- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.ml
You must log in or register to comment.
Microphone? They put microphones in TV remotes nowadays?
Yes, it’s for “easy searching.” I dunno about current offerings, but even Roku boxes from five-ish years ago had them; you’d hold a button and talk into the remote.
Why? What can I say to remote? “Switch to channel 15?” Isn’t it easier to press a button?
How often are you switching channels these days??
It’s to search instead of using the on-screen keyboard via remote.
Streaming services have a search feature, but you have to scroll through each letter of the alphabet to spell out whatever you’re looking for. The microphone does away with both this process, and privacy.
It would be okay if it was local, and a simple voice recognition could work. Smart phones have that ability when the connection isn’t present. But they’re going to make it cloud driven because that’s easier and opens up more “features”.
Yeah? It’s to use voice controls. Been a thing even before “smart” TVs.
Yep. Smart TVs doing Smart TV things.
Have you been living under a rock? Microphone-equipped remotes have been a thing for years.
People will literally buy anything that invades their privacy
Putting tape over it or glue in the hole is probably far easier to manage for the average person, without destroying the remote in the process. 😅
That doesn’t work, though. Sound will penetrate that fairly easily. It’ll be muffled slightly, but not enough to do anything.
Probably would do little to prevent it from listening though.
Guys c’mon
There are microphones in YOUR POCKET. They track your location and likely have access to all your communications literally in person and online. We’re going after remotes though? Okay. Sure. Whatever.
Bizarre take. Most of us are perfectly capable of being aware of more than one issue at a time. One doesn’t cancel out the other.
It isn’t different issues though. It is the same issue. But removing the microphone from your TV remote is literally nothing if you live in a world with cellphones or have a cellphone or even just use the internet. Your router can see your house these days.
It’s goofy.
This defeatist mentality is exactly what those spying want you to think. Why bother trying to be more private at all right? Might as well give up entirely
It’s literally not defeatist. I’m saying there is an army coming and you are painting your nails to get ready for war.
It might look cool, might even help you have confidence to fight better. But it’s worthless entirely especially if you live in a house or go to a workplace with people that have phones, own one yourself, have a wifi network or your neighbor has wifi.
That’s whataboutism. The simple fact is, the vast majority of people don’t want or need microphone capabilities in their tv/remote (unlike a smartphone). But it’s there and can be exploited. Add in the fact that TVs are opaque privacy nightmares. Do most people know what they’re doing at any given moment? Not a chance.
It can’t be a whataboutism. It’s the same topic. I might’ve not made it clear but if you live in a house with wifi, your neighbor has wifi, your family or coworkers own phones, you go out in public really at all. This isn’t going to be the one that’s gonna move any needle, it is at best a feel good thing to do.
Have you considered the possibility that many of the people you are talking to have things like degoogled phones with custom ROMs, while the remote is running a closed-source firmware that most definitely is spying on you all the time?
If you think degoogling your phone is going to make it not spy on you, then it makes sense you would target your remote.
It definitely makes it a lot less likely, since you need to have hardware exploits (or some Android zero-days), which are rare, valuable, non-trivial to exploit, and only accessible to a very limited group of actors (CIA, very proficient hacker groups), so these will not be wasted on just stealing your data…
Or … just don’t connect your TV to the internet.
Except they can still scan for and communicate with any nearby BT/WiFi connections, and some sets even have 4G/5G modems embedded now.
Hey LG, if you’re listening, where the hell is my remote?
