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ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks

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Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks

#111
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First comer advantage is huge. I work with a mid sized engineering consultancy. We began switching to ESP as our primary platform just around 2 years ago, just as wifi gadgets were starting to boom. To date, we got 500 megs of MCU project in our repo. Though most of code is repetitive, there is no chance we will part with such a huge codebase. Being able to complete a $200k project in a few weeks through code reuse,…

Why do you call it first mover advantage when there were wifi MCUs before it?

He's just wrong/in denial about it. Wifi MCUs existed just fine before ESP as you say, they just weren't affordable.

Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you call it first mover advantage when there were wifi MCUs before it?

What was before were not MCUs as such, but a zoo of spi wifi + mcu "solutions" from rentier companies like broadcom. Technically, and conceptually they were hopelessly behind an integrated WiFi MCU.

You are wrong. There were many Wifi MCU solutions available before.

Espressif did not innovate in the technology space but in pricing and having enough documentation available that hackers could piece together an open source toolchain and libs for the chip.

Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks

#113
post #2

ESP8266 is a low-cost Wi-Fi microchip with full TCP/IP stack and microcontroller capability produced by Shanghai-based Chinese manufacturer, Espressif Systems. ESP32 is a series of low cost, low power system on a chip microcontrollers with integrated Wi-Fi and dual-mode Bluetooth. some kind of IoT chips? can't tell what the real world impact of this is. edit: whoa, thanks for context folks! i'm surprised this wasn't…

These are really nice $5 chips with Wifi programmable with the Arduino toolset. Tons of IoT people use these to integrate various instrumentation and control into their houses or science projects. For instance, you can hook one up to a temperature sensor and a relay and control your heater. There are probably millions of these installed, hooked up to important hardware. So this makes wardriving fun again, I guess, if…

How do you power them conveniently though?

I can wrap my head around doing the soldering.

But power means either power adapter or battery?

If I’m doing power I might as well use a raspberry.

Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks

#114
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are really nice $5 chips with Wifi programmable with the Arduino toolset. Tons of IoT people use these to integrate various instrumentation and control into their houses or science projects. For instance, you can hook one up to a temperature sensor and a relay and control your heater. There are probably millions of these installed, hooked up to important hardware. So this makes wardriving fun again, I guess, if…

Just to give you some idea of how easy these are to use: In 20 mins with a small breadboard, a few Dupont wires, a Nodemcu ESP8266, a DHT22 with a pull up resister I've got a desk temperature sensor. Add: https://esphome.io/ ... and it talks MQTT and connects straight into Home Assistant.

Hmm. Actually have all of that except the esp on hand

Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks

#116

For those unfamiliar with the topic, these two chips are by and far the most common wifi chips for DIY and are also very common in IoT devices. Due to cheap price ($2—$5 depending on the model) and very low barrier to entry technically, these devices are both very popular as well as very wide spread in those two categories. These chips are the first hits for searches such as "Arduino wifi module", "breadboard wifi",…

Yep. Just looking at one commercial product that's using it, the Sonoff wifi switch was bought by a lot of people:

on Banggood they show that they sold 242338 of them:

https://www.banggood.com/SONOFF-Basic-10A-2200W-WIFI-Wireles...

on Amazon the 4 pack listing has 548 customer reviews and there are other listings with hundreds of reviews and probably lot more people bought it than the reviews.

https://www.amazon.com/Sonoff-Remote-Control-Compatible-Andr...

It's used mostly for lights, fan, AC, heating, so not that much critical, but still lot of devices.

Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks

#117
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has there been any successful patent infringement lawsuits over the last three years that targets a Chinese company that has infringed upon a US company? Isn't that part of the issue in the current trade deal talks with China?

Not a US company being infringed, but Lego has gotten a Chinese court to order Lepin to stop making imitations of Lego products. [1] Since arrests have been made over Lepin not complying [2], it seems like the ruling has teeth. [1] https://www.brothers-brick.com/2018/11/05/lepin-ordered-to-s... [2] https://www.brothers-brick.com/2019/04/28/arrests-made-in-le...

Doesn't look like they've actually stopped.

https://lepinworld.com/

Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks

#118
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't imagine any manufacturer risking their business by replying "nope, we won't comply" How about the risk to their business when a multinational corporation is X-raying their cores for backdoors (as one does) and finds the state backdoor, and then decides to no longer do business with the hardware manufacturer because of it—and also publicizes the existence of the backdoor, such that other multinationals pull…

Has this happened?

Yes. The specific scenario GP described is about SuperMicro and Amazon if my memory is correct on the parties involved.

Edit: it was for sure SuperMicro and Amazon.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h...

Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has this happened?

Yes. The specific scenario GP described is about SuperMicro and Amazon if my memory is correct on the parties involved. Edit: it was for sure SuperMicro and Amazon. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h...

That story was widely debunked in followup stories. No one ever demonstrated any of the claims in that story.

Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks

#120

For those unfamiliar with the topic, these two chips are by and far the most common wifi chips for DIY and are also very common in IoT devices. Due to cheap price ($2—$5 depending on the model) and very low barrier to entry technically, these devices are both very popular as well as very wide spread in those two categories. These chips are the first hits for searches such as "Arduino wifi module", "breadboard wifi",…

They are also really capable processors on their own with some nice I/O, and they can be integrated to be really low power so things can run on battery power for months to years.

Can they really last that long (on their own)? I looked into this when the ESP8266 first became popular maybe 4 years ago as I wanted to build WiFi temperature and humidity sensors. My calculations were that a set of AAA rechargable batteries (~2000mAh) would last a few days at most, with the device in deep sleep most of the time and waking up every 10 mins to take a reading and send it over WiFi.

Right now I'm looking to create smart blinds. The motors don't use that much power, but the issue is the MCU listening for commands. The ESP32 support BLE, but it's power consumption is still rather high, so batteries would only last a few days at most.

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