Samsung Smart TVs Don't Encrypt the Voice Data They Collect
itwbennett writes A week ago, the revelation that Samsung collects words spoken by consumers when they use the voice recognition feature in their smart TVs enraged privacy advocates, since according to Samsung's own privacy policy those words can in some cases include personal or sensitive information. Following the incident, David Lodge, a researcher with a U.K.-based security firm called Pen Test Partners, intercepted and analyzed the Internet traffic generated by a Samsung smart TV and found that Samsung does send captured voice data to a remote server using a connection on port 443, a port typically associated with encrypted HTTPS, but that the data was not encrypted. "It's not even HTTP data, it's a mix of XML and some custom binary data packet," said Lodge in a blog post.
"We just thought sending it over port 443 alone was enough to make it encrypted. Boy do we feel silly."
Come on, it would have been surprised if they did encrypt the data in a decent way,...
Doesn't encryption imply some level of trust in the other party? I.e. you know who you are sending sensitive data to?
If you don't trust Samsung to receive your personal data (as I'm sure few people do) is it relevant that it's not encrypted?
I think we need a new term for something like this - security through stupidity.
Obscurity means that something is non-obvious enough that it takes work to uncover it.
Stupidity is where the way something is done is so stupid it makes you keep checking for something else going on.
To be fair though, if he just knows the speech captured is a blob of binary data sent but not the format how does he know THAT's not encrypted?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"It's not even HTTP data, it's a mix of XML and some custom binary data packet,"
Well, XML is more or less unreadable. That is as close to a one way encryption any commercial company will get.
Is there someway to squeeze Tor[1] into this?
[1] or some other type of Tor-like tech
Next time use port 22. Its dead simple.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Looks like someone was trying to make it look safe and secure, but was too lazy to implement it. This is cheating.
Is this really what Samsung wants to do? I've been steering everyone I know away from Sony products for more than a decade now, and what I suggest when they ask what brand they can trust I have always told them Samsung. I ask you, is there any major brand who are on the side of consumer/customer privacy out there anymore?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I think they also collect video from the camera when present (why not?) and I also think they will use the same "technology" to send it back home.
Is that encrypted? And, more important, is it allowed by law???
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
When you select 'check for upgrade to software' does it download that software in the same way?
You might think nobody would be that stupid, but Dell apparently updated their BIOS across an unencrypted connection without extra check on the binary and that was how the NSA took control of thousands of Dell servers.
(Of course this is the NSA, they also simply installed the malware at/near source at Dells factory):
http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/nsa-bios-backdoor-god-mode-malware-deitybounce/
And using https and a certificate is not enough if they can grant themselves fake certificates issued by real authorities, if Google cannot stop them mass intercepting Goog traffic then https cannot be used for sending binary updates:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/30/google-reports-nsa-secretly-intercepts-data-links
But this is level of encryption (zero) is comically incompetent.
...Shut the fuck up moaning and use the remote.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Try to compress the data. Well-encrypted has a high-entropy and cannot be compressed.
To be fair, what kind of words are likely to be sent - since data is only sent when explicitly using the voice recognition feature? "put channel 11", "switch on/off", "weather tomorrow" - probably not so juicy...
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
In an exceptional security disaster like this, the lack of transport encryption is a mere detail and not surprising at all. The problem is the mind-set of the people that made the decision to send anything the user did not explicitly authorize for each single case in the first place.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
And if your neighbors start recording that, they go to prison in any sane jurisdiction.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It's a shame that most posters on Slashdot don't realize how browser security works. Port 443 is the secure HTTPS port, so if you send data to that port, IT IS AUTOMATICALLY SECURE, and you simply don't have to worry about any of that pesky SSL protocol and messy key exchanges. Just trust the port, that's what it's there for!
The microphone on the TV stays off until you command it to listen. You do that by pressing a large VOICE button on the remote.
Best Slashdot Co
We need a sort of Kickstarter for consumer goods, such as "Okay, we want a tv / laptop / cell phone with these agreed-upon specs and we get all access to firmware / bios / baseband, etc." Once an effective number of folks 'buy-in", the group takes their big wad of sweaty cash to a Taiwanese contract manufacturer and a run of the product is made. AFTER the product and code is inspected for any corporate / governmental tampering, the product is shipped (with an option for the purchasers to pick it up directly to avoid the NSA shipping intercepts).
I know you're A/C and so have a lower bar of thinking to reach than the rest of us, but it amazes me that you can't see the problem here.
You live in a neighbourhood, that presumably you chose and like. You presumably know your neighbours, at least vaguely. This TV (with the feature enabled, and if it's buggy, without the feature enabled) means you're now living in some shithole backwater in Elbonia where some geeks are using what you say for nefarious purposes. You're also living next door to the NSA, GCHQ, whomever the KGB turned into, and countless others - in fact, you have no way of ever knowing who you "neighbours" are.
