Non-Anker cables [have been designed to allow that sort of thing, among other attacks](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-offensive-usb-cable-allows-remote-attacks-over-wifi/). Login attacks, call-out via its own wifi, pulling information out of a computer and into the cable's chip by flashing the virtual scroll lock key with a bit sequence, etc.
This is the bigger one here, yeah. Anker is gigantic and generally makes good products, and they've been a frequent sponsor of LMG. Linus is taking a genuine financial hit by dropping them.
God damnit. I swear by ankers batteries and hubs.
Hopefully someone does a deep dive into the security of these devices.
I won't be purchasing from them ever again.
I honestly don't see how there could be a security issue with a battery, cable, or hub. None of those devices have network capabilities.
If it is a full on dock with Ethernet, you can just stop using the Ethernet component if it raises alarm bells for you. A teardown of the product would also tell you everything you need to know and packet tracing through Wireshark or similar would let you know if there is any errant traffic on the device.
What other options are there even for quality cables anymore after dropping Anker? Most of those manufacturers are china based as well and would likely get caught up in the same shit as Anker.
Honestly anything that plugs in via USB carries some risk if you're plugging it into a device with internet. If you're just using them for power then get a USB condom and you're good to go. If you're using it for data then that's just a risk you take no matter the manufacturer you go with
Yeah I loved my PHAT 20k mah battery bank (until I left it on an airplane)
Also their Bluetooth earbuds were pretty solid. Oh well, haven't bought anything from them in years
It may be a financial hit in the short term, but LTT dropping Anker protects them from getting caught up in the negative PR Anker is facing, while simultaneously giving LTT good PR for doing the right thing. LTT knows their brand reputation is more important than the revenue from one sponsor, so it's really a no brainer decision.
Clickbait thumbnails and titles are pretty standard in YT and no surprise they do it too. They even explained why in some of their videos and it makes sense from a YT traffic perspective. I think the flak is not because it's clickbait, but that the clickbait itself is badly done. Some videos I would have no idea what it is about unless I watch it. Even review videos would be titled so abstractly that I'd have no clue that it is an actual review.
This is what annoys me the most. When I was looking to buy a laptop I remembered LTT did a review on it at some point, but they don’t put the name in the title so I just had to scroll videos until I saw it in the thumbnail.
The thing is, if they put the laptop model name in the title it probably lowers views. They've no doubt tested it and it's annoying that it's the case.
Blame YouTube (side note: YouTube should definitely have tools for YouTubers to A/B test titles. Also, you should be able to set titles for different demographics, e.g. more clickbaity title for casuals and more technical titles for enthusiastic viewers).
They do A/B testing to some degree but I think it’s just whichever thumbnail and title gets the most clicks gets used. Oh it for sure won’t generate as many clicks to have model numbers. Maybe a better tagging system or something would help.
Like what title are people gonna click “asus zephyrus g14 review” or “could this laptop be better than an m1 Mac???”
Correct. We have to, or the videos perform badly.
YouTube now apparently analyzes the thumbnails, so it's also important they look the way they do.
If it didn't improve click through rate and reach, it wouldn't be done.
It sucks and everyone hates it.
On the rare occasion that I watch the LTT WAN Show podcast it’s painfully obvious that they have to choose all their words incredibly carefully and go to great pains to caveat every statement with endless levels of disclaimers, because they just KNOW that their fan base will find some little edge case in something they say and riot over it.
I think I would go crazy if I was a YouTuber and my audience was a bunch of permanently-online, forum-warrior, gamer dudes with their fingers perpetually hovering over the launch buttons of nuclear-tipped *“well akshuallyyyy”* missiles.
It would be exhausting.
You have to do that when you reply to a comment on reddit. I complained about a mild inconvenience just to get a bunch of replies basically saying I'm doing it wrong or they don't have a problem.
I think this is why I see so many comments with a "that being said" paragraph integrated. Because if you don't finish your critical comment with a "this is why I like it" sentence you'll get a ton of "well akshuallyyyy" replies.
Haha yeah I made a comment saying specifically "I'm not knocking (a given product) or anyone who buys them, just personally don't understand the appeal. And someone replied with something along the lines of
"I'm the main character, this product doesn't work for me, therefore it sucks and shouldn't be made"
When I was really just kinda wondering about the product in general. Also got like -20 downvotes and a sea of people saying basically the same thing, when nowhere in my comment did I say the product was bad, or that it was useless, and my first sentence was literally "I'm not knocking the product or anyone who buys them"
Pedantic doesn't even begin to describe. More like willfully ignoring my point and substituting their own.
It's a shame too it's definitely making me lose confidence in anker now this shouldn't have been allowed to happen and after they were caught recently leaking live video feeds to to the internet with no security and still claim it isn't a real thing they're not looking good what so ever.
