The spam came from inside the house: How a smart TV can choke a Windows PC

[LiberalArkie]

The modern "smart" TV asks a lot of us. In exchange for connecting you to a few streaming services you use, a TV will collect data, show ads, and serve as another vector for bad actors. In a few reported cases, though, a modern connected TV has been blamed for attacks not on privacy, eyeballs, or passwords but on an entirely different computer.
Snow's Windows PC had "a few hiccups over the past couple of years," Snow wrote on April 19. She couldn't open display settings, for one. A MIDI keyboard interface stopped working. Task manager would start to hang until force-closed. Video-capture cards had trouble connecting. As Snow notes, any veteran of a Windows computer that has had lots of stuff installed on it can mentally write off most of these things, or at least stash them away until the next reinstall.

Then, while trying to figure out why a remote desktop session wasn't working, the task bars on Snow's PC disappeared. The PC refused to launch any settings panels. After updating drivers and restarting the PC, the taskbars returned, but only for six days. Snow hunted for solutions, and after using "the exact right string in my search," she found a Reddit thread that led to a Microsoft support question, all describing the same kinds of seemingly spectral problems her computer was having over time, with no clear cause.

The TV in question is a Hisense TV, and the computer is a Windows PC, specifically one belonging to Priscilla Snow, a musician and audio designer in Montreal, Quebec. Her post about her Hisense experience reads like a mystery novel. Of course, because you already know the crime and the culprit, it's more like a Columbo episode. Either way, it's thrilling in a very specific I-can't-believe-that-fixed-it kind of way.

Snip

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/the-spam-came-from-inside-the-house-how-a-smart-tv-can-choke-a-windows-pc/

Comment: I have an old Apple AirPort Extreme router/wifi that I use for everything. Why? It seems the be the only one I have ever found that has a true "Guest Mode". In other words nothing using the Guest Wifi can get to the normal computers. The Guest Mode is in the 172.16 IP range and everything on my lan is 10.0 range. Every router I have tried had them in the same range and people and devices on the Guest lan could see the normal lan.. I never liked that.

[Liberal In Texas]

1. Another reason not to connect the TV to the internet.

I don't have mine connected. All the streaming comes from the Roku. The TV is just a monitor. I suppose I'm not getting TV updates, but it's working fine and I suspect the updates are about optimizing the internet connected services.

[LiberalArkie]

2. Roku kind of started the whole thing..

Roku's privacy policy states that the company will collect "your search history, search results, audio information when you use voice-enabled features, channels you access (including usage statistics such as what channels you access, the time you access them and how long you spend viewing them), interactions with content and advertisements, and settings and preferences."

Guest mode will keep it from checking stuff not on guest lan

[Liberal In Texas]

10. I'm sure they do.

But so does Google, every browser I use (maybe not that Duck thing), my phone. But no point on letting the TV report back to the mother ship. Or my thermostat or a doorbell camera.

[hlthe2b]

3. Same here. Nor do I intend for that to change.

[Earth-shine]

4. "optimizing the internet connected services" - like downloading ads and more user agreements.

Unfortunately, whether it's the TV manufacturer, the streaming service, or your ISP, someone is watching what you are watching and willing to sell that data.

It's a twist of the phrase, "Who watches the watchers?"

[Raven123]

9. Ditto

[sl8]

16. But, functionally, a smart TV works the same as a dumb TV + (external) Roku

A smart TV puts the circuit card containing the "smarts" inside the TV cabinet instead of inside a separate box, but it's doing the same thing. The location of the circuit card doesn't affect whether or not it misbehaves, that's caused by the programming.

Of course, the specific implementation/user interface, along with any associated problems, varies with the manufacturer and model, but whether the card is installed internal or external to the television doesn't matter.

[Liberal In Texas]

20. Yes, it's programming. But the box isn't keeping track of the other things I use the TV as a monitor for.

For example, recorded media or over the air programs.

[sl8]

21. Do Roku smart TVs operate differently than Roku boxes, in that regard?

In any case, the distinction between Smart TVs and external Rokus is a bit misleading.

No doubt some manfacturers offer better, possibly safer, implementations than others, but that has to do with the manfacturer/programmers, not with whether the electronics reside in the TV cabinet (smart TVs) or an external box (original Roku, Amazon Firestick, etc).

On edit:
I've been thinking about what you said smart TVs tracking video from other inputs (OTA, recorded video). Is this a hypothetical concern, or have you seen that manufacturers are doing this? It sure seems like fair bit of extra work to implement the capability (especially if its analog), with no immediate benefit for the manufacturer.

