An investigation by Gamers Nexus found LG smart TVs sweep local networks to map phones and nearby devices. Tests also showed the sets can capture microphone audio with the screen off — they then upload data once reconnected to the internet.
I think the original coverage from Gamers Nexus should also be linked here:
This is a good time to remind everyone to:
- Install Pi Hole, get LG rules to nerf all the telemetric data going out
- Jailbreak the TV, install SmartTube for your YouTube account without ads and live your best life
Even better. Put the LG on a untrusted vlan that only whitelists public IP access.
Got any good LG lists?
I went to the pi hole website, but I couldn’t find where to get the device. Any suggestions?
To clarify, are you looking for where to get a pihole or where to get the LG rules?
Pihole is essentially a dns server that routes junk you dont want to nothing so that ads or trackers cant phone home. You can run it on any computer, but then need to make sure your router or devices are using it as a dns server.
The rules for blocking can be found in lots of places, everyone has their own lists. Im not familiar with lg specific rules but there are probably hardware telemetry lists out there if you search pihole lg block list
Is this the rasberry device to get to plug into my router/modem? Do I have to ever update it?
That raspberrypi would work but to be clear, while pihole started on Raspberry Pi hardware you can run pihole on virtually anything now. It’s lightweight so old hardware is fine. I’m setting it up for my daughters house on an old refurb Chromebook - reformatted to run Linux Mint.
I want to be able to block all the banner ads on my other devices. Doesn’t pi hole just run as an extension?
Yes, it will do that. I wouldn’t call it an extension. Pihole is a DNS server. It’s the “phonebook” that your devices will use to look up IP addresses that correspond with the requested domains. If a domain is requested and it happens to be on the block list, it will deny the lookup.
Adguard offers a similar service that isn’t self hosted (Which I use as backup) and they have a pretty good explanation here: https://adguard-dns.io/en/welcome.html#workStages
Pihole runs a dns service for your network, translating server names to ip addresses. The block lists keep certain ads, malware and other unwanted behavior from functioning, but only those that can be blocked this way. Not all ads and malware can be. For instance it can’t block YouTube ads so browser extensions like UBlock Origin are still useful but it certainly blocks a lot of stuff.
It also depends on how the ads are built into the service. I used to run PiHole, but now use AdGuardHome (still on r-pi though).
Some phone apps have their ads blocked but not all. If you’re using any apps or games that have ad-based rewards or features it will break.
Or buy a smart TV if you have the opportunity.
this is precisely why i never “pair” the voice remote that came with my vizio. just keep using the dumb one from a previous model
heres a youtube video of a guy converting his speaker into a microphone if you’re interested.
How to Convert a Speaker into a Dynamic Microphone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LroLf0c2fKM&t=5s
I’m not surprised. Almost everything that you would assume does something in only one direction also does it in the other direction. LEDs generate a small amount of current when you shine a light on them, solar panels emit a small amount of infrared when you apply power to them, etc.
To be fair to solar panels, isn’t about everything emitting infrared if you apply power to it? :x
True
I mean I know it’s about LG but they are all doing this.
what’s that meme? a schizophrenic is talking, listen and learn
like for real the last 28 years have been extremely good for your credibility as truth seekers
yeah now all the schizos of old are just genuinely 100% right. tuns out we’re being followed the toaster is a spy
Is it related to the LG system (lower level like bios, drivers) or with Android TV OS?
This is why my tv’s don’t get internet access.
He hacked it without internet access and also show that they can collect data without internet access
My TVs don’t get connected to the network because TV companies have started showing ads, and that was bad enough. Then came the fact that a lot of TV apps were making your TV into a residential proxy, making your TV into part of a botnet. And now, on top of all that, they’re spying on you.
The ads were bad enough.
In any reasonable world you would have control over devices in your house that contained computers and would be able to remove bad software and install your own stuff. But, these devices are all covered by section 1201 of the DMCA which makes it a crime to bypass any access control software. This is how Apple is able to block alternate app stores. It’s why printer ink is the most expensive liquid on the planet. It’s why John Deere is able to remotely brick a tractor anywhere in the world, and prevent farmers from fixing their own farm equipment.
