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Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#21

Post by InTheArena »

Mad props to Brian on this. It's way overdue - and frankly, the Ubiquiti lawsuit was poor PR management - but it's good to put things right given some very poor journalistic choices. Journalists admitting when they are wrong is a key step in rebuilding trust in our institutions - not only news but many aspects of civil society here.

Ubiquiti - as a fan of your products - please drop the lawsuit now. I get that this did a ton of damage to the company, but I don't think anyone wins by dragging this out. The product lineup has improved dramatically over the last year, and it would be good to focus there.

Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#24

Post by jonpurdy »

There was a lot of discussion from ex-Ubnt employees in a January 2021 thread※ related to outsourcing and incompetent management. From what I've read, they still show ads for their products in newer Unifi Controller web interfaces and don't have a way of disabling tracking.

But now that the Krebs retraction has occurred, my brain doesn't know how bad/incompetent Ubiquiti is these days.

Is there an updated-for-2022 source of info on Ubiquiti's problems? ie. what complaints are still valid, and which ones are not valid due to the cyber blackmail incident?

I was a big supporter from 2015-2019 and I still run their AC Lite AP + EdgeRouterX, but haven't updated them beyond 2019 firmware.

※ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25735032

Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#26

Post by InTheArena »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #18
blantonl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about of straightforward as a "I screwed up, I own it, I apologize" Everyone makes mistakes. Some of the good work Krebs has done seems to be completely overshadowed by a mistake here. Granted, this is probably in response to some legal action either in progress or already settled, but what more do you want from the guy?

> This is about of straightforward as a "I screwed up, I own it, I apologize" "A source provided info. Source is now discredited. I thus no longer trust the info." That's the gist of the apology. But that's neither here nor there, it does not show understanding of the fact that his reputation was deliberately used for criminal purposes.

"This time, I missed the mark and, as a result, I would like to extend my sincerest apologies to Ubiquiti, and I have decided to remove those articles from my website."

I think that's reasonable.

Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#27

Post by acoard »

blantonl wrote: post #12
acoard wrote: post #6

An accurate but pretty lacklustre "mea culpa" and retraction. I don't mind people making mistakes, everyone does, but seeing how Krebs has handled this whole episode has not inspired optimism in how he'll handle future mistakes. He was essentially used as an unwitting party in a cyber blackmail scheme, and he doesn't touch on that at all. There will continue to be nefarious parties trying to misuse his reputation, so…

This is about of straightforward as a "I screwed up, I own it, I apologize" Everyone makes mistakes. Some of the good work Krebs has done seems to be completely overshadowed by a mistake here. Granted, this is probably in response to some legal action either in progress or already settled, but what more do you want from the guy?

>Everyone makes mistakes.

Fully agree, which is why I said the same thing. :)

>Granted, this is probably in response to some legal action either in progress or already settled, but what more do you want from the guy?

As I said in my post, a stated awareness that he was used in a cyber blackmail scheme, and at least some nominal promise to try and be aware of that in the future. The difference here is between "I made an honest mistake" and "I was taken advantage of and used unwittingly in a scheme." I'm not interested in him self-flagellating and begging for forgiveness, as my concern is totally forward-looking. I believe this type of problem will come again, of people trying to unwittingly use his reputation to push certain agendas. If he isn't aware of that dimension of the problem then it's likely it will re-occur.

That being said, your point about this post made in a legal context is totally fair and had slipped my mind. I can imagine any apology/statement/etc getting neutered by lawyers for perfectly rational reasons.

Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#28

Post by nerdponx »

riffic wrote: post #3

this reads like he got out-lawyered here. context for the unaware: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/ubiquiti-sues-jo...

Do I understand this correctly?

There was a minor data breach at Ubiquiti. An employee named Sharp was using this as an opportunity to extort his employer and exfiltrate data. Sharp was telling Krebs some yarn about the data breach being bigger than reported, which Krebs then repeated on his blog, accusing Ubiquiti of covering up a more significant breach. And Ubiquiti is claiming that Krebs knew the truth all along.

This sounds like a weird and complicated story, so I feel like I'm probably misunderstanding.

Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#29

Post by user3939382 »

Ubiquiti is so worried about suing Krebs meanwhile their brand reputation has turned to mud due to the quality of their products, both from my own experience and the general consensus I've heard online. If this incident had never occurred I still would have stopped recommending and using their equipment.

Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#30

Post by CaliforniaKarl »

Sitting on the bus, I’ve already changed my mind about the decision to take down the articles, instead of posting a retraction notice. At first I thought Mr. Krebs was being scummy by pulling the posts.

The Ars Technica article linked by u/riffic mentions that there was an earlier, denied takedown request. So, now I think the posts were likely taken down as part of a settlement.

We’ll probably never know—I expect an NDA to be part of the terms—but I wonder if, from Ubiquiti’s side, it might have been better to leave the posts up, but with a retraction notice.

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