I am in the process of adding a couple security cameras and have been amazed that the majority of consumer brands essentially claim ownership of their customer’s video content. They block access outside of their apps, charge for access and control of that video, and then fail to secure the video content they’ve claimed. It’s another case of buying not equal owning.
Wyse, Eufy, Ring and Next have all had breaches of various kinds. Wyse took three years to fix major vulnerabilities. TP-Link has been sued by the FTC for failing to address router and camera flaws. Ring repeatedly provided video to law enforcement without a warrant. Even Roomba vacuum’s video footage has been leaked by the company entrusted with it.
It is clearly much more profitable to ignore breaches and vulnerabilities than to prevent them.
Allowing any video to exit your home network and be stored by a corporation is just asking for trouble.
This is why I always sigh when people get cameras for security. It’s only as secure as the weakest link. And if you don’t know what the weakest link is, you are boned.
Every single one of my “internet facing” devices is blocked from accessing the internet at the router. If I want to access them they either get added to my HomeAssistant instance or another computer that’s only accessible from the outside through my VPN.
All of the convenience with the privacy concerns practically eliminated. It costs $6 a month in hosting for the VPS I set the wireguard server up on.
Every single one of my “internet facing” devices is blocked from accessing the internet at the router.
This would be a lot more common if router software stopped being developed in the fuckin 80’s. Unless you get a commercial product they’re all so cryptic, and difficult to navigate.
Routing, NAT and firewall are pretty complex things because its the backbone of everything: phones, websites, enterprises, government. It all uses the same tech. And very few networks are the same (the exception being consumer broadband home networks).
The money for development is in the products for enterprise, so they have to have all the tuneables available and seem hugely complex to non-specialist users.So, there arent really any “easy” router/firewalls that are also flexible.
Ubiquiti & TP-link do Software Defined Network stuff, abstracts away a lot of the complexity. But as soon as you want to do anything complex, you are digging into CLI and might as well use something designed for that.
OpenWRT is apparently pretty good. Ive never used it.
I now use OPNSense. Essentially freeBSD set up as a router/firewall, with a nice webGUI and loads of flexibility.
I feel like this is what you are looking forI also dable in Mikrotik routers, and im considering moving to their RouterOS… Or even one of their appliances.
openWRT, OPNSense, RouterOS can be installed on your own hardware. So you could use an old desktop, stick a decent network card in it and use that with a bridge modem.
I got a Synology router which is absolutely far from the best hardware but it is so human readable. I don’t have to guess what anything does, or what sub menu it is under. That was worth the premium for me.
I tried openWRT on a TM Ac1900. It is not an easy process to get that loaded - I can tell you that.
At this point I really don’t understand why anyone would put a camera in their home that’s connected to a server they don’t control.
Because most people don’t understand the meaning nor the implication of the words that you just said.
Laziness. Most people don’t want to research everything needed to set up a self hosted camera system. Much easier to pop into Best Buy and grab a Wyze camera that works out of the box.
I wouldn’t call it lazy necessarily, everyone just has limited time and energy to invest in stuff and probably had no idea of the risks.
More likely people lack the time.
Besides, expecting a security camera company to provide a decent quality product that doesn’t suffer egregiously serious breaches like Wyze has is not unreasonable. Idealistic, maybe; lacking an appropriately enormous degree of cynicism.
More likely people lack the time.
Quite an unhealthy lifestyle.
How do these people not realize that these cameras let other people to see into their homes?
This has happened SO. Many. Times.
I really wonder how much everyday people care. Years back, people would give out their passwords for chocolate. Most people at this point have had their SSN’s leaked multiple times, all their PII is generally available somewhere, they use unencrypted SMS and email for financial transactions, etc… convenience is worth way more to the average person than having a few pictures of their house leaked. Even if they’re in it. It just doesn’t enter their mind as a problem. Last few people I brought it up to about their wyze or blink cameras just shrugged off the privacy stuff. (Though none of them had them in their homes, just external doorbell/driveway kinda cameras)
I’m sure I’m going to get some shit for this, but here we go! I own a wyzecam that I keep in (but due to lack of necessity will soon be removing from) my daughter’s room. We had it there just to check and see if she was asleep in her crib still without walking up the very creaky stairs/hall to her room.
It has pretty garbage resolution, has no sensitive information in frame, is not in a part of the house that anything can be overheard, and literally just shows a blurry image of our daughter’s bed.
I guess someone could theoretically sign in and…watch a 3 year old sleep? The worst case scenario I can imagine is someone using the speaker function to scare my kid, which would suck, but I think I can risk it.
I have one to watch my dogs when I am away. It was cheap and I only plug it in occasionally when I am gone for a while. Probably about 3 hours a week. I figure if it is mostly off it will be hard to be exposed, and even if so, all you will see are my dogs in their crates.
and even if so, all you will see are my dogs in their crates.
And that you’re not home.
How many people you think live near me, are able to hack my Wyze cam, are into breaking and entry, and read this post so they know that when the camera is on I am probably not home?
It would be a hell of a lot easier to just wait until you don’t see cars in my driveway, or watch my house until you see me leave.