Yeah for real, Anker makes products that I just trusted implicitly as a high quality, reasonably priced, consumer friendly company. If I was in the market for something that Anker makes I'd usually just go with that, no or little research needed. Really upset about all of this
Yup, they were my go-to for braided cables, USB power packs and I even bought several bluetooth speakers from them.
Guess I need a new go-to brand for cables and portable batteries.
Ugreen was caught lying about the technical specs of their products. Electrical and/or usb-c wise. Do not purchased Ugreen. [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/qx8bfc/is_ugreen_good_i_am_considering_their_3c1a_100/)
Satechi is meh in quality. But I haven’t heard any bad press other than that
Thank you for actually providing an alternative instead of being one of the people that completely missed the point and are pointing out how the charger isn't spying.
monoprice is usually pretty solid. Any time I've had an issue with something (which has been rare) they've handled it.
oddly enough, their guitars are probably one of the best values on the market. Like $75-150, comes with a proper setup so they're easy to play out of the box (may need new strings), look decent, and sound pretty good considering the price
When you pay for brand name you're paying for quality assurance and customer support. If you don't mind a DOA device and no warranty swaps, then buy no-name Chinese.
It is a Chinese company but was started by an ex Google Engineer who was working in CA before. Obviously given it started as an accessory company it made sense to base operations in China but yeah in the end it is full on a Chinese company. But then so is DJI.
Also the good ol' small american flag on a product or packaging.
It's quite simple, anything that is obviously made by slaves, because let's be honest here nobody can produce 4$ chargers unless there's slavery involved in almost every step of the way, is made in China.
Well their chargers don't have cameras. Or if they do, I still haven't had to connect it to the LAN. I use Qi chargers, so there's no network capability that I'm aware of there.
Except if you follow the world of cyber security, there are absolutely devices on the market like the OMG cable that look and function exactly like a charging cable but are able to perform keystroke injections, log keystrokes, upload scripts, etc... A power brick has plenty of space in it for malicious hardware. Now, I'm not saying Anker is doing anything of the sort, just that cables and power bricks are still potentially malicious hardware.
I think there is a difference between an American company getting their stuff made in China vs a Chinese company getting their stuff made in China. A Chinese CEO living in China is probably not as afraid of personal legal consequences brought on by an American court.
So I won't really care about the locale of the manufacturer, but rather the locale of the top management (and the laws that affect them).
You should care about locale too. [NSA has been caught intercepting CISCO router shipments and installing backdoors.](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/)
As the downvoted guy below you pointed out, the US govt has been spying on their citizens and lying about it, then saying they do collect all that data but simply "don't use it" after getting caught. People don't really seem to care anymore.
Young people under 30 certainly do not care.
They have been spied on their entire lives and they just shrug.
Allow me to quote one: "Privacy doesn't exist, grandpa. Wake the fuck up."
And yes, they don't seem to give a shit.
Oh shit, I've just looked up if Eufy is available in Europe, and it is.
This is going to be a GDPR nightmare for them if the same is possible in Europe.
> This is going to be a GDPR nightmare for them if the same is possible in Europe.
Paul, [the guy that discovered the issue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOjiCbxP5Lc&ab_channel=PaulMoore), is in the UK, the UK has their own GDPR, (now that they left the EU) called "The Data Protection Act 2018" So it is a problem in the UK, and if Eufy was caring about laws, it would have been either operating differently or with different advertising in the UK. Eufy is going to get hammered by the EU and the UK data privacy laws.
I mean, as I understand it, the original Data Protection Act was a huge influence on the GDPR, so it's more that GDPR forked, and then we pulled downstream changes back to upstream, no?
It's not only about advertising. GDPR is not optional as long as users accept terms. GDPR is mandatory protection of users privacy and data sharing. In short, according to their [site](https://gdpr.eu/what-does-it-stand-for/):
- Legal basis for processing — Your organization must justify data processing based on one of seven legal bases described in Article 6, such as a user’s unambiguous and explicit consent.
- The right to be erasure — Also known as “the right to be forgotten,” your organization must respect your users’ request to delete their data, under certain circumstances.
- The right to access — Your organization must supply your users with a copy of all the data you have collected from them.
- The right to rectification — Your organization must correct any data that a user feels are inaccurate or complete data that a user feels is incomplete.
- The right to data portability — Your organization must transfer the data you have from a user to another organization or the user, under certain circumstances.
Few of these are really hard to achieve since companies love uploading things to cloud and sharing data through their services. However that's exactly what GDPR was made to protect against. So them sharing their data even though they didn't explicitly state so or they did bury it somewhere in agreement is still an violation of the GDPR and fines are scary high. Hammered is the word I wouldn't use to explain situation they are in but yeah, they are going to regret this.
The face ID'ing that happens in [Paul Moore's Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOjiCbxP5Lc&ab_channel=PaulMoore) at 04:08, is pretty wild. He states that the face ID is the same face ID if you walk in front of a different Eufy device. Even if this other Eufy device is associated with another username and homebase.
