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this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2026
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I knew a guy years back that would pop open any device with an internet or GPS connection and physically disable it. He was telling us about it at work one day. Most of our coworkers told him it was paranoid overkill. I bet that dude is laughing his ass off right now.
Me being paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after me.
Nope. It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.
Its only paranoia if theyre not out to get you. Otherwise its sparkling anxiety
As far as I'm concerned, smart TVs are not really any different from Superbox/Badbox.
Regarding the specific reason why they are after you. In general you could still be paranoid.
It's not paranoia if you're right.
"The issue's not whether you're paranoid, Lenny. I mean, look at this shit. The issue is whether you're paranoid enough."
A friend of mine's household got a smart tv with speech commands. They didn't really understand why I didn't like. The kicker? They're also somewhat paranoid about government and corporate overreach, but not to the extent that they'll do anything.
The most conspiratorially minded are also the most likely to miss the obvious.
During COVID lockdowns, while I worked retail, a few customers didn't want to use the QR codes to "check in" to the store because "tracking", but then used digital contactless payment without a thought.
Do you have a phone? Does it have a hard cutoff for the GPS and mic?
Edit: damn! Y'all are sensitive about your larping.
C'mon, it's common sense that you should not take your phone on demos and the like.
Oh, I didn't realize that "going to a friend's house" was code for "full black ops shit". If that's the case, yeah I'd be pretty pissed too if I went over and everyone left their cells behind and the Wi-Fi was turned off and we went into the dampening room and there was a smart TV playing South Park hanging on the wall.
I didn't pick up that was what was happening at all. Thank you for the heads up.
They can track it with the antennas right? Less accurate but no need for more.
Within 150 - 1,500 feet at absolute best (high density urban environments) and up to a couple of miles out in the sticks. Very different than within a few feet for GPS.
You're right though, if you want to go completely out of sight, you need a physical disconnect for the cell antenna too, or the battery.
I'm just saying that if you're worried about your TV listening, you might want to think about the hot mic attached to a pinpoint tracker that you keep in your pocket.
I don't speak freely near my phone and I have the bare minimum of 1st party apps in it. I was trying to get my PinePhone working, but that didn't pan out.
Smart. I wish there were options to the spyphones.
It's really strange though that your friends would be security conscious enough that y'all keep your phones locked away when hanging out, but not conscious enough to opt out of buying the spy TV. I guess with so many attack vectors it's easy to focus on a few, and forget about the others. Giving us a false sense of security. I'm sure that's by design.
Also public wifi, ever connected to a major provider of public access? They know who you are now, and they can log the connection attempts your phone 'helpfully' makes for you.
If they really wanted to, they could determine your travel history using the accelerometer.
Those little accelerometers have drift. It might work for a few miles, but eventually it's going to be off by a significant margin. Plus, if the entity tracking you has your accelerometer history, you're already pretty fucked, regardless if they can track it or not.
The other day I saw an old comedy and the "crazy" guy was saying that he doesn't use cellphones (which were new at the time) because the CIA can listen to it.
In the early days of analog cell phones, any teenage punk with access to a Radio Shack and a modicum of soldering skills could listen to your conversations on the things, never mind the CIA.
New conspiracy: Agents of the post office who work for the GOVERNMENT can READ your POSTCARDS.
I could be wrong but I think up to 2G it was basically unencrypted no?
Just like the old people keeping nonsensical passwords all different and written down, when all the database breaches happened.
Paranoid guys don't laugh. They switch to being paranoid that them being a blindspot will draw attention.
Source: Am that guy.
yup. you gotta keep some nonsense, average data about yourself going (google thinks i'm a radiological oncologist, and i'm a musician. that's kind of funny and kind of sad) and have your paranoid conversations out in the woods
You can't hide from an all-seeing entity. You can only appear too insignificant to hold it's attention.
It’s still paranoid overkill no? They just want to sell him useless shit lmao
Or is he a black panther on the low?
It literally takes screenshots of what you're watching (this was known for a while) and listens to your conversations in standby.
The question is - are you happy to keep your door open, invite a stranger to stand in your room whilst you go about your day? If not, why do we allow electronics to do the same?
The concern then is this data is sold and used against you by insurance and so on.
This isn't a conspiracy, this does happen.
I’m happy to have caterers trying to appease my whims. But again, I’m not a criminal, and I am self aware enough to understand that nobody cares about a wage slave to actually be listening in like in your false equivalence of someone standing in my room.
