Smart TVs

[edma194]

We used to have a portable TV. It was portable in the sense than an anvil is portable if you put a handle on it.

[Ed in Tampa]

To get past the smart TV spying on me I only watch TV in my skivvies. I figure the view of a 73 year old man dressed only in skivvies will blind most spies. I say good for them. Only flaw in my plan is when some body comes to the door, last week a windows salesman ran stumbling down the street screaming “my eyes, my eyes!”

[john_001]

You don't have to connect the TV to the network yourself. If the TV has Wifi, it can connect itself to any unsecured network in your area ...

Yes. I forgot - there are a lot of unsecured hotspots around. Most of our local train stations seem to have them, as do a lot of businesses. If you live in a Comcast area, you or your close neighbors may have an unsecured Comcast WiFi hotspot within reach. Comcast sets them up by default so they can advertise "millions of free WiFi hotspots". Mine is turned off, and I guess my one neighbor within WiFi reach must have turned his off too, because I can only see his secured connection. But a lot of people never bother (or even know).

[JPG]

OK, how does one 'handle' an unknown computer discovered to one's unsecured wifi? The access point is the internet provider's modem. The legitimate user has no clue about any of this. Discovered by accident while sleuthing other issues.

Gotta be a neighbor! Problem is, which one?

Yes I know 'securing' it is a 'solution' but the legit user has no clue how to do that nor is willing to allow someone else to do that.

The interloper has not caused any discernible problem.

[garys]

If the uninvited user is on the internet provider's modem, you should contact the provider about it. Check if you have administrator access to the modem. If you do, you should be able to block that user from accessing the modem/router yourself.
I don't rent my modem or my router. Because of that, only I have control of it so I can do the blocking myself if necessary.

[JPG]

The router is 'discovered' as 192.168.254.254, but attempts to reach it are blocked from the wireless side. Now wired it may be possible, but again the legit user is skittish re monkeying around with her 'stuff'.

[reible]

The modem I have is owned by the provider and I get charged every month to rent it. You have no choice. On the other hand if I look on the bottom there is the password on a label so I can access and adjust things as I see fit.

I have the wireless turned off. Down stream I have two routers on different nets. I have the wireless turned on them and they are fully protected. One router can not see the other router and each net can not see the other. They both have internet access via the modem. They each have a firewall set up and so do the PC that are attached. So anyone coming in has to go through at least 3 firewalls to access any PC.

At any one time the main network will have about 10 wired connections and 25 or so wireless.

The number goes higher if I have more things powered up on the wired side. The wireless stuff is pretty much always on.

The key it ID what might be coming from somewhere else is looking at the MAC address which you need to add to your list as you add them to the net. MAC address are assigned by the manufacture and some things will have one address for the wired and another for the wireless if they have the option of having both.

I tend to keep my entertainment thing wired if I can. Not always possible as some things only have wireless. I normally manually enter the net passwords rather then other ways but that is just me.

I do assign a few IP address for things like my cloud drives and printer since this makes life easier for tables and such devices to find them.

I also have a VPN set up so back tracing can be protected that way as well as keeping some people from knowing where you have been as the VPN I use doesn't keep records.

The second lan is more secured and I have to restrict what I connect to it. Pretty much no firewall access so not everything can live there.

Another thought is to create guest accounts for family so when they come over they can still access your connection but not your internal net. Most routers have this option. How protected this is I'm not sure as I don't have that setup??

Ed

[jsburger]

The modem I have is owned by the provider and I get charged every month to rent it. You have no choice. On the other hand if I look on the bottom there is the password on a label so I can access and adjust things as I see fit.

I have the wireless turned off. Down stream I have two routers on different nets. I have the wireless turned on them and they are fully protected. One router can not see the other router and each net can not see the other. They both have internet access via the modem. They each have a firewall set up and so do the PC that are attached. So anyone coming in has to go through at least 3 firewalls to access any PC.

