IOT devices use standard, commonly available boards and chips, which are meant for widely varied applications, so offer wifi/Internet connectivity easily. So companies can add that "feature" painlessly by applying a snippet of (usually OSS) code. And collecting all the customer data they can is a bonus. No penalty of zero security, major upside if they sell it. This is dangerous to all of us, even if you don't own an…
My brother and father in law bought a bunch cheap WiFi security cameras off of amazon. People online were complaining they phone home all kinds of stuff to Chinese IPs. My father in laws other cameras are Nest which phone to Google but it’s a selling point. I was going to put the Chinese cameras on a subnet but I don’t want to complicate his network. My father in law has 3 routers with 3 WiFi networks competing with…
Re: We're Surrounded by Billions of Internet-Connected Devices. Can We Trust Them?
#41I have three Wyze cams, which pretty much fit the bill of "cheap WiFi security cams which phone home to Chinese IPs". Though you can flash them with other firmware, if you want to control that. Personally, being in the US, I am less worried about Chinese companies sharing my data with US corps or government agencies (that doesn't seem too likely, somehow) but I would certainly be more nervous if I lived in the PRC. I suppose there's still the possibility they could be compromised to try attack other machines on my network, but those aren't wide open.