How can I trace what servers my Smart TV is connecting to?

[pahbi]

After reading that some Smart TVs are spying on users, I would like to find out if my TV is spying on me.

I disabled the, "send anonymous data" options in my TV per the instructions, but I wish to be able to verify that the TV isn't connecting to servers for the purpose of recording what I watch.

Thanks,
- P

 

[kanewolf]

If your TV connects wirelessly it will be a little harder. You will need to get the data stream back to a wire before it gets to your router. Then you could put a switch which can do port mirroring in the path and capture all traffic in that link. If it is connected wired, then you just need a port mirroring switch.

 

[bill001g]

If your router has firewall abilities you might be able to block everything except connection to only the feature you need. Still how would you ever know what is being sent if it is encrypted. They can tell you it is to get say scheduling information but how do you really know that is all that is being sent. You likely can stop some third party from using the tv to spy on your but if the manufacture is somehow involved because they say want to sell marketing information there is not much you can do. How do you really know when you opt out of the collection of data they really honor that request. Some actually say they collect it but don't look at it if you opt out.....sure I believe that.

The only hope is large companies are not willing to take the risk to go too far. There are lots of people like you that will attempt to see what is being sent and even some that will make efforts to break the encryption even. There are also people financially motivated, think how much money someone could attempt to blackmail companies doing bad stuff to not release information to the public.

But as mentioned in the above post it is not simple to do this from many levels. You first must acquire the data itself and then you must be able to figure out what it means. Even non encrypted traffic appears like a bunch of garbage to your average person. There are tools like wireshark that will format the data out for you but these tools only really know about standard data. You would think the manufactures would release information on the format of their data communication so you could verify their claims they do what they say but I have yet to see it.

 

[pahbi]

I appreciate your insight.

I'm not particularly interested in the packet contents.

If I knew my TV was going to lg.collectuserdata.com (just making something up) I could block that address in my routers firewall.

But I need to know where my tv is sending data before I can block it.

- P

 

[bill001g]

It depends on your router some will show you the open sessions so you would see you tv ip addresses and the desitnation address. Other have the ability to log blocked traffic so you could block all the tv traffic and see what it blocks.

If you have a really stupid router then it will be very hard since in a standard home install the router really is the only device that know where traffic is going and if it does not have a feature to tell you there is little you can do.