At any one time the main network will have about 10 wired connections and 25 or so wireless.

The number goes higher if I have more things powered up on the wired side. The wireless stuff is pretty much always on.

The key it ID what might be coming from somewhere else is looking at the MAC address which you need to add to your list as you add them to the net. MAC address are assigned by the manufacture and some things will have one address for the wired and another for the wireless if they have the option of having both.

I tend to keep my entertainment thing wired if I can. Not always possible as some things only have wireless. I normally manually enter the net passwords rather then other ways but that is just me.

I do assign a few IP address for things like my cloud drives and printer since this makes life easier for tables and such devices to find them.

I also have a VPN set up so back tracing can be protected that way as well as keeping some people from knowing where you have been as the VPN I use doesn't keep records.

The second lan is more secured and I have to restrict what I connect to it. Pretty much no firewall access so not everything can live there.

Another thought is to create guest accounts for family so when they come over they can still access your connection but not your internal net. Most routers have this option. How protected this is I'm not sure as I don't have that setup??

Ed

Ed, you seem to be very knowledgeable about networks. Can you substantiate or not this statement by garys?

"garys wrote:You don't have to connect the TV to the network yourself. If the TV has Wifi, it can connect itself to any unsecured network in your area ..."

He nor anyone else has said how this can happen without some kind of user input.

I have a terrestrial wireless network connection. A small dish on the roof and it connects directly to my modem. No provider modem. My modem is of course secured so unless someone guesses the password they can't get into any of the connected computers/devices. Yes when you browse the internet there are pit falls and phishing emails can get you if you really believe anything they contain. The answer is robust virus and malware protections. I run Malwarebytes premium and Eset Internet security paid on all our computers and smart phones. Firefox has robust protection built in and there is a free Malwarebytes plugin also.

[garys]

Another thought is to create guest accounts for family so when they come over they can still access your connection but not your internal net. Most routers have this option. How protected this is I'm not sure as I don't have that setup??

Ed

The guest option in theory should be as secure as separating your guest traffic from your personal traffic as two separate routers. If you look at the setup of a guest network, they use two different subnets that keeps traffic apart from the two subnets. Using two routers on two different subnets would give you much the same thing.
I have a guest network on my router for guests, and also for all tablets and phones which have no security inherent in them. On my personal network, I run a web server that gets routed out to my ISPs DDNS server to make it available on the internet for all users.
The guest network cannot reach my web server calling it up from the internet URL because the router is smart enough to recognize that the source of the server is within a different subnet on the same IP number. Devices on my personal network can access it directly from the local net or from the the internet URL on the outside. Outside users can access it using my URL.

I don't have any way to find out if two separate routers could isolate it that well. Since they would be two separate devices, they might not be able to do that........or they might.

[reible]

Can devices try to call home? Yes it is possible. Not likely as most are not designed that way, at least anymore.

Unless you have some cheap stuff made in China then all bets are off..... they spy on everything and everyone. Not a place I would want to live.

Could someone hack your tv and do that, well yes they might but they have limited firmware space so the code would have to be small and they would have to match the checking code that is run on firmware updates to verify a correct load..... Can it be done yes but not something that is very easy. There are a lot easier ways to collect data then using your tv...... My tv's don't have cameras and using a speaker for a mic works but then they have to hack my sound bar too, which is connected by fiber optics.

Someone really have to want something special to go to all that trouble. I don't think I have anything that interesting and I sure don't have a lot of money to try and steal and like the other Ed we don't look that good in our underwear......

The PC that has my banking information is not attached to the web and doesn't have wireless. If they want data off that one they will have to come in the house and get it and even then they will not have my account numbers or passwords since they don't exist there.

BTW your firewall is your friend. If you don't know about it you might want to do some reading.

I saw a shirt I like the other day.

"I survived the 60's, twice."

For those that don't get it, the 1960's and having turned 70...........

Ed