cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/50166453
Most “Smart” TVs use Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), essentially taking snapshots every 10+ms of what you watch and hear, then forwarding & selling that data to companies for ads, etc. I now feel it’s only a matter of time before this “feature” finds its way to our ever “smarter” PC monitors.
LG with the help of Windows is already installing adware when the right Device ID is detected.
☑️ To disable ACR on TV: https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/home-entertainment/how-to-disable-acr-tv/
wonder if they could bypass it by laying the ads directly (hardware level) over any screen input haha
They can, they would just need an excuse to make people connect the monitor to the internet to get new ads to be worth the trouble of implementing it.
HDMI and USB C are used in monitors. Both can transmit more than just the image data, e.g. tunneling an Ethernet connection. Not sure if Display Port also supports that
HDMI supports ethernet, but very few devices actually implement it. Even if the monitor and GPU support it, there would be no internet connection unless the PC bridges it to your LAN.
DisplayPort does not carry ethernet.
That would be a way to sneak it in. Some monitors already have embedded USB-C hubs and have an Ethernet port to forward Ethernet to the connected computer.
Oof. I’m actually using the USB Hub on my LG Monitor like that (with my Laptop connected to the USB-C) and recently thought “it would have been practical if it had an Ethernet port” now I’m quite happy it doesn’t. Thinking they could just be running a simple embedded Linux to show ads and forwarding the Ethernet connecting that would be sneaky … (Tough I would wonder about an additional Device on my Network)
You wouldn’t even really question your new device on the network. Since the monitor must forward the packets from and to your PC it’s MAC address would show up in the network, but that’s expected. And good luck separating the traffic of your monitor from that of your PC if it originates from the very same MAC address as it’s basically the new network card of your PC connected via USB C. And since it could act like a bridge, it could strip out the responses to its own requests and not forward those to your PC so you don’t even see them there. On the other side it’s all TLS encrypted so nothing to see either. Heck, it could even only send its own requests when your PC is actively using the connection so that it’s less noticeable.
You might do some DPI and check what IPs you connect to but good luck finding if it really is your monitor and not some random app on your PC. If it’s using DoH, you can’t even inspect its DNS traffic to get a clue what’s going on (SNI in the handshake might still offer some clue).
Also all of the above enables tracking and spying on you covertly. Ads are quite obvious, so there’s nothing to hide there.
I know more than one place that uses monitors for safety messages. If they overlay that there will be bug court cases. Likely criminal
This already happens with TVs and streaming sticks.