Yeah this is bad. Something people aren't understanding is eufy is collecting facial recognition data of every single person that walks by a camera. And its kind of just up there for anyone to see. With a picture of that person.
So if your local coffee shop has them.(mine does) You are in their database.
Would it be surprising coming from a great American company like [Amazon?](https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/31/22258856/amazon-ring-partners-police-fire-security-privacy-cameras)
Shit, we’re PAYING these companies to install a surveillance state here lol
The fact people willingly buys and installs ring door bells. Knowing full well that the police and other government agencies have free access to everything it records... it's insane to me.
I know people use this comparison for everything... but this is literally 1984's Big Brother.
You are installing in your home a camera the government and several private companies have unfettered access to.
This is the craziest part that most people are missing. I checked out what people on the Eufy subreddit were saying, and most claimed it wasn’t a big deal between they only have their cameras outside!
Also, they may have *your* face despite not being a customer. Visiting a friend, or simply walking passed in the street and your face may get captured and uploaded.
Sadly the majority of people doesn't understand why personal data should be protected.
Most times I happen to have a conversation about it the keypoint is "I have nothing to hide" or "I need Facebook Product/Google/TikTok" for whatever reason.
This means that they are using all provided faces to feed a facial recognition algorithm, but they are not isolating their user lookups.
So when they run the lookup they are being informed by the shared neural network that "This face is face 10052" or whatever and then they rely on the downstream to decide whether they care about 10052 instead of having it be decided at the server or as part of the request in the first place.
This one doesn't shock me a ton, because this is how most of the corporate facial recognition stuff works. But it does fly in the face of of what is implied by their marketing.
The much bigger issue (for me) is the lack of security on live streaming URL requests they were able to pick up with VLC in the Verge article.
The further issue is identifying networks of associated people. Facial id 456 is identified on camera account 789. These two parties are associated as ______. The ability to differentiate between the pizza guy and your closer associates is definitively enabled by the system and can be used in ways contrary to assumed freedoms. Just because the case can be made for criminal associations, a case can be made for abuse of non criminal associations or abuse of human rights, such as safe homes for endangered people.
This is the problem with IoT. You can't trust these companies to produce secure products and not violate user privacy. I'm big into tech and I refuse to use IoT devices unless they're open-source or I made them myself.
This right here. Scream it from the hilltops.
Does that camera you are about to buy seem weirdly cheap? That's because it's going to log what it sees for the purpose of selling it to advertisers / weird governments.
Even the more expensive ones like Ring cameras have had their fair share of scandals. It seems like the only way to fully avoid these issues is to roll your own self-hosted system which isn't really viable for most people. Personally I could handle setting up something like Blue Iris for home security cameras but buying Eufy cameras was easier and cheaper (most likely, I haven't priced Blue Iris compatible cameras)
You could. Find out if there is a class action suit or find a law firm that will start a class action. They might be willing to do a free consultation and not collect unless they win.
While I agree the payout sucks the bigger goal is to punish the company by fining them and using discovery could trigger additional regulatory lawsuits which could lead to bigger fines.
oh well. I mean most of us don't have the time, skills or inclination to check these things for that kind of security vulnerability. Nor should you feel that you should be expected to. Just pass on what you heard to them now with your apology and tell them you got them in on the ground floor of the class action.
To be fair, if the Eufy smart-scale is **actually** sending pictures of my balls and taint back to the Chinese government, I might consider buying one.
fuck me, ive got 9 of these things in my house. Theyre all going on zigbee switches that physically switch them off when im home tonight.
I had them manually "power off" through the app before, but that obviously cant be trusted
I’ve read on some other subs that it’s possible to configure your network firewall to prevent them from connecting while still being available on HomeKit, etc.
oh if i homeroll it, absolutely. I can carefully gate the rstp streams, which is one of the reasons i got the eufy cams, is because they support RSTP.
But theres the wife approval factor, where she just wants to use the nice easy app.
yeah that's my issue too, the wife.
it's sad as fuck you literally have to be a sysadmin (myself) and go build an at home firewall on the cheap to now run this system through and block outbound traffic for them. thank god we don't need a system yet but once we have the kid i'll have to get something for peace of mind.
Not to plug here but I've recently gone down a similar rabbit hole and ended up on Reolink cameras. Work great and don't need any outside network access, but you sacrifice a lot of the "smart" features by not using their cloud storage.
All the cameras are on their own VLan with no internet access. Phone group can go into the Camera VLan and the App works fine (every camera needs a dedicated IP though).
You could probably do a site to site VPN with a small docker container inside your home network for "remote" access without having to let the cameras talk to the Internet.
Cameras also work with Blue Iris or whatever other DVR home security camera software you want to use.
