Bring Democracy in to the 21st Century! #auspol #DigitalDemocracy #Salesforce #JavaScript #Space and #Nuclear enthusiast
Sydney, New South Wales
Joined May 2015
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Thomas Sesselmann retweeted
Mortgage holders are going to pay an extra $6,000 a yr as a result of yesterdays interest rate rise. It doesn’t have to be this way. Corporate profits are driving up inflation, taxing them relieves pressure from everyone struggling with the cost of living. Tax corporate profits.
Thomas Sesselmann retweeted
the fact someone with such a massively incoherent set of policies became the face of Australian conservatism is proof that the media has way too much influence in politics and needs to be curbed
Thomas Sesselmann retweeted
JUST IN: Apple Maps has put all the buildings back in Gaza, because the easiest solution to a genocide is to pretend it isn't happening.
Image on the right is from Google, showing the current reality.
Thomas Sesselmann retweeted
Don’t tell me that Elon Musk’s wealth is tied up in assets when he just dropped $446 million on this election alone.
Tax the fking rich.
Thomas Sesselmann retweeted
Hey @grok, concise, no spin.
The explosives dropped on Gaza were equivalent to roughly how many Hiroshima atomic bombs?
Number first.
Thomas Sesselmann retweeted
If you've ever wondered why smart TVs are so cheap, this is why.
@log4j rooted his Samsung and found an always-on hot mic, automatic content recognition, geolocation, network mapping, ad targeting and user profiling, shared with Samsung's "400 partners".
A lot of it can be blocked in <15 min, wrote a basic guide below.
What your TV is doing
The main culprit is ACR (automatic content recognition). Your TV screenshots what's on screen, fingerprints it, and sends it home to build your ad profile. Samsung does it every 500ms, LG every 10ms [1].
What is insane: it happens on connected devices too.
Plug in your laptop, your console, your work machine, and your TV can fingerprint that via HDMI [1].
He also found that if your Samsung doesn't have a mic, it'll look for one from a connected soundbar or bluetooth device.
nitter.cf/log4j/status/211376224…
It's on by default, and you likely agreed to it on the setup screen you clicked through in 10 seconds.
Step 1: Turn off ACR
Samsung: Terms & Privacy → Viewing Information Services
LG: Live Plus
Vizio: Viewing Data
Roku: "Use info from TV inputs"
Sony/Google TV: Samba Interactive TV
Menus vary by model, but those are the names to look for. While you're in there, opt out of interest-based ads, reset your advertising ID, decline every optional privacy agreement, turn off voice recognition, and delete apps you never open.
Step 2: Give smart devices their own network
Put the TV, cameras, speakers and vacuum on your router's guest/IoT network. The logic is simple: these devices rarely get patched. If one gets compromised (getting drastically more frequent with AI), it shouldn't be able to see your other devices or home network.
Step 3: Block trackers for the whole house with DNS-level filtering
NextDNS (cloud-based) is easy and has a solid free plan. Pi-hole is a little bit more work if you prefer self hosting. For simplicity we'll focus on the former.
1. Sign up at nextdns.io (free tier is plenty)
2. Privacy tab: add a blocklist (OISD is a good bet) and turn on Native Tracking Protection for Samsung, LG, Roku, Amazon (see attached image)
3. Setup tab: copy your endpoint
4. Paste it into your router's DNS settings as DNS-over-HTTPS/TLS (or use the IPs + "Link IP" if your router only does plain DNS)
5. Bonus: block outbound port 53 except to your router. Some devices hardcode their own DNS to get around you
Then open the NextDNS logs and watch how often your TV phones home. It's eye-opening. If an app or update breaks, find the domain in the logs and allowlist it.
Why they do this
TV prices are down 97% since 2000 [2]. Most of that is better manufacturing and brutal competition. But once margins on the hardware hit zero, the cost moved to you.
In Q3 2024, Vizio lost $6.7M selling TVs and made $115.8M in gross profit from ads and viewing data [3]. They've said on earnings calls that they keep TV prices low to grow the audience they sell to advertisers. Walmart bought them in 2024.
This isn't a conspiracy theory either. Vizio paid $2.2M to the FTC in 2017 for tracking 11 million TVs without consent. Last December, Texas sued Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense and TCL over ACR. Samsung and LG have since agreed to stop collecting that data without explicit consent [4].
