It turned out that LG smart TV sneaked out the file name and browsing record in the USB to the server

ByLG 전자

A British male who realized that the advertisement is displayed on the home screen of the owned LG smart TV proceeded its own investigation and discovered the file name and browsing record in the USB memory I found out that it was sent to LG's server in between.

DoctorBeet's Blog: LG Smart TVs logging USB filenames and viewing info to LG servers
http://doctorbeet.blogspot.jp/2013/11/lg-smart-tvs-logging-usb-filenames-and.html

British man Mr. DoctorBeet proceeded its investigation independently and found out that there is an item "Collection of watching info" in the "Option" menu of "Legacy smart TV" System Setting. In the state just purchased, "Collection of watching info" is said to be "ON".


Doubtless DoctorBeet confirmed traffic information. As a result, it turned out that the browsing record was being sent to LG's server regardless of whether "Collection of watching info" was on or off. Also, it was discovered that the browsing record was transmitted to the LG server without encryption every time the TV channel changed.


Furthermore, DoctorBeet surveyed up to the possibility that the file name in the USB memory was being transmitted to the server of LG. In order to confirm the fact, DoctorBeet creates an avi format file called "Midget_Porn_2013" and stores it in the USB memory.


After examining the traffic information after that, it is confirmed that the file Midget_Porn_2013 which should not be present is displayed and that the file name in the USB memory is sent to the server of LG.


DoctorBeet immediately contacted LG's customer center, and the reply sent from LG seems not to be a wonderful response, and it was as follows.

Good morning

Thank you for taking the time to contact us.

The mail informed from the customer was reported to LG headquarters in the UK.

According to explanation from LG headquarters, customers agreed to the terms of the contract, so retailers that sold products rather than LG should have given appropriate explanation when purchasing the customer's products.

We apologize for any inconvenience, Please contact me without reserving if there is something again.

Best regards

"Reply from LG did not disappoint." DoctorBeet says that in order to prevent browsing records and file names in the USB memory from being sent to the LG server, a list of domain names to block We are disclosing to urge other users to pay attention. It is unknown how LG actually carries out the "appropriate explanation at the time of product purchase" which we mentioned in the mail about the same type of function in the future.