LG to ban residential proxies from smart TV apps

pixl97

I mean, why didn't they do that from the start?

akersten

is this some kind of tactical distraction from the other LG headlines this week? I thought residential proxies are already banned from SmartTV apps by virtue of practically every APK under the sun being subject to the Google Play terms of service.

cognitiveinline

Sharing a slice of your internet in a privacy preserving way in exchange for something of value, seems fair, no?

xena

This is the best news I've heard all week. Finally good news for once!

glimshe

My TV doesn't know my router's wi-fi password.

s1ncere

Stop hooking up your LG tv to any network

4rt

lg's had a good run of being a monitor, their software was a bit shit but the hardware supported e-arc etc. i've got 2 expensive lg tvs and i bought them because you don't need to use their remote, it just turns on and shows the picture.

jchw

None of my TVs are connected to the Internet. That said, I could really do with a better open source fullscreen UI, especially since I mainly just want a web browser that works good. I'm just using KDE Plasma with a custom daemon to control the TV power state over an HDMI CEC adapter plus an old K830 keyboard. I'm, frankly, a bit annoyed by this whole thing; I'd rather have USB adapter RF wireless because it is simpler to deal with vs Bluetooth, but actually I can't even find other Bluetooth keyboards that are as compelling as this K830 and worse yet, they don't even make the K830 anymore. I don't really mind KDE Plasma with just some minor customizations but I don't really like any of the options like Kodi. Maybe Plasma BigScreen will eventually be what I want for that. And finally, HDMI CEC is a pain in the ass. For reasons, I actually use an adapter to get CEC support on a normal PC platform, because most PC HDMI ports can't do it. And also, it's just a bizarre and overly complicated thing. I have it working reliably, but it took some time to iron out all the kinks, particularly because my TV responds quite differently depending on how recently it was powered off. I really just want a big monitor and to basically just use DPMS... Like a computer does, but large computer monitors tend to be expensive and don't always have remote controls, which admittedly are handy.

symfoniq

This is madness. Only LG themselves should be able to have this kind of invasive control over your television.

spudlyo

One day there will be a decent TV that can be relatively easily hacked to run on open source firmware. My wife and I are moving soon, and I'm happy we've decided not to have a TV in the new place. Neither of our current LG TV's have ever been connected to the network, but it will feel good when I sell or give the cursed things away.

ram_rattle

Apparently all these vendors did nothing to prevent this, a nice article from spur intelligence https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/video/how-smart-tvs-may-be-s...

boredatoms

Tell your relatives, buy an apple tv

0xblinq

I'm very worried with all this bullshit around TVs. I've been running the same Samsung UE40C6530 since 2010. It's 16 f'ng years and the thing works flawlessly like the first day. No other electronic device in my life worked so well, during so long. But I'm about to move to a new home, and it feels like it's about time to get something more modern, at least a 4k TV. But I'm honestly totally lost at what to buy. I do not want a "Smart" tv that's slow to start, bloated with crap, installing updates every day, and maybe even spying on me. I want a plain, old, normal TV. If possible without Android or any advanced operating system. Just a TV. I'll plug external content myself, either via a Chromecast device, or something similar. I don't want my TV to be a full fledged computer. Is there such a thing? What would you buy nowadays? It seems you're forced to get yet another computer to maintain and be worried about whatever you buy.

12_throw_away

42% of the apps on LG's platform have these quasi-malware SDKs in them? Seems kinda bad, whether it's due to negligence or just pure incompetence? You'd think there might be legal consequences for a corporation that lets their app store turn into a malware delivery system?

yodon

If other non-Android-based TV manufacturers follow, this will have a much bigger impact on the spread (and cost) of scraping than either Anubis or Cloudflare.

kh2engab

Is there a (technical) difference between a residential proxy and bot network node?

charcircuit

>“The risk is amplified when consent comes from individuals within the household who use the device but shouldn’t give consent, such as minors.” Note that the same applies for the other privacy invasive webos features. But since that doesn't harm big tech's monopoly they will conveniently avoid mentioning it.

BrenBarn

The messed up thing is that we need to rely on LG to stop allowing it rather than just making it illegal.

iugtmkbdfil834

Heh. tinfoil hat on I always suspected that the AI gods would manifest themselves through TV. Hat stays on from this point on. It is not like LG suddenly found it in their heart to stop the money flow from the offending apps. Not when combined with recent security incident at frontier labs and current admin freaking out over open models.

jmward01

Honestly I have nothing but anger for all parties involved here. We need to treat any appliance as hostile. Vote for people that will stop this stuff. Don't buy it. This is digital assault and should be treated as such. If any of the HN crowd reading this are tech reviewers, make privacy and security a first class feature of the things you review. If it has a network connection then ask hard questions of the manufacturer about how they are managing that massive responsibility and what promises they have about how they will, and won't, use it. Ask what qualifies a 'trusted partner' and get a list of them so you can dig into them and report on how much those partners can or can't be trusted. I really don't care how bright the screen is if this type of stuff happens. I'd rather watch nothing.