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Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

krebsonsecurity.com

51–60 of 238 posts

Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#51
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem from my end though is, who really competes with them? No one else offers the same level of control at the same (or even close) price point.

The old adage "you get what you pay for" applies here. Yeah, it's cheaper than buying Meraki, Aruba, Fortinet, etc, but the IDS/IPS on their Dream Machine is awful, logging is awful, reliability of anything but wireless gear is awful, Protect storage equipment is awful...

I don't really want to pay for support contracts which cost more than the upfront cost of the hardware after a couple of years to continue to receive software updates for my prosumer level home networking deployments. Does Meraki and Aruba provide free updates?

Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#52
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem from my end though is, who really competes with them? No one else offers the same level of control at the same (or even close) price point.

I've heard good things about MikroTik?

Better routing functionality (at least until the last bits of load balancing and policy based routing land), but MicroTik is hard to manage for anything but the simplest use cases. Plus you don't get the single pane of glass management across your WIFI / Switch / Routing ecosystem. In fact, you have to change the operating system you use on the switch depending on which features you want w/ Mikrotek.

Aruba and TP-Link Omada did huge marketing pushes to take advantage when Ubiquiti got hit with this crap. Every person I have talked to that switched from Unifi gear to Arbua Instant-On has moved back off of it over the last year. There is some selection bias there, but you can see the same thing in the youtube tech blogger(s) as well. That said, I think if you are not going Unifi for WIFI, your best bet is either CISCO or alternatively go mesh.

If you want to go down the more powerful path for routing I strongly suggest OPNSense / PFSense.

Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That seems like a statement not written by a lawyer. It’s possible he’s concerned about legal ramifications

Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#54
This seems to be the basics of the case:

Initial report: https://web.archive.org/web/20211202143043/https://krebsonse...

Indictment of source: https://web.archive.org/web/20211202161703/https://krebsonse...

In cases like this it's probably better to leave the article up but plaster a big red 'retracted' banner across it, with a link to a complete explanation as to why it was retracted.

As far as defamation, isn't the legal bar on that pretty high in the USA? Maybe there's a negligence issue, i.e. relying on a single source, not doing enough background, etc. that overrides the normal 'good faith' reporting norms?

Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#55

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 d…

I’m not aware of any new information in the last 6 months about the matter.

I guess better late than never.

Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#56

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 d…

Mad props to him for finally posting a retraction and half-assed apology after Ubiquity forced him to with the lawsuit they never should have done? What?

Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#58

> As a result of the new information that has been provided to me, I no longer have faith in the veracity of my source or the information he provided to me. I always endeavor to ensure that my articles are properly sourced and factual. This is a strange statement given how the details of the FBI investigation have been public for a very long time. Krebs was fast to report on the initial accusations, but seems to have…

This is a failure across many journalists; the inability to view what they're involved with objectively. The amount of scrutiny applied to a source is inversely proportional with how much I want to believe the source.

Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#59

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 d…

Is it really props when you're being sued nearly half a million in damages to continue hosting the articles?

If he wanted to take down the articles because he felt he was wrong, he had months to do so.

He gets zero props from me for only taking down the articles after being sued.

Re: Final thoughts on Ubiquiti

#60
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…

I think you're right, but it took me a few minutes to put my finger on what was missing. There should have been a "going forward I will..." segment.

What should he do going forward?
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