Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Disabling wi-fi on Samsung home appliances (specifically dishwasher) (www.costco.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

89 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Replacing a dishwasher. Most of the mid-range options now come with fucking Wi-Fi. Found a model I liked, no info in manual and support from Samsung was of course, useless since it wasn't already in the manual and wanted to keep talking about their exciting "smart things" app. gag.

I saw a youtube video of a guy disconnecting wifi cable on a fridge. I'm fine doing that if I have to open up the board but it'll probably be smaller than the fridge and who knows if it'll be helpfully labled like the one in the video was. Internet searching showed me there may be oven keypress combinations to turn wi-fi radio on/off. Anyone have anything similar/advice for Samsung appliances, specifically dishwashers?

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I have a smart tv, washer, and dryer. None of them are connected to a network. They can’t do anything “smart” without a network. You don’t need to take apart or disconnect anything. In fact, doing so could cause problems if you nick the wrong wire or component.

Just leave it be and you should be fine.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Even owning Smart devices and having them always plugged in may potentially be a vector, Rob did a good breakdown on how this is achieved.

https://odysee.com/@RobBraxmanTech:6/radio:64

Did you know that your IOT devices are secretly communicating with each other? This includes IOT devices that are not in your home. Did you know that what your IOT devices do may be transmitted to third parties? Did you know that your TV may also have the capability and may currently be transmitting your activity far and wide?

There are secret communications occurring between IOT devices using protocols like Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, Thread, 802.15, and LoRa that you likely didn't expect or was not explained when you bought these devices.

Just like Amazon Echo has been conscripted to work with the Amazon Sidewalk Mesh network, other networks are in operation

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Good point. I did not consider this. Thank you.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If I did that half my neighbors would own my devices in a week because they like transmitting open access points for setup purposes. I just connect them anyway and then just block them from outbound access at the router if I want to restrict them. That way I can be sure. Then I can use my Homeassistant server to control them from behind the firewall locally if they have that capability.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

You make a terrifyingly interesting point. I did not consider this. Thank you.