Most “Smart” TVs use Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), essentially taking snapshots every 10+ms of what you watch and hear, then forwarding & selling that data to companies for ads, etc. I now feel it’s only a matter of time before this “feature” finds its way to our ever “smarter” PC monitors.
LG with the help of Windows is already installing adware when the right Device ID is detected.
☑️ To disable ACR on TV: https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/home-entertainment/how-to-disable-acr-tv/
Most linux distros have a program called fwupd that installs hardware related updates. That was my example of the way in because most hardware updates are proprietary.
Fwupd is for updating on-device firmware AFAIK. This “attack” uses windows update mechanism for automatic installation of drivers to push additional software directly on users’ PCs.
I don’t think I’ve ever been able to run fwupd without root privilege elevation and a confirmation prompt listing the incoming changes. Are there package managers out there running it for you? If so, gimme a list so I can stay the fuck away or break that script.
Discover has shown me a UEFI update before in the list of updates its wants to do and ive confirmed it. If people aren’t paying attention to updates and just updating its very much possible they could get something like that accidentally
For example, AMD recently removed RAM encryption without telling anyone via an update.
Ah, I forgot about the GUI updaters. More reason to stick with good old cli.