LG to ban residential proxies from smart TV apps

114

DDemiGuru about 3 hours ago 91 commentsRead Article on krebsonsecurity.com

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Discussion (91 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

12_throw_away•36 minutes ago

42% of the apps on LG's platform have these quasi-malware SDKs in them? Seems kinda bad, whether it's due to negligence or just pure incompetence? You'd think there might be legal consequences for a corporation that lets their app store turn into a malware delivery system?

s1ncere•about 1 hour ago

Stop hooking up your LG tv to any network

5kg•about 1 hour ago

Stop hooking up your LG: https://www.theverge.com/tech/967983/lg-monitors-mcafee-adwa...

ahartmetz•24 minutes ago

Fine with Linux though :)

LG's behavior isn't fine, but their monitors don't install crapware on Linux.

mikepurvis•29 minutes ago

I'm mostly very happy with my LG C4 as a home theatre centerpiece, and I did have it online so that I could use the apps for YouTube and Jellyfin. However, the lack of support for modern 4k rips (HEVC+DTS) ended up being a dealbreaker and I finally ditched the built in software for a fire stick instead.

No transcoding, no weird codec issues, just the raw files direct streamed from the underpowered Unraid box, into the back of the AVR where the audio is handled correctly and the video is sent to the screen.

MiddleEndian•about 1 hour ago

My LG DualUp monitors (with no internet access) recently triggered some LG Adware Bullshit to install on my Windows laptop. So I'd say stop using LG anything (or Windows anything since they're voluntarily in on the scam too lol). If you want the 2560x2880, maybe buy the knock-off INNOCN vertical monitors.

https://old.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1v1pkbs/lg_sp... ← examples of others who ran into the same shit

CivBase•about 1 hour ago

Stop buying LG TVs.

smcleod•about 1 hour ago

Unfortunately they make arguably the best OLEDs and webOS is pretty decent to use (especially compared to the terrible OS that Samsung and Sony run). I think the best thing people can do is update their firmware then disconnect it from the internet. Using an AppleTV or similar provides a better experience than any TVs built in apps anyway.

cosmic_cheese•6 minutes ago

I don’t ever use their “smart” functionality (that’s what my Apple TV is for) but I’ve never had any issues with the Google TV (Android) build that Sony ships. It doesn’t nag me about being kept offline, is reasonably fast, and doesn’t even show its home screen unless I specifically summon it, so it checks my boxes.

mey•about 1 hour ago

How important is "the best" OLED vs the second best or 100th best OLED? I am personally ok not buying the bleeding edge to not get malware onto my OS.

jedberg•about 1 hour ago

I haven’t looked recently but last I checked Samsung made the best panels. Has that changed recently?

matheusmoreira•about 1 hour ago

Aren't they the only TVs that can be jailbroken?

glimshe•about 2 hours ago

My TV doesn't know my router's wi-fi password.

declan_roberts•about 1 hour ago

My TV thinks it's January 1st 1970.

mc3301•36 minutes ago

Every time anything asks for a DOB or anything like that, I enter the earliest date their system allows. Been doing it for decades.

I guess that might make me more trackable?

ahartmetz•16 minutes ago

At least you could get some interesting ads. Do you want to participate in a longevity study?

amazingman•about 2 hours ago

Hope you don't have any open WiFi networks nearby. IMO it's better to put it on one of your networks and isolate it from the internet and other devices.

tyre•about 1 hour ago

Yes. I bought a Samsung TV and there isn’t a way to set up Art Mode without the internet. So first you have to get a raspberry pi, install pi hole, then switch your router’s DNS.

What a wild experience 2026 is. But I do feel like a wizard.

walrus01•about 1 hour ago

You don't need an actual physical raspberry pi to temporarily run pihole on your LAN, you can, for instance, install a barebones debian VM inside any common hypervisor on your laptop like virtualbox or qemu, then install pihole on that basic debian x86-64 system.

entropie•about 1 hour ago

They might hardcode DNS. It's not certain that this will work.

MrDrMcCoy•about 1 hour ago

If it connects to another network, it's somebody else's problem. Unless of course, it has a built in webcam or microphone.

stvltvs•about 1 hour ago

It does, at least for any media played through the device. Read up on automatic content recognition.

https://www.howtogeek.com/its-not-just-streaming-content-you...

RiverCrochet•about 1 hour ago

I haven't seen any open WiFi networks around me in years. I don't think it's a thing anymore; it's definitely not something a TV company can rely on.

baby_souffle•about 1 hour ago

They're not unheard of in cities. Hotels and shopping malls have them. Some residential ISPs will also broadcast a public access point using a slice of each customer's bandwidth allocation...

Hamuko•23 minutes ago

I have an open guest network with a captive portal, and not once have I seen my LG TV try to connect to it.

walrus01•about 2 hours ago

I've said it before on HN a long time ago but I'll repeat myself, I have about a thousand times more confidence that Sony and/or Microsoft will keep their PS5 and Xbox operating systems secure and not crapped up with stuff like this, than I do that random TV manufacturers will not result in a cybersecurity or privacy disaster.

