I didn't wake up after the end of Media Center -- for streaming, do I need new TV?

[BonzaiDuck]

I used to think I was a sort of tech-whiz. But as we moved into the thumb-typing era with cell-phones, and the internet began offering streaming services, I just . . . stopped . . . keeping up. I got old. And after 2017, I was spending a lot of time daily to take care of my 96-year-old Moms. Less time to fiddle around with electronics and computers.

I have an 11-year-old LG LED-LCD HDTV -- I think the model is either the LG 42LV5500 or the 42LW5700. It's got about 5 HDMI ports, the legacy coax connection, and an RJ-45 ethernet port. I never connected it to my wired network, since I'd used a long HDMI cable to connect it to my HTPC. (There was a time when HTPC's were "the thing".

The HTPC accessed two SiliconDust HDHome-Run triple-tuners (for cable-cards), and it was marvelous for years -- until . . . . . Until Charter merged under Spectrum, and then I lost my premium-channel access, and tech-support couldn't seem to help. I finally just decided to scrap the SiliconDust tuners, and pulled them off the network several weeks ago.

Guess what? All the recordings made with the HDHomeRun units now play with damaged audio. You can't hear the voices in the movie-script. Ten years-worth of recorded political events, news specials, documentaries . . . movies and other content -- encrypted or otherwise -- just . . freaking . . gone.

So, OK, I can live with that loss. At the moment, we're accessing our Spectrum subscription through an EDGE web-page, such that our channels are streamed through the internet. I've got a cable-set-top box I checked out from the Spectrum people last summer, and I've yet to install it. Our cableTV+internet+telephone subscription is running us $270/month. If I chose to stream in YouTube @ $65/month, our costs would drop $115.

The LG instructions say that it gives internet access for streaming. I'm wondering if I should take the time to try it. I'm also wondering, for an 11-year-old HD TV, if I shouldn't just donate the set to GoodWill and buy a new one. Not for the money -- our rooms are too small for 70" UHD sets. I need a 42" set, for starters, and I need about a 20" for my Moms room.

I don't know where to begin with this stuff. I need to take time to do it right. In this entire scenario, I once had a house with three computer users, a server, and four PCs. My brother died in January, and Moms is bed-bound with dementia. I'm the only computer user in the house now. I've got to scuttle two Sandy-Bridge systems -- the Media Center boxes. I may even need to scuttle my Windows 2012 R2 server system with its 11TB of drive-pool storage. I'll take time to think about that.

I'm looking at a situation regarding Moms where it will be wise to trim our monthly recurring expenses. We're going to need to pay for some in-home care, running about $1,440 per month. so -- yeah -- I want to wean myself from the cable subscription, or at least scale it back to "no sports channels, fewer premium channels". My brother in Nevada has described his setup and convinced me that streaming is the way to go.

I'm just not sure where to start. Certainly, I can get a new Samsung 42" Smart TV for about $850. Then what?

Any ideas? What do I need to know? What do I need to learn? What should I do?

 

[VirtualLarry]

The LG instructions say that it gives internet access for streaming. I'm wondering if I should take the time to try it. I'm also wondering, for an 11-year-old HD TV, if I shouldn't just donate the set to GoodWill and buy a new one. Not for the money -- our rooms are too small for 70" UHD sets. I need a 42" set, for starters, and I need about a 20" for my Moms room.

Unless you just WANT to be part of someone's "BotNet", I wouldn't hook up ANY 11-year-old consumer networking gear to the internet, if it hasn't been updated to at least the most recent year.

This goes for your internet router too!!! Although you would HOPE that routers, being intended to be network security devices, might be a little-bit more "hardened" than just your average consumer electronics gear that is intended to be protected by a router.

 

[lakedude]

My first thought was that no, of course you don't need a new TV.

My second thought was that the cost of a new 4k TV would be trivial compared to your monthly entertainment expenses over time.

Personally I despise smart TVs with built-in streaming, preferring to stream from a computer, Playstation, Chromecast, Roku, or cell phone docked to DeX.

Not sure what your audio issue is but maybe look into a ZFS raid with bit rot protection for next time. I can lose 2 drives out of six and still be golden.

