Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Smart T.V. Privacy Overview? (feddit.nl)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by czim@feddit.nl to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm considering buying a new TV. There's plenty of posts about trying to find dumb TVs, comments like 'just don't connect it to the internet/network'.

What surprises me is that there isn't a good overview of (popular) TVs or brands with basic information, answering for each TV:

Can you use it as a basic TV by choosing not to enable smart features during setup?
Can you opt out by just not accepting a bunch of agreements?
Does it have a camera and/or microphone? Where in the device are these? Is there a physical disable switch for microphone?
Does it nag when not connected to any network?
Does it have higher than normal power usage when not able to phone home?
Has it been discovered to connect to public WiFi networks? Does it have the (theoretical) ability to connect to 5G mobile networks?

And similar.

There are extensive lists with a lot of detail about VPN services but nothing like that for TVs. Am I ignorant of a good source, or does this just not exist (yet)?

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[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

What I don't understand is that if you want the TV to be offline, why don't you just buy a monitor and connect a digital TV receiver to it via an adapter (if it doesn't have an HDMI output). It'll be more expensive for sure and it will require a design-hostile antenna but all the privacy issues should just go out of the window.

[–] drwho 1 points 1 month ago (5 children)

From trying to get people to do that (with no success), it's because it seems too much like work. Folks want something they can plug in and go... but plugging in one extra thing is just a bridge too far these days. It's frustrating as shit.

[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Can't relate. Privacy is not a plug and play thing nowadays.

[–] drwho 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You missed the point.

[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

My point was that having unrealistic hopes is solely the users' problem. They should lower them a bit. If they care about privacy, they should be able to do it. But yea many haven't grown to that point yet.

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