Disconnecting it from the internet isn't enough, because it will store spying data forever until it gets a connection, and it will connect to any open WiFi. You have to disconnect it from the power, and then use a sledgehammer on the remains.
I have a Samsung fridge. It’s not a smart fridge, it doesn’t have a screen, bluetooth, or any way to connect to it.
I logged into my UniFi stack to monitor devices and it showed up. It had gotten the connection details from my wife’s phone, the other Samsung device and was transmitting data back to Google and Samsung.
The far more likely explanation is that your unifi dashboard's device identification logic is broken and is misreporting the device. Otherwise it doesn't make sense for samsung to engage it a massive conspiracy of putting wifi hardware in non-smart devices (driving up the BOM cost), creating a massive botnet that can share credentials between devices, all so they can... maybe run a residential proxy network? Then subsequently detected by anyone who looks at their device list.
Even if you think they're running some sort of massive botnet, the fridge being part of it is still implausible. They probably have billions of phones and tablets alone, plenty enough to scrape/DDoS the entire internet several times over. There's no need to add clandestine hardware into non-smart fridges.
It’s really not that far fetched. What led me to investigate was that I got a Samsung 49” smart monitor, my wife left the kitchen door open and it displayed alerts on my monitor.
UniFi is not misrepresenting the device ID; while you’re right that happens. It didn’t here.
The Mac ID is 1c:e8:9e:3d:c4:ad and is registered to SJIT who makes IOT Devices Samsung and smart fridges.
I appreciate your skepticism, but the device is still connected to my WiFi. It has been since 2024, the Mac ID has not changed nor has its identification. I’ve also done packet tracing to determine it IS in fact the smart fridge.
As for the “clandestine hardware to non-smart fridges”. Streamlining of production lines is nothing new. Being able to datamine people’s networks is worth the 20$ hardware chip.
> The far more likely explanation is that your unifi dashboard's device identification logic is broken and is misreporting the device.
that does happen, but if this fridge really is connected, it is far more likely that one samsung device used Bluetooth LE to communicate its wi-fi credentials to another samsung device when they were in extremely close proximity.
This is how a new apple device can get logged into the same apple account as another device, you bring them close to each other and they communicate over BLE everything that is needed to bring the new device online and into your device ecosystem.
samsung probably isn't running a botnet, that's not why the fridge is connected; your guess is as good as mine as to what it is, but i would be surprised if it were a botnet.
What model of fridge?! How did you know the random device on your network was your non-smart fridge? This is a wild story. I want to believe but if it's true I think there's no sane solution other than exploratory surgery on every appliance you buy.
I don’t recall the model. I had bought a new Samsung Monitor, my wife left the fridge door open and it had started alerting on my monitor while I was in game.
So I went digging in UniFi, found it, and blocked it. Same with my HP Printer that sent almost a gig of data to Google Print Services daily.
Wait, so both you fridge and your monitor self-connected to wifi? Or you installed monitor software that served as some kind of iot gateway? Every time you tell this story it gets weirder.
> gotten the connection details from my wife’s phone
> went digging in UniFi, found it, and blocked it
> still connected to my WiFi
Is your wife's phone also Samsung? Do Samsung phones have a habit of sharing WiFi passwords amongst themselves, or other devices with a Samsung Account? Do Samsung Accounts still exist? Is your fridge blocked, or is it still connected? If you change your WiFi SSID or password, does the fridge acquire it anew, the same way?
Then if you are lucky, the telescreen is in an unusual position. By sitting in the alcove, and keeping well back, you might be able to remain outside the range of the telescreen.
Yeah, that's the only way to deal with this nonsense. Basically, block all devices that connect to your router from having outbound access and whitelist the ones you want to let through, with narrow firewall settings.
The TV looks for nearby Bluetooth and WiFi devices to identify when you're at home and who's at home. It also runs voice recognition to record your conversations as text, and uploads them. It also uploads the ID of what you're watching and when, though not the actual pixels, as far as anyone knows.
