This is why I never connect my TV directly to the Internet

[Duckpaddle]

I always feed my TV via a Roku and don't directly connect the screen to the internet.

https://www.svconline.com/proav-tod...51bac563d41749476d130a29c8d4610696d9cf269ad6d

 

[JimB]

Read an article from a guy years ago who placed WireShark between his new Smart TV and the Internet and started recording when he first plugged it in. Before it even booted to a visible screen it was contacting China, Pakistan, India, and a couple other countries. So.... you're wise to do so.....

 

[cschuber]

A firewall/router will block unwanted attempts to connect to your smart devices. But smart devices connect out to the internet, sharing whatever information they gather. Blocking their access to the Internet severely limits or disables their functionality. Unless you know either good or bad IP addresses, a whitelist or blacklist, you're at their mercy. And, try egress blocking with a commodity router -- now you're looking at a firewall product like pfsense, opensense, or a homegrown Linux/BSD box.

One could try geo-blocking but those databases are not all that accurate. And, a lot of these foreign entities use AWS instead. Blocking AWS is a non-starter as it essentially blocks you from accessing a variety of services.

 

[Fuzzball]

My rule of thumb has always been that I connect a new smart TV long enough to do a firmware update, and then disconnect permanently.

Back around 1983 I had a girlfriend who was convinced the TV was watching her. She had schizophrenia, which I wasn't aware of until she moved in with me. I was absolutely convinced that I could simply use science and facts to convince her that the TV didn't have the capability to do that, but it was to no avail. And I remember her telling me that she believed everything I was saying, and she believed that I was a man of sound scientific principles, but none of that mattered. She still believed the TV was watching her. I hadn't yet comprehended that there were things that were "real" to her that weren't real to me.

Now today... geeze, it's got to he he** for people with that condition.

 

[Scott]

A firewall/router will block unwanted attempts to connect to your smart devices. But smart devices connect out to the internet, sharing whatever information they gather.

I use a PiHole instance to act as a DNS intermediary. The default Deny list is definitely stopping at least some of the “phone home” behavior of my smart TV and the streaming apps it hosts, as I can see the denied requests in the logs.

 

[SeanBZA]

My new smart TV has never had a connection, the only smart thing used is the fast on feature, which simply disables showing a splash screen on power on.