What a researcher just found inside his Samsung TV makes me furious. @log4j got a root shell on his 2025 Samsung and started posting what's running on it. In his words: "always on hot mic functionality", "automatic content recognition", "geo positioning", "network mapping", "a targeted ads service", "user profile building". All of it shared with "samsung + their 400 partners". It gets worse: - A service literally named "alwaysonvoice" in the TV's security policy. - If the TV has no microphone, it looks for one on your soundbar or a Bluetooth device. - Counters in its telemetry for sounds like a dog barking or a baby crying. - A model on the TV that tracks what you do inside apps like YouTube: what you watch, which ads you skip. He checked it on an EU model too. His full report isn't out yet, and he's careful to separate what he's confirmed from what he's still testing. But even the parts he's shown should NOT be normal. This is a TV. In your living room. In front of your kids, your family, your conversations. You paid for it. And you agreed to all of this on a setup screen you clicked through in ten seconds. That's not acceptable. And it's not just one brand. Our community has looked inside 316 smart TVs. 114 of them ship software that recognises what's on your screen. Almost all of them carry analytics most people never knew were there. Privacy isn't about having something to hide. It's about getting to decide. What you watch, what you say on your sofa, what your kids do in front of that screen: those choices should be yours, made clearly, and easy to change. I'm not against ads. I'm against a microphone you didn't know about, a profile you never agreed to build, and a "no" you can only find ten menus deep, on a TV you paid for. Nine days ago my parents' TV showed a sponsored ad before they could even open Netflix. I spent an afternoon on it, switched off 25 preinstalled apps, gave them a clean home screen, and open-sourced what I did. I thought it was a small fix for one annoying TV. It became CleanYourTV 36,000+ GitHub stars. 430+ contributors. 200+ articles in 33 countries. 316 TV models from 89 brands, each tested by someone on their own TV. Then came the messages. "Does it work on my Samsung?" "What about my LG?" "My Roku?" Every day. And every time, the honest answer has been no. People aren't asking about ads anymore. They're asking: is my TV listening to me, and can I stop it? Getting your privacy back shouldn't mean risking your TV. People have asked me to help them root their Samsungs. I won't tell anyone to do that. So I've been working on something for everyone who's had to hear "no" from me: Samsung, LG, Roku and more, no root needed. Sharing it tonight.