Spoofing the Samsung Smart TV Internet Check(sodnpoo.com)
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Spoofing the Samsung Smart TV Internet Check
http://www.sodnpoo.com/posts.xml/spoofing_the_samsung_smart_tv_internet_check.xml
22 comments
>There are no exceptions.
Wow, well I guess the issue is closed. I wish they had contacted you from the start, otherwise this multinational, multi-billion dollar corporation could've avoided the entire market. /s
I mean are you intentionally being dense? It has been a LONG time coming to supplant the multiple devices I have to keep around my TV just to use cable, streaming services, etc. Now I don't need to fire up the Wii if I want to watch Hulu or Netflix, movies off a media drive or USB. If only I could integrate the cable box into the TV, then it would really be a game changer.
I don't know about you, but I consider myself an above-average tech consumer and I value simplicity and if companies can manage to keep my TV functional for the next 5-7 years with all of my services, then it is money well spent.
Wow, well I guess the issue is closed. I wish they had contacted you from the start, otherwise this multinational, multi-billion dollar corporation could've avoided the entire market. /s
I mean are you intentionally being dense? It has been a LONG time coming to supplant the multiple devices I have to keep around my TV just to use cable, streaming services, etc. Now I don't need to fire up the Wii if I want to watch Hulu or Netflix, movies off a media drive or USB. If only I could integrate the cable box into the TV, then it would really be a game changer.
I don't know about you, but I consider myself an above-average tech consumer and I value simplicity and if companies can manage to keep my TV functional for the next 5-7 years with all of my services, then it is money well spent.
What makes Smart TV's basically useless long-term is that throwaway line you put on the end about the cable box.
The same is true of AppleTV, playstation, xbox and every game console in existence. Some of this is obviously hardware based, but a lot of it is about differentiation. CableCard has existed for at least a decade now, but good luck trying to get your cable company to admit it. Every single one of these guys wants you to stay in their particular ecosystem, and "smart" TV is just another ecosystem Samsung wants you to buy into with the associated limitations -- either introduced by Samsung or the other vendors (lockout).
What people really need is better integration between all the devices they hook to their TV. It's bizarre (but like I said, not totally unexpected) that a consumer electronics device is so hard to use that way compared to a radically more complex personal computer (plug most usb devices from a big box store into a mac or pc and it'll just work for its intended purposes without a hassle nowadays).
One way to accomplish that is to shove all the functionality into one device, but as I mentioned above, it doesn't actually work except for a few limited cases. Honestly, the closest you get to a true "smart" experience is a top-end harmony remote -- and that's obviously not that close at all.
My basic objection to smart tv is that I have the same experience using a harmony remote, it adds nothing. And the smart features are virtually guaranteed to whither away long before the actual tv outlives its usefulness. It's like the digital channel tuner on the same set -- useful in odd circumstances, but practically useless having long been long surpassed by cable tv.
The same is true of AppleTV, playstation, xbox and every game console in existence. Some of this is obviously hardware based, but a lot of it is about differentiation. CableCard has existed for at least a decade now, but good luck trying to get your cable company to admit it. Every single one of these guys wants you to stay in their particular ecosystem, and "smart" TV is just another ecosystem Samsung wants you to buy into with the associated limitations -- either introduced by Samsung or the other vendors (lockout).
What people really need is better integration between all the devices they hook to their TV. It's bizarre (but like I said, not totally unexpected) that a consumer electronics device is so hard to use that way compared to a radically more complex personal computer (plug most usb devices from a big box store into a mac or pc and it'll just work for its intended purposes without a hassle nowadays).
One way to accomplish that is to shove all the functionality into one device, but as I mentioned above, it doesn't actually work except for a few limited cases. Honestly, the closest you get to a true "smart" experience is a top-end harmony remote -- and that's obviously not that close at all.
My basic objection to smart tv is that I have the same experience using a harmony remote, it adds nothing. And the smart features are virtually guaranteed to whither away long before the actual tv outlives its usefulness. It's like the digital channel tuner on the same set -- useful in odd circumstances, but practically useless having long been long surpassed by cable tv.
How many years do you plan on keeping your TV? How long do you think TV manufacturers will continue to support an old TV model?
So have the TV on its own for 5 years or so and then supplement it with a new box connected by HDMI. Also the manufacturers are hoping for revenue from the online services and can attract more services with a large user base so it is in their interest to at least keep supporting the existing services.
> Also the manufacturers are hoping for revenue from the online services and can attract more services with a large user base so it is in their interest to at least keep supporting the existing services.
That may or may not be the case depending on the company and/or the strategy the person in charge at the time is pursuing. One CEO might completely agree with your strategy and make sure all old models are supported, another might just care about how many new TVs sold he can tell the shareholders. Then there are companies going out of business or being acquired and the acquiring company not caring about supporting any models made by the acquired company.
That may or may not be the case depending on the company and/or the strategy the person in charge at the time is pursuing. One CEO might completely agree with your strategy and make sure all old models are supported, another might just care about how many new TVs sold he can tell the shareholders. Then there are companies going out of business or being acquired and the acquiring company not caring about supporting any models made by the acquired company.
The same might happen with any add on box, (it may even be more likely). I wouldn't pay a large premium for built in Internet services (I don't want smart just connected with Netflix, DLNA, iPlayer) but I would throw the TV away if they stopped working either.
4 year old Sony TVs have internet services that still work fine, I like not turning on the PS3 with fan noise and power consumption, I like not buying an extra box and needing to manage an extra remote and interface. I record TV on a MythTV box and I like watching it over DLNA using the TV's decoder and scaler which are better than those provided out of the box by MythFrontend. Yes it may fail at some time in the future but for the $13 or so added to the BOM (for Wifi which I don't actually use) it is a definite win for me even if it stops working tomorrow and I need to get an extra box or rely on the PS3.
4 year old Sony TVs have internet services that still work fine, I like not turning on the PS3 with fan noise and power consumption, I like not buying an extra box and needing to manage an extra remote and interface. I record TV on a MythTV box and I like watching it over DLNA using the TV's decoder and scaler which are better than those provided out of the box by MythFrontend. Yes it may fail at some time in the future but for the $13 or so added to the BOM (for Wifi which I don't actually use) it is a definite win for me even if it stops working tomorrow and I need to get an extra box or rely on the PS3.
For me, until it stops working. That's why I still have tube TVs.
I agree with your well-placed sarcasm -- this is not a black and white issue.
However, I disagree that there is fundamental value in built-in TV software supplanting third-party devices. That is, unless a software company is making the software.
I have a Roku, and built-in software from Sony on a blu-ray player (on separate TVs). The Roku is so much better that it's painful to use the TV without it:
- The buffering is much worse on the Sony. When it switches between ads and the video it takes several seconds to rebuffer.
- The delay between menus is measured in seconds, while the Roku is almost instantaneous
- It's almost like Sony didn't even have one UX designer working on their project. It will do idiotic things like when Hulu opens, create a modal dialog that says "The internet content is ready" and I must click OK to proceed.
- The remote and other menus are slow and hard to decipher just like you'd expect from built-in software.
The point is that building the user experience of a video client is not trivial. I can't even blame Sony, really -- a non-software company will never do a good job at that kind of thing.
The Roku is a world of difference and until a company like that is building the built-in software, the mainstream of the market will be in third-party devices.
However, I disagree that there is fundamental value in built-in TV software supplanting third-party devices. That is, unless a software company is making the software.
I have a Roku, and built-in software from Sony on a blu-ray player (on separate TVs). The Roku is so much better that it's painful to use the TV without it:
- The buffering is much worse on the Sony. When it switches between ads and the video it takes several seconds to rebuffer.
- The delay between menus is measured in seconds, while the Roku is almost instantaneous
- It's almost like Sony didn't even have one UX designer working on their project. It will do idiotic things like when Hulu opens, create a modal dialog that says "The internet content is ready" and I must click OK to proceed.