What’s especially galling about this is that, the US forced the rest of the world to adopt this bullshit as a part of trade treaties, threatening that any country that didn’t do it might lose tariff-free access to the US economy. And now what happened? Trump just ripped up those treaties anyhow and imposed the tariffs anyhow.
I just wish there was a country brave enough to rip up the IP agreements the US forced on them and allow us to actually own our own stuff again.
This is why I don’t buy smart TVs in the first place.
Unless you’re buying a commercial screen of some kind, you can’t really buy dumb TVs anymore, at least not from the major brands.
You can still buy dumb TVs you just have to search for them. You can also go off brand and get a dumb TV from a brand like sceptre.
I just don’t have a TV.
I mean that works too, I’m just not a fan of watching things on computer monitors. Sometimes I just want to sit in a recliner and watch a movie on a larger screen.
Yeah that’s fair. Personally, I live in a really small space so steam deck and phone are my only devices. Don’t think I’d feel comfortable with a TV that reported back on me - but TBF I do have a phone which I’m sure is doing that anyway!
Is this even possible or reasonable? Smart tvs are pretty dumb if you never connect them to the internet, so no issues until they decide to add 5g chips to them
Non-smart TVs are still available, they just cost a bit more. As for the connectivity issue, China has been caught hiding 5g chips in electrical control systems and city buses, and selling “free streaming” boxes with malware that scans networks and attacks targets deemed worth while. And all these TVs are being manufactured in China so why take the risk when you aren’t going to use the connectivity anyway?
Specifically which ones? Are they any good? HDR, color accuracy etc?
Or… If your neighbor has an open network… Or the TV has a secret networking protocol that allows it to talk to other LG smart devices that are on a network. Or it looks for phones that have the LG app installed… You get the idea. Once you put wireless capabilities in it, there is any number of ways it can leak your data out.
My solution here (this is my solution; i recognize 99.5% of people would never do this) is to open up the tv and physically remove any wifi adapters or cards. Obviously not stopping them from hiding them, but being under the plastic shell is enough to stop most people
Sure prove it. At least these are proven and now your just making stuff up.
Proving it is the hard and expensive part. I don’t really have the time, skillset, or money to buy a bunch of LG or other branded IoT devices, put them in an isolated test chamber and then try to decode all the RF noise come off them.
That being said, all the technical requirements to do the things I suggested in my previous comment currently exist in those smart TVs. All that was preventing LG from doing that was consumer trust, and they’ve clearly thrown that in the garbage. At this point, based on previous behavior, it should be assumed that they will go as far as possible to exfil customer data without their consent or knowledge, until proven otherwise.
I didn’t read the article and I’ve only watched the “trailer” for Gamers Nexus’ series on this so far, but I bet they actually do check this at some point.
Bingo. No need to connect your display.
Yep an isolated vlan with no internet access. Cast your media from a dongel or computer connected via hdmi.
there was a time… long past I suppose …when this would have been an outrage and politicians would be holding press conferences where they took crowbar swings to such devices. Things sure have changed.
“The toaster is listening” in 2006 🤣
“The toaster is listening” in 2026 😬
It’s 1984 for sure. Every devices listens.
Frakking toasters.
SO SAY WE ALL!
I thought I had disabled everything but mine was still connected to WiFi. Thanks for the reminder. I disconnected it and blocked it at the router.
Tired of doing this for so many devices. We truly live in a full on surveillance state.
Yeah untrusted devices should run in a client isolated vlan similar to a guest network.
All IOT devices are auto blocked unless I allow them.
For what I saw in the video, even that way, the fucking TV try to connect to any available wifi to comunicate your data. Its insane
Yeah, I went with LG because I wanted to try an OLED, and the price was right. Never buying anything from them again, and whatever tv I do buy next I’ll disable all the shit from the get-go.
I’ve always been privacy minded, but things have gotten so bad, and I’ve gotten complacent. Hell, I just bought a connected smoke alarm system because my wife and kids needed something they can mute remotely. Should have just bought a stick instead.
I need to replace my WiFi, about time I get one with real VLAN support, so I can build an isolated guest/IoT network.
my wife and kids needed something they can mute remotely
But… why?
Because they are short and my ceilings are tall. We also cook a lot and with kids, smoke happens. So, the requirement from the wife was being able to silence remotely.
