Samsung Smart TVs Don't Encrypt the Voice Data They Collect 153
itwbennett writes A week ago, the revelation that Samsung collects words spoken by consumers when they use the voice recognition feature in their smart TVs enraged privacy advocates, since according to Samsung's own privacy policy those words can in some cases include personal or sensitive information. Following the incident, David Lodge, a researcher with a U.K.-based security firm called Pen Test Partners, intercepted and analyzed the Internet traffic generated by a Samsung smart TV and found that Samsung does send captured voice data to a remote server using a connection on port 443, a port typically associated with encrypted HTTPS, but that the data was not encrypted. "It's not even HTTP data, it's a mix of XML and some custom binary data packet," said Lodge in a blog post.
What? (Score:1)
"We just thought sending it over port 443 alone was enough to make it encrypted. Boy do we feel silly."
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Sounds like some first year CS students with big egos and small skills. I remember quire a few of those.
... and this is surprising how? (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on, it would have been surprised if they did encrypt the data in a decent way,...
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Re:... and this is surprising how? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, same here... pretty much called it [slashdot.org] in the last article about this. It's sort of unbelievable, though, in some way, that no one stops to think of security and privacy ramifications of these things though. Yet it happens time after time after time.
I wonder if it's perhaps an engineer-type mentality that gets so focused on building cool new things, they just don't stop to think about how those new things can be abused or exploited to do bad things. Like when Microsoft decided to embed scripting-type functionality in all their Office documents, and now *whee*, we've got document-based trojans. Then they had to clamp down on all that scripting. Or how Adobe turned on scripting functionality by default in PDFs, giving us a crapload of exploits for a feature very few people ever used. Result - you have to turn off scripting to stay safe when reading PDFs, and eventually browsers took it upon themselves to do it safely for you. I guess engineers don't typically think like baddies, figuring out how to use technology to hurt people or steal from them.
This is not privacy-related data they're exploiting on purpose, because it doesn't do any good from a marketing standpoint. The only other explanation is that it's just an oversight. It's not the first time, and it probably won't be the last. On the other hand, given the fact that the NSA still collects all of our traffic, and US Citizens aren't up in arms about it, maybe they're correct in calculating that most people just don't give a damn about that sort of thing outside of a vocal minority.
Re:... and this is surprising how? (Score:5, Insightful)
Laziness. Incompetence. Greed. Lack of penalties.
The lack of penalties pretty much guarantees the other three.
When companies carry actual penalties for doing a terrible job of security, they might try harder. Until then, not a chance.
If all they have to do is say "oh, gee, we're not really sorry" and have no consequences, this will keep happening.
Which is precisely why you should assume any piece of consumer electronics which wants to connect to the internet was pushed out the door by lazy, incompetent, greedy bastards who bear no legal penalty for screwing up on security and privacy.
Because the reality is, that's probably exactly what happened.
Bring in real privacy and data security laws, or just straight up assume the product doesn't give a crap about you.
Actions not words (Score:3)
If all they have to do is say "oh, gee, we're not really sorry" and have no consequences, this will keep happening.
This is something that has come up in our culture lately. It seems no mater how bad the offense, all the media wants is some sort of apology and somehow that makes it acceptable. There are no further consequences which boggles my mind. Sometimes an apology is not sufficient. What we should really care about is what did they DO to make things right. I could give a shit whether they apologize or not. Fix it and I'll forgive. What is said means nothing.
Which is precisely why you should assume any piece of consumer electronics which wants to connect to the internet was pushed out the door by lazy, incompetent, greedy bastards who bear no legal penalty for screwing up on security and privacy.
Preach on brother. This is absolutely correct.
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If the security sucks, the product usually still works. That's the basic problem.
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Incompetence and cost/benefit (Score:3)
I wonder if it's perhaps an engineer-type mentality that gets so focused on building cool new things, they just don't stop to think about how those new things can be abused or exploited to do bad things.
It's partly that. It's also very likely to be a significant amount of incompetence. I am an engineer and run a contract manufacturing company. We build wire harnesses and our customers provide the technical details for the product to be built. I've been doing this for many years now and I can count on my fingers the number of drawings that I've received that could be built solely from the documentation provided. This means that a LOT of engineers are wildly incompetent at writing engineering documentat
Re:... and this is surprising how? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no legal obligation to encrypt.
There is no culpability if the data is lost.
It costs time and money to secure it.
Why would they bother?
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Come on, it would have been surprised if they did encrypt the data in a decent way,...
