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LG smart TVs caught logging audio with screen off and snooping on local devices (www.notebookcheck.net)

submitted 9 hours ago by schizoidman@lemmy.zip to c/technology@lemmy.world

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An investigation by Gamers Nexus found LG smart TVs sweep local networks to map phones and nearby devices. Tests also showed the sets can capture microphone audio with the screen off — they then upload data once reconnected to the internet.

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[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 11 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

This all happens the moment you plug that HDMI (or DisplayPort for people who purchased an LG computer monitor) right into an internet-enabled laptop through a protocol called EDID, also known as "Extended Display Identification Data," which by itself is totally harmless!

It simply tells your operating system what kind of monitor is connected, what its capabilities are, it's serial number. That's it!

Inside Windows, when you go to Device Manager, it might not seem like much. Just a generic PnP device attached as a monitor.

Dive a little more into Device Manager, and we see where EDID does its magic; we found that this particular Microsoft Box is hooked up to some kind of Samsung monitor. Now, Samsung might have some kind of driver that would help take advantage of my monitor. But this Samsung is so old they simply do not care.

Yeah, it's installing drivers on WINDOWS.

So, caveat two is don't connect these things to an internet-connected WINDOWS machine.

Good point.

But, as others have said, if you do successfully air gap one of these things, it might stop working because a hard drive is full, or more directly because it can't phone home and is designed to lock you out in that case.

[–] atrielienz@lemmy.world 1 points 45 minutes ago

On Gamer's Nexus's video on the subject at 1:20 you'll hear how they talk about how LG accesses your network data through windows.

I think it's important to note that I didn't say in my original comment anything about it using your windows Internet connection to send and receive that data that it collects via microphone or that it may have accessed through your Wi-Fi network if you happened to connect it to that.

I think people assumed (it's early for me, my bad) that I meant it was transmitting this data that it collected over your windows computer's Internet connection but that wasn't what I was intending to claim. When you connect an LG device (Television or Monitor) you agree to allow that device access to your network and they literally say they have full access to your device both in the TOS and in device settings . They gather all the information of every single device connected to your TV. Their apps can "use all system resources" and "access your Internet connection".

0:47:00 of this video gives more detail about this. https://youtu.be/Q9uefFYe6bM?is=xKJNG-RT_j_2Tw1U

"Sending ACR data to advertising partners thru inputs like HDMI"

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/216-000-000-spy-tvs-the-lg-smart-tv-problem-gamersnexus-investigates.352429/