TL;DR
1. ACR off
2. Ads + voice off
3. Smart devices on their own network
4. NextDNS filtering on the router
Sources:
[1] ACR study: arxiv.org/abs/2409.06203
[2] Cost of US consumer goods: aei.org/economics/chart-of-t…
[3] Vizio Q3 2024: sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/…
[4] Texas v. Samsung: texasattorneygeneral.gov/new…
Thomas Sesselmann retweeted
We finally have an explanation for “Facebook is listening to me through my phone”. They’d never do that (and it’s not really possible).
Turns out literally everyone else was — and then selling that to ad data brokers.
WTF, $3000 Samsung TV has an always-on mic, automatic content recognition, geo tracking, network mapping, and ships your data to Samsung + 400 partners.
Bro Rooted a brand-new 2025 Samsung TV after noticing absurdly targeted ads.
Firmware was locked down, so zero-days it was.
Got a root shell.
then found: always-on voice service, ACR, geo, full telemetry pipeline, and four separate DRM systems.
This isn’t a bug, It’s the product bro.
Thomas Sesselmann retweeted
So let met get that straight: paying a wealth tax is impossible (“billionaires have no liquidity”, “it would be taxing unrealized gains”, “their wealth is virtual”) but paying half a billion to influence elections is possible. Did I understand well?
Elon Musk has cemented his record as the largest individual political donor in modern American history.
Musk poured $446 million of his own money into this year’s midterm elections, mostly aimed at preserving the Republican Party’s control of Congress. wapo.st/4igb5Kq
Thomas Sesselmann retweeted
Guy who has complained about George Soros for years has given 4x more than George Soros ever gave in a single cycle, the largest amount spent on a single election by an individual in history
Thomas Sesselmann retweeted
The GRU hacked into Jared Kushner's iPhone. Dutch military intelligence (MIVD) then recruited a GRU spy who gave them access to the hacked phone. What MIVD discovered was that Kushner had access to two bank accounts --one Azerbaijani, the other Israeli --where Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati ruler Mohammed bin Zayed deposited money. It sounds like a slightly far-fetched episode of "Slow Horses," but it's real. And it proves just how eye-poppingly corrupt this administration was and continues to be as its "special envoy" decides the fate of tens of millions in Europe in the Middle East. Simply incredible reporting by Matthew Cole, drawn from his new book on Kushner. vanityfair.com/story/jared-k…
Thomas Sesselmann retweeted
A horrific Russian strike in the Kharkiv region. A “shahed” struck people directly – in a park near an ordinary café. Pure atrocity. Six people were killed, including children. A little girl was killed in a stroller – her name was Angelina, she was just over a year old, born in August 2025… Her mother’s name was Inna. She died in the hospital… Another girl who was killed was 11 years old. My condolences to their families and loved ones. Another 14 people were injured, including six more children.
I am grateful to everyone who supports Ukraine under these circumstances and helps us shoot down “shaheds,” shoot down missiles, and stop Russian assaults. These are horrific photos, but behind them are shattered lives and the truth about this war. Lives must be protected. Ukraine needs air defense. You can't think about making money with Russia as long as it continues its asinine war. We ask that sanctions on Russia stay in place as long as the killings continue. We ask America to be strong, and we ask it to apply the Lindsey Graham law. We ask Europe to continue its support. We ask that everything possible be done to bring peace and guarantee security. Ukraine wants peace. It is Russia that has insisted on continuing the killing all this time. The world has enough strength to stop the war. That strength must finally be used – against the murderers.
Thomas Sesselmann retweeted
Huge drop in Google searches for various health disinformation topics following the Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centers.
It makes you wonder how much of the “turbo cancer, ivermectin” nonsense is really fueled by Russian bots, & how many Americans they’ve killed…
Thomas Sesselmann retweeted
If confirmed, this is telling: Russian data centres get hit, and online activity around AfD suddenly plummets. 📉
So much talk about German patriotism… then the connection from Russia goes down. 🤔🇷🇺
Thomas Sesselmann retweeted
Online activity regarding the Conservative Party of Canada is down 60% after Ukraine destroys largest Russian data centre
probably nothing
Thomas Sesselmann retweeted
Your periodic reminder that up to 64% of X accounts are bots, and the algorithm is controlled by a Trump ally with a far-right agenda.