 

[deustroop]

Streaming is easy on Samsung. Being a smart tv means it has wifi service and most tvs now have several streaming services pre installed.
From the tv's settings, you wifi-network the tv with the modem/ router. Once the tv is networked, default streaming services will display their icons . If you want to stream other content, you sign up either on the tv or by way of the service's web site and once that is settled an icon for that service-Disney, Youtube, etc.--will display on the tv's " Smart Hub " along with those pre installed. The tv will then become a collection of inputs-- wifi streaming , hdmi, DVD etc. and cable tv.
The question is whehter you will pay less in streaming subscriptions than cable costs. Which content is available this way is limited but then that is how the costs get cut back for media services. CNN now has streaming-called CNN+ but it may not be live.

 

[Muadib]

If you are streaming Spectrum, why do you have a cable box? That's just a waste. You should be able to download the Spectrum app to the LG tvs and go from there. I pay $45 a month for Spectrum, but I have no premium channels. If you have apps that you stream, then I feel that premium channels are redundant. If you do buy a new set, get something bigger than 42". Since tv sets come 16:9 now, 42" is small.

 

[Tech Junky]

@BonzaiDuck

Ok, so you need a streaming dongle of your choice. I use a chromecast and get by fine until I try to do something high end 4K / 5.1/7.1 audio. For something like that you'd want to bmp to a Roku Ultra or Amazon Fire Cube 4K.

Once you cut the cord it takes some getting used to not being spoon fed crappy programming 24/7 on cable.

If you insist on a streaming subscription - https://www.suppose.tv/tv

If you don't need to pay for programming then pluto.tv works well for slightly older grid format programming. Setting up a Plex server though would be worthwhile to aggregate items / subscriptions now w/ the new "search everything" option that was just added to Plex for converged search across platforms.

TV portion is all relative to what type of content you want to watch and the room you watch it in. I switched to a projector in 4K for $700 and it works best in the evening when it's darker but, still visible during daylight. The perk of the projector is variable screen size if you move it yo can take up a whole wall or 60" or whatever you want.

 

[sdifox]

The LG tv I have now has a whole bunch of IPTV channels. Look into them first and decode that is good enough for you. I have an ota antenna, neflix, prime and plex.

LG TV - How to Set Up the LG ThinQ App on Your LG Smart TV | LG USA Support

LG TV - How to Set Up the LG ThinQ App on Your LG Smart TV. Learn how to use, update, maintain and troubleshoot your LG devices and appliances.

www.lg.com

 

[Commodus]

I used to think I was a sort of tech-whiz. But as we moved into the thumb-typing era with cell-phones, and the internet began offering streaming services, I just . . . stopped . . . keeping up. I got old. And after 2017, I was spending a lot of time daily to take care of my 96-year-old Moms. Less time to fiddle around with electronics and computers.

I have an 11-year-old LG LED-LCD HDTV -- I think the model is either the LG 42LV5500 or the 42LW5700. It's got about 5 HDMI ports, the legacy coax connection, and an RJ-45 ethernet port. I never connected it to my wired network, since I'd used a long HDMI cable to connect it to my HTPC. (There was a time when HTPC's were "the thing".

The HTPC accessed two SiliconDust HDHome-Run triple-tuners (for cable-cards), and it was marvelous for years -- until . . . . . Until Charter merged under Spectrum, and then I lost my premium-channel access, and tech-support couldn't seem to help. I finally just decided to scrap the SiliconDust tuners, and pulled them off the network several weeks ago.

Guess what? All the recordings made with the HDHomeRun units now play with damaged audio. You can't hear the voices in the movie-script. Ten years-worth of recorded political events, news specials, documentaries . . . movies and other content -- encrypted or otherwise -- just . . freaking . . gone.

So, OK, I can live with that loss. At the moment, we're accessing our Spectrum subscription through an EDGE web-page, such that our channels are streamed through the internet. I've got a cable-set-top box I checked out from the Spectrum people last summer, and I've yet to install it. Our cableTV+internet+telephone subscription is running us $270/month. If I chose to stream in YouTube @ $65/month, our costs would drop $115.

The LG instructions say that it gives internet access for streaming. I'm wondering if I should take the time to try it. I'm also wondering, for an 11-year-old HD TV, if I shouldn't just donate the set to GoodWill and buy a new one. Not for the money -- our rooms are too small for 70" UHD sets. I need a 42" set, for starters, and I need about a 20" for my Moms room.

