Catalin Cimpanu2d ago

Security researchers have accused Israeli company Bright Data of turning smart TVs into AI web scraping proxy nodes without their owners specific consent

https://blog.includesecurity.com/2026/06/the-smart-tv-in-your-livingroom-is-a-node-in-the-aiscraping-economy/

The Smart TV in Your LivingRoom Is a Node in the AIScraping Economy - Include Security Research Blog

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.

Include Security Research Blog
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@campuscodi this is amazing. Just think, an Israeli company using your device to do all sorts of work, or your connections, using your IP.

Faking IPs is so passé.

Jun 7 at 2:17pmWeb
Show threaddxzdb2d ago

@dckim @campuscodi Ooof makes me want to install a kill switch.
Just finished reading this book about another creepy Israeli company! 🫣😱 NSO group - The book certainly shook my trust in iPhones - although I'm sure Apple is working hard to stay ahead of stuff like this.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/pegasus-how-a-spy-in-your-pocket-threatens-the-end-of-privacy-dignity-and-democracy-laurent-richard/6d1f23858d909727?ean=9781250858672&next=t

Show thread🍁voilà-DCKIM🍁2d ago

@dxzdb @campuscodi this is just speculation but, who did they sell that tech to? The Italian government? Or was the to the Italian Mafia?

... and other questionable places...

plus and they have/use it

brutal

Show threaddxzdb2d ago

@dckim @campuscodi NSO? Libya, Morocco, Mexico, Saudi Arabia… I don't remember Italy mentioned at all in the book.

The book made it seem that NSO doesn't exist anymore. but reading this seems like it's still operating (as a US company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSO_Group

NSO Group - Wikipedia

Show thread🍁voilà-DCKIM🍁2d ago
@dxzdb @campuscodi right you are! I was thinking of Paragon.