Why would knowledge of encryption be a requirement during a job interview for a programming position? Programmers shouldn't be expected to understand encryption!
I wonder if it's perhaps an engineer-type mentality that gets so focused on building cool new things, they just don't stop to think about how those new things can be abused or exploited to do bad things.
It's partly that. It's also very likely to be a significant amount of incompetence. I am an engineer and run a contract manufacturing company. We build wire harnesses and our customers provide the technical details for the product to be built. I've been doing this for many years now and I can count on my fingers the number of drawings that I've received that could be built solely from the documentation provided. This means that a LOT of engineers are wildly incompetent at writing engineering documentations which is >50% of their job for most of them.
I guess engineers don't typically think like baddies, figuring out how to use technology to hurt people or steal from them.
Not only do they not think like baddies, they often don't bother to consult with those who do. Furthermore even if they did think about it it wouldn't surprise me if a cost/benefit analysis was done which drove the engineers and/or management to not bother. Encryption done right is hard and it doesn't result in a single additional sale for most products. Nobody buys a TV wondering how good the encryption on it is. Maybe now they will but it just hasn't been on anyone's radar to this point so why would we expect the companies making the products to worry about it even if they should have?
I've been steering everyone I know away from Sony products for more than a decade now, and what I suggest when they ask what brand they can trust I have always told them Samsung.
Genuinely not being snarky but why? What has Samsung ever done that would lead you to believe they would be a brand you could/should trust more than Sony? Just because they haven't really stepped in a big pile of #2 until now is evidence of nothing. Sure Sony has done some truly stupid shit but Samsung has really only been a big name in computer products for the last few years. I don't think they are in any way more trustworthy, they just haven't had time for their sins to float to the surface yet.
I ask you, is there any major brand who are on the side of consumer/customer privacy out there anymore?
I'm not aware of any that ever were unfortunately.
If all they have to do is say "oh, gee, we're not really sorry" and have no consequences, this will keep happening.
This is something that has come up in our culture lately. It seems no mater how bad the offense, all the media wants is some sort of apology and somehow that makes it acceptable. There are no further consequences which boggles my mind. Sometimes an apology is not sufficient. What we should really care about is what did they DO to make things right. I could give a shit whether they apologize or not. Fix it and I'll forgive. What is said means nothing.
Which is precisely why you should assume any piece of consumer electronics which wants to connect to the internet was pushed out the door by lazy, incompetent, greedy bastards who bear no legal penalty for screwing up on security and privacy.
Preach on brother. This is absolutely correct.
You can already buy a regular, not-smart TV everywhere. It's called a computer monitor.
Really? I can buy a 60" computer monitor that can change channels, has 4 inputs and sound and comes with a remote for less than $700? Please tell me where I can find this fantastic buy...
Oh that's right, not available for reasonable prices anywhere...
So if you've got the remote, and have to push the button anyway, why not tap in "77" to change the channel rather than using voice commands.
Yes, I realize voice commands can do other things, but what are they really useful for?
The other issue that they may be facing is that they are not in control of the text to speech aspect. There are a couple vendors out there that provide this functionality, nuance being one of the large players, and most of them work in this manner with some sort of xml/json and a binary blob of the pcm data. If the vendor they are using does not support encrypted data on the server end, then there isnt much samsung can do besides going and finding one that does
Do you mean on the return trip (which I wasn't sure he had monitored)? The outbound is audio-blob only.
It does seem likely though the return data would not be HTTPS either since the connection was never established... but it could still be encrypted.
Very doubtful though or they would have just used HTTS you would think and saved a lot of bother.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is it possible, or even likely, that this runs afoul or recording or wiretapping laws that require two-party consent?
on EVER buying a TV set with a camera and microphone built in. The only purpose these could possibly serve in a TV set is to spy on those watching it. Anyone who thinks at all does NOT want to be spied upon by the things that they buy. This Internet of Things crap has laready gone Way Way too far, and needs be be killed now! George Orwell's 1984 is already here, there is no need to make things worse!!!
I suppose this makes sense. If you select port 80 it is more likely to be noticed or more likely to be intercepted and or mangled by proxies and AG's making it difficult to transport non- HTTP data streams.
Port 443 would best allow for unmolested arbitrary stream while remaining most unlikely to be filtered.
The rest I can't explain... is there really such a big ass market for ads and data justifying such behavior or is some of this at least partially being "subsidized" by state actors? The mindset and thinking not just of Samsung but of growing numbers of vendors strikes me as both disgusting and unsustainable.
In some States isn't it criminal to listen in on people without them all being informed? In California for instance both parties of a phone convo have to be informed of the recording. How does my Mom know she's being recorded in my living room?
but thats wrong. go google news and set the limit to the last 10 days.