I’m not a criminal, but if I was, I’d get a group together and monitor all the feeds for when I see people go on vacation, then break in. And if they are stupid enough to have sex in front of a security camera in their bedroom or other rooms in their house, it would make excellent blackmail material for different types of extortion if you didn’t want to risk the police coming. Those can be more lucrative anyways.
You starting this by staying “I am not a criminal” proved my point.
A Wyze security failure is not putting my at risk of being robbed. There are easier ways to tell when people go on vacation. Your plan is to get illicit access to someone’s camera, hope they live near by, check up on them daily, wait for them to be gone for a couple days, assume that means they will be gone for a while longer, then rob them?
Most people post vacations on social media, why bother hacking and stalking them. Just find people who post about their international vacations on FB. Easier to do and you get much better information about how long they will be gone.
Internet Of Things - where the “S” in the acronym stands for security…
I’ve got several Wyze cams around my house and one inside facing the main living room/kitchen area. I realize it’s an imperfect system with flaws, but at the same time that living room camera is also the reason I was able to file abuse charges against my ex wife. Not a scenario I’d want anyone to deal with, but in my case it turned out to be some of the best money I’ve ever spent.
You can have security cameras without putting them on the Internet for anyone to access.
You are correct. But to be totally honest, Wyze offered an affordable cost and a low barrier to entry. It’s a tradeoff that worked out for me, but I get that it’s not the same math for everyone else.
There are onvif cameras (IP camera standard that lets it work with any software) that are as cheap as Wyze. Plus many have microsd so they can work without any network.
Again you’re completely right. I’m just saying that when it comes down to it, 99% of folks are not going to host their own system. And in my personal, specific case, I judged the rewards to heavily outweigh the risks, which ended up being correct. YMMV.
To be clear you block internet access at your router. Do not trust the camera not to phone home.
Depending on your router - this is either very difficult, or a single click but I’ve never seen it be impossible.
Right on, man. Where is she now?
Out of my life, I used the video evidence to land her ass in jail and filed for divorce. She managed to claw her way out of the gutter after using crack and becoming a prostitute.
lol again, Wyze? This happened last year. Love that they’re downplaying it, “we’ve identified only 14 people that were affected.” They have a privacy issue. A big one.
Man I saw the headline and I’m like, “Oh, this is old news. Why is it on here?” Then I read your comment and realized that this is actually a second breach. What a mess!
Using Wyze is a choice that has trade-offs and it’s up to the user to understand what those are.
For example, if you aren’t able, or willing, to selfhost an NVR, then accept that these situations may arise and decide which video feeds are ones you’re willing to take that risk with.
Video feeds of your backyard, are significantly different then those of your bedroom, or living areas.
I disagree, you can’t expect everyone to be technologically literate enough to understand the consequences of everything. And you can’t palm it off by saying “well they need to/should”. Much like expecting people to understand and read every single EULA that everyone always scrolls down and hits “accept” At some point legislation needs to be drafted yo make it very clear the consequences, or legislate to ensure privacy so companies can’t do this.
They definitely saw Deez nuts
The number of affected customers has grown from 14 to 13,000.
Finally back in the growth economy!
Wait…
This is the exact same error that chatgpt had. Caching error letting you see other users stuff.
What’s that they say … there are three common errors in programming, catching and off by one errors?
…again.
Maybe I want you to peek in…
I’m honestly impressed they are still in business. If the first time it happened didn’t kill them, the second time probably won’t either.
This is why you don’t use any smart home devices, kids
Oh, I use plenty of smart devices. I just make sure I select equipment that I can put on an isolated network without cloud access and operate through my self-hosted automation platform.
If it requires the cloud or a dedicated app for its basic setup and operation, its not getting installed here.
That’s a very good point but could you also tell me why do you need a smart home? I don’t understand the point of it
Same reason a remote control is handy for a TV — convenience.
Motion or presence sensing. Timers. Virtual buttons. Physical buttons in places I wouldn’t normally have them. Garage door opening automagically when I pull in the driveway with a specific vehicle. Etc.
Plus I get to check in on my kitty from far away.
No apology for Wyze’s breach, but only 1500 of the possible alerts for not-your-home were clicked on/viewed. Gotta love sensational headlines.
Also, if you’re using a cloud-based camera for private spaces? Well, that’s kinda a decision you made for yourself.
Also, if you’re using a cloud-based camera for private spaces? Well, that’s kinda a decision you made for yourself.
Not even just cloud based. I remember a decade or two ago a lot of security cameras were plugged into the regular network with enabled remote access. You could even find them through Google using specific search terms and a lot of them had either no or default logins configured. So you could basically spy into all sorts of peoples homes. If I ever were to install cameras in my home, they’d be completely separated from everything else.
There are websites that allow you to view thousands of unsecured webfeeds
Those are from public places, a lot of those cameras are promoted on their respective websites too since they’re purposefully open. I’m talking about private household cameras. People who were doing their everyday things in their living rooms or bedrooms, without knowing that their camera just streams live to who knows how many strangers watching them through its remote access function.
They have both types. I know exactly what you mean.
