earlier this Fall, a Samsung storage facility in South Africa was robbed as well as the thieves got away with a quantity of wise televisions. Samsung proceeded to execute a little-known function called “TV Block” which is installed on all of their TV products. The serial numbers of the stolen TV sets are flagged in their servers, as well as if one of these sets tries to link the Web in the future, it will acknowledge that it is stolen as well as proceed to brick itself, disabling all television functionality.
So while this real-life situation makes sense, it is a bit alarming to recognize the ramification of such a function — the producer can reach into your TV as well as disable it from afar. One can presume that Samsung won’t abuse this capability, since acting otherwise would damage their reputation. In a press release, Samsung revealed that any type of consumers whose sets were incorrectly bricked can have their sets un-bricked after demonstrating appropriate ownership.
Despite such great intentions, the simple existence of such a function is worrisome. What somebody hacks the system as well as begins bricking TVs around the world willy-nilly? If you are concerned about this possibility, one choice of program is to never link your TV set to the internet. however in that case, it may be much better to just purchase a “dumb” television set instead.
Anti-theft immobilizers are not new — one system was patented over 100 years back to thwart cars and truck thieves. cars and truck stereo systems have likewise long featured innovation that renders them unusable when stolen. Although this robbery brought Samsung’s “TV Block” to consumers’ attention, we question if other producers have similar anti-theft systems which aren’t well publicized. If you understand of any, please share in the comments below.