- The remote and other menus are slow and hard to decipher just like you'd expect from built-in software.
The point is that building the user experience of a video client is not trivial. I can't even blame Sony, really -- a non-software company will never do a good job at that kind of thing.
The Roku is a world of difference and until a company like that is building the built-in software, the mainstream of the market will be in third-party devices.
>The point is that building the user experience of a video client is not trivial.
No, but "Sony" have done it before and it's been fine. PS3. (I've not tried the PS4's media player.)
>I can't even blame Sony, really -- a non-software company
Sony Vegas? ACID? Sound Forge? Sony is not short of software production, "Sony Creative Software" makes a few software products most people here would have heard of. Not to mention SCE, they've made quite a bit of software and no-doubt have some UI engineers.
No, but "Sony" have done it before and it's been fine. PS3. (I've not tried the PS4's media player.)
>I can't even blame Sony, really -- a non-software company
Sony Vegas? ACID? Sound Forge? Sony is not short of software production, "Sony Creative Software" makes a few software products most people here would have heard of. Not to mention SCE, they've made quite a bit of software and no-doubt have some UI engineers.
"Sony Vegas? ACID? Sound Forge?"
They bought every single one of those, from Vegas and from Sonic Foundry, Sony was not responsible for their design or creation. The UIs were AFAIK fully in place before Sony ever owned them, though I am sure some changes have been made.
They bought every single one of those, from Vegas and from Sonic Foundry, Sony was not responsible for their design or creation. The UIs were AFAIK fully in place before Sony ever owned them, though I am sure some changes have been made.
Most Smart TV platforms are developed by outside companies anyway. Check out Beesmart, Yahoo Connected TV, Mediaroom, Wyplay, and dozens of others.
It might even surprise you that Belkin and Dlink don't design or manufacture their own hardware or software.
It might even surprise you that Belkin and Dlink don't design or manufacture their own hardware or software.
> - It's almost like Sony didn't even have one UX designer working on their project. It will do idiotic things like when Hulu opens, create a modal dialog that says "The internet content is ready" and I must click OK to proceed.
This really sounds like a design failure + rushed development. It sounds like the sort of thing that you would throw in during rapid development with the idea to replace it later, only it never ends up on a TODO list, and there is no one looking at the 'big picture' to make sure that these things are caught.
This really sounds like a design failure + rushed development. It sounds like the sort of thing that you would throw in during rapid development with the idea to replace it later, only it never ends up on a TODO list, and there is no one looking at the 'big picture' to make sure that these things are caught.
The Youtube app on Samsung SmartTvs is pretty good. I'm not sure who does it, but it has quite deep integration with the Youtube Android app and site, so it could be done by Google.
For example, you can pair your TV with your phone or computer, and then use the device to navigate Youtube but the TV to display videos.
For example, you can pair your TV with your phone or computer, and then use the device to navigate Youtube but the TV to display videos.
It's YouTube's html5 leanback experience. So it's Google, but they license the interface to a lot of vendors. Google can in theory push updates out this way too.
This is also what Netflix increasingly does (Hulu Plus and Pandora too).
If a smart TV or set top box has a good version of WebKit embedding in it and uses html5 rather than embedded versions of code, they can stay up to date much better. Samsung's newest TVs are designed this way, but there might be a provision check for the Samsung website as was the case in this thread, which is just bs.
The problem was the first two generations of "smart TV"software were highly proprietary embedded systems with custom apps from a service. It took 7 years, but most have moved to html5.
You do still run into hybrid solutions. Even the Roku3 and TiVo Roamio have html5 for some apps and custom old-ass shit for others.
For the fire TV, Amazon uses html5 for its own apps but android apps for other services (except YouTube, who doesn't offer its app outside of google play, so it's the html5 version Roku and some of the TVs use). In that case, I wish for companies with great html5 solutions for those with them (pandora, Netflix, Hulu Plus)
This is also what Netflix increasingly does (Hulu Plus and Pandora too).
If a smart TV or set top box has a good version of WebKit embedding in it and uses html5 rather than embedded versions of code, they can stay up to date much better. Samsung's newest TVs are designed this way, but there might be a provision check for the Samsung website as was the case in this thread, which is just bs.
The problem was the first two generations of "smart TV"software were highly proprietary embedded systems with custom apps from a service. It took 7 years, but most have moved to html5.
You do still run into hybrid solutions. Even the Roku3 and TiVo Roamio have html5 for some apps and custom old-ass shit for others.
For the fire TV, Amazon uses html5 for its own apps but android apps for other services (except YouTube, who doesn't offer its app outside of google play, so it's the html5 version Roku and some of the TVs use). In that case, I wish for companies with great html5 solutions for those with them (pandora, Netflix, Hulu Plus)
I'm also a big fan of how the back button is on the opposite side of the screen to the remote for no reason.
...otherwise this multinational, multi-billion dollar corporation could've avoided the entire market. /s
(Shrug) They could always focus on making the best TV display they possibly can, and see how that works out for them. Nobody asked them to build the next-generation WebTV.
(Shrug) They could always focus on making the best TV display they possibly can, and see how that works out for them. Nobody asked them to build the next-generation WebTV.
> I don't know about you, but I consider myself an above-average tech consumer and I value simplicity and if companies can manage to keep my TV functional for the next 5-7 years with all of my services, then it is money well spent.
The problem with "smart TV" is that it's inherently a conflict of interest. It would be great if Samsung sold a TV with SamsungOS on it and if I don't like it or they stop supporting it I could easily replace it with Android or Ubuntu, but they don't sell that. Because they want to spam your TV with ads and force you to buy a new one on their schedule.
It's obvious why they want to sell it that way. It's not obvious why anyone should want to buy it that way.
The problem with "smart TV" is that it's inherently a conflict of interest. It would be great if Samsung sold a TV with SamsungOS on it and if I don't like it or they stop supporting it I could easily replace it with Android or Ubuntu, but they don't sell that. Because they want to spam your TV with ads and force you to buy a new one on their schedule.
It's obvious why they want to sell it that way. It's not obvious why anyone should want to buy it that way.
We're going to look back and laugh at "Smart" TVs like we currently laugh at TVs with built-in VHS players.
The TVs aren't "Smart" for the consumers. They are "Smart" for the producers/advertisers/etc that want to data mine your television consumption (now including various streaming services).
There you go. Weren't LG smart TVs found to phone home the file names of media you play on it off your own external storage? No thanks.
Wow, I had no idea this[0] was a real thing. This actually makes me more nervous than Kinect webcam thing which is just small piece of duct tape away from getting resolved.
[0] http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/11/smart-tv-from-lg-pho...
[0] http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/11/smart-tv-from-lg-pho...
Samsung Smart TVs have a dubious track record on security/privacy issues, too:
http://mashable.com/2013/08/02/samsung-smart-tv-hack/
http://mashable.com/2013/08/02/samsung-smart-tv-hack/
Absolutely agree. Computers should only be used to crunch numbers for particle scientists and not for sharing information, let alone for entertainment.
Right. Because the currently 'Smart' TVs are at the cutting edge of user interface design...
If Samsung/Sony/etc thought that they had chops to make a good device to connect a TV to the Internet, then maybe they wouldn't feel the need to package it with the display device, and just release it stand-alone.
If Samsung/Sony/etc thought that they had chops to make a good device to connect a TV to the Internet, then maybe they wouldn't feel the need to package it with the display device, and just release it stand-alone.
TVs get upgraded perhaps once a decade or so.
Wrong. I've upgraded my TV twice in the past 5 years, and the average TV replacement cycle has decreased to 4 years[1].
They don't need to have software in them, and shouldn't.
Yes they do. How else do I watch Youtube and Plex on it? Plug another box in, with another remote?
