Samsung Can Remotely Trigger ‘Television Block’ Feature For Stolen TVs

Samsung was an early leader in smart TVs. Most of its sets now feature wired or wireless connectivity and can run apps, stream video without a standalone device like Roku or Apple TV and even access your office PC. In an attempt to protect retailers and prevent the illegal sale of its smart TVs in the black market, Samsung has introduced a nifty feature that can remotely disable any TVs that are stolen. This feature will allow retailers and authorized personnel to remotely block the functionalities of TVs stolen from them.

After former South African President Jacob Zuma’s 15-month prison sentence began on July 8th it set off rioting in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal. Three days later a Samsung warehouse in the province was ransacked by looters — who made off with scores of smart TVs. These smart TVs, of course, have a number of factory-installed apps, one of which is called TV Block. The company has triggered TV Block for all of the sets that were stolen from that particular incident. Should anyone who has acquired one of those sets connect it to the Internet, It will then remotely block all the functionalities of the stolen set. The TV Block function has been enabled for all Samsung TVs globally. It will be turned on by default.

The only way to restore functionality in such cases of TV Block is to provide legitimate proof of purchase and, in jurisdictions like South Africa, a valid TV license. It doesn’t seem like a strong possibility that this will happen to any of these sets. Not, at least, until they’re returned to Samsung. Samsung was quick to point out that it was only resorting to TV Block due to the events that happened in KwaZulu-Natal. The company said that it would not start using its block switch on TVs stolen in break-ins, which remain common in Africa. “This technology can have a positive impact at this time, and will also be of use to both the industry and customers in the future,” said the Director of Consumer Electronics at Samsung, Mike Van Lier.

Samsung in a blog post stated that the aim of TV Block “is to mitigate against the creation of secondary markets linked to the sale of illegal goods.” Although the idea of TV Block is a noble one, TV Block does raise a number of questions at the same time. A misconfiguration or server-side glitch could cause sets to be blocked accidentally. The potential for misuse also has some tech pundits wondering whether cybercriminals might one day be able to remotely brick — possibly even en masse — Samsung TVs by abusing the built-in app. In conclusion, Samsung surely has safeguards in place to mitigate thefts of smart TV, but you may want to be extra careful with the receipt for your smart TV just in case.

“As an organization, we acknowledge the critical role in giving our customers and clients peace of mind. Working together, we can overcome the impact of the unprecedented disruption to business, as experienced by many of us recently. We will continue to review the situation and will make adjustments as necessary to ensure business continuity for all,” Lier further added.