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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1603 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 1, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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To be fair, Sony did surreptitiously install rootkits on lots of people's computers that one time, and didn't face crippling legal consequences for doing so. I wouldn't trust their TVs without verification.

You’d probably have to go with some less well known brand like Magnavox or some distributor and manufacturer I’ve never even heard of. Maybe that’s a task for an LLM to do the research on; but the trend of the whole industry has been in one direction for decades now.

I would assume any non-mainstream, "legacy" brand that makes you think "huh, they still make TVs?" (Magnavox, RCA, Westinghouse, Phillips) or unknown brand is just some Chinese company's skinsuit at this point, so I would definitely not trust them over any other. At least there is the possibility of a large Japanese or Korean brand getting repercussions from fucking the consumer over. Yes, it rarely happens, but it could, which is probably informing their decisions. But Chinese brands operate outside of the West's ability to punish or regulate. Cheap Chinese electronics (not their prestige brands like Hisense or TCL with a reputation to lose, those are probably just as bad but no worse than the Japanese or Koreans) spying on people rarely makes the news because we rightfully go "well no shit sherlock", not because it doesn't happen.

If anyone wants a real haunted tech story look up the Darknet Diaries episode about dodgy Android TV boxes.

https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/172/
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/11/is-your-android-tv-streaming-box-part-of-a-botnet/

Like a hardware version of a Trojan horse.

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