What is the point of encrypting private data when you are secretely violating someone's privacy?
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But it's not a secret. You know when you buy one of these your voice is going to be transmitted over the internets for analysis. You would expect them to take some obvious steps to secure the potentially private information from third parties but there is nothing "secret" about the collection and transmission of the user's voice. The only potential violation of privacy here would be the ability for a third party to intercept the unencrypted data on someone.
Re:... and this is surprising how? (Score:4, Insightful)
Does your average TV owner know this? Is it explicitly marked on the package?
Because until they announced they might be sending your voice to third parties, I'm betting your average consumer had no frickin' idea that was happening.
Well, first they broadcast it in the clear, and then they're giving it to a third party to do the work.
Everything about this system, from end to end, is more or less designed to violate your privacy.
Because the "security" is pretty much non-existent.
Corporations need to have huge penalties for implementing "security" like a bunch of lazy chimps. If they aren't, then people should be well informed that the security of their product was, in fact, written by a bunch of lazy, indifferent chimps.
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Add the government, laws, and lawyers to the mix. That should fix the problem /s
Have you seen the people that make the laws in this country? They are definitely dumber than the people that came up with this terrible software. And they are way fucking lazier. They will just have corporations write the laws for them so they don't have to do it, and have their interns read it so they don't have to do that either, and then they will just vote the way that their party wants them to, (unless someone wants to
Re:... and this is surprising how? (Score:4, Insightful)
your voice is going to be transmitted over the internets for analysis.
Why would a normal consumer assume that? He's talking to the TV, not chatting with someone using Skype.
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But it's not a secret. You know when you buy one of these your voice is going to be transmitted over the internets for analysis. You would expect them to take some obvious steps to secure the potentially private information from third parties but there is nothing "secret" about the collection and transmission of the user's voice. The only potential violation of privacy here would be the ability for a third party to intercept the unencrypted data on someone.
Why would someone think this? If my TV had voice detection, I would expect it to all happen locally, I certainly wouldn't expect the TV to record me 24x7 and send snippets of conversation to a central server for analysis.
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Do you expect that your smartphone's voice recognition is all happening in the phone?
No, but I expect my smartphone to recognize more than "channel up" "volume down". Even my 2005 era feature phone could recognize key phrases without sending the audio anywhere. Surely a modern TV with multiple gigahertz CPU cores can do the same.
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I was under the impression that the TV also recognized (or at least attempted to recognize) more than just "channel up" and "volume down" as well. It is a "smart TV" that runs apps similar to the ones running on phones (like web browsers, VOD like netflix, that provide search capability).
In fact, I think I might be more likely to need voice search on a TV than on a phone, considering the TV has a worse typing interface (A remote with buttons not designed for typing words) and a smartphone has lots of R
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Absolutely.
Samsung just can't write software. Every piece of software they're responsible for has a problem one way or another (or at least all the ones I've ever seen - and I've got a Samsung phone or two, so I've seen a lot). Their hardware is generally good, so they should stick to doing that and let the rest of us take over their software. Hell, if they had the whole of their "smart" features in a sort of plug-in box, then they could invite other 'partners' to make entirely new TVs out of their base har
No Trust (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't encryption imply some level of trust in the other party? I.e. you know who you are sending sensitive data to?
If you don't trust Samsung to receive your personal data (as I'm sure few people do) is it relevant that it's not encrypted?
Re:No Trust (Score:5, Insightful)
I like to limit the amount of people I send my private data to. Preferably to 0, but to add random hackers to it is not the right way to go.
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That depends entirely if you trust random hackers more or less than Samsung.
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No it doesn't. It's better to send my data only to Samsung and not to random hackers then it is to do both.
Not by much, but it is better.
I should go and cyanogen my S4 Active.
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Yes it does. Example:
Send me your credit card details. As soon as I will get it I'm going to max it out. I'm also going to use the details in an attempt to steal your identity to further do damage to you.
Now given this information, what is the impact of sending me this data unencrypted?
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Not quite. Samsung has quite sufficient access to cc data. They probably wouldn't abuse mine. No certainty, mind you, but a chance.
If a hacker would get access to it the chance it would be abused would increase.
That is why it is better to send it to as few people as possible.
Added to that the data in the story is different. It's about data that can be copied losslessly. If I were to be filmed dancing naked to YMCA I would prefer to have it stolen by as little people as possible. My strong preference is 0.
Th
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I don't particularly trust HMRC, but I'd like to know that when I send them my financial details several times a year that nobody else is going to be intercepting them in transit.
