I'm still nervously holding my breath for the first disclosure that a TV manufacturer is using Amazon's distributed Sidewalk Network (or perhaps mobile vehicles, cell-SIMs, LoRa) to remotely gather all that viewing data they've subsidized into your artificially-low TV purchase price .
But they've been calling "crazy?" for decades.
This exactly. Surely some sort of IoT mesh networking will allow exfiltration of data even without having configured your own device.
I'm hopeful that there will be sufficient distrust that "jailbreaking" or "rooting" TV controller boards will be turnkey enough to move to something like OpenWrt or GrapheneOS but for TVs.
Why not do it yourself?
That is a reasonable push back. The simple answer is a lack of present day need given my TV is a very old Samsung without any need.
I suppose I also assume someone with Android ROM development experience is better positioned to take up organizing such a project as an overall smaller effort, there by being faster and more efficient. Other real life constraints also seem to suggest not pursuing this type of thing in lieu of other things I should be pursuing and already procrastinate. But, here there be dragons, or at the very least a can of worms.
>IoT mesh networking
I'll bet there is already a manufacturer whose TVs can all communicate intratelevisually (non-standard proprietary frequencies) – and then, if even one of them is online... they're all relaying within their private intra-TV spyware meshnets to their various relays.
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In unrelated news, my 2012 Sony Bravia is still fantastic, even if not for (4K) high-refresh games (the image quality remains fantastic for casual usage).