Leave that to people and companies who actually know how to produce software.
I agree that would be nice. Fortunately Samsung has a completely inadequately documented but reasonably open API for building SmartTV apps.
TVs should display an image.
That would be called a monitor.
There are no exceptions.
I'm one.
Does the fact that I use the Youtube, Vimeo, iView and Plex apps on my Samsung TV more than I watch broadcast TV not apply for some reason?
[1] http://gigaom.com/2012/01/05/tv-replacement-cycle/
Wrong. I've upgraded my TV twice in the past 5 years, and the average TV replacement cycle has decreased to 4 years[1].
They don't need to have software in them, and shouldn't.
Yes they do. How else do I watch Youtube and Plex on it? Plug another box in, with another remote?
Leave that to people and companies who actually know how to produce software.
I agree that would be nice. Fortunately Samsung has a completely inadequately documented but reasonably open API for building SmartTV apps.
TVs should display an image.
That would be called a monitor.
There are no exceptions.
I'm one.
Does the fact that I use the Youtube, Vimeo, iView and Plex apps on my Samsung TV more than I watch broadcast TV not apply for some reason?
[1] http://gigaom.com/2012/01/05/tv-replacement-cycle/
>Yes they do. How else do I watch Youtube and Plex on it? Plug another box in, with another remote?
Frankly, that other box should be the one handling the TV tuning too.
Frankly, that other box should be the one handling the TV tuning too.
Despite the other commentators' views, I completely agree. My Panasonic's YouTube app cannot ffwd or rewind. WTF! For a video streaming app! Unbelievable.
What I do is fire up the XBox. It's a brain-dead app there too+, but at least I can rewind a few seconds if I missed a word or two.
+ Titles truncated too much; no comments viewer; unresponsive UI.
What I do is fire up the XBox. It's a brain-dead app there too+, but at least I can rewind a few seconds if I missed a word or two.
+ Titles truncated too much; no comments viewer; unresponsive UI.
The problem is that the TV industry has l lagged behind the monitor industry in this understanding. A monitor knows it's justa screen... It does nothing without an attached system. I want a TV like that. Let the attached device control the on/off of the TV and the volume, and if you need to attach a peripheral, then it attaches to the device.
TV ports are digital now, they could power and give control to another device. Just stick a port on the back for the box . I actually love the stick form-factor that's growing now, let's you hide the device and get the sleek appearance of a smart TV without the cruft.
TV ports are digital now, they could power and give control to another device. Just stick a port on the back for the box . I actually love the stick form-factor that's growing now, let's you hide the device and get the sleek appearance of a smart TV without the cruft.
Define "attach peripheral". Is wireless display over DLNA ok?
Smart TVs actually have many nice features many people don't know about, dlna being the most prominent. Universal remote being another of them, with my TV I just say I have device x on hdmi2 and the TV remote will then be able to do almost anything I need to control on that device.
The built in apps are usually crap but I do see the value in having the ability to install them, why should I have to buy yet another device if I just want to watch Netflix, the TV already has the processing power to do so. Although arguably a chromecast is practically free compared to the price of a TV.
Smart TVs actually have many nice features many people don't know about, dlna being the most prominent. Universal remote being another of them, with my TV I just say I have device x on hdmi2 and the TV remote will then be able to do almost anything I need to control on that device.
The built in apps are usually crap but I do see the value in having the ability to install them, why should I have to buy yet another device if I just want to watch Netflix, the TV already has the processing power to do so. Although arguably a chromecast is practically free compared to the price of a TV.
Samsung seems to understand that TVs get upgraded at a slower rate than the TV's smarts evolve and that software updates can only get you so far. They have started to ship something named the Evolution Kit. For around $200 it allows the user to unscrew the CPU module from their existing TV and install a more modern CPU/software combo.
https://www.samsung.com/us/video/tvs-accessories/SEK-1000/ZA
https://www.samsung.com/us/video/tvs-accessories/SEK-1000/ZA
Completely worthless. The CPU in a TV is never the problem. That's why they use such low powered CPUs to begin with. Nobody even makes a TV with a Core i7 even though there is no technical reason why they couldn't, because there is no demand for it. All anyone cares is that it can decode video at the native resolution, which the original CPU will be able to do until all the pixels wear out.
Well, power is a huge concern. We were looking at CPUs embedded in TVs, and 10 watts was about the limit for the processor board.
Regulations (esp in the EU) get into the game as well.
Life is better as a component that attaches with a cable. You can't really put a gaming console in a TV, not yet (not one you'd want to actually use, anyway).
Regulations (esp in the EU) get into the game as well.
Life is better as a component that attaches with a cable. You can't really put a gaming console in a TV, not yet (not one you'd want to actually use, anyway).
That upgrade is twice the price of the highest-end Roku or AppleTV. Samsung still doesn't get it.
Of course there are exceptions. My girlfriend being one of them. She's not capable of switching and input and using a different remote to control a different device - or even a universal remote to control both devices, for that matter. If she cannot get to Netflix with the push of a button, then I get a call every time she wants to watch Netflix when I'm not home. Smart TVs make technology accessible, and that's why they are popular.
Totally disagree. I love the fact that I can watch Netflix without some box or computer connected to my screen and an extra remote control. Having just the Smart TV is a cheaper and simpler solution, and is easier to set up.
The fact that Samsung haven't gotten things quite right with their Smart TVs doesn't mean I'm going to buy an Apple TV or some other box.
The fact that Samsung haven't gotten things quite right with their Smart TVs doesn't mean I'm going to buy an Apple TV or some other box.
What's next - cell phones should only call people and nothing else? Watches should only tell us the time?
The whole idea of using phones to "call" people is absurd, practically barbaric. No one even does that anymore, having to do your own talking, memorizing numbers... it's too much work. This so-called 'feature' should be removed from all future phones and replaced with an app which correlates the social media posts from your friends and translates them to audio using natural speech synthesis.
Au contraire. They know how to produce software, they just don't seem to get networking at all and that's an issue I've seen on my developers out there.
Not sure how it happened, but s/my/many.
Also, I'm sorry guys, but most of you don't really get advanced networking concepts. Just like I don't get many advanced software architecture topics. It's a matter of specialisation.
Also, I'm sorry guys, but most of you don't really get advanced networking concepts. Just like I don't get many advanced software architecture topics. It's a matter of specialisation.
There are usually multiple models of the TV. You can buy one without the "smart" features if you like or even disable them on an existing one.
Unfortunately, the non-smart choices pretty much leave you with tv's that have a real lack of connectivity since they appear to be the 'lower end' now.
but then how would they phone home with automatic content recognition fingerprints so that samsung could tool up its secret tv-retargeting department? oh, wait...
I bet Samsung knows how to do software, it is just a minor wrong practice of implementation, it should have another URLs for failsafe. SmartTV s makes some tasks easy, at least it allows you to Skype someone on a nice and huge screen.
By your logic the cellphones should not be smart too, they should only call people, nothing else.
By your logic the cellphones should not be smart too, they should only call people, nothing else.
No. Please don't put words in my mouth. :) Cellphones are an entirely different product in several ways. Most notably, they are portable, need to stand alone without other helper devices, function as complete computers, and are upgraded approximately every 1-2 years by most users. TVs possess none of these attributes.
That's why it's great for a cellphone to run a full modern OS, and why it's NOT great for a TV to do so. TVs last across multiple tech generations. They should contain the bare minimum of software needed to display whatever content you pump into them. Nothing else.
That's why it's great for a cellphone to run a full modern OS, and why it's NOT great for a TV to do so. TVs last across multiple tech generations. They should contain the bare minimum of software needed to display whatever content you pump into them. Nothing else.
'Most notably, they are portable, need to stand alone without other helper devices, function as complete computers, and are upgraded approximately every 1-2 years by most users. TVs possess none of these attributes.'
