IDG Contributor Network: Why the Samsung TV spying hack is way overblown
Major media has some egg on their face over this one.
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.
WikiLeaks says CIA hacked Samsung smart TVs
Why your smart TV is the perfect way to spy on you
None of these reports bothered to explain any of the details.
As noted in Wired and in this Forbes report, the CIA cannot spy on you over wireless. To update a Samsung TV, they’d 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.
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