Edit to add : And that’s all pointless opinions because it’s happening either way. Unless we decide to live Amishly.
You are right, it is a false equivalence, the stranger standing there isn't automatically processing, tagging, then sending off the data to thousands of customers so those customers can increase your prices for things they know you'll buy anyways, use the data to flood your algorithmic feeds with something that will actually sway your opinions their way.. But yeah.. You have nothing to hide right?
If they increase their prices they will lose to their competitors? You take all the stuff that supports your argument and just ignore everything else that exists?
They can sway an opinion with or without tracking people, you seem to be taking away peoples autonomy on this point.
You folks aren’t special enough to be this paranoid about targeted ads. That’s what it is, your choice is to give up and live an Amish lifestyle.
And they did a fine job of swaying your opinions for 1000s of years with whatever tech was available at the time. Didn’t they?
What competitors? Shopping is nearly an effective monopoly. People just don't go elsewhere to check for better prices anymore, amazon is too convenient.
And you seem to be ignoring how predictable the human brain is. There are reasons people consider all these algorithms to be evil, they take advantage of emotional weaknesses to influence people to do things they normally wouldn't have. Saying it has always been that way doesn't make this more effective way any less of a problem. With all this personal information being harvested, these companies can ramp up the manipulation and sell it to the highest bidder. That information is something worth hiding so you can still interact with the world and be targeted a bit less.
You dont need to be special lol. They are targeting everyone all at once. I really suggest to read into the situation a bit more as you seem to underestimate the scope of this issue.
Competitors still exist chief, it is not an effective monopoly yet. Though I agree they are always pushing that way. What do you think Ali baba is?
Again, targeted ads aren’t scary to some of us. Idk what to tell you.
You think because I’m not paranoid about a data set that says when I like to buy toilet paper I am not well read on the matter, I’m sorry you feel that way.
Why don’t we pivot and just agree that the flock cameras are exactly what you’re afraid of, but in the hands of local peasant cops who actually want to harass people and should be banned.
Legal monopoly, no, effective, yes. The US government has even sued them to that effect, alleging they have been using anti-competitor and unfair strategies to maintain its monopolistic power. It may not technically / legally yet be a monopoly, but that is not what an effective monopoly is.
Also yes I do feel you are not educated enough on the matter, as your example clearly shows. It is not "oh no, they know I am out of toilet paper" it is more about "they have location tracking, search habits, purchase history, and more, and now they model predictive algorithms on what variables they need to push to influence you in a specific way". They can extrapolate that some advertisement on your route caused you to speak about X, and the online ad Y afterward pushed you to searching the web for Z, which comes up with specific products or messaging they want you seeing. Now imagine all this data at scale with billions of people and billions of dollars of compute to crunch massive amounts of patterns they can use to push you and others.
It doesn't have to only be about purchases either, this same information can be used to get some political message in front of you, as well as misinformation that you may never properly vet the truth of to sway your decision making over tens, hundreds, thousands or more instances of this.
You can hide behind "But I have autonomy!" all you want, if it didn't work for them they wouldn't be doing it. You will never free yourself of it completely, but why not start reducing your data footprint by not letting your TV record your conversations and viewing habits? Every little snip of their web reduces your vulnerability to it, even if only a little.
But yes, I do agree with your last point. Not really part of this conversation though.
Your mansplaining every step of the conversation was not very cool bro. Nothing you said has been new information for me. I still disagree with you. Have a nice day.
lol, yeah that tends to happen when someone comes around claiming to understand what is happening yet displays the contrary. Good luck out there
No dude, that tends to happen when you’re a self righteous dick who thinks he’s smarter than everyone.
Can’t fathom anyone intelligent disagreeing with you. Have the day you deserve.
Nah not everyone
Your coworkers still thinks he’s paranoid, because they’ve nothing to hide and therefore don’t care.
“Give me the man and I will give you the case against him” is a quote you might want to look into the history of.
My comment was sarcasm, but I can see how people can misinterpret it.
I apparently read this differently from y'all.
A disturbingly large percentage of the populace does see it this way.
I read it as a sarcastic criticism of such people. Was it not?
It absolutely was meant sarcastically, I fucking hate the “hurr durr I’ve got nothing to hide so why should i care”
But I can see how people can misinterpret my comment.