Just to add: Scanning networks to gather data seems pretty popular these days - smart tvs have done so, and even the ebay site used to portscan visitors [1].
[edit] And of course, there's WebRTC leaking your local IP - which ublock origin can specifically block [2].
That's a clear violation of the CFAA. This crime carries prison time. How come they threw teenagers in prison but not the people responsible for doing it en mass?
Consent is tricky. Many people are not aware of what they are giving authorization to. That would make it uninformed consent. Add dark patterns in and I think it is easy to say that some people are not only unaware of what they are authorizing, but purposefully being misled.
Let's be real, most people are tech illiterate. If someone can't read a contract and there is no one there to explain it to them, then they are not engaging in informed consent.
Of course we have to ask if this is ethical or not. But let's not boil the conversation down to "we asked, so it is right." One side is arguing that the person didn't give informed consent and the other side is arguing that consent was given simply because a button was pressed.
It's honestly an ethical discussion of if this is right or not.
It's not people's fault that terms of service are intentionally designed to be as long-winded as possible if you want any hope of using a product or service.
Is this separate from mDNS [1]? A lot of smart TVs and PCs increasingly use mDNS to support some fairly handy consumer features, like AirDrop, being able to setup your TV with your phone, network printing/scanning, ChromeCast, whole-home control of lights & other IoT devices, etc.
The incident I'm referring to was about LG [1]. The report includes network captures, so I'd trust it.
Apparently, some chinese smart TV brands have been doing similar things, but I wouldn't be surprised if most other vendors have caught up and used stealthier techniques.
[edit] Here's the news about those chinese TVs [2] and the original report [3]
Many common wifi APs (eg TP-link EAP225) will allow you to create separate wifi networks on different VLANs. You can use this to isolate internet of shit devices onto their own networks where they can’t talk to your other devices, without increasing your hardware costs or causing wifi interference.
You’ll need a router/firewall and an AP that are both VLAN-aware. I personally use an EAP225 and some eBay industrial PC running freebsd.
And/or some routers offer 'AP Isolation' or 'Client Isolation' to prevent devices from communicating with each other (I am always glad to see public networks configured this way, but at home it'd be a pain to not be able to shell from one box into another etc.)
It only “leaks” your ip if you are trying to use webrtc features with a vpn, otherwise web rtc is perfectly fine to use without concern for most people.
Interesting! That's not how I read the ublock origin docs:
"Keep in mind that this feature is to prevent leakage of your non-internet-facing IP adresses. The purpose of this feature is not to hide your current internet-facing IP address -- so be cautious to not misinterpret the results of some WebRTC-local-IP-address-leakage tests found online."
That said, my Firefox 91 and Safari don't leak local IPs regardless of the ublock setting.
[edit] And of course, there's WebRTC leaking your local IP - which ublock origin can specifically block [2].
[1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/ebay-port-sca...
[2] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Prevent-WebRTC-from-l...