This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
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.
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.
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)
So many cameras are left on the default password. On the insecam site they keep a list of cams where you can just look into people's home, all hacked by using the default password. And it keeps happening.
Because most people don't understand the meaning nor the implication of the words that you just said.
For me it's one less camera I have to run on my server that is already overwhelmed with the 12 other cameras that watch the outside. I have my wyze cams on sonoff minis that kill power to them unless I have my house set as away. I don't need 247 recording of the inside just give me the option to peek in while away to see if anything is alarming.
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.
Because zoneminder sucks and the other ones are kind of corporate and crappy?
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.
...again.
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.
I’ve got one on the sump pump and crawl space. China is welcome to monitor that and report anything interesting
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 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?
The number of affected customers has grown from 14 to 13,000.
Finally back in the growth economy!
Wait…
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.
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.
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.
Works great on paper till you find the official API that can be used with open assistant is for licensed technicians only so you can only connect it to your server by giving your server access to the cloud app...
Looking at you Mitsubishi air conditioning unit with infrared scanner that is definitely not an old webcam up-cycled from some random warehouse.
Yeah, that's been a problem lately. Haier also recently issued a takedown against the maintainer who published the Home Assistant integration for their brands of air conditioners and other smart appliances.
Ford, Tesla, and several other smart device makers have similarly taken their seni-open APIs to license-only/closed source only recently.
Which is dumb because even if they DO want to monetize that data stream by selling it to data brokers, the people they've affected by closing those APIs represent a small fraction of their user base. It amounts to a rounding error in the revenues.
Maybe I want you to peek in...
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.
I have to assume these people don't understand it, and would care to know this and hopefully learn that decision was a bad idea.
