LG TV ... updated webOS

'Progress' makes us merely pawns. The only answer is to refuse to play the game...

Hi Guys,

My smart TV tries to update itself at exactly 3 pm every morning, that is why is is not allowed to connect to the Internet. I've also got it blocked in the router, but it uses a couple of other IP's which are also blocked. Annoyingly it will connect to the neighbours wireless Internet if it can. I've also got that blocked as well !

It is not made any easier with all these Internet routers giving open access to other devices. This is the reason that people like BT, EE Virgin etc insist you leave your router switched on and insist on you using their router. Your are providing a national network for them at you cost.

Note that the ISP can access your router remotely and alter your settings unless you take steps to block them.

I don't allow anything to automatically update. That way I get the chance to checkout from others and other forums just what it's going to do. (It's part of the reason I stayed with Win-8 rather than upgrading to Win-10).

You've prompted me to check my PC privacy settings.

Nearly 300,000 trackers have been blocked.

I have a Toshiba smart tv and never have any problems with it, it is only used with the dvd player and the Virgin cable tv box.

Reading John's observations reminds me that BT strongly advised me to leave the router switched on all the time, for "up-dates" usually made at quiet times.

I wonder what would happen if I turn it off as well when I turn off the computer at night. I'll try it and find out. I suspect nothing too untoward except perhaps slower starting at times. We had a power-cut lasting a couple of hours or so a few days ago, and it didn't seem to have worried the router. The PC was off at the time anyway.

I have no other Internet-connected instruments and I use no wirelessly-connected equipment. Even my portable 'phone is a basic 3G one on PAYG and I have not turned on its www access.

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The OP refers to LG.

The News this evening announced that LG is to stop making portable telephones and concentrate on other parts of its business. It noted that LG was great at innovations and features, but I suspect it went too far in trying to please the gadget-collectors! It was an LG "smart"- 'phone, though a quite conventional one I think, that I tried for a while then abandoned and sold.

Just for info, LG bought the WebOS operating system from HP, who acquired it from Palm as part of a takeover. It does have some good features.

Rob

Switching equipment off puts it through a stress test every time you apply power, we had a manager who decided that it would be good to save some energy by shutting down the 550 robots in the body shop, it didn’t surprise any of the engineering staff that a very significant number of robots did not restart. Some of the failures just exposed parts that had probably failed over time but had not caused immediate failure, hard drives were one item that could fail after startup and not cause an immediate problem but would not start the machine again. The high power electronics of the drives were another item that didn’t take kindly to being switched off and on. To be fair a robot in good health will not have a problem with a power cycle but after a few years some components will no longer be at their full specification, particularly capacitors do not age well in high voltage applications and repair shops replaced all the power caps as a matter of course when repairing and refurbishment. The failures did become less as the weak parts were replaced after the first few power saving exercises but the paltry amount of power saved was probably dwarfed by the thousands of pounds spent on spares and the time spent rectifying the failures. The policy was dropped after a while much to everyone relief as it used a lot of manpower to restart everything even if nothing failed.

Mike

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But in its current version ... far too many invasive ones for my taste.

MichaelG.

Tried turning my router off overnight ( having first noted my IP address ). It took a short while to establish contact when switched back on. When I then checked, I found I had a different IP address. You learn something new every day.

Michael,

Our tv is not very well and I've been thinking of replacing it with an L&G.

Has anything changed with the privacy issue you were concerned enough to post about?

Thanks Peter

Peter,

No ... So far as I am aware, this is LG’s vision of the present and future.

I have declined to accept the Terms, and cannot therefore use [and hopefully cannot be used by] the ‘Smart’ features.

As a simple television, the set is fine for our requirements, and was very good value for money.

An AppleTV box provides the extra facilities that I need [including AirPlay of the iPad screen], and I am much more comfortable with Apple’s approach to privacy.

The sets are well-worth considering, but do read the Terms before you click that |Accept All| button.

MichaelG.

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Ref. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2021/01/31/apples-stunning-ios-14-privacy-move-a-game-changer-for-all-iphone-users/

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 08/04/2021 19:39:50

To illustrate how our gadgets are working autonomously, we have Sky Q and frequently we find that it has selected programmes to record without any input from me or the wife, such programmes are children’s programmes and obscure subjects that I have never viewed or would have any desire to so I regularly go through the record list and cull any that we haven’t chosen.

Another probably relevant item is something that I came across a couple of years ago. The African National Congress commissioned the building of a new headquarters to cover the whole of Africa and it is located in I think Ethiopia. The Chinese government volunteered to fund and build this headquarters for the ANC.

After the headquarters was completed and in operation one of the IT operatives was working late one day into the early hours of the following day and had need to visit the room where the main servers were located. He couldn’t understand why the servers were all frantically working away when nobody was at work and all the terminals were idle. Subsequent investigation revealed that ever since the system had been commissioned, in the early hours of every morning, all the transactions that had taken place on the computer system the previous day, were downloaded and sent to a computer somewhere in China. I think we were fortunate that we prevented any more Huawei components being incorporated into our 5G communications network. Dave W

Interesting post by a Privacy Lawyer : **LINK**

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=bf6d90ba-5fac-47e4-80b5-d961efac6362

MichaelG.

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P.S. __ It’s not just LG

Dave W - not saying this is definitely the answer, but it *might* be that you have previously set a series recording timer, that show has finished and the series identifier has then been re-used by the broadcasters for the programmes you now find mysteriously recorded.

Not well up on how SkyQ works, but it can (and does) occur with my Topfield PVR - delete any suspect series searches and see if it cures it.

Rob

Rob, thanks for the info will investigate. Dave W

A lawyer specialising in privacy and consumer-protection law, and sufficiently knowledgeable technically to know how to control the equipment as far as possible to protect his own interests....

The companies involved know there are too few people like him, genuinely sufficiently "tech-savvy" as the appalling slang has it, and sufficiently alert to comb through excessively long " contracts" and "agreements" ; to make much difference to them.

I wonder if the TV firms can get away with breaching the various laws the writer cites, because they not based in the UK so are beyond our jurisdiction.. I don't know the legal situation there.

Would it be possible to copy and print the "agreements" so they are easier to read and digest?

Earlier this evening I encountered another "dark" trick. Many web-sites now won't allow access unless you wade through their wretched cookie filters, turning them on or off with little slide-switch symbols. Some are fairly clear, but a lot, such as the one I gave up on, are wilfully ambiguous. They not only do not explain the meaning of On and Off with respect to the permission - and I would not it put past them to be liars anyway - but they do not label the switches.

The one in question described one set of cookies allowing "advertisements relevant to you" . Who the Hell are they to assume what is or not "relevant" to me?

The best defence is to have as little of this spyware in the house as possible, but how easy would it be to locate and blank off the microphones? Or if you really must have a so-called "smart" - speaker or TV, to add a physical hold-to-speak button and to hell with the guarantee that's probably of little value anyway?

(I wonder what the "service" provider's response would be when they realise their microphones rarely detect anything?)

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Mischievous thought time - if you have an eavesdropping device, make sure it spends most of its time up close to a sound source like the central-heating pump, 'fridge or water rising-main, or a radio in a spare room, tuned just too far off-frequency for clarity in the narrow gap between Radios 3 & 4. Or blow a ref's whistle LOUDLY into its microphone at frequent but irregular intervals. And let the parasites' precious "algorithms" try to decipher those.

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Cameras in "smart" TVs? As in George Orwell's 1984? Do they really have them or is that thankfully a myth?

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Samsaranda - did the ANC manage to stop that wholesale spying?