this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023
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This is going to come as a shock to you, but HDMI has been a thing since 2004. You can find 15 year old dumb TVs with HDMI. If the TV had HDMI, it can handle any format that the screen can physically show and newer versions are backwards compatible.
Or you could just use a new tv with smart features and never connect it to your network. It's what I've done with all the TVs in my house and I simply use an external device I trust to stream.
This is going to be such a nightmare as smart devices become the majority.
Didn't connect your TV to the Internet? Don't worry, it'll spy on you by connecting to the neighbor's tv. Or the built-in WiFi in the modem. Or the power company's smart meter via powerline-networking.
Products are going to be engineered to sell backdoor access at a hefty price, if they aren't already.
Things are going to get scary.
Just like anything with technology though, there will be people in the other side too. Does that magic TV with a mind of it's own have a USB port? If they take away the USB , they will have to add some way to maintenance it. There will always be a way to get at the kernel if you know what you're doing.
It's going to become this horrible game of cat and mouse, for anyone who actually values privacy.
Sure, you could open the device up, remove any antennas. You could add powerline filtering. You could find the jtag or debug ports. You could find a way to hack it. Jam a signal. Make an ultrasonic white noise machine. Wrap the thing in foil. Cover the cameras.
The individual has to block every channel of "attack". The data miners only need to get lucky once.
Newer "smart" sets, particularly from Vizio and a couple other brands, will not let you exit the setup or use the inputs without an internet connection
Wow, I would immediately return any TV that pulled that bs. I have used Sony TV's for a very long time and have never encountered this issue, I even bought a new one in summer 2022 and it did not require Internet connection to function.
LTT reviewed a Roku one like that recently and for some reason didn't recommend immediately binning it.