Kids copying a funny idea poorly. The original version was this site that tracks whether Abe Vigoda is dead:

http://isabevigodadead.com/

No, they’re saying that it’s technically possible for an Israeli company to have done this. The article says that an SDK exists, but there is no proof that it’s being used in the way they’re speculating about. They’re Just Asking Questions ™. But it’s possible and mentioning an Israeli company makes certain people paranoid similar to how mentioning Warren Buffet makes certain people paranoid.

It’s be relatively simple for security researchers to monitor the traffic from smart TV. But maybe all of the security researchers are working for the Israelis too. Can’t prove that they aren’t all working for the Israelis. Therefore we should just trust in what is implied by this one article that isn’t even showing any network packets from any specific devices.

Just how internet conspiracy theories work. People tend to not question those that are Just Asking Questions so long those implicated in the conspiracy are people they hate.

A note on what the partner list proves: Being listed in Bright Data’s config means an integration might have existed at some point. It does not by itself prove that a specific publisher’s currently-shipping app(s) includes the SDK in production. For any named publisher, per-app verification is required.

I’m not sure what this article is claiming is happening? My TV is browsing websites? Why haven’t they proven it? Seems like it would be relatively simple to monitor the web traffic from the TV to see if that’s happening, then they wouldn’t put a disclaimer about it being unproven, Are they asking me to do the verification work for them?