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That is exactly the point. The problem is the date being sent in the fist place. A likely application is a nice speech-sample database that can then be used to identify people where other means do not work. Even if Samsung itself did not intend that, the NSA and others will steal that database, it is just to appealing.
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The problem is the date being sent in the fist place. A likely application is a nice speech-sample database that can then be used to identify people where other means do not work.
You have a microphone in people's living room, broadcasting every conversation they have, and the application you come up with is voice-print identification? Not listening for people reciting strings of numbers like account or social security. Not people discussing passwords, drug deals, or plots to blow up the Capitol. Not people talking about a new car, a new pregnancy, or an imminent wedding. The content of these conversations is (presumably) being sent home at least to do Siri-like speech to text, s
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From the point of view of what these people want, sure. But speech recognition is still not advanced enough to automatize this. Speaker recognition is and has been for a while.
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Doesn't encryption imply some level of trust in the other party?
Lack of encryption additionally implies some level of trust in everyone between you and the other party.
New term (Score:4, Funny)
I think we need a new term for something like this - security through stupidity.
Obscurity means that something is non-obvious enough that it takes work to uncover it.
Stupidity is where the way something is done is so stupid it makes you keep checking for something else going on.
To be fair though, if he just knows the speech captured is a blob of binary data sent but not the format how does he know THAT's not encrypted?
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What if something else IS going on?
Imagine if this were to catch on, with voice data unencrypted. Imagine if most TVs end up having this. Imagine if we continue to let NSA-type agencies to continue capturing data in the name of fighting terrorists, child pornography, whatever.
Re:New term (Score:4, Insightful)
Forget the NSA, this can be super handy for the garden variety creep or stalker. Many remotes these days use some kind of wireless connection - so if I had a sniffer listening to network traffic from the house I could remotely trigger the remote's microphone key even from outside fire up listen mode...
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Nearly all TV remotes use infrared, which doesn't pass through walls nor typical glass (remember the greenhouse effect?). The reason you cite is actually the converse of why they don't use radio. The FCC regulates radio broadcasts so any radio remote must fall within the open frequencie
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I was under the impression that most Samsung Smart TVs supported an RF remote in addition to IR.
If it's IR only, as you say it would require line of sight to the TV to activate.
Terms (Score:2)
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> To be fair, what kind of words are likely to be sent [...]
I think you don't know how this works. If it is similar to Siri and however its Android twin is called, there ain't remotely enough processing oomph (and memory) in the TV's embedded to make any sense of your mumblings and map them to commands like "put channel 11". So anything going on in the room is packed up and sent to "Teh Cloud" to make any sense of it. Being your dog whining, your husband yelling at you or your daughter phoning the boyfri
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To be fair, what kind of words are likely to be sent - since data is only sent when explicitly using the voice recognition feature? "put channel 11", "switch on/off", "weather tomorrow" - probably not so juicy...
If they heard what I was screaming at the TV during the NFL playoffs, I might be accused of a hate crime.
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When I got my new smartphone (not a Samsung model), I turned on the voice recognition feature thinking it would be cool to order my phone to get me information via voice only. It was cool, but the phone quickly started picking up on phrases that were not even close to my activation phrase. I'd be talking when suddenly my phone would beep indicating that it had heard some command it thought I had given and had tried to obey. This became too annoying so I disabled the feature.
If Samsung TVs are similar to
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I would hope any programmer would filter out the TV's audio from the voice input stream.
Then again, I'd also hope that any programmer would use encryption when sending the data and we know how well that worked out.
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You are right, but this is not new. Politics uses fear and the stupidity of the frightened routinely to establish more "security measures" that do nothing to make people more secure, but primarily solve to protect those in power. All these "Internet surveillance helps against terrorism" claims are a good example. Here, even a really stupid person can easily deduce from the available facts that it does no such thing, bit add fear, and all rationality is gone.
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What "textual rendition" (Score:2)
Do you mean on the return trip (which I wasn't sure he had monitored)? The outbound is audio-blob only.
It does seem likely though the return data would not be HTTPS either since the connection was never established... but it could still be encrypted.
Very doubtful though or they would have just used HTTS you would think and saved a lot of bother.
Good enough (Score:4, Funny)
"It's not even HTTP data, it's a mix of XML and some custom binary data packet,"
Well, XML is more or less unreadable. That is as close to a one way encryption any commercial company will get.
ssh (Score:2)
Next time use port 22. Its dead simple.
