Kyle Wiens retweeted
Dude had a NordicTrack treadmill ($2-3k) and wanted to use massive screen to watch Netflix.
NordiTrack locked that option behind $39 a month membership for its iFit app.
Claude figured out screen was Android 9 tablet and “found that iFit’s motor service runs a small server on an talk to”.
It disabled iFit’s apps one at a time and the “real fix was removing iFit’s lockdown and updater app for my user (reversible). It turned remote access off after every restart, re-enabled everything I’d disabled, and ate a big share of the CPU. Without it the treadmill boots unlocked and the tablet can finally breathe.”
He can now CrunchyRoll and Netflix without paying an extra $39 a month on top of those streaming subs lolol
NordiTrack locked that option behind $39 a month membership for its iFit app.
Claude figured out screen was Android 9 tablet and “found that iFit’s motor service runs a small server on an talk to”.
It disabled iFit’s apps one at a time and the “real fix was removing iFit’s lockdown and updater app for my user (reversible). It turned remote access off after every restart, re-enabled everything I’d disabled, and ate a big share of the CPU. Without it the treadmill boots unlocked and the tablet can finally breathe.”
He can now CrunchyRoll and Netflix without paying an extra $39 a month on top of those streaming subs lolol
106
189
6,540
552,171
I’d love to sit in on the design review where Renault decided the clock settings belonged on the navigation SD card.
Fortunately, we can jailbreak our cars now.
Fortunately, we can jailbreak our cars now.
2
0
9
664
The next time you have trouble changing your microwave’s clock, give Rasmus Moorats a holler.
blog.nns.ee/2026/11/02/ren…
blog.nns.ee/2026/11/02/ren…
0
1
1
197
Kyle Wiens retweeted
Repairing shouldn't cost more than replacing.
With the EU Right to repair, you can:
🔹request repairs at a reasonable price, within reasonable time
🔹get at least one year of legal guarantee after repair
🔹easily find information on repair services
🔗link.europa.eu/h9T3Xx
With the EU Right to repair, you can:
🔹request repairs at a reasonable price, within reasonable time
🔹get at least one year of legal guarantee after repair
🔹easily find information on repair services
🔗link.europa.eu/h9T3Xx
19
25
85
4,340
Kyle Wiens retweeted
CleanYourTV v3.1 is out 📺
What's new:
• Samsung, LG and Roku owners get a fix too
• 41 new TVs, 7 new brands
• TV Inspector: see what every remote button sends
• 5 more add-ons, from Bluetooth to a news screensaver
323 PRs merged from 176 contributors since v3.0 🙏🏻
What's new:
• Samsung, LG and Roku owners get a fix too
• 41 new TVs, 7 new brands
• TV Inspector: see what every remote button sends
• 5 more add-ons, from Bluetooth to a news screensaver
323 PRs merged from 176 contributors since v3.0 🙏🏻
CleanYourTV 3.0 is here 📺
Your TV can now:
• Show your Home Assistant lights and locks
• Pause your Pi-hole from the couch
• Get cleaned from your phone, no laptop needed
• Turn any remote button into a shortcut
Plus 52 new TVs and 28 languages, from 169 contributors 🙏
109
166
2,147
151,723
Kyle Wiens retweeted
I see how some people can watch flashy robot demos on the timeline and think with a shiver that the robot apocalypse is around the corner, but reality check:
There is no robot in the world that can change the batteries in a jack-o-lantern.
If you have a robot friendly door handle it might be able to walk outside, pick it up, and carry it back inside. The robot could open the drawer with your batteries in it, but then things get tough.
Opening the package of AA batteries?
Extracting a precision screwdriver from its case?
Unscrewing four tiny screws that require a hard press and twist?
Popping batteries out of the case?
Yes, you could build and train a specialist robot to do that today, but there is a very long way to go to replace the full range of human capabilities. Near term doomer scenarios should stop at “secretly controlling humanity” instead of “wiping humanity out” 😀
There is no robot in the world that can change the batteries in a jack-o-lantern.
If you have a robot friendly door handle it might be able to walk outside, pick it up, and carry it back inside. The robot could open the drawer with your batteries in it, but then things get tough.
Opening the package of AA batteries?
Extracting a precision screwdriver from its case?
Unscrewing four tiny screws that require a hard press and twist?
Popping batteries out of the case?
