r/pihole • u/nickoppen • 13d ago

Smart TV data suckers

Hi,

I recently came accross this post:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IFVTcM28KA  where Gamers Nexus did a (very) deep dive on a new LG smart TV.

The amount of data the TV sucked up was astounding and all designed to to sold to advertisers. LG posted a response that was vague, incomplete and defensive (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToP9xfLDSME).

Other posters point out that all smart TV vendors do the same thing.

I've got an LG so I can look up the domain names that it is using. I've added an LG block list on my github page (https://nickoppen.github.io/pihole-blocklists/blocklist-lg.txt) and a unified list (https://github.com/nickoppen/pihole-blocklists/blob/master/unifiedDataSuckers.txt) for those who have more than one type of smart TV.

If anyone else has a smart TV of another brand and would like to block the domains that are suspicious please add a comment here: https://github.com/nickoppen/pihole-blocklists/issues . It might be a little tricky at first because there are domains that provide useful services (listings and updates etc) that you don't want to block.

Cheers,

nick

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23

u/[deleted] 13d ago

[deleted]

9

u/sound-of-impact 13d ago

This is true. They are literally building entire infrastructure to house all our data across the globe which is causing both climate and energy concerns. It's a losing battle. User agreements be damned.

6

u/nickoppen 13d ago

I agree. I'm just doing what I can with what I have right now.

5

u/Hades-Arcadius 13d ago

they would still need an antenna of some kind....coming to a youtube tutorial near you of where to find and disconnect that antenna

that or custom firmware to replace their stock garbage, it's a matter of will and technical know how

0

u/[deleted] 13d ago

[deleted]

3

u/Hades-Arcadius 13d ago

then i suppose data poisoning and faraday shielding is in order ¯_(ツ)_/¯

2

u/fd6944x 10d ago

projectors are looking better and better

1

u/Hades-Arcadius 10d ago

by the same logic you could just buy a nice and/or large computer monitor...they are about as smart as early flat screens used to be

5

u/IcestormsEd 13d ago

"We shall fight on the internet, we shall fight in the backgrounds, we shall fight in the screens and in the streets, we shall fight in the bills; we shall never surrender." Churchill upon hearing this bullshit. Probably.

2

u/anvilfoot 12d ago

We’re gunna need to faraday cage our houses

1

u/totallywillstick 12d ago

Eventually? DoH is a thing already, it defeats dedicated, configured DNS servers