In 2009 will your TV be watching you?

I remember thinking the first time I read "1984" how outrageous it sounded that the TV might actually be watching me, but now I'm not so sure. With the end of analog tv broadcast beginning next year, who knows? Maybe analog sets are currently unable to watch and record what you do, but the new digital sets are. What was science fiction yesterday, could be science fact tomorrow.

It's very possible that it will be capable of tracking your viewing habits, listen in on your private conversations, and watch you, just as you watch it. It would be the ultimate surveillance device since practically everyone has one.

Sounds crazy, huh? Yeah.. it probably is, but it's something to think about. I need to go take my meds now.

[edit on 3/10/08 by LLoyd45]

Originally posted by LLoyd45


It's very possible that it will be capable of tracking your viewing habits, listen in on your private conversations, and watch you, just as you watch it. It would be the ultimate surveillance device since practically everyone has one.

You can bet on it, publicists would kill for that info.

Originally posted by LLoyd45
I remember thinking the first time I read "1984" how outrageous it sounded that the TV might actually be watching me, but now I'm not so sure. With the end of analog tv broadcast beginning next year, who knows? Maybe analog sets are currently unable to watch and record what you do, but the new digital sets are. What was science fiction yesterday, could be science fact tomorrow.

It's very possible that it will be capable of tracking your viewing habits, listen in on your private conversations, and watch you, just as you watch it. It would be the ultimate surveillance device since practically everyone has one.

Sounds crazy, huh? Yeah.. it probably is, but it's something to think about. I need to go take my meds now.

[edit on 3/10/08 by LLoyd45]

You saw Office Space right? I think you know what to do about those commercial jams.....

It doesn't sound crazy to me at all. I totally believe that they will be using our televisions as survellience devices. One additional thing that seems suspicious to me is that there will be a government coupon program to assist people in getting switched over. Why would the government care unless they have something to gain from it?

Government should be FOR THE PEOPLE, DAMN IT!



Try putting a cam in George Bush's room, he can certainly use one, and your @$$ will be shot off.


Sucks living in a dictatorship, does it?

reply to post by annestacey
Those were my initial thoughts exactly.

Originally posted by Camilo1

Originally posted by LLoyd45


It's very possible that it will be capable of tracking your viewing habits, listen in on your private conversations, and watch you, just as you watch it. It would be the ultimate surveillance device since practically everyone has one.

You can bet on it, publicists would kill for that info.

Doesn't this breach yet another constitutional right? Freedom of privacy? Or is this already destroyed with the patriot act?

The coupon is to get an adapter for your tv to pick up the new signals. Maybe there is a video cam in the adapter, you'd have to check it out. But, a TV itself gives of light, it doesn't record it.

Ten years ago I dealt with some surveillance equipment availible to the public. Micro lenses and transmiters in the center of battery powered clocks, hidden in speaker mesh and other subtile gimmicks.

Notice 10 years ago and for sale to the public. Back then I said TV's were the best place to setup such a device and broadcast in burst transmissions when a signal was recieved. That was back before you could buy an 8GB USB thumb drive for memory storage. I said then that all it took was regulation to include things on new TV's and alarm clocks and such and make sure it isn't public knowledge.

15 years ago JVC had a small camera and recorder that were only connected by a wire. Look at the iPod Shuffle compared to the bulky Sony Walkman's we had in the early 80's. In the early 70's my grandfather had a metal box that hooked up throught the car radio and recieved CB radio transmissions. It was smaller than a betamax tape.

Given today's tech, a surveilance quality recorder/burst transmiter could easily be the size of a USB thumb drive and could be spread out all over a TV quite easily and no one would notice even if they opened and gave a basic look for a "hidden camera".

When I did security I would often get offers for different equipment. The old standards of peephole viewers (think of a monocular that you placed on door peepholes that allowed you to see interiors without entering), the old lock pick sets, video probes (like a colonostomy exam camera), bugs, phone taps and all the old "spy" stuff. And all kinds of exotic and expensive stuff.

Yeah, it could be done. But very few mention that cell phone companies are also updating the equipment that outdate older analog phones to all digital that is also part of the same bill as the change of TV signals going digital. This forces upgrading to modern GPS trackable phones. And we already know about the listening abilities of new phones via remote activation.

