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Ask HN: Tips for hacking a TV?

76 points fewgrehrehre | 5 comments | 16 Oct 24 03:44 UTC | HN request time: 0.873s | 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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pabs3 ◴[18 Oct 24 23:19 UTC] No.41884360[source]▶
First step would be to contact Samsung and ask for the Linux kernel and other open source code for your TV. Without it you won't be able to replace the original OS properly. Also mention to them that they have to allow you to update Linux on the TV or they have to stop using Linux on their TVs.

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/

replies(2): >>41884624 #>>41886242 #
1. fensgrim ◴[19 Oct 24 00:21 UTC] No.41884624[source]▶
And they will provide it as required per law. Note that the law does not require them to provide that in a form that would be usable for anything practical without doing moderate to heavy amount of reverse engineering (e.g. here's the source, here's the toolchain that was released in approximately same period of time, go figure out if this can even be built without recreating part of their internal build system, missing configs, etc).
replies(1): >>41884627 #
2. pabs3 ◴[19 Oct 24 00:22 UTC] No.41884627[source]▶
See the blog post, the GPLv2 goes further than what you suggest.
replies(1): >>41885941 #
3. minhaz23 ◴[19 Oct 24 06:02 UTC] No.41885941[source]▶
So if my Toyota head unit has FOSS they can provide that source code to me if I ask?
replies(2): >>41887961 #>>41888545 #
4. ChocolateGod ◴[19 Oct 24 14:31 UTC] No.41887961{3}[source]▶
For the parts covered under GPL, yes, which includes the kernel (if it uses Linux).

If they're covered under a more permissive license (e.g. Apache, MIT) you're out of luck as these don't require redistribution of derivative work source code, only attribution.

5. numpad0 ◴[19 Oct 24 15:57 UTC] No.41888545{3}[source]▶

  https://www.denso.com/global/en/opensource/ivi/toyota/