ONLY if you have a product I'm looking for; otherwise, you lose me as a customer/client. Want me to receive your ads? PAY *me*, not only the ad pushers!
Gotta wonder... would Pepsi, Coke and other "name brands" really lose much business if they stopped advertising? Or would their net profit increase by not wasting $$ on ads?
Uh, your mistake would not be smart TV's. Your mistake is buying a smart TV's that have some sort of voice/audio control. There's no reason to trust any mfr with audio information.
Roku TV's for example, do not do this - they don't have or need a microphone, really.
.
I punted the tivo and watched the video on my notebook, sans ads.
I use AdBlock and Ghostery's lists to block ad networks and trackers at the router level. Any computer/phone/smart device that connects to my network automatically has ads and trackers blocked. So far, so good. Granted, it's not simple enough for the everyday person to implement. Also, I don't buy any smart TVs because their software is most often crap, you shouldn't have to accept an EULA to use a TV (or a coffee machine, toaster, etc), and they have the capacity to be bricked unlike a regular "dumb" TV. And then there's this eavesdropping and injecting additional ads BS.
Sony and Sharp are like day and night. Sony rules the video market for best picture quality, but I think Sharp is garbage, as is Hitachi (for video).
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
I bought a Samsung smart tv last year. Generally I like the TV, but the smart TV features are not very good. I tried Chromecast and then settled on Roku (I prefer a physical remote). You could just buy the Samsung TV and then not use the smart features. Streaming devices like chromecast, roku, fire tv, apple tv aren't that expensive, and are much better.
This post cannot be rebroadcast without the express written constent of Major League Baseball.
My LG TV got a firmware update that - after the upgrade was installed - prompted me to accept a new agreement that would allow them to monitor everything I do and send it to a third party. I declined, and in return most of the SMART features were disabled. LG's support only refers me to an email address they claim should be displayed on the agreement page (which of course does not contain any contact information at all), and when pushing them they told me to email an address that is more or less a black hole (they never reply).
Sometimes I wonder if the board at Samsung aren't a bunch of senile old Koreans who've completely lost any connection to reality. Anyone remember that crazy musical press conference they held a couple of years ago? It looked like what I picture Johnny Depp would see whenever he closes his eyes.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Don't buy a fucking 'Smart' TV.
Instead of the app embedded in the TV, run the real version of the app on something else.
Take Samsung out of the equation entirely.
A 'Smart' TV is mostly a vehicle for companies to gather more data about you, and get in on the money action -- which means you should not be trusting it.
Because you're stuck with whatever sleazy stuff they're doing in the background, and whatever changes they're making to the EULA and privacy policy without telling you.
Samsung are increasingly sound like a company I'd not really be willing to buy products from. Because they seem to be suffering from a lot of "because we can, and because we gave ourselves permission" crap.
Sorry, but no. Injecting ads into a stream you have nothing to do with? But that's just assholes in marketing who need to be shot.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
But if all tv makers do the same thing, you'll vote with your wallet by not having a tv at all. Other people (like me) only found out about LG reporting back to their servers what you're watching only after buying the TV, and unplugging ethernet was easier than taking the TV back.
It's an invasion of privacy, no different than medical information or what you talk about with your lawyer, yet there are privacy protections there. It should be the same here.
Does Samsung bullshittery ever end? I like me Samsung monitor, but no more of their products for me.
I'm not so sure. LG sends back info on what you're watching via USB, Amazon, Netflix. No voice control there. I think smart TVs will keep taking liberties,
You know people use TVs to play stuff they download.
Don't buy a tv, spend more time on tracker sites and slashdot instead.
That won't necessarily solve the problem. The only high speed internet provider where I live has rewritten HTML on the fly to serve their own content. I would not hold my breath that they won't do the same for video.
If that's the case (and keeping in mind that you shouldn't attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence) then that's some pretty shitty QA that let that out the door. If it was just there for focus group testing, why the hell did that code make it into the release?
I suppose it's possible that Samsung outsourced the programming on this and is now reaping the benefits (shit code, bad maintainability, broken functionality, poor communication) of doing so. Saved on the up-front costs, I'm sure, but this is going to hurt their revenues more than they saved. Typical short-sighted corporate bullshit.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Vizio is a pretty solid brand... at least for their larger TVs. Decent contrast, good response time, and if you choose carefully, no Smart TV nastiness. Of course, we bought the Smart TV at the time, but it doesn't get in the way. The only way you'll see it is if you press a certain button. And personally, they did Smart TV right. If you need it, it's there and easy to access. If you don't want it, don't worry about it - out of mind, out of sight.
How terrible is it that I am now suspicious of every post saying something good about a company or product? This could be a legit post, written by someone who has a positive experience with their TV. But I read the content and see it's posted by an AC and immediately think "astroturf". There is a trust that has been broken in our society; a lot actually. Something has been lost and I'm not sure if/how we get it back.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Samsung is a big enough company to be able to ignore annoying things like "the law". And there's a long and storied history of companies pissing their customers off in the name of profits.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Best Buy exclusive brands
That also crossed my mind. However, everyone there would have to be massively, forget-to-breathe, pants-on-head stupid to think that nobody would notice this. There is a possibility that this is the case; to me, EVERYONE's that stupid until I know otherwise..
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
I know that there two different things but between smartTV and 3DTV I'd rather be forced to buy a 3DTV. At least you could turn the 3D off, and know that it was off.
I would never plug a TV into the internet. I don't even plug my Xbox in unless it insists on a firmware upgrade. I think I plugged my LG blu-ray player once. Systems that I build from reliable vendors get plugged into the internet. Problem solved.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I don't use the smart features on the one I have, either. It's not just about being subjected to these ads myself, though. It's about using the only vote we really have: we can vote with our dollars. Samsung (and any other huge multinational) does not give a single fuck about pissing off its customers; they know that their customers will rarely be motivated enough to get off the couch and do anything about it. But, if their sales suffer as a result of this move, then they are more likely to not try to pull something like that again.
All that means, though, is that they go back to the drawing board and try to find another way to make money that isn't obnoxious enough to hurt sales, but is obnoxious enough to make them money. Ain't capitalism great!
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Sony TVs are too dumb to do this. They have a great picture, though, and don't cost any more than comparable Samsung models. That may change next year, however, as they're going Android TV.
I use AdBlock and Ghostery's lists to block ad networks and trackers at the router level. Any computer/phone/smart device that connects to my network automatically has ads and trackers blocked. So far, so good. Granted, it's not simple enough for the everyday person to implement. Also, I don't buy any smart TVs because their software is most often crap, you shouldn't have to accept an EULA to use a TV (or a coffee machine, toaster, etc), and they have the capacity to be bricked unlike a regular "dumb" TV. And then there's this eavesdropping and injecting additional ads BS.