Yeah, the PS and Xbox OSes show you ads, and they have telemetry. But both companies also have an extremely important core functional need of keeping them secure, because possible fuckery with the OS could result in game piracy/DRM bypasses and a direct threat to their revenue models.

gboss•about 2 hours ago

Pretty sure they can get internet through the HDMI cord from Roku or similar device

MrDrMcCoy•about 1 hour ago

Source? HDMI includes Ethernet in the spec, but I've never heard of any devices actually implementing it.

mikestew•40 minutes ago

This again? Yes, it’s in the spec. No, no one has been shown to have actually implemented it. No streaming box is going to allow random devices to use their connection.

RiverCrochet•about 1 hour ago

That would require the Roku to specifically be set up to act as a router. You can't just connect to a random device that's not specifically a router/AP and use its internet connection.

Since Roku like other smart TV companies makes money off of user data captur, it's not incentivized to enable those conditions for a downstream device, especially if not specifically advertised as a feature.

walrus01•about 1 hour ago

does a roku provide a dhcp server, issue a dhcp lease, do NAT and routing to things that are plugged into it over the 100M ethernet built into a current gen HDMI link?

aussieguy1234•about 2 hours ago

This is the best approach

akersten•about 2 hours ago

is this some kind of tactical distraction from the other LG headlines this week?

I thought residential proxies are already banned from SmartTV apps by virtue of practically every APK under the sun being subject to the Google Play terms of service.

Marsymars•about 2 hours ago

> I thought residential proxies are already banned from SmartTV apps by virtue of practically every APK under the sun being subject to the Google Play terms of service.

The platforms in question here are webOS and Tizen, neither of which are Android or use the Google Play Store.

ssl-3•about 2 hours ago

That only applies to the subset of TVs that use Google TV/Android TV.

Not so much for the rest of them that have operating systems with names like Roku TV OS, Tizen, WebOS, and Fire TV OS. They do their own things.

ranger_danger•about 2 hours ago

LG webOS is not Android though, it's from the old Palm/HP devices of the early 2010s. And I'm pretty sure there are still tons of play store apps with these proxy SDKs in them, advertised/consented or not.

yodon•34 minutes ago

If other non-Android-based TV manufacturers follow, this will have a much bigger impact on the spread (and cost) of scraping than either Anubis or Cloudflare.

ram_rattle•about 1 hour ago

Apparently all these vendors did nothing to prevent this, a nice article from spur intelligence

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/video/how-smart-tvs-may-be-s...

BrenBarn•4 minutes ago

The messed up thing is that we need to rely on LG to stop allowing it rather than just making it illegal.

kh2engab•22 minutes ago

Is there a (technical) difference between a residential proxy and bot network node?

Nursie•17 minutes ago

A figleaf of "We gave ourselves permission on page 247, paragraph 3 of your user agreement"

0xblinq•37 minutes ago

I'm very worried with all this bullshit around TVs.

I've been running the same Samsung UE40C6530 since 2010. It's 16 f'ng years and the thing works flawlessly like the first day. No other electronic device in my life worked so well, during so long.

But I'm about to move to a new home, and it feels like it's about time to get something more modern, at least a 4k TV.

But I'm honestly totally lost at what to buy. I do not want a "Smart" tv that's slow to start, bloated with crap, installing updates every day, and maybe even spying on me.

I want a plain, old, normal TV. If possible without Android or any advanced operating system. Just a TV. I'll plug external content myself, either via a Chromecast device, or something similar. I don't want my TV to be a full fledged computer.

Is there such a thing? What would you buy nowadays? It seems you're forced to get yet another computer to maintain and be worried about whatever you buy.

Fantosism•17 minutes ago

You buy a commercial panel used for advertising/signage that's 3x the price of the "Smart" consumer panels.

jdmarble•14 minutes ago

If you’re fine with “okay” picture quality, try a Sceptre. You can get them on Amazon. I’ve had good success with them. I heard you can still disable some smart features on Sony TVs.

charcircuit•7 minutes ago

>“The risk is amplified when consent comes from individuals within the household who use the device but shouldn’t give consent, such as minors.”

Note that the same applies for the other privacy invasive webos features. But since that doesn't harm big tech's monopoly they will conveniently avoid mentioning it.

xena•about 2 hours ago

This is the best news I've heard all week. Finally good news for once!

spudlyo•about 1 hour ago

One day there will be a decent TV that can be relatively easily hacked to run on open source firmware. My wife and I are moving soon, and I'm happy we've decided not to have a TV in the new place. Neither of our current LG TV's have ever been connected to the network, but it will feel good when I sell or give the cursed things away.

4rt•about 1 hour ago

lg's had a good run of being a monitor, their software was a bit shit but the hardware supported e-arc etc.

i've got 2 expensive lg tvs and i bought them because you don't need to use their remote, it just turns on and shows the picture.

jchw•about 1 hour ago

None of my TVs are connected to the Internet. That said, I could really do with a better open source fullscreen UI, especially since I mainly just want a web browser that works good. I'm just using KDE Plasma with a custom daemon to control the TV power state over an HDMI CEC adapter plus an old K830 keyboard.

