The amount of data this thing collects is staggering.... It also has a built-in camera — with facial recognition. The purpose is to provide “gesture control” for the TV and enable you to log in to a personalized account using your face.... The TV boasts a “voice recognition” feature that allows viewers to control the screen with voice commands. But the service comes with a rather ominous warning: “Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.” Got that? Don’t say personal or sensitive stuff in front of the TV....ADDED: "The telescreen struck fourteen.... Curiously, the chiming of the hour seemed to have put new heart into him. He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage. He went back to the table, dipped his pen, and wrote: 'To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone— to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink— greetings!' He was already dead, he reflected. It seemed to him that it was only now, when he had begun to be able to formulate his thoughts, that he had taken the decisive step.... Now that he had recognised himself as a dead man it became important to stay alive as long as possible."
George Orwell, "1984."
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53 comments:
There'a market for a box that sends the program output of another TV into this TV.
They collect everything if you let them. It is truly the Truman Show out there. It is called Business Analytics, Big Data, Big, Big you.
Can you turn that stuff off? If not, I'd return the TV.
YAKOV SMIRNOFF, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD!!!!
I think it is a service you pay for but the TV is designed to capture all that information.
The Internet of Things is really a terrible idea. Just because you can do something does not mean you should.
Reading the article I don't know the name of the TV nor whether this is standard in most new TVs. Afraid to offend an advertiser in Salon?
Civil liberties issues.
A tiny patch of electrical tape fixes the camera problem.
I have a broken mic plugged into my PC's audio input.
My TV isn't fancy enough to have voice control, but there may be something equally effective to do with the TV's audio input short of popping the case and clipping a couple of wires.
(I have another pc peripheral that includes a mic; i'm being a little lax leaving that plugged in and trusting Windows' to honor my choice of input devices. If I were a bit more paranoid I'd learn to live without that plugged in full-time)
If you're only now becoming aware of this problem you really haven't been paying attention the last few years.
Jason-
Well played, sir.
FleetUSA said...
Afraid to offend an advertiser in Salon?
Google ["Please be aware that..."] indicates it's a Samsung.
This stuff is scary, but for really horrifying, read about SCADA devices, and imagine ISIL, or FST or Unit 241318 turning on all the valves at your local petro refinery, power plant or the electric grid...
"A tiny patch of electrical tape fixes the camera problem. "
Great. Just what I want, a tacky piece of tape on my new TV.
I'm glad I read this article. We need a new TV, and I will stay away from "Smart" TVs (which would have been my inclination anyway. Smart never is.)
Original Mike said...
Can you turn that stuff off?
Of course you can: don't hook it up to the internet. But Salon thrives on dishonest sensationalism.
Not sure how much it can communicate if you dont let it know your wifi password.
"don't hook it up to the internet."
I wonder if you get pop-ups "informing" you that you have not connected to the Internet. I wouldn't be surprised.
"Don't hook it up to the Internet" is pretty basic.
So is "don't run your computer in Admin mode", but almost nobody pays attention to that.
Don't say "yes" to "Want me to remember this password forever?"
People don't -- I know college students don't -- read Orwell anymore. TV was the key to individual control and monitoring... Upon arriving home at your bleak block apartment, you were required to open all packages and briefcases and show the contents to the TV. You never knew when someone was monitoring...
Ignorance is slavery...
@Original Mike.. I have a Samsung Smart TV and didn't bother to set up the network.. it functions like any other ordinary TV, no pop-ups.. it is quite amazing how far the technology has come but for the vultures who sit at the gates.
"Don't say "yes" to "Want me to remember this password forever?""
I've never understood why you'd want your computer to "remember" passwords.
Thanks, pm317.
I know teenagers who communicate primarily through online gaming. More than a year ago, I called a friend to ask whether his son wanted to play some basketball or something with my son, and within seconds the response was that the son and his buddy (in another location) would both come by soon. That happened over XBox Live.
Not sure how much it can communicate if you dont let it know your wifi password.
That works, of course, but then you don't get to use Netflix, Vudu, Pandora, etc. with your device.
Great. Just what I want, a tacky piece of tape on my new TV.
There's probably a market for not-hideous privacy patches for smart device cameras. Audio In is more of a problem IMHO.
Seriously, a lot of these things get installed in bedrooms. I want that camera shut DOWN.
Truly, shades of 1984...
"While he was lost in his thoughts, Winston’s body had been performing the exercises routinely. Now he is suddenly startled out of his reverie by the instructress from the telescreen addressing him directly. Shouting at him as “6079 Smith W” the woman tells him to pay more attention and recalls him to the regimented present where each man is a coded number and the telescreens spy on every activity."
is the TV made by SKYNET?