I don't know where to begin with this stuff. I need to take time to do it right. In this entire scenario, I once had a house with three computer users, a server, and four PCs. My brother died in January, and Moms is bed-bound with dementia. I'm the only computer user in the house now. I've got to scuttle two Sandy-Bridge systems -- the Media Center boxes. I may even need to scuttle my Windows 2012 R2 server system with its 11TB of drive-pool storage. I'll take time to think about that.

I'm looking at a situation regarding Moms where it will be wise to trim our monthly recurring expenses. We're going to need to pay for some in-home care, running about $1,440 per month. so -- yeah -- I want to wean myself from the cable subscription, or at least scale it back to "no sports channels, fewer premium channels". My brother in Nevada has described his setup and convinced me that streaming is the way to go.

I'm just not sure where to start. Certainly, I can get a new Samsung 42" Smart TV for about $850. Then what?

Any ideas? What do I need to know? What do I need to learn? What should I do?

I would definitely look at YouTube TV, Hulu+Live TV, Sling TV and similar services. There's no point to conventional TV if you don't need all the channels and do have reliably fast broadband.

As for the TV, RTINGS has a good list of TVs in the 40-43 inch range. Sony and Samsung are the frontrunners. Consider open-box and refurbished models if you want to save money. The key is to get a 4K set that uses a common smart TV platform and will likely receive updates for a few years.

Not to get too philosophical, but: in my experience, it's best not to worry about recording everything. Many of us like the idea of clipping a news event or one-off show to relive what it was like, but the truth is that we rarely if ever go back to those recordings — we often have our hands full just watching new material. It's also harder to justify recording given the frailty of the tech (as you've witnessed) and the number of services that have deep back catalogs.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

All good insights, folks, and I thank you. I need to read over these again and post some responses.

Just for starters, someone mentioned the uselessness of having set-top boxes with the cable-tv input. I agree, but the leak in the budget is about $13 monthly. Before I take the boxes back to Spectrum, I think I will re-deploy and use temporarily before I proceed with the other great advice I find in this thread.

In my life's history with TV sets, I had never been eager for the latest and greatest, nor felt a need to buy them with greater frequency. I think I always tried to get at least ten years out of a TV, although I was glad when I could replace an eight-year-old tube TV with HD flat screen LED-LCD units. Often, I wouldn't replace a TV until there was something wrong with it, and sometimes -- I'd just have the set repaired.

But 11 years with my LG earns me the right and option to drop it at Good Will and buy a Samsung "Smart" 4K unit.

My only caveat here is that there is not one single room in this house amenable to a set larger than 43". The main first-floor living room may be just short of 20' x 12', but for the dimension offering the largest distance to the TV screen, there's a fireplace at one end and a wide entrance to a hallway on the other. Any TV has to fit on a buffet of a certain width, and there's not enough space to mount it on a wall because - again -- one long side includes an 8' dining-room entrance. Even so, I would then be viewing a large TV -- say 70" -- from a distance of only 8 feet. I picked the Samsung because there wasn't anything as good that I found in a 42" size. A fraction of an inch in width or height is no problem. 43" it is.

 

[Thump553]

Both of my TVs are about the same age and are so-called "smart" TVs. Years ago I tried to stream on them. Changing channels, etc was painfully, very painfully slow. I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy.

Another suggestion, and what I've done, is spend $30-40 and get an Amazon Firestick 4K (spend the extra $10 over the lite version, it's crippled) or the Roku equivalent or the Chromecast (if they still sell those). It's well worth it. You will need wireless for the Firestick but it's not too finicky in my experience.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Both of my TVs are about the same age and are so-called "smart" TVs. Years ago I tried to stream on them. Changing channels, etc was painfully, very painfully slow. I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy.

Another suggestion, and what I've done, is spend $30-40 and get an Amazon Firestick 4K (spend the extra $10 over the lite version, it's crippled) or the Roku equivalent or the Chromecast (if they still sell those). It's well worth it. You will need wireless for the Firestick but it's not too finicky in my experience.

Actually, coming back to this today after consulting my friend the retired Navy electronics tech, I was actually set to buy a Roku "Ultimate", or whichever model was priced in the $120 range. Supposedly, I can get all the subscription services I want with Roku, and I can use it with my existing HDTV.

See, again -- this is the surviving attitude I've had for TVs going back to the Sony 24" I bought around 1976. If it keeps working flawlessly, the only reason to swap it out in a hurry besides extra tech frills would be some profound change in technology or standards. That is, nobody would have kept a tube TV for very long after the flat-screen HDs appeared. But the difference for me between HD and UHD is not any sort of prime motivation.

