Spitballing IoT Security

Thu Oct 27 01:01:49 UTC 2016

In message <58111BD4.80403 at vaxination.ca>, 
Jean-Francois Mezei <jfmezei_nanog at vaxination.ca> wrote:

>My smart TV not only hasn't gotten updates in years, but Sharp has
>stopped selling TVs in Canada. (not sure if they still sell TVs elsewhere).

A little more than 2 years ago, I bought a last-of-its-kind demo
model of a 50 inch Panasonic Plasma TV which was on sale (due to
having been discontinued by the manufacturer) from the local BestBuy.

Not long after, once I got the thing home, I realized that the
thing's understanding of current local time... important in
conjunction with the on-screen TV guide... was locked to Eastern
Standard Time, and there was no way to change it.  (This was/is
a bit of a problem for me, as I'm in PST/PDT.)

I called up Panasonic and explained the whole thing to a first-
level tech support minion.  She had no solution to offer me.
I insisted on speaking to a manager.

A manager got on the line and I prroceeded to re-explain the whole
issue to him.  I said that I needed a firmware fix.  He said that
there was no way the company was going to develop a fix "just for
you".  Politely, I persisted and said that the TV firmware was
self-evidently faulty.

<<click>>
<<dial tone>>