Out Sonying Sony? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is this really what Samsung wants to do? I've been steering everyone I know away from Sony products for more than a decade now, and what I suggest when they ask what brand they can trust I have always told them Samsung. I ask you, is there any major brand who are on the side of consumer/customer privacy out there anymore?
Re:Out Sonying Sony? (Score:5, Funny)
is there any major brand who are on the side of consumer/customer privacy out there anymore?
Google.
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Using basic encryption to authenticate a download of an operating system is to an official server is what I'd class as absolute bare basics.
Does it check hash values or signed packages? I would hope the answer's yes for anything made in the last ten years.
That's not a "killer feature". That's basic expectation.
On the Apple front - they do this by removing much of your control of the device. There are as many rogue apps on the iTunes store as anywhere else. There are also security problems that were left
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I'd actually say apple. Security failures are a pretty big deal for them.
Not so sure. Why? Because the strongest encryption model is beaten by password knowledge - and why that's bad with Apple? Because, for the sake of simplicity (I assume), there is no way / no trace / no warning / no notif in iCloud.com when accesses are made from different IPs within a given time range etc... ( gmail does that ). And basically entering one's iPhone / store password in a train (for instance), having people around over your shoulder makes someone able to access iCloud on your behalf using you
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No. They all primarily want to make money. Sony mighty be an especially repulsive example that cannot even do good engineering, but Samsung is not fundamentally different.
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I ask you, is there any major brand who are on the side of consumer/customer privacy out there anymore?
The bigger the company and the brand, the bigger the temptation.
Trust no one (Score:2)
I've been steering everyone I know away from Sony products for more than a decade now, and what I suggest when they ask what brand they can trust I have always told them Samsung.
Genuinely not being snarky but why? What has Samsung ever done that would lead you to believe they would be a brand you could/should trust more than Sony? Just because they haven't really stepped in a big pile of #2 until now is evidence of nothing. Sure Sony has done some truly stupid shit but Samsung has really only been a big name in computer products for the last few years. I don't think they are in any way more trustworthy, they just haven't had time for their sins to float to the surface yet.
I ask you, is there any major brand who are on the side of consumer/customer privacy out there anymore?
I'm n
And video? (Score:2)
Is that encrypted? And, more important, is it allowed by law???
So turn the mic off.. (Score:2)
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...Shut the fuck up moaning and use the remote.
It only sends data when using the speech recognition software. So don't use it.
Re:So turn the mic off.. (Score:5, Informative)
It's even better than this, the mic apparantly is only on when you press the voice command button to make the tv listen to a voice command. The mic is only on for a short period when you ask it explicitly. Then it sends whatever you said to the speech recognition server (just like every other speech recognition system atm), and the tv will get an answer as to what it's supposed to do.
The reason they have this in their terms and conditions is because the tv doesn't know what it'll send when you push that button, so it could be personal information. They're just covering their asses. And i would never use such a system, but i'm wondering what the big value is of encrypting data that would probably just contain someone saying "channel 77" or whatever the voice commands like that are.
This is just a lot of fuss about nothing, and a lot of people complaining because the summary makes it sound far worse than it actually is...
The first article was ridiculous. Ofcourse the voice commands get sent to a third party service. That's also how siri and whatever other such systems exist work. And it's not always on, you have to request it via the remote. So there's no privacy implication at all... It's just covering their asses.
And now it's that this data, which is very very unlikely to be sensitive isn't encrypted. If the hackers want to hear people name channels and other commands from the users of said tv's... good for them.
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Voice samples with identifying metadata can be used to train a system to recognize voices. To me that is an issue. I have a Samsung phone and this Samsung TV smart control. I do not use any voice based functions at all, regardless of whether they use S voice, Google voice API, etc.
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Stupid functionality (Score:1)
So if you've got the remote, and have to push the button anyway, why not tap in "77" to change the channel rather than using voice commands.
Yes, I realize voice commands can do other things, but what are they really useful for?
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but i'm wondering what the big value is of encrypting data that would probably just contain someone saying "channel 77" or whatever the voice commands like that are.
This is backward. What is the big value of not encrypting it, given that the data payloads are small enough not to require massive CPU resources to do so?
Encryption everywhere is the sane default and should only be removed when there's a clear reason to do so. You don't ever have to justify why to add encryption to something; you're expected to justify removing it.
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Remotes work through windows
And that makes it worse, how? (Score:2)
In an exceptional security disaster like this, the lack of transport encryption is a mere detail and not surprising at all. The problem is the mind-set of the people that made the decision to send anything the user did not explicitly authorize for each single case in the first place.