I'm, frankly, a bit annoyed by this whole thing; I'd rather have USB adapter RF wireless because it is simpler to deal with vs Bluetooth, but actually I can't even find other Bluetooth keyboards that are as compelling as this K830 and worse yet, they don't even make the K830 anymore. I don't really mind KDE Plasma with just some minor customizations but I don't really like any of the options like Kodi. Maybe Plasma BigScreen will eventually be what I want for that. And finally, HDMI CEC is a pain in the ass. For reasons, I actually use an adapter to get CEC support on a normal PC platform, because most PC HDMI ports can't do it. And also, it's just a bizarre and overly complicated thing. I have it working reliably, but it took some time to iron out all the kinks, particularly because my TV responds quite differently depending on how recently it was powered off.

I really just want a big monitor and to basically just use DPMS... Like a computer does, but large computer monitors tend to be expensive and don't always have remote controls, which admittedly are handy.

saint_yossarian•34 minutes ago

K400+ user here, you might be interested in the upcoming Framework Wireless Touchpad Keyboard.

symfoniq•about 1 hour ago

This is madness.

Only LG themselves should be able to have this kind of invasive control over your television.

pixl97•about 2 hours ago

I mean, why didn't they do that from the start?

steele•about 2 hours ago

Honeypot for more logos

cognitiveinline•about 2 hours ago

Sharing a slice of your internet in a privacy preserving way in exchange for something of value, seems fair, no?

walrus01•about 2 hours ago

Grey market residential proxy service providers are one of the most common methods of implementing bot spam, social media manipulation and plenty of straight-out fraud.

There's all kinds of things that malicious actors want to do where they value coming from an ordinary (comcast, charter, centurylink, shaw cable, whatever) residential IP.

cognitiveinline•26 minutes ago

You make a good point. I've reassessed and agree this is shady, and not a good pattern. And should be disabled/abolished.

charcircuit•about 1 hour ago

Just because others abuse privacy doesn't mean that we should remove privacy from everyone else. They also let you get around geoblocking.

nvme0n1p1•22 minutes ago

You're free to let strangers download illegal images from a proxy running on your IP, but I sure as hell won't.

hokumguru•about 2 hours ago

I mean, some of us have legitimate business needs to get past cloudflares frankly somewhat bs gatekeeping business model, however

walrus01•about 2 hours ago

Sure, I do as well, I have my own VPN into my home office that lets me run traffic outbound through its default gateway while I'm somewhere else. But letting random third parties I don't know run traffic through my house is another thing entirely.

ryandrake•about 2 hours ago

Only if the app provides 1. prominently-displayed, informed consent, 2. an option to opt-out without losing app functionality, or 3. joining the botnet provides some kind of actual benefit to the user, besides just money to the developer.

mirashii•about 2 hours ago

Add to that list respecting the TOS of the user's ISP so that the user does not get banned, and providing some sort of remuneration if illicit activity through the proxy causes problems for the primary user, and then _maybe_ you could call this all not shady as fuck.

ryandrake•about 2 hours ago

If only ISPs would actually crack down on (usually unwitting) users whose systems are participating in a malicious botnet or otherwise have their networks compromised. They could offer temporary disconnection + anti-malware support to get the user cleaned up, if they actually gave a shit.

krackers•about 2 hours ago

Apparently at least one of the apps mentioned does that. From the article

>A Pac-Man smart TV app from Bright Data offers users the choice between viewing ads in the game or agreeing to allow their TV to serve as a residential proxy node.

ryandrake•about 2 hours ago

I wonder how informed the end user actually is, and if it's disclosed to them what kind of content might pass through their network as a result of agreeing.

cognitiveinline•about 2 hours ago

No need of (2) and (3) - the user can choose to not install/use the app. (1) is the right fair boundary.

ryandrake•about 2 hours ago

Those apps just shouldn't exist.

I don't know how "join your users to a botnet" became some kind of legitimized monetization scheme. Ads are bad enough. What's next? "Participate in a DDOS in order to use our app?"

LoganDark•about 2 hours ago

Some residential proxy providers offer a few cents for the use of your network.

oasisbob•about 1 hour ago

No.

I'm surprised Comcast or some other ISP doesn't step in with a claim of tortious interference. Reselling or granting access to the ISPs services like this is almost always against the ISPs terms of service.

The consumer is in no place to consent to this exchange.

Dylan16807•33 minutes ago

On the other hand if you want to resell 2% of your bandwidth the ISP shouldn't have any say in that.

boredatoms•about 1 hour ago

Tell your relatives, buy an apple tv

amlib•26 minutes ago

I don't think apple makes actual tvs

boredatoms•16 minutes ago

Whats your point exactly? Are you purposely being obtuse?

Plenty of uninformed people let their tv on the network, they shouldn’t. A separate box should instead. Tell me I'm wrong?