I agree but the real problem is that most of the TVs out today are Smart TVs. I just purchased one because I didn't have much of an option. I ended up with a Vizio E series but I really would just like a dumb terminal.
Personally, I just want my TV to be a monitor: display a video signal as clearly and cleanly as possible.(optimally: with the lowest possible power use too). Is that too much to ask?
I don't need voice commands, hyperlinking to IMDB, or social media letting my friends know WTF kind of pr0n I watch.
Just like their warning about "well the TV is listening for your commands, so private info you say may also be inadvertently recorded and passed to third parties" - the former is sort of logically true, with any speech-recognition thing, of course. It's the LATTER that's evil: you as a company wringing every fucking *penny* out of my user data ("Oh, I see styopa switched aware from channel 4 when this Pepsi commercial came on? Let's let Ch4 and Pepsi both know!") without a) letting me know, and b) sharing it with me, if I opt to let you do it.
I'm sensing that there HAS to be a market out there for 'clean' tech products, no?
-Styopa
I want a dumb 1080p or 4k tv with 10 year warranty
There used to be a fiduciary responsibility to maintain the public trust. We didn't need laws to protect people, because there weren't unnamed unknown faceless corporations hiding nefarious activities.
This is why, I suggest that we start using the Corporation Death Penalty for gross violations of public trust. And use it in cases like this, where public trust is abused behind corporate greed.
THIS, backhanded, sleazy greed, this abuse of public trust, needs to be slapped down hard.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I use AdBlock and Ghostery's lists to block ad networks and trackers at the router level.
Sorry, how do you do this at the router level?
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
I don't see how this could be legal -- a video stream would be copyrighted, and inserting extra ads (to say nothing of overwriting some) could indeed be violating a copyright on the assembled data stream as a work.
So, too, altering a web page to add ads not actually there. This is different from a browser with a reserved area outside the site frame, for ads, or a preview page serving an ad before showing you the site.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
. Something has been lost and I'm not sure if/how we get it back.
WE get it back by stopping being a "global" community, and start becoming "local" again. Support Local, wherever possible. You know, getting off the couch and stop watching TV and meeting your neighbors as you go outside for a walk.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Sorry, PS3 already set the standard for removing features with no penalty. Remember "Other OS"?
They've already bought it. You can't un-buy it once the maker reaches into your living room and changes your device. And no, you can't always know this in advance.
Sharp does have the Quattron panels with yellow subpixels. Can't say it makes a difference for all content, but I've definitely seen some impressive color in stores.
I don't get it.. Why would anyone plug their TV into the internet anyway? I would no more plug my TV then I would plug my refrigerator. Appliances are appliances, and I build the systems that are connected to the internet myself.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Looks like I just need a router with the same smarts as the TV, where the telly would be on its own network segment (so it can't change its IP and get around it.)
Maybe this is a harbinger of things to come where IoT devices in general would need firewalled due to privacy and security concerns.
Of course, the next counter from the TV makers, will be the TV either just not working at all with any inputs unless it has the ability to phone home (think games that require a constant network connection), or it gets a 3G antenna... so even without a direct Net connection, it still can phone home.
Maybe the best of all worlds is as described above... a HTPC + a large monitor. Smart TVs seem dumb to me, as they don't add any useful features, but seem be another vector for ad-slinging and invading privacy.
Im not sure why I need a smart TV. Besides the "smart TV, dumb viewer" joke, Im really not into the "every thing needs a CPU" thing.
Im a geek, not a Luddite (though Luddism wasn't about tech per se, but tech taking over jobs), and Ive been on the Internet since FTP space days (simtel anyone? sumex-aim?) But having every physical object having an infinite state machine programmed by someone thinking "security can come later" rushing half finished code to the market doesn't seem like nirvana to me.
a video stream would be copyrighted, and inserting extra ads (to say nothing of overwriting some) could indeed be violating a copyright on the assembled data stream as a work.
So, too, altering a web page to add ads not actually there
Your proposal, if implemented consistently, would make Greasemonkey and Adblock illegal.
Maybe they've made some recent improvements, but I've never seen one I liked. Grainy or blocky picture. *shrug* What counts is if you're happy with it.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
The only high speed internet provider where I live has rewritten HTML on the fly to serve their own content.
Does this ISP require you to install its proxy's root certificate in order to access HTTPS sites? If not, then how does it insert HTML into HTTPS sites that you visit?
Yup, exactly.
I'm running an Ubuntu machine as my DNS server, but it also acts as my router (iptables/multi-NIC). I just use AdBlock and Ghostery's lists of advertising/tracking domains and set all the hostnames in them to resolve as 127.0.0.1. When any device on my network that uses my DNS tries to look up a domain for anything that is blocked, the request gets looped back. If a device on my network doesn't use my DNS, then nothing is blocked.
The fact is that in general, people want to own their stuff, not have their stuff own them. Apple taught manufacturers a very poor lesson; namely, the way to make huge profits is to create and cultivate a walled garden that the manufacturer controls and collects the tolls. But Apple wasn't successful because it has a walled garden, it is successful because plenty of people with lots of disposable income like the Apple user experience. You can argue that the walled garden is a necessary condition to the iPhone user experience, and at the very least it makes it easier to define the user experience when you control everything, however necessary != sufficient.
Good UI takes lots of hard work from talented developers, designers, and artists. Apple may not always succeed at this (e.g. maps) but it seems that no other big manufacturer is willing to put in the hard work to make a product that people actually like. So instead of making money by "locking" people into a system that they choose of their own free will, they try to make money by 1) making crap software to save money on costs, and 2) monetizing everything the possibly can, from DRM on a coffee pod to putting commercials into locally stored video.
Grain or blocking would have everything to do with the source input. Digital panels have neither inherently.
Of course! That's why they're all designed to work with the "cloud." Making it easy for Joe Dumbass to use without having to teach him how to set up his own server is only the excuse they tell "consumers;" the real reason they do it is for that sweet, sweet Big Data.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The only way to get LG to actually react would be for everyone affected to sue them individually in small-claims court (for the cost of the TV, plus court costs). Complaining anywhere other than a courtroom will get us nowhere, and going class-action just results in coupons for $10 off the next piece of privacy-destroying bullshit.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
No, it would not. Modifications of websites using Greasemonkey and Adblock are done by the end user, which means no distribution of the modified work has occurred and therefore copyright law does not apply. Using Greasemonkey or Adblock is conceptually no different than taking a black marker to (your own copy of) a magazine and scribbling out the stuff you don't want to see.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I like my 55" Seiki 4K Set. It is dirt cheap (~$800), looks great, and Sounds OK. But the best feature is that it is just a TV. None of that smart crap. No Internet, no Apps, no camera and microphone, just a mid-end 4K TV.