"In 2009 will your TV be watching you?"

i thought it already was

I hate to tell you, but they are watching and listening. It is best to unplug your TV when you are not watching it. While you are watching it, they can't see or here you well, but certain filters are being applied that enables them to. The technology and computing power needed for the filters is a few years off, which isn't really needed anyway. You'll find that the technology has progressed far enough when the cable box goes the way of analog tv.

The TV is composed mainly of two sensory related technologies, specifically sound and sight. One is audio (sound) the other is video (sight). Let's examine video. Video technology, or the movie, was first invented by Thomas Alva Edison. During his experiments, Edison found that the light images coming in through the camera lens and out through the projector to the screen were identical as both used light to work. In a TV, the same principles are at work. The camera lens is a "light gathering" device which takes the light that hits it and converts it into an electrical signal. The signal is sent over the cable lines to your TV which converts it back to an image which is then projected onto the back of the TV screen. Because of this use of light at both ends of the TV transmission system, a camera can be used as a TV monitor (screen) and a TV monitor (screen) can be used as a camera. To prove that your TV can and does act as a "light gathering" camera, all you need to do is the following: 1) Get a flashlight with fresh batteries. 2) In a completely dark room, ideally at night, get right up to your TV with the lights out and the TV turned off. 3) Place the flashlight right on the TV screen. 4) Turn the flashlight on and hold it with the light facing the TV for at least 10 seconds 5) Turn the flashlight off first, then quickly remove it from the TV screen. What you see, where the flashlight had been placed, is proof of the "light gathering" capabilities of a TV screen. I prefer to call it the "TV Screen Camera." This is a very simple test, but with more advanced techniques and equipment, such as the kind the cable companies have developed and now possess, they can get a clear picture of what is going on in your room. With their advanced tools they gather light that bounces off of things and people in the room, which hits the TV screen, and presents an image back to them. Now you know it works. Getting on to the question of can your cable company see you through your TV screen. It depends. The first question is whether you have a cable box or not. If you do not, you in all likelihood have nothing to be concerned about. Were the cable company to attempt to look in on any TV screen just by plugging into their cable, they would see every TV screen transmitting from every one of their subscribers' TVs, resulting in nothing but a great homogenous light or whiteout like in a snow storm. That is useless to look in on. So in this type of cable hookup the answer is no, your cable company cannot see you through your TV screen.

On the other hand, if you have a cable box, the story is quite different. With a cable box, the cable companies have given you an "address." This address is needed to differentiate you from every other subscriber on their network so they can know where to send an 'on-demand' movie that you may have just ordered. Inside that cable box is a chip that allows the cable company technicians to pinpoint and single you out of the thousands of other subscribers. If they want, as they do with 'on-demand' movies, at a moments notice they can create a selective connection between their main office equipment and 'their' cable box which is connected to your TV and your TV screen. Remember what we learned earlier about a TV screen being used as a camera. Now, with their selective connection using their cable box, they can look in to your room using your TV's screen as a camera. So in this type of cable hookup the answer is yes, your cable company can see you through your TV screen. But this type of cable company viewing of you often results in a poor picture at their end. The image is not clear, not sharp and not well defined. This glitch has bothered the cable companies for years. Ever since this technology has been developed, advertisers have pressured the cable companies to determine where to best spend their advertising dollars. Many times the cable company could not determine which brand soda can someone was drinking. They couldn't clearly read the brand of potato chip being munched. But that has all changed in the last few years with the creation of High Definition Television or HDTV. All other TV's eat the dust of HDTV especially when it comes to the cable company TV screen cameras. Now, for the first time, if you have a HDTV, the cable company definitely has a high definition view into your room through your TV screen!

reply to post by LLoyd45


I'm sorry to inform you. I know personally someone that worked at the cable company. Because this person I know is a "christian" and so to someone in a high placement in the company, the person I know was shown that they already can WATCH you through your television set.

This was way back around ten years or so ago. The picture isn't clear but you can tell what's going on, and you can hear.

Anyone with understanding of electronics knows about the reverse effect of such things as picture tubes and using speakers as microphones.

So, don't beat off in front of a television that is off, because they are watching you.

reply to post by LLoyd45


My thought on this is, who's going to be monitoring all these televisions?

Most households that I have been in, have at least 2 televisions in them.

Do you realize how many people it would take to "watch us" through our televisions and what the expense would be?

I'm not saying it isn't a possibility, but it seems unlikely to me.

Never mind the TV's. Most computers already have a microphone and a camera... Think about it...

Yeah, they can hear you too.