Each of these statements could equally apply to TVs (except, possibly, portability) and the fact that they haven't is merely circumstantial.
Yes, for the first 50 years of television's existence people tended to keep the same TV around for half a decade or more. But that's because fundamental changes happened between fifteen and thirty years apart - the switch from black and white to color, then the switch from broadcast to cable and satellite. The rate of innovation, and thus the turnover rate of individual devices, is increasing - just like with the telephone, which remained basically the same for the first several decades of its existence as well, until modern computer technology was invented.
Come to think of it the same thing is possibly true of desktop computers. My family was on the same computer between 1984/85 and 1993 - a Mac 512k. Then in 1994 or 95 we got a Performa 475. That lasted for about 5 years until I got a Mac clone - a Motorola Starmax 3000, which had a PowerPC processor. This laster about 2 -3 years. Then I built my first PC - that lasted for about two years. And each year since then I've used the same computer for 1 to 2 years at a time. The turnover period halved exponentially as computers got more and more sophisticated.
Each of these statements could equally apply to TVs (except, possibly, portability) and the fact that they haven't is merely circumstantial.
Yes, for the first 50 years of television's existence people tended to keep the same TV around for half a decade or more. But that's because fundamental changes happened between fifteen and thirty years apart - the switch from black and white to color, then the switch from broadcast to cable and satellite. The rate of innovation, and thus the turnover rate of individual devices, is increasing - just like with the telephone, which remained basically the same for the first several decades of its existence as well, until modern computer technology was invented.
Come to think of it the same thing is possibly true of desktop computers. My family was on the same computer between 1984/85 and 1993 - a Mac 512k. Then in 1994 or 95 we got a Performa 475. That lasted for about 5 years until I got a Mac clone - a Motorola Starmax 3000, which had a PowerPC processor. This laster about 2 -3 years. Then I built my first PC - that lasted for about two years. And each year since then I've used the same computer for 1 to 2 years at a time. The turnover period halved exponentially as computers got more and more sophisticated.
That TV above still has all the bare minimum to display whatever content you pump into it; the only part that's not functional in this post is its self-pumping, so to speak. As long as the TV can still function in dumb mode, having a smart mode is extra gravy that makes life so much easier.
Now if I could pair a Bluetooth keyboard with it...
No. The part that's not functional is everything else. "Smart" TVs tend to have all kinds of idiotic things like splash screens (what? why?), ads (seriously? ads on my TV that I paid for? no thanks), stupid software vulnerabilities and instability that a TV has no business having (see the topic this thread is based on), and all kinds of other nonsense.
Add in the fact that good TVs are basically always made by the companies who are the Very Worst at software (Samsung most prominently), and you have a recipe for digital heartburn.
No thanks. Dumb TVs forever.
Also, to respond to another comment, there's no correlation between a TV being "smart" and achieving a simple A/V setup with a single remote and a minimum of hassles. Unless you mean a negative correlation. It's very simple to achieve single-remote nirvana with a dumb TV. Plus you're not stuck with a dumb company's remote and software; you can pick your own, because a dumb TV will work with anything and not get in your way.
Singled out for especially thorough beatings are those TV makers who put actual physical buttons on their remotes for websites that might be gone next week. Seriously? No.
Dumb TVs forever.
Add in the fact that good TVs are basically always made by the companies who are the Very Worst at software (Samsung most prominently), and you have a recipe for digital heartburn.
No thanks. Dumb TVs forever.
Also, to respond to another comment, there's no correlation between a TV being "smart" and achieving a simple A/V setup with a single remote and a minimum of hassles. Unless you mean a negative correlation. It's very simple to achieve single-remote nirvana with a dumb TV. Plus you're not stuck with a dumb company's remote and software; you can pick your own, because a dumb TV will work with anything and not get in your way.
Singled out for especially thorough beatings are those TV makers who put actual physical buttons on their remotes for websites that might be gone next week. Seriously? No.
Dumb TVs forever.
I can sympathize with the fact that Smart TVs have a worse overall experience for you. The ads and crapware that you can't get rid of just mess up what was once a simple experience of turning on the TV. However I think smart TVs are a good idea because the way that people consume visual media is changing. More people are ditching cable and turning to services like Netflix. If HBO ever decouples itself from cable, I'd imagine this trend would increase more so. Why should I watch YouTube on my computer screen when I can watch it on a larger screen (and in a more comfortable room)?
I don't think the problem is with Smart TVs, I think it's just the current execution of the idea.
I don't think the problem is with Smart TVs, I think it's just the current execution of the idea.
The point of the thread is that Netflix and .mp4 files are more appropriately processed by a cheap smart box that plugs into an expensive dumb TV.
Currently, yes. I don't think that excludes the option of someone creating a smart TV that doesn't require an additional device to plug into it though.
Such a smart TV would have to be really well done in order to justify keeping the same privacy-invasive firmware around for the 5-10 year life of a TV.
Why should it even have to check a Samsung URL? Why not just let each "app" decide if it can get to what it needs to?
Imagine if your Samsung phone couldn't do anything that required an internet connection because Samsung's site was down. This is pretty much the same thing, IMHO.
Samsung's site being down or unreachable should have no bearing on the performance of the Netflix app whatsoever.
Imagine if your Samsung phone couldn't do anything that required an internet connection because Samsung's site was down. This is pretty much the same thing, IMHO.
Samsung's site being down or unreachable should have no bearing on the performance of the Netflix app whatsoever.
Which servers do you think your Apple or Google smartphones ping to check for internet connectivity? ;-) It's true that apps generally perform reachability tests on their own sites but global reachability checks can still affect the preference of wifi over cellular, for instamce. And the preferred method on Android to check for reachability, unlike iOS samples, uses the phone's checks rather than pinging a host of your choice.
So just for fun I turned off the WAN connection on my router. Effectively, I had no internet access but I do have a wireless LAN with some local devices.
Safari on iOS did not tell me "you don't have internet connectivity", but it did say that servers were unreachable (not surprising) and it let me use local servers without issue. iOS seems to prefer WiFi to cellular when it's available as it didn't fall back during my limited test.
This is the behaviour that I'd expect from the Smart TV. Just because it can't get to Samsung doesn't mean it can't get to Netflix.
Safari on iOS did not tell me "you don't have internet connectivity", but it did say that servers were unreachable (not surprising) and it let me use local servers without issue. iOS seems to prefer WiFi to cellular when it's available as it didn't fall back during my limited test.
This is the behaviour that I'd expect from the Smart TV. Just because it can't get to Samsung doesn't mean it can't get to Netflix.
When you connect to a Wifi network, iOS checks http://www.apple.com/library/test/success.html to see if you're in a captive portal (and pop up a full screen webview to let you log into the wifi, or cancel to fail out of it)
I imagine if Apple's DNS settings got screwed up or their server was throwing up something other than "Success" due to an error, iOS devices around the world would claim their Wifi needed a login and wasn't working.
edit: another comment further down linked this article that says that exactly the same thing happened to iOS http://www.zdnet.com/what-went-wrong-with-ios-6-wi-fi-700000...
I imagine if Apple's DNS settings got screwed up or their server was throwing up something other than "Success" due to an error, iOS devices around the world would claim their Wifi needed a login and wasn't working.
edit: another comment further down linked this article that says that exactly the same thing happened to iOS http://www.zdnet.com/what-went-wrong-with-ios-6-wi-fi-700000...
I was actually hoping that I'd see some misbehaviour when I ran my little test, but on the surface it appears that Apple learned from that mistake.
The results might have been different if I had ran the test longer or turned WiFi off and back on or something.
The results might have been different if I had ran the test longer or turned WiFi off and back on or something.