Yes, you could build and train a specialist robot to do that today, but there is a very long way to go to replace the full range of human capabilities. Near term doomer scenarios should stop at “secretly controlling humanity” instead of “wiping humanity out” 😀
737
414
7,756
1,312,010
Kyle Wiens retweeted
Physically removing all microphones from my Samsung TV 🫡. I had it only in remote, which still works fine after the removal.
i own a relatively new (2025) samsung tv.
i kept getting weirdly targeted ads.
i tried reversing the firmware but it was aes encrypted and no keys unless tear it apart and do uart/jtag magic.
zero days it is. root shell on new samsung TVs!
discovered PRIVACY HORROR. write up?
140
898
11,033
622,259
Kyle Wiens retweeted
CleanYourTV 3.0 is here 📺
Your TV can now:
• Show your Home Assistant lights and locks
• Pause your Pi-hole from the couch
• Get cleaned from your phone, no laptop needed
• Turn any remote button into a shortcut
Plus 52 new TVs and 28 languages, from 169 contributors 🙏
Your TV can now:
• Show your Home Assistant lights and locks
• Pause your Pi-hole from the couch
• Get cleaned from your phone, no laptop needed
• Turn any remote button into a shortcut
Plus 52 new TVs and 28 languages, from 169 contributors 🙏
CleanYourTV v2.7 is out 📺
What's new:
• 35 new TVs from 9 new brands
• Wallpapers that change with the time of day
• Two new themes
• Game controllers that just work
• Safer defaults that protect your TV
230 PRs merged from 122 contributors since the last release 🙏
182
302
4,224
544,015
Kyle Wiens retweeted
If you've ever wondered why smart TVs are so cheap, this is why.
@log4j rooted his Samsung and found an always-on hot mic, automatic content recognition, geolocation, network mapping, ad targeting and user profiling, shared with Samsung's "400 partners".
A lot of it can be te a basic guide below.
What your TV is doing
The main culprit is ACR (automatic content recognition). Your TV screenshots what's on screen, fingerprints it, and sends it home to build your ad profile. Samsung does it every 500ms, LG every 10ms [1].
What is insane: it happens on connected devices too.
Plug in your laptop, your console, your work machine, and your TV can fingerprint that via HDMI [1].
He also found that if your Samsung doesn't have a mic, it'll look for one from a connected soundbar or bluetooth device.
x.com/log4j/status/2…
It's on by default, and you likely agreed to it on the setup screen you clicked through in 10 seconds.
Step 1: Turn off ACR
Samsung: Terms & Privacy → Viewing Information Services
LG: Live Plus
Vizio: Viewing Data
Roku: "Use info from TV inputs"
Sony/Google TV: Samba Interactive TV
Menus vary by model, but those are the names to look for. While you're in there, opt out of interest-based ads, reset your advertising ID, decline every optional privacy agreement, turn off voice recognition, and delete apps you never open.
Step 2: Give smart devices their own network
Put the TV, cameras, speakers and vacuum on your router's guest/IoT network. The logic is simple: these devices rarely get patched. If one gets compromised (getting drastically more frequent with AI), it shouldn't be able to see your other devices or home network.
Step 3: Block trackers for the whole house with DNS-level filtering
NextDNS (cloud-based) is easy and has a solid free plan. Pi-hole is a little bit more work if you prefer self hosting. For simplicity we'll focus on the former.
1. Sign up at nextdns.io (free tier is plenty)
2. Privacy tab: add a blocklist (OISD is a good bet) and turn on Native Tracking Protection for Samsung, LG, Roku, Amazon (see attached image)
3. Setup tab: copy your endpoint
4. Paste it into your router's DNS settings as DNS-over-HTTPS/TLS (or use the IPs + "Link IP" if your router only does plain DNS)
5. Bonus: block outbound port 53 except to your router. Some devices hardcode their own DNS to get around you
Then open the NextDNS logs and watch how often your TV phones home. It's eye-opening. If an app or update breaks, find the domain in the logs and allowlist it.
Why they do this
TV prices are down 97% since 2000 [2]. Most of that is better manufacturing and brutal competition. But once margins on the hardware hit zero, the cost moved to you.
In Q3 2024, Vizio lost $6.7M selling TVs and made $115.8M in gross profit from ads and viewing data [3]. They've said on earnings calls that they keep TV prices low to grow the audience they sell to advertisers. Walmart bought them in 2024.
This isn't a conspiracy theory either. Vizio paid $2.2M to the FTC in 2017 for tracking 11 million TVs without consent. Last December, Texas sued Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense and TCL over ACR. Samsung and LG have since agreed to stop collecting that data without explicit consent [4].
