Hackers: Your SmartTV is Collecting Info & Spying on You

The Truth Behind The News

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
August 6, 2013

The 2012 model of the Samsung Smart TV has a vulnerability to hackers gaining access to the webcam. This device can be remotely activated and used as surveillance apparatus on unsuspecting customers.

Security researchers from SEC Partners uncovered the compromise: “The exploit works by inserting malicious JavaScript code into text boxes in apps, like a Skype chat window or Facebook comments, the more dynamic a website is, the more opportunities there are for inserting code,” and the core problem was “not with the apps but with the way they were designed for Samsung’s Smart TV.”

Aaron Grattafiori and Josh Yavor presented their findings in a demonstration at the Black Hat conference (BHC) just held in Las Vegas.

Grattafori and Yavor chose Samsung because their smartTV offered the most featured to the customer; which would also translate to the biggest probability of being compromised.

Televisions that can be connected to the internet can be hacked into several different ways, as Grattafori and Yavor demonstrated at BHC.

In fact, the way the television’s applications can be utilized for unintended use residing in the design. Account information such as PayPal, banking and credit card information could be syphoned with the takeover of the television.

Simply put : “The TV to be turned into a literal spy in the living room that is most disturbing, however…by cracking into the browser, the pair was able to seize control of the webcam Samsung integrates into select smart TV models, activating it with no visible indication on the set itself that they are being watched.”

Mainstream media (MSM) asserts that these vulnerabilities have been rectified and are no longer a concern to manufacturers.

In 2012, Verizon has patented technology that turns a DVR into a personal spying tool to watch Americans in their own homes.

Verizon is calling this endeavor FierceCable that is able to display “acute sensitivity in customers’ living rooms: argument sounds prompt ads for marriage counseling, and sounds of cuddling.”

Verizon explains: “If the detection system determines that a couple is arguing, a service provider would be able to send an ad for marriage counseling to a TV or mobile device in the room. If the couple utters words that indicate they are cuddling, they would receive ads for a romantic getaway vacation, a commercial for a contraceptive, a commercial for flowers, or commercials for romantic movies.”

The patent is entitled “Methods and Systems for Presenting an Advertisement Associated with an Ambient Action of a User” and filed by Brian F. Roberts who invented the technology on behalf of Verizon Patent and Licensing INC. Under the guise of perfecting marketing and advertising, the spying “method includes a media content presentation system presenting a media content program comprising an advertisement break, detecting an ambient action performed by a user during the presentation of the media content program, selecting an advertisement associated with the detected ambient action, and presenting the selected advertisement during the advertisement break.”

In home ambient activities such as “eating, exercising, laughing, reading, sleeping, talking, singing, humming, cleaning, and playing a musical instrument; as well as cuddling, fighting, participating in a game or sporting event” can be surveilled using this technology. All cellular phones can interact with this device as a separate mode of surveillance.

Information associated with the user, such as gesture, profile, voice and facial recognition are methods that can identify the user which will produce the most effective advertisement based on the “media content presentation system” (MCPS).

It is as simple as speaking a word, and the MCPS is activated. Embedded “computer-executable instructions” working in tandem with the MCPS will allow specified advertisements through the utilization of “depth sensor[s], image sensor[s], audio sensor[s] and a thermal sensor.”

In 2008, Comcast patented infrared camera technology that will recognize individuals in their living room. The sensors inside a cable box will the person and anticipate their television viewing preferences.

Google, in creating the foundation for GoogleTV, patented an “image capturing device” under the mask of developing interactive television. This technology can “be used to measure how many viewers are watching or listening to a broadcast.”

With the use of audio surveillance and identification technology, a specific person can created “personalized information related to the media broadcast.” In syphoning this information was television watchers, Google can create “complimentary websites” utilizing the data they have collected.

The post Hackers: Your SmartTV is Collecting Info & Spying on You appeared first on Susanne Posel.