I believe Apple has an agreement with Akamai. Here are some data points for just one household with two macs, two iPhones, and two iPads
www.isg-apple.com.akadns.net 571 requests in the last day
us-courier.push-apple.com.akadns.net 558 requests in the last day
.akamai.net 709 requests in the last day
and
.akamaiedge.net 1967 requests in the last day
--
I believe Google just uses *.l.google.com (my open dns says 1202 requests in the last day)
www.isg-apple.com.akadns.net 571 requests in the last day
us-courier.push-apple.com.akadns.net 558 requests in the last day
.akamai.net 709 requests in the last day
and
.akamaiedge.net 1967 requests in the last day
--
I believe Google just uses *.l.google.com (my open dns says 1202 requests in the last day)
iOS and OS X uses http://www.apple.com/library/test/success.html for WiFi captive portal testing
"I bet Samsung knows how to do software"
Speaking as someone who is often forced to use Samsung software (particularly wrt/their Android phones), that would be a bad bet to make.
Speaking as someone who is often forced to use Samsung software (particularly wrt/their Android phones), that would be a bad bet to make.
I have to agree with the parent post, at least partially, current smart TVs are useless. But.. next gen? Maybe they'll get better.
Smart TVs that exposed ubiquitous hardware - like i386 did for desktops and laptops - where you can choose to run Windows/Linux/BSD would be ideal.. I'd choose a mix of Plex and XBMC given the choice... They provide real value atop the TV platform. Samsung and friends have a huge amount of catch-up to do before they are real contenders when it comes to having the best software (and even then .. Plex/XBMC need to double down on their "Mom" useability..)
(I have a Samsung TV, and recommend them, but always tell people to avoid the SmartTV gimmick. Plex and a Chromecast give a 1000x better experience for those who download, and Netflix etc + Chromecast cover those who don't)
Smart TVs that exposed ubiquitous hardware - like i386 did for desktops and laptops - where you can choose to run Windows/Linux/BSD would be ideal.. I'd choose a mix of Plex and XBMC given the choice... They provide real value atop the TV platform. Samsung and friends have a huge amount of catch-up to do before they are real contenders when it comes to having the best software (and even then .. Plex/XBMC need to double down on their "Mom" useability..)
(I have a Samsung TV, and recommend them, but always tell people to avoid the SmartTV gimmick. Plex and a Chromecast give a 1000x better experience for those who download, and Netflix etc + Chromecast cover those who don't)
> Plex/XBMC need to double down on their "Mom" useability..
I happen to disagree. Post installation Plex is literally a pleasure to use if you use your smartphone/tablet as a remote and just beam content to your TV.
I've yet to see any semi-open system as powerful, functional, yet user friendly.
I happen to disagree. Post installation Plex is literally a pleasure to use if you use your smartphone/tablet as a remote and just beam content to your TV.
I've yet to see any semi-open system as powerful, functional, yet user friendly.
Eh, no. The single most useful tv I have ever owned is my current one, a 2011 Samsung, with a built-in dlna client. Fuck mucking about with two, three or more remotes, set-top boxes, and all that. I'm never going back to that.
No software? So hard coded firmware like on CRTs? Personally I like having TV guide functionality, the ability to browse USB media and stream content from iView straight from my TV.
Or get updated iPlayer from the BBC though I do wish ITV would get thier act together and produce a working catchup service.
Thats one ABC1 viewr you have lost right there guys I gave up on whitechappel as your crappy catchup service was totaly unusable.
Thats one ABC1 viewr you have lost right there guys I gave up on whitechappel as your crappy catchup service was totaly unusable.
[deleted]
I agree. Worse, the software is crap from the start. I have one of these Samsung TVs. It is offline and will be forever in its lifetime.
Not only is the software that comes with it really useless, it phones home the first time you do connect it and installs a sh*tload of crapware, depending on your region. In my case lots of useless stuff around sports and tabloids. These apps are then prominently featured in the TV's menu.
No, you cannot diaable or remove them, nor reclaim that screen estate and put something else there. You install a couple things and have to scroll to find those, while the absolutely insane garbage sits in the middle of the screen. Only way back: Factory reset, never connect it again. Smart..
Not only is the software that comes with it really useless, it phones home the first time you do connect it and installs a sh*tload of crapware, depending on your region. In my case lots of useless stuff around sports and tabloids. These apps are then prominently featured in the TV's menu.
No, you cannot diaable or remove them, nor reclaim that screen estate and put something else there. You install a couple things and have to scroll to find those, while the absolutely insane garbage sits in the middle of the screen. Only way back: Factory reset, never connect it again. Smart..
No, you cannot diaable or remove them
But if the OP article is correct, you can prevent the TV from phoning home in the first place by spoofing the other way -- say, configuring the DNS that the TV sees to automatically return "no answer" for www.samsung.com. The question is, will the TV still see your local network? If so, you can stream to it from a DLNA server, as someone else upthread pointed out.
But if the OP article is correct, you can prevent the TV from phoning home in the first place by spoofing the other way -- say, configuring the DNS that the TV sees to automatically return "no answer" for www.samsung.com. The question is, will the TV still see your local network? If so, you can stream to it from a DLNA server, as someone else upthread pointed out.
Maybe, yes. Potential issues: You probably need to repeat the 'firmware reset, connect again' step a couple of times (like the author in the post required multiple tries). There might be uncaught requests that, for example, update the full thing.
My current best bet would be [1]. But so far I'm using a Pi, with xbmc. There's no way the TV stuff can improve on that.
1: http://wiki.samygo.tv/index.php5/The_E_Series_Wiki
My current best bet would be [1]. But so far I'm using a Pi, with xbmc. There's no way the TV stuff can improve on that.
1: http://wiki.samygo.tv/index.php5/The_E_Series_Wiki
Funny you should mention XBMC. I had almost exactly the same issue as the one described here with an older version of it 6 months ago.
Old writeup: [link redacted]
Old writeup: [link redacted]
What percentage of the population do you think can do that?
Probably about the same percentage that could do what the author of the original article did.
your suggestion implies that the system is built rationally and to a standard. Who's to say something in that config file isnt used as a hardcoded setting somewhere in the code?
You might be able to spoof the DNS to the TV without changing anything on the TV. However, it's quite possible that the code inside the TV is sufficiently insane that what I suggested would not be possible, even if you spoofed DNS externally; that's why I was wondering if anyone had tried experimenting.
So much convenience!
yep, this post laments the problems when "smart" automation often goes wrong - also touching on automating tasks where people need to pay attention at the same time, such as driving or aviation:
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140308200904-1...
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140308200904-1...
While I agree with some parts with that post, I think the conclusion is wrong. I believe the root of the problem are the wrong terminal values. "Smart" technology is not put there to really solve a problem, but to drive sales. Providing real utility for users is secondary, as long as the new feature has big marketing value. Therefore I see the problem not with engineers and designers, but with salesmen giving orders and marketing-driven development.
As for lessons for driving, I see only two ways - either do actually train drivers like they should be, just like pilots are trained, or automate them out completely. Current level of training required for getting a driver's licence is a complete joke, and the attitude of most of the people who took or are taking the exam is just plain scary.
As for lessons for driving, I see only two ways - either do actually train drivers like they should be, just like pilots are trained, or automate them out completely. Current level of training required for getting a driver's licence is a complete joke, and the attitude of most of the people who took or are taking the exam is just plain scary.
I tend to agree with you, with one minor exception. If you're going to put an ethernet jack on a TV anyway because people seem to like having Netflix apps on their tv, I'd love it if there were some basic "dumb" software as well, like an RTSP/RTMP client.
At work, we have five of these Samsung Smart TVs and if I want to get a video signal from my control room on to one of them, I have to send it via HD-SDI into the main video router, then run coax from the router to the tv, then use an SDI to HDMI adapter (the cheapest of which is the monoprice $100 one). The picture ends up looking great, but it doesn't exactly feel like 2014.
