discoursedrome:

ms-demeanor:

autpunq:

libertarirynn:

kidlazer:

libertarirynn:

So my friend was telling me yesterday that she got a new Samsung smart TV for her living room. One afternoon she was sitting on the couch across on the TV, which was turned off, talking to her friend about social anxiety.

The next day her Samsung phone, Facebook account, and her son’s Instagram account (which is linked to her phone number) were blown up with ads for social anxiety medications.

She called Samsung up like “WTF“ and they admitted that it was a “feature“ on the smart TV for it to record conversations even when turned off in order to provide customized ads. You could turn off the setting but of course you probably wouldn’t even know about it unless something like this happened because it’s not like they readily advertise “this thing will record your conversations even when it’s turned off“.

this ain’t alright with me … bitch what the fuck 

https://www.cnet.com/news/samsungs-warning-our-smart-tvs-record-your-living-room-chatter/

This is so much worse than Mark Zuckerberg. This is literally some 1984 shit. This will make it so easy to spot people who don’t, umm, agree with the government, and in a fascist state that would be a great surveillance method. Since America is nearing that with Trump as president,

TURN OFF THIS FEATURE ON YOUR SMART TVS Y’ALL

Hey, more than that stop buying smart devices, the internet of things is hideously insecure and basically all of it is tacit approval for manufacturers to track your behavior. They don’t need to see inside your fridge, they don’t need to see who is coming to your front door, they don’t need a map of the layout of your house, they don’t need to track your home phone calls or the projects you’re doing around the house.

It seems like it’s
increasingly
difficult to find non-smart versions of things outside of bottom-barrel junk, so I worry for the future of trustworthy fridges. When my parents were looking to upgrade to a flatscreen TV they literally could not find one in a store that was a decent size and not “smart”, and it seems like this is starting to infect other appliances as well. Which is ironic because what I really want from a high-end appliance is longevity, but highly computerized shit lasts about a quarter as long as regular shit, even notwithstanding the privacy issues.

IMO, Stallman should spearhead a line of home appliances for anti-surveillance bunker-crouchers. You can actually sell open-source stuff when it’s hardware, and there are enough paranoid tech people to justify boutique pricing.