Most "Smart" TVs use Automatic Content Recognition (#ACR), essentially taking snapshots every 10+ms of what you watch and hear, then forwarding & selling that data to companies for ads, etc.
I now feel it's only a matter of time before this "feature" finds its way to our ever "smarter" PC monitors.
#LG with the help of #Windows is already installing adware when the right Device ID is detected.
arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/0β¦
βοΈ To disable ACR on #TV:
zdnet.com/home-and-office/homeβ¦
#news #Tech #Technology
How to disable ACR on your TV (and why it makes such a big difference when you do)
Samsung, LG, and Sony TVs can pose data privacy risks - here's how to avoid one of the biggest.Taylor Clemons (ZDNET)
Aral Balkan reshared this.
Cody Boone Ferguson
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •I am so thankful that I was able to get my mum to stop using Windows! All because MS decided to put ads in the next one (11) and because her computer is old enough where it would not be able to boot it.
Now she also uses Linux. Much better although she still sometimes needs help (but she did with the other one too). Although at work decades ago she used unix.
As for THIS it rather reminds me of printer tracking dots. You know about those, right?
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Cody Boone Ferguson • • •@xexyl Haha seriously you made your mom jump ship just in time ;)
What did you choose for her: Debian or Ubuntu?
Never heard of it! Printers also track?!
Cody Boone Ferguson
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •MUM. :)
Anyway it is Zorin Linux.
As far as the printer tracking dots. I canβt get a link right now but you might be able to find it if you check google for: printer tracking dots BBC.
Itβs possible they linked to the EFF but I read about it many years back.
Cody Boone Ferguson
in reply to Cody Boone Ferguson • • •If you canβt find it let me know and Iβll see if I can although probably not today (slower start than usual and I have a number of things to do including extra things such as baking courgette bread for the neighbours who moved in yesterday.
But I also want to read after finishing a programming session (after I get the dogs back in who I just let out $ and then one quick thing and then read a bit!
I think I wonβt get as much as I want to today but oh well.
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Cody Boone Ferguson • • •wooow found it, blew my mind! Guess I'm back to writing ransom notes by hand ;)
@eff was involved β€
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_β¦
digital watermark which certain color laser printers and copiers leave on every single printed page, allowing to identify the device with which a document was printed and giving clues to the originator
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)C++ Wage Slave
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •Yep: laser printers encode a timestamp and the serial number of the printer in a pattern of yellow dots on the printed page. Next time you can't print a black and white letter because you've run out of yellow toner, remember this.
bbc.co.uk/future/article/20170β¦
@xexyl
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to C++ Wage Slave • • •@CppGuy OMFG literally just had that issue with my printer, thought it was a major bug, wow just wow I feel like I can't trust any device I own anymore π€― (unless I bought it pre 2000s)
thanks for the original article friend β€β€ @xexyl
Cody Boone Ferguson
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •@CppGuy yes. Well but then again letβs be honest. If youβre not having a printer problem youβre not using a printer!
Still ink running out at the wrong time is extremely frustrating yes.
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Cody Boone Ferguson • • •Cody Boone Ferguson
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Cody Boone Ferguson • • •@CppGuy
Cody Boone Ferguson
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •@CppGuy absolutely not.
As it is people have had a hell of a time suing a certain government for Agent Orange. And thatβs not the only thing that happened.
You would have no chance. The thing is that thereβs no such thing as a justice system. This is a complete lie. It is a LEGAL system. Thereβs a huge difference but so many people want to believe that justice exists.
It doesnβt. If it did people also wouldnβt be wrongly imprisoned.
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Cody Boone Ferguson • • •Cody Boone Ferguson
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Cody Boone Ferguson • • •Gerardo Lisboa
in reply to C++ Wage Slave • • •@CppGuy @xexyl
In the same Wikipedia article:
"In 2018, scientists from TU Dresden developed and published a tool to extract and analyze the steganographic codes of a given color printer and subsequently to anonymize prints from that printer. (...) [18][11][19] The scientists made the software available to support whistleblowers in their efforts to publicize grievances.[20]"
#anonymization #printing #OpenSource #software #privacy
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Gerardo Lisboa • • •Have you tested it? Wondering how difficult it is :)
@CppGuy @xexyl
Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to C++ Wage Slave • • •@C++ Wage Slave @Cody Boone Ferguson @MadeInDex π°π So here's what I would do:
Note: I cannot guarantee this would actually work.
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •Great idea, just have to copy the shade, size and area!
@xexyl @CppGuy
Cody Boone Ferguson
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •Cody Boone Ferguson
in reply to Cody Boone Ferguson • • •Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Cody Boone Ferguson • • •Cody Boone Ferguson
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •@me of course they do. It just popped into my head as it is a natural progression from βwhat if you donβt have yellow ink?β.
Another thought (though I would never want to test it) is what if you could trick it to have the wrong colour in the printer.
Or .. we could all start printing on yellow paper. That would be harder to read but it would at least make them work harder (assuming we could even get yellow printer paper!).
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Cody Boone Ferguson • • •RE: infosec.space/@CppGuy/11702038β¦
@xexyl
Apparently you have to refill the yellow ink (I also had this issue the other day) mastodon.social/@CppGuy@infose⦠@me
Mastodon
mastodon.socialC++ Wage Slave
2026-08-01 13:02:57
Paul Tourville
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Paul Tourville • • •Cody Boone Ferguson
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •@me @TaoBear sad but true yes.
And so many people including governments (plural!) say that only bad people have things to hide to which I say: okay then give me your banking credentials, your credit cards, your id, your passwords, passcodes, all of it.
If only βbadβ people have something to hide then you obviously have no problem giving me those things.
But of course it unfortunately goes far over their poor heads.