Besides, everything has "Smart-TV" features these days. I can play Youtube, Netflix, and Amazon (if not browse the web outright) on my Wii, Wii U, PS3, 360, and my Media Center PC. Hell, even the cable box can connect to the internet. Why must my TV?
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Unless you make it depend on the users approval.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
This only really works if lots of consumers do this, at which point you are just talking about a crowd implemented regulation. The point of regulation is to protect people who do not have the political power as individuals to be a blip on company's radar.
Generally in small claims court you can not sue for court costs.
This is why we have the whole class action system, for cases where individual lawsuits are cost prohibitive in relation to the potential individual damages, but the aggregate effect might get the company's attention. Granted companies have worked really hard to paint class action lawsuits as bad things done by slimy people, but what do you expect to happen to one of the few tools average people might actually be able to leverage against them?
Many people plug in their tv because it has apps (netflix, amazon, youtube, weather, etc). Pretty simple really.
Whatever the cause, this is monumental incompetence. Even if they were malicious, they were incompetently malicious. Hoping people won't notice is not a way to get away with something so blatant.
I think you're right about outsourcing. Inadequate safeguards for the outsourcing, combined with particularly lazy contractor could explain it, and it is at least more plausible than any other scenario I can think of.
Ever hear of Netflix or Youtube?
Corporation Death Penalty
This is one death penalty I can get behind.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
Now what am I going to buy? Sony? Vizio?
Yes, get a Vizio. I have a couple here and they're the best option under $5K. They do minimal processing out of the box and they can be adjusted to do even less, and give you a good picture - if you look at the wall-o-screen at the store, the Vizios will probably look best because they're not usually set to amp up the constrast and saturation to blow people's eyes out (apparently that sells TV's to muggles). More topically, they are available without any 'smart' crap, so you can hook up your preferred 'smart' head that has to compete in a market (e.g. Roku, Chromecast) just fine, and when those are obsolete in three years, toss 'em in the bin and plug in the replacement without having to trip over built-in nonsense. They're also cheap enough that you can afford to tack on a 3-year no-questions replacement warranty because you don't want to be paying for parts on any of these things.
If you have >$5K to spend, some of the brands that you grew up with in the 70's have models for professionals in that range that have better pictures. Whoever gets the first 50" 8K for under $2K with minimal processing gets my money, but that's for my monitor, so slightly different criteria.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Just don't connect it to the internet. You don't have to use the smart features. Research will be needed to make sure the TV doesn't nag you to death about a missing IP connection but it is doable.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Generally in small claims court you can not sue for court costs.
Where I live, in small claims court the filing fees are automatically added onto the judgement amount if the plaintiff wins. The fees run $35 to $80 per case depending on amount being sued for. Other costs, like time for the plaintiff to go to court, travel, making copies of documents, etc., however are not claimable. Not sure about fees to have the defendant served.
A friend of mine wants a button on his desk that causes certain MS employees to suffer instant and explosive diarrhea whenever he pushes the large and easy to access button. The ribbon toolbar guy is high on his list.
In the UK you can - although costs are only £100 or so, as the whole thing is set up to be quick, easy and low cost.
Trust was not broken if it never existed. Companies have always tries to con-vince people to accept their double speak through advertising, PR, mailings, store placements and end caps, etc. Astroturfing is just a newer way to plant ideas to manipulate the public.
Sadly, I believe you and I will wind up living in our home-built worlds without televisions, running the Internet on hacked together Raspberry Pis, at the 1 megabit throttle level imposed on all unlicensed encrypted connections, as 90% of the world suckles at the teat of the beast.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Forget about pushing ads. LG Smart TV's scan your media both attached to the tv and on visible network shares and sent the file names and metadata information back to LG. Selecting 'opt out' in the menu does nothing. Once they got caught of this, their solution was to push a new eula that forces people to accept this or none of the smart apps will work.
Dreadful build quality. I had the logic board on mine replaced twice under warranty, only to have it fail again just after the warranty was up.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Doesn't seem too smart of a purchase to me. Not only can it spy on me (for marketers or government, both intrinsically evil entities) but it's going to pop up ADS at me?
Fuck that. Sticking to "dumb" TV's is the smart move.
Corporatism != Free Market
Couldn't you just not connect to the Internet?
Sure but I still have to pay for that extra electronics whether I use it or not. None of those extra features are free and all of them create opportunities for bugs and security issues.
Or are these new TVs completely useless without an internet connection?
A lot of them require an internet connection to apply patches. Some supposedly can upgrade HDMI versions from 1.4 to 2.0 once the spec gets settled. Stuff like that.
//Gotta wonder... would Pepsi, Coke and other "name brands" really lose much business if they stopped advertising? Or would their net profit increase by not wasting $$ on ads?//
There's an album about this, from the group Negativland, called Dispepsi: http://www.discogs.com/Negativ...
The liner notes make mention of their premise that everyone on the planet already knows everything that they will ever need to know about Coke or Pepsi, yet their advertising has utterly permeated our culture.
Spotify link: https://play.spotify.com/album...
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
It is not the responsibility of the government to protect people from their choices.
If only a few people care then those few will not buy from the manufacturer again. (Problem solved) If a bunch do it then companies lose business and change or exit the market. (Problem Solved) If they tell you in the TOS "You are shit and we will change your shit anytime we want." and you buy the device anyway "hoping" to not get screwed, ... I really don't care if later on you are not happy with your choice.
The need for the population to do everything possible to convince me that they are powerless, stupid and irresponsible amazes me. So many people are so lazy that they spend enormous amounts of energy to become as powerless over their lives as possible.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
And they think no one will notice this? Do they think we're stupid? Oh, wait, they do. And they'd be right most of the time. Look at the criminals and traitors we elect. Look at the popular talentless Disney AutoTune Pop Princesses that couldn't write their own name in a pile of cocaine, much less a song, that even if they could, couldn't SING it anyway without AutoTune?
Corporatism != Free Market
Why would Sony be getting paid for adverts on a Samsung TV?
They licensed the ad insertion tech to Samsung?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
The only high speed internet provider where I live has rewritten HTML on the fly to serve their own content.
The Cox "Browser Alerts" seem to only come from three IPs. I blocked them at my router and haven't experienced any problems. I don't have those IPs handy, but found them when NoScript listed them as choices to Allow/Forbid. (In my case, they were "letting me know" that I should upgrade from a 2.x to 3.x DOCSIS modem.)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
This was certainly intentional as Samsung has a site dedicated to their Samsung AdHub that includes ads on Smart TVs: http://www.samsungadhub.com/pr... Here is the type of advertising they sell to Smart TV users (lifted directly from the page above): PIA - Premium Interactive Advertising PIA is an advertising area located in the Smart Hub, Samsung SmartTV’s home screen that all users have to visit in order to access SmartTV contents. Ads displayed in PIA will be shown to all Samsung SmartTV users, every time they access Smart Hub. If the users clicks on the PIA ad, a full screen landing page expands, delivering more information with greater interactivity! 3D - World's First 3d advertising The first 3D advertising on connected television. A truly differentiated TV advertising experience through 3D advertising is a new and unique way to reach viewers. In-app - available on thousands of TV applications With more than 3,500 applications, Samsung’s content ecosystem is robust and attractive. In-app advertising provides developers with a new method to monetize on their content and marketers with a new way to reach consumers. Together with standard static banners, we are offering Pre-roll Video Ads and App Launch Roll Ads.
