{"id":6900,"date":"2017-03-08T08:30:06","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T16:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2017\/03\/08\/news-691\/"},"modified":"2017-03-08T08:30:06","modified_gmt":"2017-03-08T16:30:06","slug":"news-691","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2017\/03\/08\/news-691\/","title":{"rendered":"IDG Contributor Network: Why the Samsung TV spying hack is way overblown"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Credit to Author: John Brandon| Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2017 07:25:00 -0800<\/strong><\/p>\n

Major media has some egg on their face over this one.<\/p>\n

Drawn to the attention-grabbing idea of your Samsung TV being compromised by the CIA, and knowing a lot of people have a Samsung TV, the headlines went something like this.<\/p>\n

WikiLeaks says CIA hacked Samsung smart TVs<\/a><\/p>\n

Why your smart TV is the perfect way to spy on you<\/a><\/p>\n

None of these reports bothered to explain any of the details.<\/p>\n

As noted in Wired<\/a> and in this Forbes report<\/a>, the CIA cannot spy on you over wireless. To update a Samsung TV, they\u2019d need to use a USB key to install a firmware update. Also, the televisions are older models from 2013. To record any conversations or video, the CIA would then have to copy files back onto the USB drive.<\/p>\n

To do all of that, the CIA would have to break into your home — twice. To me, that seems like a much bigger problems than tapping into your television, especially since they\u2019d need a warrant and, if they did sneak in, they could install any number of listening and recording devices. Why even bother adding a USB drive or tricking the television to use \u201cface off\u201d mode? (This turns off the LED lights to make you think the television is completely off.)<\/p>\n

This is a mixture of trying to grab attention and relaying inaccurate information. It creates a sense of hysteria — that government agencies can see what you\u2019re doing in your living room in real time. I\u2019m picturing people who own a Samsung television disconnecting from their Wi-Fi router or putting a piece of tape over the webcam. It creates a doom and gloom mentality, when in fact the likelihood of you being a target of a CIA investigation is extremely low.<\/p>\n

The response to the issue was interesting. Samsung said in a statement:<\/p>\n

“Protecting consumers’ privacy and the security of our devices is a top priority at Samsung. We are aware of the report in question and are urgently looking into the matter.”<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the coded message there? To me, it suggests they know this is overblown. They are being careful not to comment right now, because they suspect the issue is probably related to a USB key loading firmware — which, by the way, is something that has existed for a long time. There\u2019s a lot you can do to televisions, laptops, and other devices by loading software from a USB key. I\u2019m expecting Samsung to explain how USB firmware updates work at some point.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my problem. We are living in an age of fake news. It\u2019s all about the headline. When President Trump says the Obama Administration was wiretapping him<\/a> and provided no proof at all, it creates a sense of hysteria (what if he was? What if all of our devices — our iPhones and Android phones and tablets, our cars, our smart homes — can record us?). It takes away from the actual reality of government hacking, the real issues out there like capturing unencrypted email and watching our browser history. It deludes the real problems.<\/p>\n

For anyone who really cares about security issues in the U.S., it\u2019s much better to weed out the fluff. No, the Samsung in your living room is likely not being used by the CIA to find out that you are watching the show Jessica Jones on Netflix. No, they don\u2019t care about your vacation plans. Could government officials have access to your Facebook account and watch your conversations there, or could they be spying on your email? That\u2019s been all but proven.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s worry about the stuff that matters. No tape on your Samsung webcam needed.<\/p>\n

This article is published as part of the IDG Contributor Network. Want to Join?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/category\/security\/index.rss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Credit to Author: John Brandon| Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2017 07:25:00 -0800<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Major media has some egg on their face over this one.<\/p>\n

Drawn to the attention-grabbing idea of your Samsung TV being compromised by the CIA, and knowing a lot of people have a Samsung TV, the headlines went something like this.<\/p>\n

WikiLeaks says CIA hacked Samsung smart TVs<\/a><\/p>\n

Why your smart TV is the perfect way to spy on you<\/a><\/p>\n

None of these reports bothered to explain any of the details.<\/p>\n

As noted in Wired<\/a> and in this Forbes report<\/a>, the CIA cannot spy on you over wireless. To update a Samsung TV, they\u2019d need to use a USB key to install a firmware update. Also, the televisions are older models from 2013. To record any conversations or video, the CIA would then have to copy files back onto the USB drive.<\/p>\n

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[11062,10643],"tags":[714],"class_list":["post-6900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computerworld","category-independent","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6900\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}