An interesting thread can be read at DoctorBeet’s Blog about LG smart TV’s sending private information to several Internet sites. In the article about the basic network setup I did create a hook in the setup of dnsmasq, the name server for your internal network. The setup has the following line:
conf-dir=/etc/dnsmasq.d
This means that any file dropped in that directory is read when dnsmasq starts. To block the sites mentioned at DoctorBeet’s Blog, create the file /etc/dnsmasq.d/80-lg-block with the following contents:
# # LG smart TV spy networks # address=/ad.lgappstv.com/127.0.0.1 address=/yumenetworks.com/127.0.0.1 address=/smartclip.net/127.0.0.1 address=/smartclip.com/127.0.0.1 address=/smartshare.lgtvsdp.com/127.0.0.1 address=/ibis.lgappstv.com/127.0.0.1
The restart dnsmasq using /etc/rc.d/rc.dnsmasq restart. If you use the IP address of your home server instead of 127.0.0.1 you can see all these requests in the log of your own internal web server. But if you use 127.0.0.1 you won’t see a thing, the TV will be talking to itself.
This option is also useful to block sites you don’t want to contact such as these irritating popup (poker/sex) sites.