The Core

The Government Just Gave Everyone Permission to Hack Smart TVs

"The nightmare here is that hackers who don’t wear the white hat will figure out how to watch and listen to us through our TVs, but that was apparently not a legitimate concern for the Copyright Office. The petition was brought by the Software Freedom Conservancy for the office’s triennial review, and included an argument that contrary to unfounded fears, hacking could actually make TVs safer for users."

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/10/the-government-just-gave-everyone-permission-to-ha.html

This week, Samsung took a bit of heat for urging the company's TV customers to, for the first time, occasionally run an antivirus scan on their television sets. The Tweet was online online briefly before Samsung deleted it, apparently realizing it only advertised the fact that you shouldn't be getting viruses on your TV set in the first place

We're Apparently Scanning Our TVs For Viruses Now | Techdirt
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190617/08491442412/were-apparently-scanning-our-tvs-viruses-now.shtml

In the long run, I guess we're going to have to learn how to use our routers to micro-manage a device and neuter it.  Something like Pi-hole.

As I (very roughly) comprehend it, those who understand all that IP number and port management magic available in better routers are able to block or limit unwanted traffic to a specific device.  For instance, they wouldn't let a tv send info TO Samsung, only receive.  Pi-hole does that for ad servers, but for privacy and security we probably need more granular control of the data packets coming & going.  There are programs like Wireshark that let you sniff your network traffic --but I don't know how to use it.

There's really no way around it if you want a recent high quality tv.

I threw in the towel last year.

Unless the manufacturer put in an requirement for the tv to ping their servers in order to remain active, I'm pretty sure the smart router guys could lock it down or at least substantially minimize phoning home.  But all of that comes with support nuisances and I doubt many would take the trouble.

The gaming companies might have a solution for y'all. Giant gaming monitors seem to lack the smart-TV stuff... or at least the concept models did.

https://rog.asus.com/articles/gaming-monitors/rog-swift-pg65-big-format-gaming-display-bfgd-120hz-gsync-65-inch-4k-with-hdr/
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14088/nvidia-65-inch-big-format-gaming-display-is-here-hp-omen-x-emperium

>cheap

But that's a tiny 27-inch in the current 50-inch era.  35-inch models, the biggest I could find on Amazon, was $850.  Screens unsubsidized by the sale of your personal data are going to be expensive, I guess.

The price differential reminds me of this article:
The reason why smart TVs are so affordable: They track your data - Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com/smart-tv-data-collection-advertising-2019-1