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76 points fewgrehrehre | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.202s | source

I've got a spare television lying around (specifically, a Samsung UN24H4500), and I thought it'd be fun to take a crack at seeing what I can do with it. The only hitch is that I've never really done any hardware hacking before, so I don't really know where to start!

Any tips and pointers would be much appreciated, in terms of common ways to search for and exploit vulnerabilities, or the exploitation of other televisions. Alternatively, if this is an absolute fool's errand, and the whole thing is locked down tighter than Fort Knox, a firm warning that this is not a good thing to dick around with over a weekend would also be appreciated.

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Benjamin_Dobell ◴[] No.41877796[source]
Hacking TVs was a favourite pasttime of mine. There's nothing quite like flashing a TV with AOSP such that it thinks it's 55" smartphone. Lock screen and all.

See if you can find a service manual for your TV. You'll want to get UART as soon as possible.

Just remember crashes are for chumps: https://gist.github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/bb13f6169aaa48625453...

PS. I think that may be my favourite piece of code I've ever written. Mostly because it's completely absurd but worked just fine.

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rubyfan ◴[] No.41878262[source]
I have a Samsung smart tv which I’ve never accepted t&c and never connected to wifi.

I’d love to make it dumb or at least get rid of the nags to accept t&c or connect when someone accidentally hits the wrong button on the remote. Anything out there to do that?

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Loughla ◴[] No.41879022[source]
I want that, so bad. Mine brings up the sign in screen every time you turn it on. I also want the ability to just change channels when you hit the channel button. My TV brings up a mini-guide when you hit the channel button, so that the down button goes up in station number and vice versa. Then once you select a channel, because it's not connected to the web, it blinks on and off for 5 seconds or so while it's trying to find program information from the internet connection it does not have. It's absolutely asinine. I miss the days when TV's were just screens to show whatever input I have connected to them.
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1. completelylegit ◴[] No.41883902[source]
There are often hidden menus for “Hotel mode” that allow you to config which channel / input to default to on power up. No need to hack them.