Samsung is the world leader when it comes to Smart TV . The company sells more smart TVs than anyone else, and offers an excellent user experience by having the most important apps and streaming platforms on the market. However, the company hides a function in their televisions that allows them to be killed and made into a paperweight.
This has been confirmed by Samsung South Africa itself . It all started on August 3 , where the company published a press release in relation to the riots and looting that took place in July in South Africa. In these looting , Samsung stores and warehouses were affected , where theft of televisions took place.
TV Block: Samsung can disable TVs
However, Samsung has said that all of those televisions have been remotely disabled with a feature called ” TV Block .” This feature detects if a Samsung TV has been activated in an illegal way, and makes it usable only by the true owners with valid proof of purchase.
The purpose of this feature is to mitigate the creation of second-hand markets where illegal or stolen goods are sold, and therefore it comes pre-loaded on all Samsung TVs by default .
The operation of TV Block is quite simple. This feature is automatically activated by Samsung remotely, where the serial numbers of stolen TVs are entered into Samsung’s servers. If one of those televisions connects to the Internet , it will become blocked.
If a user is locked out by mistake, full functionality can be restored in less than 48 hours after sending a proof of purchase and the TV serial number to a Samsung dealer or the company itself at serv.manager@samsung.com .
This “back door” can be dangerous
However, introducing functions of this type in a product is something really dangerous, since not only is it giving great power to the company, but for example someone can discover the way to hack those televisions and activate the function to leave them made a paperweight. Even if Samsung itself is hacked, someone could come in and block every Samsung TV in the world. Later, they could introduce ransomware and demand a ransom from Samsung to unlock the televisions.
Even an erroneous update on Samsung’s servers can activate this function, and it also opens the door to the creation of “TV as a service” services, where you have to pay monthly payments even simply to be able to watch TV.
Thus, this is a reminder that the user does not own 100% of the products they purchase. This already happens with the software that we buy in online stores like Steam, but with a physical device the feeling of ownership is much greater.
Therefore, the only way to “protect” from this function is to disconnect the television from the Internet , something that does not make much sense on a Smart TV because we would be losing a multitude of functionalities.