[LiberalArkie]

23. Yes, they have been tracking every program you watch. What ever you use to select the program is

reporting back. Think Nielsen on steroids.. They used to only be able to sample maybe .001% of the viewers, now it is a hell of a lot more..
Oh I don't really watch TV, I just stream YouTube, they sample that also...

https://www.nielsen.com


https://appleinsider.com/inside/apple-tv-4k/tips/how-to-stop-your-smart-tv-from-tracking-your-viewing-habits#:~:text=How%20to%20stop%20your%20smart%20TV%20from%20tracking,Block%20certain%20television%20features%20at%20the%20router%20

[sl8]

24. Thanks. nt

[stumpysbear]

5. My ASUS ZenWifi ET8 has both a guest network and an IOT network to segregate traffic

[getagrip_already]

6. Eggsactly, and i further isolate iot devices....

They can see the internet, but no other devices on the network. All broadcasts are trapped and thrown out.

They are on a private subnet.

I lose some functionality unless I make changes on my phone so I can cast, but I get by.

[LiberalArkie]

7. Ahh I will look at it.. I have purchased and used maybe 10 different routers with guest network settings

But when I set a computer on the guest network, that computer could always see and access computers on the regular lan.

Does the ASUS actually assign a different network than the normal network?

[dalton99a]

8. Kick

[brooklynite]

11. No problems working with my Mac

I can also easily push video from my Mac library to the TV.

[Wonder Why]

12. I think people here are miscommunicating.

If your TV or other device is connected by wi-fi, there should be a router setting that enables/disables the ability of guest network to access anything but the internet. My ORBI has this setting where the guest network is configured:

Allow guests to see each other and access my local network

. Leave the box unchecked. Note that if you do, those devices cannot access your printer if it is on the main network. ALL your devices not needing to connect to the main network should use the guest one - including your cell phone whenever it doesn't need to communicate to your main network. That's the way I do it. If and when i need to connect my cellphone to the main network, I just change the wi-fi to point to it. And to keep from accidentally doing so, I make my cellphone not automatically connect to main. It still remembers password but it will not connect there unless I specifically select it.

My main network is for my computers and printers ONLY. No tablets, IoT devices, etc are allowed unless I want them to.

Now some devices only have ethernet, no wi-fi. An example is the Verizon device to allow better communication to the cell network by using my wi-fi to connect to it but the Verizon device had to be directly on the ethernet. They usually charge for the device but gave it to me for free. As soon as I realized it would then have access to my main network, I refused to connect it and put it back in the box. I eventually just gave it away. No devices that you want to isolate should be connected via lan.

As a related issue, HP sells printers that you get free ink for a while. Don't buy them. They have to be on the same network as your computer to print but that gives HP access to your main network. Buy another brand or the higher priced comparable HP printer if you don't like this.

[ForgedCrank]

15. This isn't

even good enough. If you rely on a Chinese made device running Chinese software and you can't access all the way down to the bootstrap, it's suspect.
It gets a bit complicated, but folks really need to get cozy with proper security devices from a reputable source, companies such as Cisco, NetGate, etc. Netgear and D-Link stuff is not trustworthy, and neither is the device your ISP gave you with the built-in "firewall". All of those things should be considered compromised and selling your data, because many of them are.
The issue is that proper security devices are complicated and far beyond the knowledge of the everyday user, and that really stinks. Not to mention, the crap is overly expensive too.

[OldBaldy1701E]

17. All by design. They don't want you to interfere with their collections. (n/t)

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

13. interesting

[ForgedCrank]

14. This is

why all internet connected appliances on my network are isolated in a DMZ off of a dedicated firewall interface at my home.
If I don't have root access, it's not allowed on my private network, period. Everything from door locks and garage door openers to TV's, this stuff is always suspect in my eyes.

[OldBaldy1701E]

19. Yep. All of it.

SO, I don't have a 'smart TV'. I have a monitor up here and a projector in the basement. I just need them for my computer.

Call me Adama, but I am not happy with all the 'connectivity' we are being forced to accept.

[Hugin]

18. I have a printer that dominates the local network when it is low on ink...

Or needs paper. It is independent of the OS of the other devices on the network. It’s incessant messaging cuts the available bandwidth more than in half. Exceeding even watching videos on multiple devices at once.

When wi-fi connected phones first became a thing they tended to do similar things. That seems to have been resolved.

[MineralMan]

22. Our Windows PCs are set up to use the WiFi, but

to be opaque to the network everything else is attached to. They can't even be seen by other devices connected to the WiFi.

I can't imagine doing it any other way, really.