Anyway, the ROKU comes highly recommended. I might look into the Amazon Firestick 4K, but the ROKU recommendation came from someone I've known for a long time. Right now, he's dicking around with his telephone system and multiple lines/numbers in ways to do things that I personally don't trouble about.

 

[Tech Junky]

@BonzaiDuck

Roku Ultra or Amazon Fire Cube 4K.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

@BonzaiDuck

ULTRA LT.

I placed the order this morning, to include two cheap accessories for it.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Streaming is easy on Samsung. Being a smart tv means it has wifi service and most tvs now have several streaming services pre installed.
From the tv's settings, you wifi-network the tv with the modem/ router. Once the tv is networked, default streaming services will display their icons . If you want to stream other content, you sign up either on the tv or by way of the service's web site and once that is settled an icon for that service-Disney, Youtube, etc.--will display on the tv's " Smart Hub " along with those pre installed. The tv will then become a collection of inputs-- wifi streaming , hdmi, DVD etc. and cable tv.
The question is whehter you will pay less in streaming subscriptions than cable costs. Which content is available this way is limited but then that is how the costs get cut back for media services. CNN now has streaming-called CNN+ but it may not be live.

Yes, it's easy to stream from a smart TV. It is also easy for that smart tv to also say, capture video/picture images of the people watching it to send back demographics reports to the manufacturer to sell. Capture audio of the people in the room to know what they are talking about and how they are reacting to the show being played. Inject ads onto the video streams, and pop-ups on startup.... Yes, all great features that you are paying for as well.

You are still much better off using a computer, or game console, or even an amazon firestick connected to the TV for getting streaming services.

 

[deustroop]

Yes, it's easy to stream from a smart TV. It is also easy for that smart tv to also say, capture video/picture images of the people watching it to send back demographics reports to the manufacturer to sell. Capture audio of the people in the room to know what they are talking about and how they are reacting to the show being played. Inject ads onto the video streams, and pop-ups on startup.... Yes, all great features that you are paying for as well.

You are still much better off using a computer, or game console, or even an amazon firestick connected to the TV for getting streaming services.

lol
The computer remains the threat to your privacy.. Most computers now are laptops with cameras built in which a smart TV does not have. Cookies anyone ? 10 years ago we were supposed to watch out for cell phones.. Still use only landlines ? One could monitor network activity to be sure. Ever done that ?

 

[Fallen Kell]

lol
The computer remains the threat to your privacy.. Most computers now are laptops with cameras built in which a smart TV does not have. Cookies anyone ? 10 years ago we were supposed to watch out for cell phones.. Still use only landlines ? One could monitor network activity to be sure. Ever done that ?

The computer is only a threat if you don't do your homework and know what to do. Browsers have cookie settings to allow you to delete them on a computer (I don't remember the last time I saw that feature in a Smart TV's browser or YouTube app). I recommend not installing java (prevents the sites from being able to put in a java cookie). Depending on your use case, you can run linux and set it up in kiosk mode where-in a reboot clears anything that happened as the underlying OS and configurations are read-only with only a temp area setup as read-write, and the temp area gets cleared on the reboot. And to top it off you can run firewalls on your computer to block inbound and outbound communications to sites and IP address lists, preventing your computer from communicating with those locations. The end result being that it is much more secure than the smart tv which you have no control over.

And yes, I do monitor my network activity. And I try to keep things nice and safe using pfsense as my edge-router along with pfblocker (think PiHole on steroids as it doesn't just return not founds for DNS lookups of sites/domains that are blacklisted, but also places outbound firewall rules to block both the named site as well as the IP addresses associated with it so that someone couldn't just code in the IP address instead of a DNS name which would avoid the PiHole since the communications are not actually blocked by the PiHole).

 

[mindless1]

Yes, it's easy to stream from a smart TV. It is also easy for that smart tv to also say, capture video/picture images of the people watching it to send back demographics reports to the manufacturer to sell. Capture audio of the people in the room to know what they are talking about and how they are reacting to the show being played. Inject ads onto the video streams, and pop-ups on startup.... Yes, all great features that you are paying for as well.

You are still much better off using a computer, or game console, or even an amazon firestick connected to the TV for getting streaming services.

Huh? None of my Smart TVs have/had a camera in them, just an ambient light sensor, a photodiode.