Hate to break it to you, but you are pretty powerless. Sure there are things within the range of the average person, we have a great deal of say over our own lives, but compared to the concentrated power of wealthy individuals or corporations, our options are very limited since we have pretty close to zero leverage.
Government is a major way for average people to have power and influence, it is our tool for dealing with other states and other powerful entities. You are protected each and every day, but so much of it has become invisible that you just take it for granted that you as an individual have caused the outcome.
As for the whole idea of 'if enough people', well, part of the reason for having regulation and protection is so that small groups within the population have similar protections as the masses, to give some balance beyond 'if enough people agree with me'.
The user would end up implicitly granting such approval by accepting the End User License Agreement of a device's firmware or the Terms of Service of a home high-speed Internet connection.
Modifications of websites using Greasemonkey and Adblock are done by the end user
And modifications performed by a service provider are done on behalf of the end user, if the service provider's fine print is to be believed. For example, the Opera Mini web browser relies on a proxy that modifies the HTML before sending it to the user.
Using Greasemonkey or Adblock is conceptually no different than taking a black marker to (your own copy of) a magazine and scribbling out the stuff you don't want to see.
By that measure, what Cox is doing is like paying someone $50 per month to scribble out stuff you don't want to see, unless I'm missing something fundamental.
Yeah, truely awesome concept! The only way we can be sure.
And if you can't afford to buy a new TV every time something like this happens, you as a consumer really are powerless.
Just don't use the built in TV stuff. Its universally crap. Add your own cheap devices that can be tossed if they displease you. Easier than replacing a screen. I removed the wifi module from my TV and just use an Intel NUC with XBMC.
Good-bye
We all need to get together and form some Big Dumb Companies:
* Big Dumb Pipe: High-Speed Symmetrical Broadband with no other restrictions, bells, whistles, nor even the ability to log your activities, given that it is only a Big. Dumb. Pipe.
* Big Dumb Appliances: No, they will not be running apps nor making predictive adjustments based on your FitBit. But they will have ALL user-replaceable parts and be so durable, most if not all will be handed down at least two generations.
* Big Dumb Panels: no built-in anything, such as DRM, locked-down SOCs, near-useless speakers, nor web cams, nor mics: just a big, beautiful screen, tiny bezels, a plethora of mounting holes, and damn near every type of video connection, period.
The ad campaign writes itself: "Big. Dumb. Ideas who's time have come."
Android TV is boxed up pretty tight so far, nothing shady on it yet. I have the Nexus Player and its nice, but limited, considering its running a quad core Bay Trail. I was thinking about a Sony TV for PS now and Android TV.
Good-bye
The TV will nag you if you don't connect it to the internet? What TVs do this? I want names!
Good-bye
Its god-damn Idiocracy happening right now. Ads all the way down......
Good-bye
They'll enable them next year.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Mmmm, I could entirely see them doing this as a new ad-supported T.V. that costs 2/3 of what the TV without this 'functionality' would. I wonder how hard it would be to spoof. It's just that they don't have that sales program in place yet.
The Cox "Browser Alerts" seem to only come from three IPs. I blocked them at my router and haven't experienced any problems. I don't have those IPs handy, but found them when NoScript listed them as choices to Allow/Forbid. (In my case, they were "letting me know" that I should upgrade from a 2.x to 3.x DOCSIS modem.)
They still modify the content. Say I use wget to recursively fetch a web site I run on the outside somewhere, and burn it to a CD for someone to look at. Then they will see the content that Cox inserted. That's not cool at all.
Something is wrong if you have to rely on SSL to protect you from your own internet provider!
Just do not pin that weak ass shit on me.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
What most consumers can not be bothered to do is to read and understand what they are agreeing to in a purchase.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Modded down due to the discomfort some people feel when faced with the possibility that their lives can not be blamed on things they have no control over.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Wonder how long it will be before tv's amp's speakers etc will be sold at premium because they have no 'smart features'?
Remember, these are the people who shipped a version of Android with a custom kernel extension that created a second, world-accessible instance of /dev/mem because they couldn't get the camera driver to work without it.
As has been pointed out, they've misdeployed this to the wrong market but still - it's Samsung. Their hardware is nice but they're not terribly strong on the software side.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
This happened post-purchase - including changes in the Terms & Conditions. You show me how you can read the future.
Any sufficient level of incompetence is indistinguishable from malfeasance.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
What part of bait and switch don't you understand?
I can see the fnords!
you as a consumer really are powerless.
I have deleted the superfluous parts of your post.
I can see the fnords!
Thanks for the info. Looks like I have some research to do.
I agree about the extended warranty. I buy 5 year plans on my TVs, and let me tell you, it bailed me the fuck out on my Sony when the picture engine went bad in my front projection TV. They finally just gave me a new TV because the old one would be more expensive to fix.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
No kidding. Ever seen Minority Report? The stuff that assaulted the characters from all sides when walking through a public space? That's what I remember from that movie, not the interface or the story.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
From a manufacturing standpoint, Smart TVs aren't dumb. If you've ever taken apart a modern HDTV, it's basically a monitor plus a small computer which does the image decoding and processing. On some HDTVs the computer half even plugs into the monitor half with a DVI cable.
For the manufacturer, it's trivial to beef up the computer with $10-$20 of extra hardware (faster CPU and more RAM), add some software, and charge an extra $200 for it being a Smart TV. As you surmise, the buyer is much better off buying a "dumb" TV and adding a HTPC (I recommend an old laptop so you don't kill your dollar savings with extra electricity burned by a 100 Watt old desktop).
There was a penalty when Sony pulled OtherOS: their DRM was cracked in less than two days, and the PlayStation is just as susceptible to bots and hacks as every other game system (as it should be).
The easy answer: Don't buy a smart TV. There are other, often much cheaper, options to network-enable a dumb TV.
Buy a TV because it has the glorious pictures that you find preferable at a price that you can justify, not because it's "smart." Buy a networked HDMI dongle/STB because you like its features and interface.
Keep the functions independent, and you'll be in far better shape -- both financially, and functionally.
And you'll never have to ask this question again.
Kid-proof tablet..
You've been pretty busy here defending the "rights" of corporations to be deceitful and unethical.
