| Abstract | The popularity of smart entertainment devices is
growing every day. Products like blu-ray players, set-top boxes
and Smart TVs (STV) with high connectivity are on the market.
Many of them connect to the Internet via LAN or WiFi.
Especially Smart TVs enable the broadcasting stations to provide
real-time information directly to the consumers, for example
additional information about a current TV program. HbbTV
is one of the standards on STV for combining the two data
media DVB and Internet. It defines how commonly used web
technologies can be used as a transparent overlay over the current
channel. Each respective broadcasting station is responsible for
the contents of their channels’ HbbTV signals.
In this article, we describe how broadcasting stations measure
the consumers viewing behavior more accurately using HbbTV.
We show which technologies are used and which cause privacy
risks, i.e., which methods lead to the exposure of personal
preferences. Additionally, we describe a method how an evilminded
neighbor is able to monitor the viewing behavior without
the user’s knowledge and consent. This method is possible on
most channels using HbbTV. It is not even required that the
user actively starts the HbbTV application. Beyond that, we
can collect this data on an encrypted WiFi network as well.
Finally, we discuss our implementation for significantly reducing
the privacy risk HbbTV poses. |
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