5 ms·

> So they are claiming that ACR is done entirely through audio processing, and no visual data from the screen itself is used? That...doesn't seem plausible. It

> So they are claiming that ACR is done entirely through audio processing, and no visual data from the screen itself is used? That...doesn't seem plausible. It's probably easier to do and every bit as accurate as just using a screenshot. And it's still exactly what I don't want them doing. There's literally zero reason for LG to be building an advertising profile on me because I was foolish enough to buy one of their TVs. This isn't something that makes their products better, it's spying. Here's how it's been done in the past https://www.cameronmacleod.com/blog/how-does-shazam-work https://www.cameronmacleod.com/blog/how-does-shazam-work Audio is a bit easier to turn into a fingerprint for identification vs video. Video has a lot of smaller subtle changes that happen from things like compression which make it a lot harder to identify. It's why youtube still hasn't figured out piracy, but they'll knock you immediately if you play 5 seconds of copyrighted music.

IanCal 4d ago
It’s a lot less data to process as well.
nyctimus 4d ago
wouldn't taking screenshots in fact not always be possible depending on the content you are watching? For example netflix with their hardware level drm? (Although its their TV they possibly have ways around that with some custom hardware)
- tiahura 4d ago
  lg’s display controller has to know what to send to panel
- cogman10 4d ago
  LG sits at exactly the location where screenshots are possible. Eventually, a digital signal needs to be converted into pixels on a screen. Once that happens, it's trivial to also pipe those pixels into a screenshot. It's the reason DRM for digital media is pretty dumb IMO. The most sophisticated DRM still has to be decoded at some point for the end user to enjoy it. It can always be broken with a camcorder (though quality suffers). However, there exists devices which decode the HDMI signal so doing a pure digital signals.
- 14 4d ago
  I can assure you while out sailing the high seas I have watched many Netflix titles. So their DRM is literally only there to make the experience shittier for the honest customers.
CommanderData 4d ago
As much as I detest ACR this seems more plausible than screenshots but I wouldn't trust LG regardless. Audio is much easier to fingerprint and match against content.
ryandrake 4d ago
To me, it's not even about why they're doing it (building an advertising profile). I don't want them doing it at all, for any reason. When I buy something from the store, my relationship is between me and the store, for the 30 seconds it takes for me to pay for it. I don't want an ongoing relationship with the device manufacturer. I don't want to be tethered in any way to the manufacturer. I don't want to have an account with the manufacturer. I don't want the device sending anything to the manufacturer, advertising related, telemetry, or even a single bit "user has used your product." Do you get it, manufacturers?? I don't want any kind of relationship with you! I want to purchase my product and use it by myself not with you.
- imoverclocked 4d ago
  Then what about all the cloud enabled spyware? How would that work? (/sarcasm) Truly though, smart-home stuff runs the whole gamut of privacy and device manufacturer relationships. eg: I have used three different smart/room AC units: - one requires its own cloud-enabled app for any remote connectivity, no HomeKit integration - one integrates with HomeKit but then leaves an upgrade hint that can only be done through an app with a login - one integrates with HomeKit and pretty much just works HomeKit then allows me to remotely control via HomePod/AppleTV acting as a router ... of course this is just a different cloud connectivity but with on-premises devices controlling other on-premises devices. For each manufacturer of smart devices, there is potentially a separate cloud where data is being funneled through. Some devices support multiple upstreams. I get that Matter should be a way to fix it but the reality feels more like https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ Part of me just wants dumb devices back. Get rid of buttons on a microwave (just give me a knob for time and maybe another knob for power setting.) Remove touchscreens from cars (mine glares at me with certain sun-angles.) Bring back the desktop/computer hutch and phones that don't live in your pocket. However, having the ability to start cooling my bedroom 45 minutes before I arrive home is ... pretty compelling too.
  - ryandrake 4d ago
    Manufacturers just need to realize that LANs exist and allow their devices to be used with the Internet turned off. When I'm sitting in my home and I want to turn off the AC unit in the other room or close my garage door, there's no reason I should have to do an IP roundtrip to the manufacturer's server. Both devices are on my LAN. They should just talk to each other. This has been a solved problem for decades.
tclancy 4d ago
> There's literally zero reason for LG to be building an advertising profile on me because I was foolish enough to buy one of their TVs. I feel like the world is bossed by people who read (well, ok listened to a 5 minute summary on a grindlife podcast at 1.5x speed) about the Trojan Horse and thought they smelled a business opporunity.
- lazide 4d ago
  By and large, that has been my experience.
cwmoore 4d ago
Is it within fair use to surreptitiously record copyrighted music?
- roywiggins 4d ago
  No less than Shazam is?
taneq 4d ago
> It's why youtube still hasn't figured out piracy, but they'll knock you immediately if you play 5 seconds of copyrighted music. Unless the piracy is silent, surely audio fingerprinting would catch it?
tough 4d ago
> It's why youtube still hasn't figured out piracy Are you sure that's even on their roadmap. If they profit from piracy why would they care. the whole DMCA/Takedown process is another shenanigan ripe for abuse. Not real copyright enforcement.
like_any_other 3d ago
> an advertising profile It's going to be so easy to determine who you voted for, given a record of every TV show and news programme you've watched, to 90% accuracy. Or to determine if you'd be a "corporate culture fit" when you're next looking for a job. Or an apartment. Or to find whether anything matching the hash of some trade secret documents was displayed on your TV (or ever connected to it [1]) - the "advertising" firm will be forced to hand over documents on you through lawsuit discovery and the wonderful 3rd party doctrine. Have you been watching media associated with "woke subversion"? "Islamic extremism"? "Far-right hate"? "Incitement to subversion of state power" [2]? They're not building an advertising profile. They're building a profile. Ads are just the most common known use-case at the moment. But the profile will remain long after ads become the least of your concerns. Consider how such a profile would have been used during the cultural revolution. If the government required you to submit a record of every book you read or own, people would rightly freak out. How is this any different? [1] LG Smart TVs log USB filenames and viewing info to LG servers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6759426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6759426 [2] Hong Kong's Tiananmen activists sentenced to up to seven years in prison - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgyvk2djk4o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgyvk2djk4o
- sham1 3d ago
  The difference with the book example is that having to hand over a list of books is tangible whereas technological profiling is extremely subtle and abstract in comparison. As IT professionals it's of course easy to see the ways that this kind of stuff can be abused, whereas the probability that someone outside of the industry or otherwise not interested in computers to be "woke" enough about the digital panopticon is diminishingly rare. And there's of course also Sinclair's law, so even people who should know better might be either willingly ignorant or just not care if it means that they can maintain their quality of life, moral bankruptcy be damned. Similar arguments can be raised for example with the anthropogenic climate catastrophe or other abhorrent phenomena where there's a big chasm in the knowledge between laymen vs experts. It is exceedingly difficult to convince someone that something is a problem unless said problem is staring the person in the face.