Are you being paid to shill for deceptive practices, or have corporate "libertarians" done a good job brainwashing you into believing that a corporation has no obligation to protect the public interest in exchange for the liability protection and corporate "personhood?"
Or maybe you've bought into the promise that, yes, you'll grow up and be a rich corporation one day too and so therefore you should defend the corporations.
I can see the fnords!
I agree in principle, but find me a 40-50 inch 4k TV that ISN'T a smart TV. Not much of a choice.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
No action by lawmakers is required.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Are you saying that what Samsung did is already illegal and we should pass new laws to ... ?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Corporations have an obligation to follow the laws and make a profit.
Expecting differently is a good way to be stupid. I am nice and protective of people in my life because I choose it. I am ok with people helping me out and protecting me, but I do not think others have an obligation to do it.
I am obligated to to protect me from my bad decisions.
Why are you so invested in a reality in which you have no control over the direction of your life? Have you make really bad decisions and want to blame something other than yourself for it?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
All TOS say that. You would be effectively banned from buying anything because ALL manufacturers do this. And since the "free market" is dumber than you are, they will sit idly by and allow it.
You are not a big enough customer base to ever effect change. Businesses do not do "the right thing" and there is no financial incentive to do so.
You can go ahead and keep trolling, but you're very clearly too idealistic to see the real world for what it is.
I warned about this when HDMI was still just a plan in the works. People should never have accepted it as a standard. That's like inviting the foreign troops to live in your homes, then only complaining about it later when it becomes unbearable.
Of course, DVI supports HDCP too, which is what I'm really talking about here. Allowing others to control the content you watch was always a bad idea, and you only had to look at who were pushing the standard (the copyright trolls), to know what would come of it. People should have balked at buying THEN.
But people bought into it anyway. Now if you want to get control of your hardware back, you have to modify it, which not only voids the warranty, but is now illegal in the U.S. I hate to say "I told you so", but I told you so.
Consumers should demand full control of the hardware they own. Nothing else is acceptable. We have been seeing the abuses that are possible over the last 10 years, regardless of whether some of them were mistakes.
Do you really want to continue down that same road?
Try FoolDNS or others on this page:
http://alternativeto.net/softw...
If only APK would spend his time developing a DNS service we could all use for free instead of client software. (Push the hosts file to the DNS resolver that ALL devices use.)
If the "smart TV" uses it's own DNS, simply block all outbound port 53 traffic other than your router itself.
I am cool with that.
By the way. You do not have a "right" to a TV. If no one makes one you like then do not buy one.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Indeed, that does seem to be a problem. (I'm currently happy with my old and dumb 52" Samsung LCD, and will not be replacing it until 4k content becomes a non-streaming thing, so I didn't realize that "good" new TVs are all smart.)
So buy a smart TV, and then never, ever connect it to a network. Just add a Chromecast or a Pi 2 with XBMC or a FireTV stick or a Roku or an HTPC with Plex or XBMC, for family-friendly options.
They're all less than $100 (aside from a proper HTPC). Using multiples of the same device for different sets around the house, is also a usability boon: Everything works the same, no matter what room of the house you're in.
Kid-proof tablet..
Your ultimate conclusion is that it's better for nobody to get what they want than to have the government step in. It's just not practical or realistic.
What is the government but the collective will of the people?
Maybe some people will benefit from this. Possibly injected, targeted ads by the TV will lower the cost. Some people may want to trade for this. Who the fuck are you to tell them no? What makes you the person who knows what is right and what is not? Have you not learned from almost every fucking law passed in the last 20 years that it does not work?
Things do not get better this way. This is the real world. Where central planing and massive bureaucracies are worse than nothing at all. Learn from the past.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
I bought a monitor with speakers that happens to have a digital tuner (which is useless to me, seeing as there are no digital broadcasts anywhere except the two biggest cities in Saskatchewan.)
Why would I want to futz around with email and such on a monitor when I have a perfectly good pair of computers with keyboards and mice for doing so?
I've been nothing but baffled by the whole "Smart TV" craze. Paying extra hundreds of dollars for functionality you already have. Are you so wired to your email and texts that you have to be able to deal with them without getting off the couch? Is your "smart phone" on the table beside you not convenient enough for doing so?
In all seriousness: why would anyone want a so-called "smart" TV? They all seem to be a collection of very dumb features to me.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Maybe not Coke and Pepsi, but just about every other already-advertising retailer stands to lose if the culture of advertising bombardment dries up. The likes of us that even use ad blockers are the fringe, to say nothing of the infinitesimally small number who refuse to buy from companies that thwart ad blockers. Many people ask me how I know what new or improved products are available since I dvr, stream, or download 100% of TV and movie content. The vast majority of consumers are absolutely swayed by a picture of a juicy burger, flashes of merch at INSANE prices, HEY KIDS ads, and entire "news" narratives telling you to go to the mall or the terr'ists win.
If it allows this then the problem is you entered into a shitty contract upon purchase. Current law allows you to return a thing if the only way to see the agreement is after buying and you do not agree.
If the agreement you entered into does not allow this then they are already in violation of this agreement. Not only can you sue them for breech, but ... There are already laws that cover this type of behavior.
So. Either the customer made a bad agreement or the company is in breech of contract and perhaps already in violation of law. Where do we need a new law passed? Should we make illegal behavior illegal or should we make it against the law to put a thing in a contract that at a later date the customer no longer wants in place?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
I'm not so sure. LG sends back info on what you're watching via USB, Amazon, Netflix. No voice control there. I think smart TVs will keep taking liberties,
access-list outbound deny ip any any
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Maybe this is a harbinger of things to come where IoT devices in general would need firewalled due to privacy and security concerns.
I've been doing this for years. I run my own camera system as a VM using zone minder. My firewall rules are set to drop all packets originating from any of the cameras or the zoneminder server. My "Smart TV" only has selected hosts permitted outbound through the firewall, everything else is dropped. For remote access I VPN into my network and have access to resources once I'm in, everything else is dropped. Whitelisting is far superior to blacklisting.
I have a smart TV + HTPC.....the TV has never had a net connection and it never will......out of the box it displayed things on the screen; what else does it need to do?
@Random_Adam
Sometimes a sig doesn't have to be funny!!
Except that a government gains more power, the less it has to listen to individuals. It gets to the point where the individual basically has no voice. He's surrounded by groupthink and kneejerk propaganda designed to polarize that groupthink into alignment with whatever the officials want. The government becomes the enforcer for the 1%. I'd rather the 1% use their own money to try to enslave us rather than our own.
I had a Westinghouse LVM-37w1. No tuner, no "smarts", basically a display with multiple inputs: 2 DVI, 2 Component, Composite AND S-Video, plus separate audio inputs that could be paired to the video. Nicely, the speaker cabling was external, so I could use it as "center" from my A/V amp.