TL;DR
1. ACR off
2. Ads + voice off
3. Smart devices on their own network
4. NextDNS filtering on the router
Sources:
[1] ACR study: arxiv.org/abs/2409.06203
[2] Cost of US consumer goods: aei.org/economics/char…
[3] Vizio Q3 2024: sec.gov/Archives/edgar…
[4] Texas v. Samsung: texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/…
@log4j rooted his Samsung and found an always-on hot mic, automatic content recognition, geolocation, network mapping, ad targeting and user profiling, shared with Samsung's "400 partners".
A lot of it can be te a basic guide below.
What your TV is doing
The main culprit is ACR (automatic content recognition). Your TV screenshots what's on screen, fingerprints it, and sends it home to build your ad profile. Samsung does it every 500ms, LG every 10ms [1].
What is insane: it happens on connected devices too.
Plug in your laptop, your console, your work machine, and your TV can fingerprint that via HDMI [1].
He also found that if your Samsung doesn't have a mic, it'll look for one from a connected soundbar or bluetooth device.
x.com/log4j/status/2…
It's on by default, and you likely agreed to it on the setup screen you clicked through in 10 seconds.
Step 1: Turn off ACR
Samsung: Terms & Privacy → Viewing Information Services
LG: Live Plus
Vizio: Viewing Data
Roku: "Use info from TV inputs"
Sony/Google TV: Samba Interactive TV
Menus vary by model, but those are the names to look for. While you're in there, opt out of interest-based ads, reset your advertising ID, decline every optional privacy agreement, turn off voice recognition, and delete apps you never open.
Step 2: Give smart devices their own network
Put the TV, cameras, speakers and vacuum on your router's guest/IoT network. The logic is simple: these devices rarely get patched. If one gets compromised (getting drastically more frequent with AI), it shouldn't be able to see your other devices or home network.
Step 3: Block trackers for the whole house with DNS-level filtering
NextDNS (cloud-based) is easy and has a solid free plan. Pi-hole is a little bit more work if you prefer self hosting. For simplicity we'll focus on the former.
1. Sign up at nextdns.io (free tier is plenty)
2. Privacy tab: add a blocklist (OISD is a good bet) and turn on Native Tracking Protection for Samsung, LG, Roku, Amazon (see attached image)
3. Setup tab: copy your endpoint
4. Paste it into your router's DNS settings as DNS-over-HTTPS/TLS (or use the IPs + "Link IP" if your router only does plain DNS)
5. Bonus: block outbound port 53 except to your router. Some devices hardcode their own DNS to get around you
Then open the NextDNS logs and watch how often your TV phones home. It's eye-opening. If an app or update breaks, find the domain in the logs and allowlist it.
Why they do this
TV prices are down 97% since 2000 [2]. Most of that is better manufacturing and brutal competition. But once margins on the hardware hit zero, the cost moved to you.
In Q3 2024, Vizio lost $6.7M selling TVs and made $115.8M in gross profit from ads and viewing data [3]. They've said on earnings calls that they keep TV prices low to grow the audience they sell to advertisers. Walmart bought them in 2024.
This isn't a conspiracy theory either. Vizio paid $2.2M to the FTC in 2017 for tracking 11 million TVs without consent. Last December, Texas sued Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense and TCL over ACR. Samsung and LG have since agreed to stop collecting that data without explicit consent [4].
TL;DR
1. ACR off
2. Ads + voice off
3. Smart devices on their own network
4. NextDNS filtering on the router
Sources:
[1] ACR study: arxiv.org/abs/2409.06203
[2] Cost of US consumer goods: aei.org/economics/char…
[3] Vizio Q3 2024: sec.gov/Archives/edgar…
[4] Texas v. Samsung: texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/…
i own a relatively new (2025) samsung tv.
i kept getting weirdly targeted ads.
i tried reversing the firmware but it was aes encrypted and no keys unless tear it apart and do uart/jtag magic.
zero days it is. root shell on new samsung TVs!
discovered PRIVACY HORROR. write up?
347
3,287
22,576
1,556,010
The iPhone Duo is an incredible, fragile, wild feat of engineering. We found a world of innovation inside.
4
1
61
2,694
The hinge is actually dozens of parts, with ludicrous precision. A manufacturing variance or grain of sand can kill the fragile display panel it protects.
0
2
20
2,419
So many cool inventions packed into one product. Apple really sweated minimizing the crease and fingerprints.
The diffusion effect of the nano-texture display at the edge of the camera cutout.
Full teardown: ifixit.com/News/119895/ip…
The diffusion effect of the nano-texture display at the edge of the camera cutout.
Full teardown: ifixit.com/News/119895/ip…
2
0
7
371
Kyle Wiens retweeted
Is your TV on the list? 👀
293 TV models from 83 brands!
All tested by people on their own TVs.
