But if *I* hijack *their* devices it's a "felony."
In this post we look under the hood of BrightData's SDK and how it turns ordinary consumer TVs into exit nodes of an enormous commercial, residential proxy network leveraged by the AI industry to scrape web data and train language learning models.
@Hex Personally, I'd just flatout refuse to use/buy a "Smart TV"…
I have a stupid panel and it works fine!
But if *I* hijack *their* devices it's a "felony." https://blog.includesecurity.com/2026/06/the-smart-tv-in-your-livingroom-is-a-node-in-the-aiscraping-economy/
@silberfuchs @Hex what?
- You gonna tell me there isn't a single TV that one can just plug in and feed images via HDMI like a normal person?
- I mean, worst-case I'll get a digital signage screen from illyama.
But so far my cheapo 40" 1080p IPS-LCD-TV refuses to die, so I see no reason to even consider replacing it.
@kkarhan @silberfuchs @Hex yea, just don't connect them to internet and most work fine. annoyingly slower than the previous year's model, every year, due to the bloat still running... but it's nerfed. and they sold it to you at a loss.
and return the ones that don't work fine, obviously. let them eat the fees.
@groxx @silberfuchs @Hex I mean, my 10 yr old stupid TV still works fine.
- No reason to replace anything!
@saxnot @groxx @silberfuchs @Hex +9001%
Worst-Case I just shove #Kodi (nee #xbmc) on a #NUC (or upcycled Laptop*) and have that as an option.
- Getting a cheap wireless combo thingy (i.e. Logitech MK270 or Rii X8) and be done with it…
In this video I'll be showing you how to build a beautiful desktop PC out of an old damaged laptop for peanuts (aka, not much money). This is a great way to ...
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