At work, we have five of these Samsung Smart TVs and if I want to get a video signal from my control room on to one of them, I have to send it via HD-SDI into the main video router, then run coax from the router to the tv, then use an SDI to HDMI adapter (the cheapest of which is the monoprice $100 one). The picture ends up looking great, but it doesn't exactly feel like 2014.
> I'd love it if there were some basic "dumb" software as well, like an RTSP/RTMP client.
No DLNA?
No DLNA?
Thanks for suggesting DLNA! (Stuff like this is why I keep coming back to HN)
I spent the afternoon trying various different approaches with my Sony Blu-Ray player that has DLNA support. It appears to only want to play files, not live streams. That said, I haven't exhausted all options yet and will have more tools to test with at the office. And from a video engineering perspective, RTSP/RTMP or even HLS as native formats would be way easier.
I spent the afternoon trying various different approaches with my Sony Blu-Ray player that has DLNA support. It appears to only want to play files, not live streams. That said, I haven't exhausted all options yet and will have more tools to test with at the office. And from a video engineering perspective, RTSP/RTMP or even HLS as native formats would be way easier.
Devices that infer that connectivity to one site implies connectivity to the Internet are flawed. Having connectivity to one site means only that a route exists between you and the remote host. That's it. It says nothing about any other site. It's generally not good to do "Internet connectivity" checks. Just check to see if the site you want to connect to is responding. In the case of Samsung, who cares if samsung.com is down if I want YouTube. Just connect to YouTube and if that's down, then tell me.
The only useful exception to the above that I've seen is for Wi-Fi hotspot detection (e.g., checking a known response from Microsoft NCSI). The key difference here is that if the NCSI server is down or not responding, the user is not blocked from trying to connect.
The only useful exception to the above that I've seen is for Wi-Fi hotspot detection (e.g., checking a known response from Microsoft NCSI). The key difference here is that if the NCSI server is down or not responding, the user is not blocked from trying to connect.
Microsoft published a description of the communications, too: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766017(v=ws.10)...
It's quite useful, so implemented it in bash: https://github.com/threedaymonk/ncsi
[deleted]
So, yes, they are broken when you think about them like that. But, they cover the 95% use case... That case where most people say "The Internet is down" ;)
Giving the 95% a good experience should always be prioritised above giving 100% of users a mediocre experience.
Giving the 95% a good experience should always be prioritised above giving 100% of users a mediocre experience.
Browsing samsung.com on ones TV's close to a 0% use case, not a 95% use case for users. Therefore checking to make sure samsung.com is up helps about 0% of their users.
See, that doesn't really describe the situation here. The internet was working just fine, but samsung.com was down. As a result, the TV wouldn't let users get to Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, or other services because it insisted it was offline, even though those services were working perfectly fine. The problem is that that for virtually every user, the TV was insisting "the internet is down," but their connections were working just fine.
I always wish people would reply when downvoting.. A -1 without a comment could mean a million different things.. :(
I really don't like how Samsung handles this.. I couldn't use my TV all morning to watch Youtube (I know, problems..), just because they think "If Samsung is down, don't bother opening the Youtube app". Seriously, what the heck...
Also, this is not the first time this happens.. I mean their data center was on fire (www.engadget.com/2014/04/20/samsung-com-outage-sds-fire/), but isn't there some failover?
Also, this is not the first time this happens.. I mean their data center was on fire (www.engadget.com/2014/04/20/samsung-com-outage-sds-fire/), but isn't there some failover?
Apple devices also had a similar problem a while back http://www.zdnet.com/what-went-wrong-with-ios-6-wi-fi-700000...
When iOS or Mac connects to wifi, it hits a similar URL to Apple to check if the device is stuck behind a captive wifi network. If the check failed, it attempts to throw up the networks login page.
But Apple's check server went down, and therefore peoples iPod touches, Macs and iPads got stuck in a nasty cycle of trying to throw up a non-existant login page.
When iOS or Mac connects to wifi, it hits a similar URL to Apple to check if the device is stuck behind a captive wifi network. If the check failed, it attempts to throw up the networks login page.
But Apple's check server went down, and therefore peoples iPod touches, Macs and iPads got stuck in a nasty cycle of trying to throw up a non-existant login page.
Actually it wasn't that the server was down, it was that it was misconfigured and returned unexpected 404 responses which made it look like a captive portal.
If we don't start building (and pushing for) more distributed/decentralised systems then this is the future we can expect more of. Aside from this, why should my TV need to dial home at all?
Why? To confirm connectivity.
Welcome to HN, where answering a question gets downvoted.
Welcome to HN, where answering a question gets downvoted.
My browser doesn't do that so there's really no need for a TV to do that.
Are you sure your browser doesn't do that? There's usually some code that checks for 'captive portals' - i.e. wifi providers that want you to login before giving you a real internet connection.
What I mean is that my browser (Safari) doesn't dial home (Apple) to decide whether or not it can try serving me content (HackerNews). NB That doesn't mean it never connects to Apple without my knowledge (or elsewhere), but rather that it's not a point of failure.
Edit: I'm making a distinction between what my browser does vs the OS and wifi. In any case, your home TV doesn't really have to deal with captive portals.
Edit: I'm making a distinction between what my browser does vs the OS and wifi. In any case, your home TV doesn't really have to deal with captive portals.
Your Mac does exactly that actually.
http://blog.erratasec.com/2010/09/apples-secret-wispr-reques...
Apple broke the page once and everybody's wifi broke in response. Single point of failure.
http://blog.erratasec.com/2010/09/apples-secret-wispr-reques...
Apple broke the page once and everybody's wifi broke in response. Single point of failure.
How did everybody's wifi broke? I would have imagined that the only thing that would have happened was that, for wifis that required a login portal, you would have to launch your browser manually and let the portal hijack any pagerequest.
How did they manage to ensure that this didn't work if there wasn't such a portal or if you did it manually?
How did they manage to ensure that this didn't work if there wasn't such a portal or if you did it manually?
It's not safari that does it but the "OS" itself, and by that I mean the wireless networking tool. I would imagine that there's some code that runs upon successful connection to an AP and checks to see if you're in a captive portal or not.
The resulting UI looks like a plain window with no UI elements except a close button and a browser frame so you can auth with the captive portal system, and goes away once connectivity is "restored".
The resulting UI looks like a plain window with no UI elements except a close button and a browser frame so you can auth with the captive portal system, and goes away once connectivity is "restored".
Thanks for the info. That page talks about iOS but is the same true of OSX?
Something like that, most likely -- OS X also detects when a network captures and redirects requests until you log in/agree to terms/whatever, and pops a special window for you to do that in as soon as it connects to such a network.
How did you reach this conclusion?
At least with devices running iOS, if you let the charge drop to zero, and it loses its cached network settings, and then when you try to reconnect to your home wifi router, it will look for a file called
library/test/success.html at www.apple.com
which contains one line: Success.
If that file is missing, you will not be allowed to connect to your own home LAN, because Apple thinks you are behind a "captive portal". I redirect *.apple.com to stop iAd, ntp and other Apple crap even when I'm connected to the internet, so unlike the OP, this is a problem even when www.apple.com is not down for maintenance.
One solution is to redirect www.apple.com to your own httpd serving a local copy of /library/test/success.html.
In short, you are wrong. Redirect apple.com comains to your own httpd and read your logs.
There is lots of dialing home coming from iOS and indeed some of it will affect your ability to read content.
At least with devices running iOS, if you let the charge drop to zero, and it loses its cached network settings, and then when you try to reconnect to your home wifi router, it will look for a file called
library/test/success.html at www.apple.com
which contains one line: Success.
If that file is missing, you will not be allowed to connect to your own home LAN, because Apple thinks you are behind a "captive portal". I redirect *.apple.com to stop iAd, ntp and other Apple crap even when I'm connected to the internet, so unlike the OP, this is a problem even when www.apple.com is not down for maintenance.