The backlights eventually failed, but I looked hard for a simple replacement. Only thing I could find were commercial (ruggedized) displays at an order of magnitude more cost than the "TV"s of the same size/resolution. Can't use the TV tuner on cable (EVERYTHING is encoded), and the HDMI input doesn't let me assign which channel feeds the builtin speakers, so I had to add a center speaker.
big-screen Skype (until I told my sister-in-law about the always on spy camera "feature").
I don't know about illegal, but certainly it should be easy to find out which TVs do what.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Vizio is a pretty solid brand... at least for their larger TVs. Decent contrast, good response time, and if you choose carefully, no Smart TV nastiness. Of course, we bought the Smart TV at the time, but it doesn't get in the way. The only way you'll see it is if you press a certain button. And personally, they did Smart TV right. If you need it, it's there and easy to access. If you don't want it, don't worry about it - out of mind, out of sight.
I wouldn't say Vizio doesn't engage in Smart TV nastiness. They are not as bad as LG and Samsung. I have an older Vizio E55 series smart TV, and one of features is that the TV can report to Vizio what TV channels you look at unless you disable the feature in settings.
As far as corporations go, it frequently doesn't matter what's legal, but rather what they can get away with. A video stream or web page is copyrighted, yes, but (assuming it's yours) what are you going to do about it? Unless you can show sizable damages to yourself, it's not worth suing. If you register your video streams or web pages, you might sue for statutory damages, but I haven't heard of anybody doing that.
If we actually had competition (treat last mile as a utility and allow access to whoever wants to be an ISP), this wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem. Unfortunately, this is the US.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Have fun spending the rest of your life finding someone to blame for your unhappiness. Hope it works out well for you.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
No, you are completely powerless. In fact you're more powerless than the GGP because you refuse to realise just how powerless you are.
And wrong.
It is the governments responsibility to enforce the law and prevent crime. That is basically what it happening, large corporations are getting away with near murder because people like you think that you can simply vote with your wallet completely unaware that most of the brands you're switching between are the same company.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Gotta wonder... would Pepsi, Coke and other "name brands" really lose much business if they stopped advertising? Or would their net profit increase by not wasting $$ on ads?
Yep,
For brands like, Coke, McDonalds, et al. They would lose a lot of sales if they didn't constantly expose people to their advertising. You'd be surprised at the number of people who only drink Coke because they were exposed to a coke advert a few moments ago. For these companies they need to stay at the front of people's consciousness as they cant rely on people getting hungry or thirsty and defaulting to Micky D's or Coke because people would rarely do this of their own accord.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The fact is that in general, people want to own their stuff, not have their stuff own them. Apple taught manufacturers a very poor lesson; namely, the way to make huge profits is to create and cultivate a walled garden that the manufacturer controls and collects the tolls. But Apple wasn't successful because it has a walled garden, it is successful because plenty of people with lots of disposable income like the Apple advertising and marketing
Fixed that for you.
The pink elephant in the room is that Apples HCI is terrible, so terrible they needed to invent a bollocks field called "User Experience" to explain why their HCI was so bad. Apple are insanely good at marketing, look at how fanboys will argue over whether Apple is a software or hardware company, in reality their software is mostly derived from open source and their hardware is built by other people, so they're a marketing company.
The bad lesson Apple has taught to the corporate world is that you can abuse your customers like a drunken redneck husband beats his wife and they'll love you for it as long as you can spin it. Hell, they'll even blame themselves for anything Apple does wrong because "Apple loves them".
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Go right ahead and continue being as powerless as makes you happy. Good luck.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
What most consumers can not be bothered to do is to read and understand what they are agreeing to in a purchase.
Rarely do customers get an opportunity to see much less read a product's Terms and Conditions before they buy the item. I can't think of any product that has their Terms & Conditions displayed or readily available to customers before purchase.
Let me make this real clear.
It is not the responsibility of the government to protect people from their choices.
I must inform you that government(s) do that all the time. Why should this be any different?
Given that Free TV Australia's 'standard'* for HbbTV here** specifically allows HbbTV apps to insert their own ads when 3rd-party content is being viewed, I suspect either:
(a) Samsung trod on the network's toes by rolling out firmware which conflicted with 9Jumpin / Plus7 / TENplay / SBS On Demand's own plans for ad-insertion, or
(b) It's all part of the network's plans - but Samsung jumped the gun.
* quotes because it's a self-policed industry / lobby group agreement, not a standard standard...
** a.k.a. "FreeviewPlus"
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Gotta wonder... would Pepsi, Coke and other "name brands" really lose much business if they stopped advertising? Or would their net profit increase by not wasting $$ on ads?
Say you're at the store buying laundry detergent. There's several brands, like "Tide," "Gain," "All," and "Purex." How do you know which brands are the "name brand" detergents that are better and worth more, and which are the "generic brand" detergents that are not as good and worth less? It's simple. You're familiar with some brands more than others because you keep seeing them on television. Other factors are at play, like packaging designs, shelf placement, etc., but whether you've seen commercials for it on television definitely factors in in a huge way.
So what would happen if Pepsi stopped advertising? It wouldn't happen right away, but eventually they'd become yet another RC cola, as today's kids grow up familiar with Coke and perhaps some other brand that might pop up to replace Pepsi, but having never seen a Pepsi ad in their entire life, the Pepsi name would be as unfamiliar as the RC Cola name. They might try Pepsi once or twice, but find it's taste unfamiliar and regard it as just another knock-off of Coca-Cola, and never drink it again unless they're forced to.
Dunno about greasemonkey but Adblock only deletes from the stream. It does not add to it, so it should be ok. That might depend on precedents if different jurist fictions though.
Oh child, are you not aware that there have been eavesdropping laws for centuries? Wiretapping laws (Samsung is not the NSA) across the world. So, YES, BLOODY YES, this would be illegal in many of the world's juristrictions. "But you signed....." Explicitly does not work as in many places signing away a right is legally invalid.
Rubbish. Utter rubbish. It is the governments job to govern - not rule - the country or relevant state. That is by very definition. It is a GOVERMENT. Do you notice the similarities in spelling? While yes, I have time to look at this spy tv stuff but I do not have time for everything or even most things. Nor do you. So if you want the government to have no part in protecting you then say what you really want. I.e. no government, anarchy. Luckily for you there are older and wiser persons who have seen the miseries war and anarchy create so you are protected and shielded by them as much as possible.
Eavesding? Wiretapping? Not a government? Do not pass Go......
All good info, but the problem is that the manufacturers deliberately downspec their dumb TVs so that if you want a good screen, you have to pay for the smarts, the 3D and all the other shit you don't care about.
I'm in. When do you run for office?
