I am unsure if this is the right community but here it goes.

I want to buy a smart TV and I will plug a HDMI device into it. I want to stream my games and movies to the TV via moonlight/jellyfin. I heard about ACR and how it can be used to recognize content running on our TV which will be then sold off to advertisement companies/data brokers.

Say I have isolated the traffic of the TV (the OS of the TV specifically) to a separate VLAN. But the connected HDMI device is connected to the internet. Can the TV use this network to effectively “phone home”? Do HDMI devices have this capability?

PS: I know modern HDMI dongles can also share data but I at least have the option to change the device/use a mini PC.

Edit: There might be a misunderstanding. I don’t want the TV to communicate via HDMI. I want to know if it’s possible and what should I do so that I can prevent this form of communication. However, it seems that this protocol is incredibly rare so I should be fine. However, some TVs can attempt to connect to open WiFi, so it would be wise to just yank the WiFi chip from inside the TV.

  • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    45·
    1 day ago

    Ethernet over HDMI does exist as a standard, but iirc it requires the device manufacturer on both ends of the cable to have a special implementation, and also requires a special cable that has the Ethernet data lanes included. I’m not sure any modern displays implement it anymore, it kinda died because it sucked and wasn’t that useful.

    • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
      13·
      22 hours ago

      They can barely make the other device turn on reliably, let alone have enough planets aligned to let the other device access the internet.

      • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        4·
        8 hours ago

        me when i am in a “build an unusuable standard” competition and my opponent is “literally any consumer electronics manufacturer”

    • xavier666@lemmy.umucat.dayOPEnglish
      20·
      1 day ago

      Ethernet over HDMI

      Thanks for this. Looks like it’s a rare protocol.

      Excerpt from the article

      If you have an HEC-compatible device, it will most likely be self-described somewhere in the user’s manual. Unfortunately, this technology is rarely implemented, and you would be hard-pressed to find a device that uses HEC. Through our research, we were unable to find any modern consumer device that uses HEC.

      I am slightly relieved.