It's all very secretive technology, hidden in plain sight (no pun intended!) and I was lucky enough to see it demonstrated during my travels and military/government experience, and it looks like at least one other member knows of someone who has seen it as well.

There is no reason to watch everyone. If you are being staked out by the CIA, FBI, or certain other agencies and then you are probably being monitored by an agent or two, presuming that you have the required set up in your home. TVs also act as motion detectors, so there is no need to sit around and monitor, but the feed from the TV to the cable box to "the company" is forwarded and recorded elsewhere.

I found a message where the motion detector on someone elses older tube TV went haywire. I'm pretty sure some new HDTVs have options to turn on when you walk in front of them as well.

My 6-year old Sony WEGA, 27" tube TV, model KV-27FS13 just started turning on and off when you walk in front of it at 0-1 ft. It's repeatable -- walk past once it turns on, walk past again it turns off. (It happens with anybody, not just me.) I called Sony, and other than brightening their day with an oddball problem, had no luck.

boardreader.com...

Anyway, it is unlikely that you are being monitored unless you are high on a terrorist watch list or are suspected of doing or planning something particularly evil. It's not a conspiracy of invasion of privacy or a system design being driven by an evil 1984 NWO, but just a very unusual system exploit that is pretty much rarely used as far as I know, and virtually impossible for even a genius hacker/social engineer to do. Basically, if anyone is doing it, it's going to be the CIA and not for nefarious purposes.

It's really nothing to get alarmed about, but think of what would happen if word really got out. It might cause a social panic and make people even more paranoid and distrusting for no good reason. It goes along with other bad paranoid logic like:

The CIA can monitor my movements.
I make movements.
Therefore, the CIA is monitoring my movements.

reply to post by Mr. Ree




I'm pretty sure your trying to peoples legs, at least I hope you are

Otherwise you don't really understand how television sets work - I assume you "screen camera" was based on the older CRT (cathode ray tube) technology. What happens there in a nutshell is electrons are 'boiled' of the cathode at the back of the tube, that tube is a sealed vacuum.. two sets of electro magnets direct the stream of electrons to scan the back of the screen one pixel at a time, the back of the screen is coated with chemicals that luminous as the electrons strike - or don't... There is your basic principle ~ How on earth can that be reversed to provide data that can be sent?

Need I go on to explain how a liquid crystal display works, and how that cannot be also turned in to a video camera at will?

Sure putting in covert cameras and other equipment in to a television is possible (either by design, or as a 'bug') - but that would be a camera... not turning the screen into a camera.

I often wondered about that ifr thing for my remotes on the front of my digital devices. Now this cable thing seems to be a reality since it comes over a digital cable box hooked into the matrix mainframe. The digital tvs have a sensor on front that could very well broadcast with those new antennae for digital tv reception. Plasma and lcd screens could have a pixel location that scans light and broadcast it out via cable since we are hooked either in cable, wire or wireless devices.

If they are watching you, remember that, next time you sit in front of your instrumentality picking your nose or relaxing online naked. EEEEuuu

This is ridiculous like Enthralled fan said "who will be watching" I have a 18" analog tv in my kitchen a 27" analog tv in my bedroom a 42" HDTV in my living room another in another bedroom and a 32" Aquos HDTV as my monitor thats just on one floor who will be monitoring all those? and If I was a terrorist I doubt I will stand in front of my tv and say Im going to blow this or that up soon muhahahhaha and no one knows about it except me oh and you tv.

Please there are millions of TV sets sold around the US alone and your telling me no is going to know that someones watching? the reason TV have to go Digital in 09 is because the Gov wants to make money its going to take over analog signals and then sell them to and use some themselves. If the Gov wanted to track terrorist activities they would tap phones without warrants oops wait thats already happening and it was supposed to be secret then someone leaked the info out and now everyone knows.

Believe me if there was cameras and microphones in TV sets hackers would be telling you what they look like and how to disable them because how can you get introuble for disabling something that doesnt exist? I would like to see the room where everyone who is being monitored would look like cuz your talking about millions of people here and lets just say they only "turn it on" if your on a list ok thats still hundreds of thousands if not then thousands whos gonna sit there and watch these people for hours and then of course they will be watching these people and listening too???

I really hope people dont read your post and believe its true. BTW all those TV's I have I dont even watch that much of it the majority of the time if any is spent on my computer.

excellent thread! i didn't even think of this. kudos!