One solution is to redirect www.apple.com to your own httpd serving a local copy of /library/test/success.html.
In short, you are wrong. Redirect apple.com comains to your own httpd and read your logs.
There is lots of dialing home coming from iOS and indeed some of it will affect your ability to read content.
However, if that check fails, you'll only get a _notification_ "probably captive portal, you may want to login at yada yada" - instead of "Apple is down, no connectivity for you, nyah nyah".
Annoying, but not a showstopper.
Annoying, but not a showstopper.
You asked why so I answered. I didn't state a position about whether it should be doing it or not.
There are better ways to check connectivity. At least let it check multiple sites instead of only samsung.com .
Also, the answer is wrong. It does not just check connectivity, but downloads an XML file containing information on services that it is supposed to show.
Also, the answer is wrong. It does not just check connectivity, but downloads an XML file containing information on services that it is supposed to show.
You have to act more appalled by trivial annoyances, or you slow down the building of the whole hyperbole storm that the people here like to create. Otherwise, they are unable to distract themselves from the boredom and feelings of lack of empowerment in their lives.
This just reaffirms my impression of Samsung as a decent hardware company and a poor software company.
I was thrilled to switch from my Samsung Galaxy S3 to my Nexus 4. The S3 had horrible Samsung-equivalent apps for everything: email, chat, a browser, and a lot of system services that I couldn't uninstall. It also had some specially built update mechanism, separate from Google Play, that would drain my battery, until it was fixed.
I like Samsung though, as long as they stick to producing hardware. My ARM Chromebook is a lovely device: Samsung hardware with Google software on it.
I was thrilled to switch from my Samsung Galaxy S3 to my Nexus 4. The S3 had horrible Samsung-equivalent apps for everything: email, chat, a browser, and a lot of system services that I couldn't uninstall. It also had some specially built update mechanism, separate from Google Play, that would drain my battery, until it was fixed.
I like Samsung though, as long as they stick to producing hardware. My ARM Chromebook is a lovely device: Samsung hardware with Google software on it.
I build "smart" TV apps for a living. Samsung's connectivity check for their TVs from 2010 has a list of five domains that it checks against. Discovered this during some debugging a couple of years ago. The list, in the order pings are made, is:
icq.com (not kidding)
yahoo.com
samsung.com
google.com
Some other domain I can't rememberAnd it requires all five to connect, rather than just one?
Single points of failure everywhere. This is not the future we were promised. At least the fixes are in our hands.
Custom and open operating systems are the only way forward against this sort of bullshit. It's not just crappy engineering, it's also TVs doing analytics on what you watch, always-on cameras, etc..
As long as we have the power to root these devices and install our own software on it, we will be fine. But for how long is that going to keep up?
As long as we have the power to root these devices and install our own software on it, we will be fine. But for how long is that going to keep up?
> TVs doing analytics on what you watch, always-on cameras
Who's doing the watching now? That sounds ridiculously Orwellian...
> As long as we have the power to root these devices and install our own software on it, we will be fine. But for how long is that going to keep up?
The most interesting part of this is that "rooting" often relies on finding and exploiting a vulnerability, something that would be considered detrimental to security and normally thought of as a bug. In other words, this power is coming from having not-so-secure devices. Imagine if this TV was more secure; it used DNSSEC and HTTPS to authenticate/encrypt communications, and was designed to be resistant to tampering via hardware (secure processor, encrypted memory, etc.) -- ostensibly for things like DRM. Do suggestions like "all Internet traffic should be encrypted" start to look less appealing now? To say it plainly, in this case "insecurity is freedom."
Who's doing the watching now? That sounds ridiculously Orwellian...
> As long as we have the power to root these devices and install our own software on it, we will be fine. But for how long is that going to keep up?
The most interesting part of this is that "rooting" often relies on finding and exploiting a vulnerability, something that would be considered detrimental to security and normally thought of as a bug. In other words, this power is coming from having not-so-secure devices. Imagine if this TV was more secure; it used DNSSEC and HTTPS to authenticate/encrypt communications, and was designed to be resistant to tampering via hardware (secure processor, encrypted memory, etc.) -- ostensibly for things like DRM. Do suggestions like "all Internet traffic should be encrypted" start to look less appealing now? To say it plainly, in this case "insecurity is freedom."
"Users should be able to install certificates" isn't super helpful for most users, but it is sensible and also a nice clear message.
The question isn't necessarily about rooting, seeing as the vast majority of people don't know what that even means. They shouldn't be tracking what we watch in the first place.
Reminds me of this story from a year or two ago, where LG continued collecting data even after the feature had been disabled on their TVs.
Reminds me of this story from a year or two ago, where LG continued collecting data even after the feature had been disabled on their TVs.
I agree, but we need proper technical and social solutions. Tracking will be done. Yes, it's disgusting that some of this is legal in the first place, but even if it were illegal there would be companies doing it and we would need solutions against these.
It's not so much a single point of failure as it is colossal stupidity on the part of an engineering team. They just didn't think out the consequences. It's a bad design, but they couldn't tell. They're crappy software engineers.
The problem is that you can't tell this until it fails. You can see a scratched screen or fuzzy display, but you can't detect garbage software until it goes sideways.
But now we have another good data point to support the generalization that the firmware on TVs that doesn't do actual core TV funtionality, like video-related stuff, is pretty bad, and consumers should avoid these features.
The problem is that you can't tell this until it fails. You can see a scratched screen or fuzzy display, but you can't detect garbage software until it goes sideways.
But now we have another good data point to support the generalization that the firmware on TVs that doesn't do actual core TV funtionality, like video-related stuff, is pretty bad, and consumers should avoid these features.
The engineers were probably well aware that it was a bad design, but it was an expedient design. "It works, ship it." It's just a matter of priorities and limited resources -- do you work on making the software better or do you harden it against a highly unlikely point of failure?
How is this "expedient"? They had to do work to explicitly make other things stop working if Samsung's server went down.
I agree that the engineers (a) probably understood it was a bad design, but (b) were told to do it that way and to ship it.
But it's still cravenly bad design. I'll bet twenty dollars that people are going to be doing regular DDOS attacks against that Samsung server now, and that Samsung will have a ton of trouble keeping their TVs functional. You're correct that data centers don't catch on fire very often (cable cuts are lots more frequent), but that's not the interesting failure mode now. Bored script kiddies and blackmail are going to be next.
A week of schedule slip (if that) is going to translate into a bunch of bad publicity and upset customers because of expedience. This may not be pretty.
[I'm wondering what the firmware update story for these TVs is. Is it secure? Is it reliable? Is it a crappy user experience? Can you update the firmware at all?]
But it's still cravenly bad design. I'll bet twenty dollars that people are going to be doing regular DDOS attacks against that Samsung server now, and that Samsung will have a ton of trouble keeping their TVs functional. You're correct that data centers don't catch on fire very often (cable cuts are lots more frequent), but that's not the interesting failure mode now. Bored script kiddies and blackmail are going to be next.
A week of schedule slip (if that) is going to translate into a bunch of bad publicity and upset customers because of expedience. This may not be pretty.
[I'm wondering what the firmware update story for these TVs is. Is it secure? Is it reliable? Is it a crappy user experience? Can you update the firmware at all?]
You know, as an end user, I'm getting kind of tired of the "The engineers were told to do it wrong by those mean, nasty managers! It's not their fault!" excuse. The people writing this software are presumably grown-ups--professionals who need to start taking some responsibility for the crap they shovel out into the world.
If a construction engineer built an apartment building that he knew was going to fall over, his PE license could be suspended or revoked. It doesn't matter who told him to do it.
If a construction engineer built an apartment building that he knew was going to fall over, his PE license could be suspended or revoked. It doesn't matter who told him to do it.
Managers control reviews, and money. So that'd be a way to vote with your feet (by quitting).