I don't know why more people don't do this. I had some grief with my Samsung phone, and both Samsung and the retailer fed me the corporate line, " nothing we can do", so I lodged a claim with small claims. Cost me $40, but once they received the notice I was contacted and offered a brand new phone as a replacement.
This is exactly what Small claims court is for. It's a lawyer free zone, and big companies can't be bothered sending an exec in for the day to argue their case, so generally pay to make you go away.
Gotta wonder... would Pepsi, Coke and other "name brands" really lose much business if they stopped advertising? Or would their net profit increase by not wasting $$ on ads?
The science of Marketing is well understood. The more your hear a name, the more familiar you are with it, the more likely when making a decision you will favour something you know. If coke stopped advertising and Pepsi didn't (or vice versa) then market share would immediately shift to the most advertised product). Once you accept that you have no free will, and that the brain is a machine that marketing people have learnt how to manipulate, it all makes a lot more sense.
Something has been lost and I'm not sure if/how we get it back.
The horse has bolted, and if history is any guide the only answer is mass death, ie in the tens or hundreds of millions. It's naturally for life to get greedy, then some external threat occurs which forces everyone to work together and play nice, then as this threat is overcome, everyone gets greedy again. All the major leaps in human development were immediately after massive catastrophes (war, famine, disease etc). Our selfishness is a sign that we as a race have never had it so good.
Poetry from the 15th century: https://books.google.com/books...
"Peace makes plenty.
Plenty makes pride.
Pride breeds dispute.
Poverty's the fruit.
Poverty makes peace."
Other variations on the poem: https://books.google.com/books...
I got curious about that first phrase as it is the name of a Culture ship in Iain Bank's novel "Excession". :-)
And see also a funny sci-fi story about an alien invasion getting all the nations of the Earth to come together, like: "The Gentle Earth" by Christopher Anvil. :-) Or also "The Lathe of Heaven" by Ursula K. Le Guin.
So yes, there may well be various social cycles in mood and expectations... Daniel Quinn explores those in his non-fiction book "Beyond Civilization". But I can hope it doesn't need to get that bad, and that we can relearn old truths from old stories less painfully than re-experiencing them first hand...
Anyway, glad we got a VIZIO a year or two ago. :-) Concerns about some smart features in other TVs (as previously discussed on Slashdot) did affect that choice. We barely use it though. It was mostly for use with a Wii and PlayStation, which have faded into the background compared to PC games like Space Engineers, Minecraft, and World of Tanks. Laptops (even a 14" Chromebook) are also much more convenient in our particular home for watching video together given where the VIZIO is. Still, the big VIZIO makes a great display for a tiny Raspberry Pi! :-)
But to think what my feelings were reading 1984 decades ago, and how impossible and fantastical it seemed to have spy cameras and spy recordings going on in every US home (along with Dick Tracy's impossible-seeming two-way wrist TV). And now we are pretty much there in terms of technology (even just laptops, let alone TVs). I hope we find better ways to use all that to build a happy healthy world that works for pretty much everyone.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Actually, the Smart TV is abetter investment. Built in DLNA, and Netflix and Amazon apps built directly into the TV are far more convenient, not to mention the convenience of not having to have a HTPC and a lesser electricity bill as a result.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Those devices are slower and don't support DLNA. I have a Samsung smart TV and love the smart features...what ones do you dislike, and why?
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Makes sense. But instead of a dongle gadget, I'm more likely to use the apps on my Xbox for streaming. That also has the advantage that I already own the 360 :)
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Corporations have an obligation to follow the laws and make a profit.
And if we notice any behaviors harming our overall social environment while simultaneously enriching businesses, we can pass laws to prohibit those behaviors.
It's certainly feasible to prohibit known-bad behaviors preemptively rather than waiting for the market to discover and react to individual acts of malfeasance or breaches of trust.
In addition, a violation of established regulations or commerce law generally provides firm legal footing for a civil suit against the violators. These cases tend to be litigated much more quickly and successfully. Or settled without taking the matter to court at all, which is really ideal.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Problem is, I'm never likely to be elected to any office, including dog catcher.
I don't have the "pleasant" personality of a typical baby kisser. That, and I am a "radical" libertarian, which most people are afraid of.
I've come to the conclusion that most people like being sheep, as it is security for them. The problem as I see it, the sheepdog is actually a wolf.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
That does not work since he is accessing Amazon, Netflix, and whatever CDNs are caching his shows.
With the growth of online video and IoT devices---and their resulting need for CDNs, redundancy, and resilience vs load/DDoS---simple IP filtering is becoming increasingly difficult for even a modestly connected household. And the difficulty is only going to increase over time.
I'm at the point where I'm about to give up on manual filtering entirely, and I don't have a lot of the shiny new networked devices. In the past, "dumber" devices have ended up being relegated to the cheapest bargain-basement hardware on the market. There are very few premium "dumb" devices anywhere.
I want privacy and security, and I want those things without being forced to buy the bottom-of-the-line crap. If they don't stop making invasive, insecure "smart" devices, I see bigger problems looming.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Considering the government doesn't represent "the people", only the rich who buy the politicians, don't hold your breath waiting for this...
But that is not good enough I am sure. What needs to happen of course is that laws need to be passed to force companies to make the products you think they should make with a TOS you think they should have at a price you set.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
I must inform you. Just because some guy goes out and murders people all the time does not make it a good thing to do.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Also. Just wondering if the "Oh Child" comment when coming from me sounded sad and desperate? Or did the fact that it was not followed by a bunch of bullshit make it not quite as bad?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Some of us though are under the impression that many things are not like that. For example, Government. It is not restricted toward anarchy or nanny state, "Pick One".
The government needs to make no new law stating either that any contract you agree to you can later sue for because you no longer like it or a new law making something that is illegal, ... illegal.
I really do have the right to decide what contract I want to enter into. I do not need the government telling me that my TV has to listen to me or is prohibited to listening to me.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
That you must agree to having your conversations analyzed for key words so your TV can work?
(This is already the law) That they can not do it even if you (The Customer) agrees and wants it? (This should really spur innovation)
That there has to be a separate TOS for recording that the people who do not want to read the first one will also not read?
(This is where I think they will go) What exactly do you think the government can step in and fix here? (Government rarely does a thing well.)
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Show me regulations passed in the US in the last 15 years that worked well without massive downsides.
I do not think that the government has zero role in the running of the country. I believe that they, long ago, passed the line into over regulation. I think that continuing even further down this pass is almost always going to be a really bad idea.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Samstung needs to be slapped with a DCMA or some such tampering
statute. A content stream is Copyright. They are modifying it for
the purpose of generating $$ and that can be illegal all across the
globe. The fact that the author and owner of the stream cannot easily
see this tomfoolery is perhaps the only thing keeping an attorney
from turning the company upside down and shaking money out.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Dont buy a smart TV. Buy a normal one, and use an external video streaming gadget. If anything on your TV breaks you might have to buy a brand new one, or pay for ultra expensive repairs.