None of them have a MIC (that I'm aware of, when each set fails I open it to do an autopsy and would recognize a mic, but must concede that my still working smart sets have not been taken apart yet, but no internal mic claim is made), except the ones with a mic in the remote, and you'd be able to detect a bluetooth signal from that, or more noticeable would be that it would drain the batteries quite quickly if always streaming audio from bluetooth instead of only on command.

I do accept that they report back what people are watching, but don't think that really puts me at any kind of disadvantage, and it's as likely to happen with a plug-in dongle... anything that can connect to the internet, where you can't control its processes, has that potential.

 

[Commodus]

Huh? None of my Smart TVs have/had a camera in them, just an ambient light sensor, a photodiode.

None of them have a MIC (that I'm aware of, when each set fails I open it to do an autopsy and would recognize a mic, but must concede that my lasted still working smart sets have not been taken apart yet, but no internal mic claim is made), except the ones with a mic in the remote, and you'd be able to detect a bluetooth signal from that, or more noticeable would be that it would drain the batteries quite quickly if always streaming audio from bluetooth instead of only on command.

I do accept that they report back what people are watching, but don't think that really puts me at any kind of disadvantage, and it's as likely to happen with a plug-in dongle... anything that can connect to the internet, where you can't control its processes, has that potential.

I have to admit I'm baffled by the people who genuinely think any smart home device with a camera or mic is recording everything they say, continuously taking photos or videos... er, no.

Never mind what companies want; the simple reality is that even very large corporations don't have the resources to comb through hundreds of millions of hours of recordings in the off-chance they'll find something they can target ads against. And photos... well, I don't have to tell you why companies could get in hot water for taking photos of unsuspecting people in their living rooms and bedrooms.

The boring truth is that the data collected from smart TVs (and smart speakers, and...) is pretty limited and unexciting. Yeah, they might know you watched Pride & Prejudice and The Mandalorian last night, but they really don't care so much that they're going to have AI scanning your what's-for-dinner conversation.

 

[mindless1]

^ Unless that conversation includes two particular words in series, then AI will detect if I said Hey Google, and then upload what I say next to them.

I opted into that so... I figure that if I weren't blocking their ads, then what I'd see would be more appropriate. What concerns me more is that society is becoming more and more comfortable with erosion of privacy, so each concession moves the marker a bit.

I recall when I was a child, society would not have tolerated having cameras everywhere, recording people, doing facial recognition, and license plate IDs. Many kids today have never seen the movie, let alone read, 1984.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Many kids today have never seen the movie, let alone read, 1984.

It's ironic that Mark Zuckerburg was born in 1984. I wonder if he's seen the movie.

 

[Fallen Kell]

I have to admit I'm baffled by the people who genuinely think any smart home device with a camera or mic is recording everything they say, continuously taking photos or videos... er, no.

Sorry for posting on this so late, but I needed to reply. So, how do you think Alexa or Siri, etc., know how to respond when you finally say Alexa, or Siri "do this for me"? They can respond because they are always listening. And anything that is always listening can always be recording as well (since for intents and purposes they are the same thing). And you don't have to take my word on it:

How To Secure Your Voice Assistant and Protect Your Privacy

Your wish is their command.

consumer.ftc.gov

One thing that many people think is that it only records when you say the command word. That is absolute BS. It is always listening so that it can detect when the command word is sent. It may even start performing a command when the command word was not said, but it simply "thought" the command word was said. And in almost all cases, all recordings of commands after the command word can and will be used for training their algorithm so that it is more accurate or attempt to determine what it should answer to the command, by flagging it if it couldn't understand it to be reviewed by people who will then say what it is. You would be amazed how many times it catches people having sex or in an argument, or just listening/watching to TV/radio.

The same with things like cloud based smart camera systems for home security. Especially ones that are performing some type of visual processing to figure out objects/items/people/animals in the pictures so it can provide an automated text description as a txt or email alert. They can also sending that data to be used so it can better train the visual processing/detection algorithms against the data. And anything that it flags as interesting because it was either trained to look for it or doesn't know how to catalogue it, can and will be reviewed by people to have them determine what is happening so they can then flag it as potential training material for the system to learn what it is based on how the human tagged it.

You are arguing with someone who has degrees in computer science specializing in artificial intelligence who has trained neural networks for visual and audio processing. I have done this work, I know how the sausage is made...