You can get Netflix on another device or at very least buy the cheaper TV without voice recognition.
If you want your TV to do everything that is the package you chose.My worlds smallest fiddle is getting tuned up as the people who buy feature rich high end TVs got more than they wanted.
"Seriously, a lot of these things get installed in bedrooms. I want that camera shut DOWN."
Yep.
The world is catching up to my paranoia.
I tend to buy high-end stuff, but when it comes to technology, I find I do the opposite.
I liked it better when stalkers were just that woman following me in a trenchcoat, leaving notes on my car and and calling on the phone at night without saying anything. This new stuff is so impersonal.
I wonder how many hotels install smart TVs. Seems like it would be a good way to keep tabs on guests.
Having your own stalker is personal: they have chosen YOU to be the subject of their unbalanced fantasies. Now it is just a bunch of cubicle drones who view you as data. The frisson is gone.
When you know a stalker is across the street in the bushes looking in your window who DOESN'T undress just a bit sexier?
I dunno, maybe, research the tv before you spend a couple of grand on it?
I think Jason at 7:23 wins the internet for today. Or at least a new TV.
Wow! They used 1984 as an instruction manual!
We need a new TV, and I will stay away from "Smart" TVs (which would have been my inclination anyway. Smart never is.)
Anything 'smart' just has more things that might break sooner. Although my tv said 'smart', I don't think it did all of this...
People are just now discovering that a computer can be a great tool (if you control/program it) but a terrible master (when someone else has that control)?
"First, we kill all the lawyers."
Not sure how much it can communicate if you dont let it know your wifi password.
That's a good point. Mine isn't hooked up to the wifi, because I have a roku that is.
I did put a piece of tape over the web cam on my laptop after I got some sort of creepy virus that took a picture of me! I think it fell off, though.
To the Woman Who Watches Me from Inside the Television:
There is nothing to see her, nothing at all. It is just me, in my Speedo, doing my Rick Astley dance. OK, you can watch if you'd like, I'm good either way.
To the Woman Who Watches Me from Inside the Television:
"Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you"
Pelvic thrust / pelvic thrust.
Mark said...
A tiny patch of electrical tape fixes the camera problem.
I have a broken mic plugged into my PC's audio input.
LOL...Mark, you're paranoid.
But justifiably so.
The Genie is out of the bottle.
All electronic media is a potential portal into your private life.
Buyer beware.
To the Woman Who Watches Me from Inside the Television:
Yes, I am touching an ice cube to my nipples. Don't read anything into it.
To the Woman Who Watches Me from Inside the Television:
Yes, these are pebbles in my hand. I often walk around with pebbles in my hand, no big thing. Oh -- I get it: I bet you want me to play "Lena Dunham' with you, am I right? You want to be Lena's sister and make googly baby talk? Baby want a pebble, sweet baby? Will you wear a diaper for daddy? I see how you are.
It was Julia!
Julia did it!
Punish her, not me!
"Oh, sorry honey, you mean it was just the sleep timer turning the TV off? Okay, goodnight, Julie, love you too."
Every time Harry Reid appears on my TV I give him the finger, just in case.
"I want that camera shut DOWN."
Remember that list of Motel 6 slogans?
You rented the room. Now buy the video!
"Users may...disable data collection, but ...this leaves consumers with an unacceptable choice between keeping up with technology and retaining their personal privacy."
I can think of dozens of ways to modify the word 'choice,' but the word 'unacceptable,' would not be one of them. Is Price an intern or something?
Darryl,
I was on BART last night coming home from Berkeley, and I overheard a couple of liberal arts grad-student types talking about papers, and one actually mentioned that he had never read "1984", or that "other one", which I'm gonna guess meant "Brave New World".
And how many people gladly buy an Xbox 1 and willingly hook it up to Kinect and Xbox Live?
How many people log into Facebook using their regular internet browser while logged into their usual computer account? The world is full of lazy fools who don't care about their privacy.
Fred,
Good thought on "Brave New World." To me, between the "pillars" of "great western literature" and "studies" literature we have 'warning' literature (1984 and Brave New World, et al.). Sadly, with the amount of voluntary self medication (Soma) and self surrender of privacy (facebook), Orwell and Huxley may need to be reshelved in Non-Fiction before too long...
James Pawlak said...
"First, we kill all the lawyers."
That may not solve this particular problem but it would fix so many others...
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