There was a good reason for it, but no one can remember why now. Anyway, car been mow knock side
connected smoke alarm
What the fuck? I would have simply bought a wall powered smoke alarm, opened it up, and wired an auxiliary button to the snooze button’s pads and put that button lower down as one of those wall switch buttons.
You really just need to complete the circuit to make it shut up.
Looks like HAL from space odyssey.
It does!
Alarm: beeps
Push
Alarm: “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that”
…
Alarm: keeps beeping
“We own the glass, we own the TV, we own the living room. We know who is in an LG home.” –LG President of Ads
These are the Gamers Nexus videos btw. Support them and their work. Get some cool shirts and physical media while you’re at it.
What is so dumb is he is banned from running a public company so they get him to run a private company. WTF the oligarchs are really this bad.
Suggestions for people who only need and want a good screen instead of an ad infested spy station?
Used commercial displays maybe.
Use them as such, why would you give your screen Internet? Attach a Mediacenter of your choice, e.g. Kodi.
Update firmware over USB.
you would think its as simple as that, but i have seen reports of lg automatically connecting to open networks if they are available
theres also the possibility of them adding some cellular transmitter in the future
maybe the only way is the desolder all the wireless antennas…
Faraday laminate around the antenna also.
Why? Why would I accept a device in my home that will snoop on me if I use it as intended?
Because if you want a screen of a certain size, there are no other reasonable options.
The same reason you might buy a phone that will spy on you and show you ads. You can’t buy a phone that doesn’t do that.
I think the point is they can’t upload anything if they’re not connected. Unfortunately, they’re some of the best OLED TVs right now in terms of the display
I do understand that but I don’t think it’s something we should accept. Next thing these fuckers have their own 5G antenna and connect to mobile with zero config, then what, rip out the antenna or literally wrap it in tinfoil?
I agree. Don’t support what you don’t support. That being said, some people are ok with the trade-offs and that’s entirely up to them
My TV is 15 years old and works fine. Getting the best TV out there is not very meaningful anymore.
Ironically LG still makes good screens. Just don’t ever connect their TVs to the network.
Edit: If you must connect it to a network connect it to a different VLAN (Guest network) with no other devices.
Can confirm. My LG C3 has never touched the internet (and never will) and it’s amazing.
It might be best to connect it to a network that just blackholes the traffic so it doesn’t go hunting for some open wifi.
If it’s like a lot of other devices, it will realize that it can’t get to “The Internet” through that network, and might disconnect. It’s possible it will then look for another option, and might see an open network and use it.
However their budget models (under $400) are very uncompetitive.
TCL and Hisense are much better at those, and you can disable Wi-Fi then plug in your own box.
The logging was shown using shell commands running on a rooted OS. I don’t doubt the companies can or are doing this, but it’s akin to showing that installing malware exfiltrates your crypto wallet info.
Anything with a CPU, WiFi module, and microphones is capable of this.
Which is why we need to be wary of products that have those things in them. Which this article highlights.
Instead we’re being asked to just accept that these “features” are going to be hard baked into literally everything we own whether we like it or not.
Right. When the fuck did a TV start needing a microphone?
I’m old enough that I remember our first remote control TV. The remote was on a cable. It’s incredible and wonderful to me how far and how fast tech has come - but some stuff is just going too far. You don’t need to talk to your TV. Same with smart fridges - WTF? I dunno, maybe I’m just showing my age. But this unnecessary complexity adds insecurity and more stuff to go wrong.
smart devices these days are just data-ming gold mines, now with AI, its even more “valuable” to them.
Maybe, because back then, tech was developed to serve the customers, but now serves corps interests and is used to spy and screwup the customers.
“How can I solve this or that problem” to “how can I extract money out of people”.
Money ruins everything.
But the video showed him connecting a pc to the TV to do the hacking. So it means a physical connection is required to run the shell command. Soo It means I can’t get hacked right ?
According to the video they just needed to be on the same network not physically connected to the TV. If that was accurate…
in capitalist America , you don’t listen to tv , tv listen to you !
It’s fair to make it “you don’t watch TV, TV watches you!”
Which I feel like might have been a real Yakov Smirnoff joke way back when.
Kind of — Bob Hope made the joke in the late 1950s:
Bob Hope, back from his Russian junket, noted that there had been TV in all the rooms of his Moscow hotel–”only it watches you”
Brilliant!