There are plenty of instances of people being fired from google and these other companies for accessing this data and doing things like stalking their current/ex significant other. There are news articles about the recording and sending of this information. Some companies dialed it back, some have not, but nothing stops them from doing this as you agreed to it in the EULA.

 

[mindless1]

I can be sure that my google home mini is not recording everything because there isn't a continual data stream to make it possible. My router can log this. It does react when my TV plays Hey Google, so clearly it is listening to it, but not generating the data it would have to, to upload constant voice from the TV.

Does it record command/actions? Of course, I can even look them up on my google account.

 

[Commodus]

Sorry for posting on this so late, but I needed to reply. So, how do you think Alexa or Siri, etc., know how to respond when you finally say Alexa, or Siri "do this for me"? They can respond because they are always listening. And anything that is always listening can always be recording as well (since for intents and purposes they are the same thing). And you don't have to take my word on it:

How To Secure Your Voice Assistant and Protect Your Privacy

Your wish is their command.

consumer.ftc.gov

One thing that many people think is that it only records when you say the command word. That is absolute BS. It is always listening so that it can detect when the command word is sent. It may even start performing a command when the command word was not said, but it simply "thought" the command word was said. And in almost all cases, all recordings of commands after the command word can and will be used for training their algorithm so that it is more accurate or attempt to determine what it should answer to the command, by flagging it if it couldn't understand it to be reviewed by people who will then say what it is. You would be amazed how many times it catches people having sex or in an argument, or just listening/watching to TV/radio.

The same with things like cloud based smart camera systems for home security. Especially ones that are performing some type of visual processing to figure out objects/items/people/animals in the pictures so it can provide an automated text description as a txt or email alert. They can also sending that data to be used so it can better train the visual processing/detection algorithms against the data. And anything that it flags as interesting because it was either trained to look for it or doesn't know how to catalogue it, can and will be reviewed by people to have them determine what is happening so they can then flag it as potential training material for the system to learn what it is based on how the human tagged it.

You are arguing with someone who has degrees in computer science specializing in artificial intelligence who has trained neural networks for visual and audio processing. I have done this work, I know how the sausage is made...

There are plenty of instances of people being fired from google and these other companies for accessing this data and doing things like stalking their current/ex significant other. There are news articles about the recording and sending of this information. Some companies dialed it back, some have not, but nothing stops them from doing this as you agreed to it in the EULA.

But they're not actually recording before the wake word. I would think you'd know that.

These devices wait to hear a waveform that matches their wake word before they spring into action. Until that happens, they're not capturing anything for posterity. You just have to ask the police for proof. There have been a couple of cases where law enforcement demanded Echo voice data from Amazon, assuming they would have a recording of a possible murder... only to be disappointed as it turned out the speakers don't, in fact, record everything all the time.

The issue, as you noted, is that voice assistants occasionally mistake sounds for the wake word and capture unintended snippets. I'm glad companies offered more control over what happens with the data they review (Apple seems to be the best about it, since you can opt out entirely on setup), but I'll admit it's a mixed bag even if I know the recordings are anonymized and random. Ditto any visual information sent to improve AI; I don't think it's done in a way that can be seriously abused, but it's still the case that someone else might look at clips of your security cam or video doorbell footage.

However, I can't find instances where staff accessed specific users' Alexa/Assistant/Siri recordings... do you have links for that? I can see that Google fired someone in 2010 for listening to VoIP data, but that's clearly very different. The other reports I've seen haven't included voice assistant data.

The point is not that there's no potential for abuse; of course there is. It's that there's no evidence to support the dystopian fears some have. Amazon, Apple and Google are not recording everything you say, cackling with glee as they use your living room conversations to target ads and give free rein to stalkers. They aren't that malicious, and the technical requirements for doing this would very likely be impractical (massive amounts of storage and computational power to screen 24/7 recordings for hundreds of millions of people). As I like to put it: the truth is often far more boring than we want it to be.

 

[VirtualLarry]

They aren't that malicious, and the technical requirements for doing this would very likely be impractical (massive amounts of storage and computational power to screen 24/7 recordings for hundreds of millions of people).

What do you think exists in that massive Data-Center in Utah, chump?

 

[igor_kavinski]

I wonder sometimes if they audit the used storage space to make sure that only customer data is being stored there and nothing else. All it takes is one admin with data hoarding tendencies to start storing their own encrypted data in some out of the way folder as a backup. Do enlighten if they design the system specifically to prevent abuse of admin privileges.