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Cody Boone Ferguson • • •MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Cody Boone Ferguson • • •Christian Rickert
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Christian Rickert • • •Hahaha yeah Microsoft made me #Recall why people definitely need #Linux ;)
mastodon.social/@madeindex/112β¦
Software level isn't enough, users clearly demand device level surveillance! π€£
MadeInDex π°π (@madeindex@mastodon.social)
MadeInDex π°π (Mastodon)Christian Rickert
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •From an operating-system-as-a-service perspective it's brilliant:
* free training data for Microsoft
* full employee tracking at work
* complete evidence for police
* advertisement A/B testing
π₯΄ πͺ π€³
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Christian Rickert • • •Hell yeah! Satan would be proud!
I heard rumors North Korea was so impressed, they might be considering a switch back from Red Star OS to Microsoft ;)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Starβ¦
North Korean Linux distribution
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)MadeInDex π°π reshared this.
Alice Pea
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •@christianrickert That #Recall situation reminds me of one of the the fruits of my contribution in a shitposting competition I competed in a few years back. Here's a cropped out version of it.
#MicroSpyware inside #Binbows
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Alice Pea • • •MadeInDex π°π
Unknown parent • • •Alice Pea
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •Someone tell the MPAA. Taking screenshots if movies and TV at a massive scale is not only a privacy violation, but also a possible copyright violation too.
It isn't hard to understand that having ten thousand TVs sending timestamped screenshots every few seconds will effectively allow them to effectively re-construct whatever is being watched, in real time. This is just piracy with extra steps.
The movie industry would want my head on a pike if I made malware that did this.
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Alice Pea • • •@alice_pea_3526 hahahahaha that would be THE lawsuit of the year, imagine they would for the first time ever do something actually effective and good haha
We laugh about it, meanwhile they probably also buy the data to put ads for their content ;)
Scale Theory
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •For a Visio, who's "watch free" feature sucks balls in my opinion.
About 5 years old, go to settings, admin & privacy, viewing data, click viewing data and turn off.
This is illegal search and seizure and should be asked if they can track you when you first buy the TV, not on by default. It shouldn't even have been built into the TV's. But seeing how lazy Americans are, they don't give a shit about the constitution.
It's anarchy out there ladies and gents...
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Scale Theory • • •MadeInDex π°π reshared this.
mcSlibinas
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •MadeInDex π°π
in reply to mcSlibinas • • •mcSlibinas
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •MadeInDex π°π
in reply to mcSlibinas • • •mcSlibinas
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •idk about how democracy can work in every country. I guess there will be different ways.
I want to hear scientists talking about it, i want mass media talk about it with philosophers, writers, unions. There's a lot of people who have much more knowledge about it, but i do not hear them.
So i have some own redneck thoughts, but hey, they're pure diy out of scrap i found on the road.
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to mcSlibinas • • •mcSlibinas
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •MadeInDex π°π
in reply to mcSlibinas • • •Scale Theory
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •But let's not accept it as a norm.
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Scale Theory • • •Scale Theory
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •"Corporations and Unreasonable Searches and Seizures: Does the Supreme Court's Decision in Riley v. California Signal the Rebirth of the 4th Amendment in White Collar Cases"
Might be a good read for the guy who's password wiped his phone.
natlawreview.com/article/corpoβ¦
Corporations and Unreasonable Searches and Seizures: Does the Supreme Court's Decision in Riley v. California Signal the Rebirth of the 4th Amendment in White Collar Cases
Financial, Corporate Governance and M&A Litigation Group (National Law Review)MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Scale Theory • • •@SCALETHEORY For sure going to get referenced by his lawyer ;)
I mean what do these officers learn during training?! Starts to feel like their training is in North Korea or something...
ArchiveScribe
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •MadeInDex π°π
in reply to ArchiveScribe • • •Textkaleidoskop
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •Another brand that was branded as βunbuyableβ
Switch to English:
42thinking.de/2025/09/opportunβ¦
Kniefall vor Trump: Opportunismus als Hypothek
gudera (42thinking)Rad und Tat
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •My smart TV recently asked me to accept a new "network privacy policy." I refused and since then it won't connect to the wifi.
Luckily the attached NAS with Linux on it is unaffected, so now I get to watch whatever I like without my TV telling Big Brother what I'm watching
MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Rad und Tat • • •@radundtat π That is the way β€
Even without the connection it might continue to collect data, if you or anybody else ever connects it again, it might be sent, better to turn it off just in case :))
David Todd McCarty
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •MadeInDex π°π
in reply to David Todd McCarty • • •@dtm That would certainly be interesting to reverse engineer.
Are the ads age or gender related?
I would also be interested to know if and which government agencies buy/get access.
Karl Auerbach
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •How soon we forget...
From 2017:
"VIZIO to Pay $2.2 Million to FTC, State of New Jersey to Settle Charges It Collected Viewing Histories on 11 Million Smart Televisions without Usersβ Consent"
ftc.gov/news-events/news/pressβ¦
VIZIO to Pay $2.2 Million to FTC, State of New Jersey to Settle Charges It Collected Viewing Histories on 11 Million Smart Televisions without Usersβ Consent
Federal Trade CommissionMadeInDex π°π
in reply to Karl Auerbach • • •Jernej SimoncΜiΔ οΏ½
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Jernej SimoncΜiΔ οΏ½ • • •ZdenΔk DoleΕΎal
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •MadeInDex π°π
in reply to ZdenΔk DoleΕΎal • • •@iveyline
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •MadeInDex π°π
in reply to @iveyline • • •Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •MadeInDex π°π
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •qwazix
in reply to MadeInDex π°π • • •Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to qwazix • • •qwazix
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •MadeInDex π°π
in reply to qwazix • • •Yeah but a screen without ads is no screen at all!
@me