Oh for fucks sake, people. (Score:5, Interesting)
The microphone on the TV stays off until you command it to listen. You do that by pressing a large VOICE button on the remote.
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Awesome! Finally someone who has had access to, and time to analyze, the firmware in all these TVs!
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How do you know it won't turn on by itself or remotely?
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The microphone on the TV stays off until you command it to listen.
Five years ago, I probably would have believed this. Hell, two years ago I might have bought it. But after the revelations of June 2013, I don't trust claims like "the microphone stays off until you command it to listen" any more than I believe "no, the NSA does not collect data about millions of Americans" or "we at Lenovo thought consumers would enjoy ads injected into their SSL sessions."
Trusted by default is done, thanks to overzealous advertisers and overzealous governments. That goose is cooked, go fi
but thats wrong (Score:2)
Consumer Co-ops (Score:2)
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You can already buy a regular, not-smart TV everywhere. It's called a computer monitor.
Where? (Score:2)
You can already buy a regular, not-smart TV everywhere. It's called a computer monitor.
Really? I can buy a 60" computer monitor that can change channels, has 4 inputs and sound and comes with a remote for less than $700 [walmart.com]? Please tell me where I can find this fantastic buy...
Oh that's right, not available for reasonable prices anywhere...
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Not everyone wants a TV this huge, not everyone uses "channels" anymore (this is Slashdot, you should have dropped cable/satellite years ago and be using an AppleTV/FireTV/etc by now), headphones/external speakers are usually better than the low-fi audio in a thin TV set and you don't need a TV remote without built-inchannels/built-in audio, you use the remote of your set-top box instead.
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You don't have an external box for that?
What third party are they sending data to? (Score:2)
The other issue that they may be facing is that they are not in control of the text to speech aspect. There are a couple vendors out there that provide this functionality, nuance being one of the large players, and most of them work in this manner with some sort of xml/json and a binary blob of the pcm data. If the vendor they are using does not support encrypted data on the server end, then there isnt much samsung can do besides going and finding one that does
Goodbye Razor of Hanlon (Score:2)
I suppose this makes sense. If you select port 80 it is more likely to be noticed or more likely to be intercepted and or mangled by proxies and AG's making it difficult to transport non- HTTP data streams.
Port 443 would best allow for unmolested arbitrary stream while remaining most unlikely to be filtered.
The rest I can't explain... is there really such a big ass market for ads and data justifying such behavior or is some of this at least partially being "subsidized" by state actors? The mindset and thi
Criminal, right? (Score:2)
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Actually port 443 may have been enough, initially, to lure most hackers into thinking the communication was encrypted. Now that it's been made public it's not encrypted, however....
Most hackers have access to wireshark
FUD, HTH, HAND
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Most hackers have access to wireshark
FUD, HTH, HAND
Yeah, o'course, or tcpdump for the real ones. But my point was that usually 443 is a clear indicator of encryption, and hackers don't bother to try it, let alone run a packet sniffer on the port. But maybe you are the kind who runs wireshark on a "connection refused" port?
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I don't know what kind of incompetent wannabe "hackers" you know, but anybody with at least some skill looks whether things are encrypted and does not simply assume.
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But my point was that usually 443 is a clear indicator of encryption, and hackers don't bother to try it, let alone run a packet sniffer on the port.
Maybe if you're talking about a web browser. If you're talking about a bit of custom software embedded in a TV, then ports 80 and 443 only say "traffic that will probably be allowed by firewall rules."
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Anybody that manages to listen to network traffic payload data will not be fooled at all by this.
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Likely budget overrun and/or developer incompetence, and then somebody lied about it.
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What?!? why would that be helpful? The message still would go unencrypted from the TOR exit node to Samsung (or it's partners). Way too many people think that TOR = Secure.
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Way too many people have not even a basic understanding what security technologies do. Just look at the discussion about the Silk-Road bust. Most people assumed it was a TOR vulnerability being exploited, when it likely was no such thing as there are tons of possibilities to screw up that have nothing to do with TOR.
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And if your neighbors start recording that, they go to prison in any sane jurisdiction.
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I know you're A/C and so have a lower bar of thinking to reach than the rest of us, but it amazes me that you can't see the problem here.
You live in a neighbourhood, that presumably you chose and like. You presumably know your neighbours, at least vaguely. This TV (with the feature enabled, and if it's buggy, without the feature enabled) means you're now living in some shithole backwater in Elbonia where some geeks are using what you say for nefarious purposes. You're also living next door to the NSA, GCHQ,