Free and open source. No root, nothing uninstalled.
293 TV models from 83 brands!
All tested by people on their own TVs.
Free and open source. No root, nothing uninstalled.
222
516
5,549
459,872
Kyle Wiens retweeted
turns out it classifies what audio it hears, before reporting back to samsung.
sensor preferences, dog-barking and baby-crying event counters, and camera streaming duration are built into telemetry paths.
sensor preferences, dog-barking and baby-crying event counters, and camera streaming duration are built into telemetry paths.
this is pretty evil and clever.
so if your samsung TV model doesnt have a microphone, it will look for connected devices with one, such as a soundbar or a connected bluetooth device.
this gets shipped off to bixby.
239
1,934
16,023
1,577,531
Kyle Wiens retweeted
The only way out is through.
They're calling it the Bugpocalypse. LLMs are being used to find long-hidden cracks in the software infrastructure, and it's happening at a furious rate. 3% of all compromises in computing history happened in the last week, claims one source? I believe it.
There are people saying public access to the frontier models ought to be locked out, or heavily guardrailed, over this. The problem with that idea can be summed up in one sentence: when lockpicks are outlawed, only outlaws will have lockpicks.
The lockpicks will be Chinese open-weight models, if nothing else. There's no way to stop those from becoming ubiquitous.
There are two futures in front of us. One in which only the bad guys have lockpicks, and security holes go undiscovered until they're exploited. Another in which everybody has lockpicks and is aggressively red-teaming their own software so it gets fixed before the holes are exploited.
The corpus of human code is huge but finite. The number of defects in it has to be finite too. We can fix those defects now; we have a million friendly robots to do it with.
The only way out is through.
They're calling it the Bugpocalypse. LLMs are being used to find long-hidden cracks in the software infrastructure, and it's happening at a furious rate. 3% of all compromises in computing history happened in the last week, claims one source? I believe it.
There are people saying public access to the frontier models ought to be locked out, or heavily guardrailed, over this. The problem with that idea can be summed up in one sentence: when lockpicks are outlawed, only outlaws will have lockpicks.
The lockpicks will be Chinese open-weight models, if nothing else. There's no way to stop those from becoming ubiquitous.
There are two futures in front of us. One in which only the bad guys have lockpicks, and security holes go undiscovered until they're exploited. Another in which everybody has lockpicks and is aggressively red-teaming their own software so it gets fixed before the holes are exploited.
The corpus of human code is huge but finite. The number of defects in it has to be finite too. We can fix those defects now; we have a million friendly robots to do it with.
The only way out is through.
176
649
4,879
477,668
Kyle Wiens retweeted
AI just resurrected my ~25-year-old scanner.
6 years ago I bought a new Lexmark MFC Printer because my now ~25 year old HP MFC stopped getting driver support for its scanner and I could no longer make the ancient drivers work on then-recent macOS versions.
I've kept the HP on the network as a capable laser printer since.
Yesterday, literally mid-discussion while recording Monday's upcoming Mac Geek Gab episode, it dawned on me that I could ask Claude, “hey, what are the chances we could…” and literally by the end of the episode I had native macOS network scanning functionality returned to that ~25 year old printer.
This is not yesterday’s world, folks.
6 years ago I bought a new Lexmark MFC Printer because my now ~25 year old HP MFC stopped getting driver support for its scanner and I could no longer make the ancient drivers work on then-recent macOS versions.
I've kept the HP on the network as a capable laser printer since.
Yesterday, literally mid-discussion while recording Monday's upcoming Mac Geek Gab episode, it dawned on me that I could ask Claude, “hey, what are the chances we could…” and literally by the end of the episode I had native macOS network scanning functionality returned to that ~25 year old printer.
This is not yesterday’s world, folks.
1
1
3
353
Kyle Wiens retweeted
ok i did this hack TV ui thing today.
My dad has moderate Alzheimer's. We are moving him into our home this weekend.
He just basically wants to watch his favorite teams all day (Braves and Falcons). We have smart TVs. They are too complex.
Codex built a really simple and beautiful app. 4 buttons in the UI (sports channels only). Even programmed the remote to only go back to menu and change volume.
Incredible use case
My dad has moderate Alzheimer's. We are moving him into our home this weekend.
He just basically wants to watch his favorite teams all day (Braves and Falcons). We have smart TVs. They are too complex.
Codex built a really simple and beautiful app. 4 buttons in the UI (sports channels only). Even programmed the remote to only go back to menu and change volume.
Incredible use case
38
37
1,232
33,488