IanCal 4d ago

It’s a lot less data to process as well.

nyctimus 4d ago

wouldn't taking screenshots in fact not always be possible depending on the content you are watching? For example netflix with their hardware level drm? (Although its their TV they possibly have ways around that with some custom hardware)

tiahura 4d ago
lg’s display controller has to know what to send to panel
cogman10 4d ago
LG sits at exactly the location where screenshots are possible. Eventually, a digital signal needs to be converted into pixels on a screen. Once that happens, it's trivial to also pipe those pixels into a screenshot. It's the reason DRM for digital media is pretty dumb IMO. The most sophisticated DRM still has to be decoded at some point for the end user to enjoy it. It can always be broken with a camcorder (though quality suffers). However, there exists devices which decode the HDMI signal so doing a pure digital signals.
14 4d ago
I can assure you while out sailing the high seas I have watched many Netflix titles. So their DRM is literally only there to make the experience shittier for the honest customers.

CommanderData 4d ago

As much as I detest ACR this seems more plausible than screenshots but I wouldn't trust LG regardless. Audio is much easier to fingerprint and match against content.

ryandrake 4d ago

To me, it's not even about why they're doing it (building an advertising profile). I don't want them doing it at all, for any reason. When I buy something from the store, my relationship is between me and the store, for the 30 seconds it takes for me to pay for it. I don't want an ongoing relationship with the device manufacturer. I don't want to be tethered in any way to the manufacturer. I don't want to have an account with the manufacturer. I don't want the device sending anything to the manufacturer, advertising related, telemetry, or even a single bit "user has used your product." Do you get it, manufacturers?? I don't want any kind of relationship with you! I want to purchase my product and use it by myself not with you.