I'm using a 40" Samsung LED TV right now. It has no ethernet or wifi. Was extremely cheap. If I want to watch videos, I plug my blu ray player, my laptop, my Linux gadget (banana Pi), or my satellite dish receiver. Oh and you can also download videos into a USB flash drive and plug them in.
Even without the ads, a smart TV with Internet conectivity could be uploading all the names of files you played to their vendors. Who knows one day you'll get sued for playing downloaded videos because Samsung or LG sold the list of customers to DCMA sharks ?
Actually, the Smart TV is abetter investment. Built in DLNA, and Netflix and Amazon apps built directly into the TV are far more convenient, not to mention the convenience of not having to have a HTPC and a lesser electricity bill as a result.
Not in the Samsung case. A wonderful Samsung screen with "smart" features and
Samstung is unable or unwilling to update the Netflix software. No Amazon app...
on my perfectly good TV AND Smart Blu Ray player. Android tablets and phones
are now seeing incompatible application update notifications as Android moves and
cell service and phone makers conspire to constipate and control the update and
bug fix process.
The life of a $1000 TV is not one or two years... If you purchase one of these about
the time the new model is out you will see a corresponding shortening of the update
stream. If you purchases it early you will see some bug fixes and feel good but
all new computer hardware will need an update just because software takes time
and testing on a simulator is so much slower than real hardware.
Sorry you have had your two updates... you are SOL.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Only if this death penalty includes all persons with enough/the right shares to be able to vote on company policy.
My understanding of small claims court (I have no direct experience), is that even if you got a judgement, LG wouldn't pay it and you would have no way to collect.
--
JimFive
Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.
I don't know if I would consider it an investment. That kind of implies you're in it for the long term, and my guess is any smart TV will stop getting updates within a year or two, and in about five years all the "Smart" features will be unsupported, broken, and damn near useless. I would invest in a good screen that I would hope to keep a while, and then keep the "smarts" separate so they can be updated as needed.
Why are you sure that I was brought up "all or nothing"? I wasn't at all. I fact I am the result of a cross "all or nothing".
But twisting my words will not help you. A law is all or nothing. You obey it or you don't.
You seem to think that if a government passes a law that you disagree with then you are not required or obliged to obey it and that it has no right to make those laws And that appears to me to be exceptionalism. You are not a special little snowflake - no one is.
Your second paragraph is not just poor grammar, it is so badly written that it is ambiguous and incomprehensible. I would not mind the former but the latter makes it impossible to address. Please use either american, australian or english, I can handle those. If you meant what I think you meant then a contract may be legally binding but it is not a law.
I am an Australian and there are many "socialist" laws here. Thank FSM. There are consumer protection organisations that work - they actually have power. And more importantly there are laws and protections that you cannot sign away regardless of what any contract might say. For example, Apple computers offer a one year guarantee. But, so far, the consumer protection have decided that it is not long enough. So, if an Apple fails within three or so years then Apple will repair or replace if they cannot prove you damaged it. Another example, if a change in licence (or fees) makes a change that means you can no longer use a device or software in the way you intended and had been doing, it is simply invalid and unenforcable. Another, long and frequent changes to click-throughs are considered unfair and pernicious. Another, Any sold or rented item must be suitable for the purposes for which it was sold.
Your third paragraph I agree with you mostly but there is a nominal social contract that varies location to location that you really cannot avoid. In many cases it would be better to conform or move. e.g. A lot of people moved to Canada when conscripted in the 70's.
Interesting thing, while I was answering you I got a text from my phone company telling me they intend to turn on roaming for me and giving me a web address to change that. I have responded to the text that I do not want it and making me responsible for seeing it remains off wastes my time. Since I have told them (even if it is not by their method of choice) I do not want it, if they ever bill me for it their bill will be wastepaper.
Now you might call it a nanny state but I call it one where citizens have inviolable rights.
Where are you getting that from? I have a Samsung F6300, and they have fixed the apps via updates whenever there is an issue.
Samsung use the same smart tv software for all their models with minor tweaks, so no reason you shouldn't have updates.
Check avs forums for the owners thread, and more than likely there is a fix for whatever issue you are having.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
I don't care if I ever get an update on my TV. It allows me to access my NAS via DLNA, so that I can download a torrent from my phone and then quickly pull it up via a menu on my TV. Like Plex, except I don't have to pay because it's a standard, coincidentally which none of the stick devices like Chromecast support.
The only other two apps I use are Netflix and Amazon, and I don't see either of those companies abandoning their apps anytime soon.
It's a PC. A PC doesn't becomes useless just because it can't run the latest software.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Do you have an API to fetch the hosts file directly without using the windows software? I don't run any windows...
I'm thinking about taking your hosts file and running it through a script to create a dnsmasq or bind config so then I can run it as a local resolver for my home network (consisting of non-changeable devices like a Wii).
"on behalf of the end user" is different from "by the end user"
I don't see to what extent this difference matters. It's especially unclear because U.S. courts reached opposite conclusions in Cartoon Network v. Cablevision and ABC v. Aereo .
Where are you getting that from? I have a Samsung F6300, and they have fixed the apps via updates whenever there is an issue.
Samsung use the same smart tv software for all their models with minor tweaks, so no reason you shouldn't have updates.
Check avs forums for the owners thread, and more than likely there is a fix for whatever issue you are having.
OK model UN46D6050 From todays online chat...
Xyzzzz:: The particular TV come with 2011 smart hub interface. Thus, this particular TV does not support multiple profiles in netflix app.
Visitor: Sigh... I am disappointed. Such a fine TV matched with little or no software support. Makes me sad...
Xyzzzz: Multiple profile option for netflix is only available in F and H series models.
Xyzzzz: I can understand how important this is to you.
Xyzzzz: Netflix 3.1 app is available on your TV. This updated Netflix app will allow you to use:
Xyzzzz: Subtitles on supported movies.
Xyzzzz: Multi-Audio Tracks on supported movies.
Xyzzzz: 5.1 audio tracks on supported movies.
Xyzzzz: Full HD (1080p) on supported movies
Visitor: But not profiles?
Xyzzzz: Yes, only for the F and H series model TV's you can see that feature.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
What I mean is, can I just download your plain hosts file over the web? Instead of downloading your software and extracting it. Whether it's a giant 3M line file or 250k lines or smaller doesn't matter as long as it's decent. It seems like maintaining the hosts entries is the hard part!
OK, yeah, that's fair. My first smart TV was a 6350 model, and it's bloody amazing.
I bought a cheap 40 6050 and the smart tv interface was absolutely awful, I returned it because it was so slow and cumbersome.
The 6300 series and higher though, it's fast and intuitive, and I can't imagine not having it.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.