In most companies, engineers don't control what gets shipped. There is no way to say "No, you can't ship this," and the product is going out with crappy quality because of a ship date. It comes down to how companies determine software quality, and how much they care.
In really bad cases, nobody can tell that the software is terrible.
In truly horrible cases, everyone knows the software is crap, but they ship it anyway because they don't care.
In any case, "getting professional" in some companies would mean losing your job.
In most companies, engineers don't control what gets shipped. There is no way to say "No, you can't ship this," and the product is going out with crappy quality because of a ship date. It comes down to how companies determine software quality, and how much they care.
In really bad cases, nobody can tell that the software is terrible.
In truly horrible cases, everyone knows the software is crap, but they ship it anyway because they don't care.
In any case, "getting professional" in some companies would mean losing your job.
"One specific server on the entire Internet goes down" is "highly unlikely"? Not on this planet...
This is exactly the sort of problem that made me decide to buy a regular television after having previously bought a "smart" television. It does not anger me quite so much as Microsoft trying to get me to pay them a subscription fee to access my own network hardware, but it does drive me in the direction of wanting an open-source set-top HTPC to sit at the interface between dumb viewscreen and Internet.
So from that XML, you seem to control the URLs the TV will grab. Just a few buffer overflows away from root on the TV, and of course you don't really own the hardware you bought until you have root, right?
A while back I "hacked" my Samsung TV. I spoofed a DNS entry to point to my laptop, and put a tiny webserver on it. Then I could hit the "News" button on my remote and get obscene fortune cookies on my TV!
Then I turned it off. Internet on TV is silly, as far as I can tell.
My girlfriend's wonderful Panasonic has tons of internet features -- web, youtube. Web is nearly useless because of lack of keyboard; youtube is awkward; vimeo isn't bad. Using an Android app, selecting your youtube video, then doing "send to TV" is great when we bother to do it.
The "smart" Panasonic is a dumb screen in front of Roku. The only other non-dumb features we use is the "play videos from SD card" feature, and the "play from DLNA (my laptop)" feature -- both get used quite often, and work well.
Then I turned it off. Internet on TV is silly, as far as I can tell.
My girlfriend's wonderful Panasonic has tons of internet features -- web, youtube. Web is nearly useless because of lack of keyboard; youtube is awkward; vimeo isn't bad. Using an Android app, selecting your youtube video, then doing "send to TV" is great when we bother to do it.
The "smart" Panasonic is a dumb screen in front of Roku. The only other non-dumb features we use is the "play videos from SD card" feature, and the "play from DLNA (my laptop)" feature -- both get used quite often, and work well.
testing a connection for various features is not as robust as actually trying the operation you want to complete and determining if it worked.
drop all the extra work and let code fail gracefully while in action.
drop all the extra work and let code fail gracefully while in action.
It's a good thing they didn't use HTTPS. And a good thing that something else doesn't actually rely on samsung.com (listing services, API endpoints, whatever).
This is a cool hack for now but if I had to make a prediction I'd bet there's a future coming where this isn't possible, where the two are even more intertwined -- even though most of us know they don't need to be and wouldn't design our own systems that way.
This is a cool hack for now but if I had to make a prediction I'd bet there's a future coming where this isn't possible, where the two are even more intertwined -- even though most of us know they don't need to be and wouldn't design our own systems that way.
Oh boyo.
We have samsung smart tvs at home, which Plex runs on top of... looks like I'm going to have to implement something like this with openWRT in future..
We have samsung smart tvs at home, which Plex runs on top of... looks like I'm going to have to implement something like this with openWRT in future..
I assume Samsung is using Linux as the underlying OS here. If so, does Linux have a "Network Awareness" API? I understand that Windows has one. More info: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766017%28WS.10%...
As far as I can see, this issue exists because, fundamentally, there is no such thing as "Internet access". If a device can access only 50% of hosts on the Internet, does it have Internet access? What about 1% or 99%?
Consequently, it makes no sense to make "Internet access" a binary variable that a software system uses to determine whether it has access to all Internet sites.
One would think the YouTube app would have a built-in mechanism for handling a failure when connecting to youtube.com. It's entirely possible that samsung.com could be up, but youtube.com down. I assume the YouTube app gracefully handles this, and this would render Samsung's binary state "Internet present?" variable useless at best.
TL;DR: Having a system-wide "Internet available?" variable is meaningless because individual apps need to be able to handle not being able to connect to a particular host anyway (eg. youtube.com, netflix.com).
Consequently, it makes no sense to make "Internet access" a binary variable that a software system uses to determine whether it has access to all Internet sites.
One would think the YouTube app would have a built-in mechanism for handling a failure when connecting to youtube.com. It's entirely possible that samsung.com could be up, but youtube.com down. I assume the YouTube app gracefully handles this, and this would render Samsung's binary state "Internet present?" variable useless at best.
TL;DR: Having a system-wide "Internet available?" variable is meaningless because individual apps need to be able to handle not being able to connect to a particular host anyway (eg. youtube.com, netflix.com).
Well, the system-wide "internet available?" variable isn't completely useless from a user perspective.
If youtube.com happens to be down for whatever reason, there isn't much the user can do about it except wait, so there isn't much for the YouTube to do besides display a standard error message and call it a day.
But in the more common case where the user's internet connection is unavailable or misconfigured, there are troubleshooting steps the user can take (make sure it's plugged in, try turning the router off and on again, check network settings, etc...).
I suspect the design was to help users get their TVs connected to the internet by providing more useful diagnostics when they are offline. To do that, you need some kind of system-level check for connectivity. Now, there are certainly better ways they could have implemented the feature, ways that didn't involve a single point of failure where a fire at one building means that millions of TVs can't access Netflix or YouTube for no good reason, but the intent wasn't completely meaningless.
If youtube.com happens to be down for whatever reason, there isn't much the user can do about it except wait, so there isn't much for the YouTube to do besides display a standard error message and call it a day.
But in the more common case where the user's internet connection is unavailable or misconfigured, there are troubleshooting steps the user can take (make sure it's plugged in, try turning the router off and on again, check network settings, etc...).
I suspect the design was to help users get their TVs connected to the internet by providing more useful diagnostics when they are offline. To do that, you need some kind of system-level check for connectivity. Now, there are certainly better ways they could have implemented the feature, ways that didn't involve a single point of failure where a fire at one building means that millions of TVs can't access Netflix or YouTube for no good reason, but the intent wasn't completely meaningless.
Well, NetworkManager can tell you whether you are connected to some network. But verifying you are on the internet is outside of its scope.
Very helpful. I have the LG smart tv and i would like to know if in my case (lg) could happen the same... Just in case to know if it happens.
my opinion about these smart tv's is very positive. I like to browse or watch films over netflix or others. Hope that in a couple of years it gets even smarter :)
Nice work! I ran into the same issue with my samsung "smart" TV, and I was starting to set up a similar hack when my wife beat me to the punch: hit the "factory reset" option in the menu, and then it loses the wifi settings and stops trying to check for updates.
I wouldn't be suprised if it's vulnerable to XXE too ( http://projects.webappsec.org/w/page/13247002/XML%20Entity%2... )
It amazes me that most of these "Smart" TVs don't use SSL or any sort of encryption in first place.
I know first hand some other brands do.
> I overrode the DNS and pointed it to 127.0.0.1 and tried again.
Is there an easy way to spoof that on your local home network?
Is there an easy way to spoof that on your local home network?
Run your own local DNS server. Virtually every lightweight router-oriented Linux distro includes dnsmasq if you don't want to run a full-blown DNS server.
Moreover, your router is very likely to already run dnsmasq under the hood.
I have a Vizio "smart tv" which is about as "smart"
I guess this explains why my Fios TV app isn't working.
Wow now I want to buy a DRM... I mean "Smart" TV!
There are no exceptions.