imoverclocked 4d ago
Then what about all the cloud enabled spyware? How would that work? (/sarcasm) Truly though, smart-home stuff runs the whole gamut of privacy and device manufacturer relationships. eg: I have used three different smart/room AC units: - one requires its own cloud-enabled app for any remote connectivity, no HomeKit integration - one integrates with HomeKit but then leaves an upgrade hint that can only be done through an app with a login - one integrates with HomeKit and pretty much just works HomeKit then allows me to remotely control via HomePod/AppleTV acting as a router ... of course this is just a different cloud connectivity but with on-premises devices controlling other on-premises devices. For each manufacturer of smart devices, there is potentially a separate cloud where data is being funneled through. Some devices support multiple upstreams. I get that Matter should be a way to fix it but the reality feels more like https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ Part of me just wants dumb devices back. Get rid of buttons on a microwave (just give me a knob for time and maybe another knob for power setting.) Remove touchscreens from cars (mine glares at me with certain sun-angles.) Bring back the desktop/computer hutch and phones that don't live in your pocket. However, having the ability to start cooling my bedroom 45 minutes before I arrive home is ... pretty compelling too.
- ryandrake 4d ago
  Manufacturers just need to realize that LANs exist and allow their devices to be used with the Internet turned off. When I'm sitting in my home and I want to turn off the AC unit in the other room or close my garage door, there's no reason I should have to do an IP roundtrip to the manufacturer's server. Both devices are on my LAN. They should just talk to each other. This has been a solved problem for decades.

tclancy 4d ago

> There's literally zero reason for LG to be building an advertising profile on me because I was foolish enough to buy one of their TVs. I feel like the world is bossed by people who read (well, ok listened to a 5 minute summary on a grindlife podcast at 1.5x speed) about the Trojan Horse and thought they smelled a business opporunity.

lazide 4d ago
By and large, that has been my experience.

cwmoore 4d ago

Is it within fair use to surreptitiously record copyrighted music?

roywiggins 4d ago
No less than Shazam is?

taneq 4d ago

> It's why youtube still hasn't figured out piracy, but they'll knock you immediately if you play 5 seconds of copyrighted music. Unless the piracy is silent, surely audio fingerprinting would catch it?

tough 4d ago

> It's why youtube still hasn't figured out piracy Are you sure that's even on their roadmap. If they profit from piracy why would they care. the whole DMCA/Takedown process is another shenanigan ripe for abuse. Not real copyright enforcement.

like_any_other 3d ago

> an advertising profile It's going to be so easy to determine who you voted for, given a record of every TV show and news programme you've watched, to 90% accuracy. Or to determine if you'd be a "corporate culture fit" when you're next looking for a job. Or an apartment. Or to find whether anything matching the hash of some trade secret documents was displayed on your TV (or ever connected to it [1]) - the "advertising" firm will be forced to hand over documents on you through lawsuit discovery and the wonderful 3rd party doctrine. Have you been watching media associated with "woke subversion"? "Islamic extremism"? "Far-right hate"? "Incitement to subversion of state power" [2]? They're not building an advertising profile. They're building a profile. Ads are just the most common known use-case at the moment. But the profile will remain long after ads become the least of your concerns. Consider how such a profile would have been used during the cultural revolution. If the government required you to submit a record of every book you read or own, people would rightly freak out. How is this any different? [1] LG Smart TVs log USB filenames and viewing info to LG servers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6759426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6759426 [2] Hong Kong's Tiananmen activists sentenced to up to seven years in prison - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgyvk2djk4o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgyvk2djk4o

sham1 3d ago
The difference with the book example is that having to hand over a list of books is tangible whereas technological profiling is extremely subtle and abstract in comparison. As IT professionals it's of course easy to see the ways that this kind of stuff can be abused, whereas the probability that someone outside of the industry or otherwise not interested in computers to be "woke" enough about the digital panopticon is diminishingly rare. And there's of course also Sinclair's law, so even people who should know better might be either willingly ignorant or just not care if it means that they can maintain their quality of life, moral bankruptcy be damned. Similar arguments can be raised for example with the anthropogenic climate catastrophe or other abhorrent phenomena where there's a big chasm in the knowledge between laymen vs experts. It is exceedingly difficult to convince someone that something is a problem unless said problem is staring the person in the face.