News TCL smart TVs may have 'Chinese backdoor' — protect yourself now

[admin]

TCL smart TVs have very serious security holes and may even have a built-in 'Chinese backdoor,' two researchers say.

TCL smart TVs may have 'Chinese backdoor' — protect yourself now : Read more

 

[eyeoncomputers]

This is a very well written article.

This flaw seems to affect TCL TVs with Android software.

Update: looks like they changed the image.

Why did you choose the picture of a TCL using the Roku software, which does not seem to be affected by the vulnerability.

It's just makes the article confusing and inconsistent from looking at the title, image, and the article itself.

 

[Thorbaby]

Absolutely agree. Seems like a scare tactic since they’re so popular to grab users attention

bad on toms guide

 

[SleepyD]

I agree with both of you it’s ridiculous to use the picture of a TCL Roku TV. Either for clicks or lazy blogging. I expect better from Tom’s Guide.

 

[naturesninja]

I remember when tablets were first hitting the market and no name import models from China were filled with all manner of spyware. This is the way.

 

[PaulWagenseil]

Why did you choose the picture of a TCL using the Roku software, which does not seem to be affected by the vulnerability.

It's just makes the article confusing and inconsistent from looking at the title, image, and the article itself.

For the simplest and dumbest of reasons: Because I thought the image showed a TCL TV running Android, not one running the Roku software. That's how the image was labeled in our image bank. After Roku reached out to me over the weekend and convinced me we were using the wrong image, I changed it.

 

[werewolf fox]

If China wants to monitor my daily routine of seinfeld, anime, sports, and video games, let them, who cares? It's not like we're storing codes for sub atomic weapons on our netflix favorites.

On a side note, I've noticed TVs built in China generally have a much easier for the eyes resolution. I have a 19" insignia a 24" westinghouse and a 32" rca and the insignia by far is the best..

 

[ConcernedUser28]

I have a TCL 43S405 model, a Roku model, and it definitely spies on you. I was watching a "Christmas Movie" on it through one of the HDMI ports that was hooked up to my laptop, running VLC media player. 20 minutes into the movie the menu system on the TV popped up in the corner showing me "Other ways to watch Christmas Movie...". This video file was played on my computer, not on the TV's OS. How the hell did it know what I was watching without sending video info lifted from the HDMI back to another server for analysis?!

Edit:
After a little more internet searching I found out this is a thing called ACR(Automatic Content Recognition). It can be disabled via the TV's settings on most sets.
https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smart-tv-snooping-features/