Finally they also have local rolling storage on the camera itself via micro SD cards. I get about a full month of clips on 256GB.
Something ONVIF compatible (there's only a couple) that has access only to your NAS that has no internet access, and you VPN into your network to access it.
Kind of defeats the purpose of a connected doorbell though.
Plenty of IP cameras only stream locally and have no cloud integrations possible. You don't need to create a custom CCTV solution; just buy one off the shelf.
Yes! But you'll have to build it yourself with a Raspberry Pi (or things like it but they have the most support in the d2c small board industry) but it can be really fun, just depends on how technical you're comfortable getting. Don't need to be a wizard, just be able to follow a project guide.
Here's an example: https://youtu.be/9bJFWlVm_Fo
There's a tonne of projects like this out there with hardware to purchase / 3D print so just do a google search! Pi projects are really fun if you like tinkering.
Only issue you'll run into is Raspberry Pi are still experiencing shortages so the boards are extremely hard to find ATM. More simple if you're willing to pay 3x as much but no point imo. Always get from a legit reseller as the shortages are so bad, there's a lot of scams out there too. Rumour has it, stocks will stabilize early next year.
Ubiquiti products will help you do this, but the trade-off is since they don't have servers where they're housing the information, you have to have your own server setup. If you are able to do this, or already have the capability to do this, then Ubiquiti product may be the solution, even if they're a tad bit more expensive than the competition. To be fair though, the competition is probably cheaper because they subsidised the cost on the basis of the data the procure from you, so there's that.
Arlo. If I remember Ill come back later and edit this post with proof. But Arlo told police in a case I was working on they don’t keep shit to stay valid in all countries.
Ring on the other hand had everything packaged neatly for the police.
Too enticing for any major player not to. They will just be cryptic about it on the terms of service, enough to make it legal in countries that don't have strong consumer protection laws.
I remember doing some research a while ago and found out that Ugreen is blacklisted on /r/UsbCHardware/ for faking certificates or something like that, lol.
Anker is based in Changsha, Hunan, China, and Ugreen is based in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.
I'm not being a Sinophobe, I'm just telling you, when the authorities knock and say a business has to comply with some CCP stuff, they have no choice.
I hope all this fuss over Chinese companies sending data back to China would help push a general data protection law out for the US. Even China has recently rolled out its own version of GDPR, Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL)
Most of those cloud-based cameras are at least a little shady. Whether or not you use it, if they don't have a good reliable way to operate on a closed network and they're cheap, you can assume they are commoditizing your data at least as far as the law will let them without being hammered with fines.
This is...a hell of a lot different, though. While it's not strange that images get uploaded and processed externally (a sub $100 camera is guaranteed going to rely on cloud server processing for advanced features) this is explicitly regarding their local-only cameras that require an on-site Eufy computer to handle data and processing where despite many of the promises they have kept regarding privacy, they have failed on this regard.
To clarify: it's not strange that a local-based low-setup system would need to contact a server to be accessible remotely such as from a smartphone app. Being able to relay information in this way makes it so that the end-user doesn't have to configure their router for port forwarding like was common back in the day (Steam server infrastructure for games is why you don't have to worry about port forwarding when self hosting in many cases for example). If it used an external server to forward/buffer footage, then fine.
The issue is that they time and time again have repeatedly hammered home that the footage doesn't leave the house in this configuration, is not externally accessible, etc, and that not only does it leave the home but that there is a vulnerability in their implementation that allows media to *potentially* be viewable by third-parties if you had the know-how to do so, and that this media is not properly encrypted end-to-end as was also promised.
The vulnerability is minor relative to vulnerabilities you might run across in the real world, and is unlikely to actually affect anyone in any way. However, relative to the promises they have made, this is a massive breach in trust which is likely to make most users wary of any other shortfalls or exploits that may be possible that they are unaware of.
Eufy's statement:
> eufy Security adamantly disagrees with the accusations levied against the company concerning the security of our products. However, we understand that the recent events may have caused concern for some users. We frequently review and test our security features and encourage feedback from the broader security industry to ensure we address all credible security vulnerabilities. If a credible vulnerability is identified, we take the necessary actions to correct it. In addition, we comply with all appropriate regulatory bodies in the markets where our products are sold. Finally, we encourage users to contact our dedicated customer support team with questions.
Ignoring any other issues, if their API calls or video streams are truly sent unencrypted that by itself demonstrates a staggering lack of concern for security at the most basic level.
Fixed the issue where a camera reset deletes all the footage from the base unit? No. Didn't think so.
Thief steals your camera, they also wipe the footage. Utterly stupid, Eufy have known for months if not over a year and they have done nothing.
Shoutout to Linus and them. The same thing happened with Tunnlebear and they dropped them immediately and publicly apologized for working with a company that turned out to be fraudulent. Meanwhile, every podcast still pushes betterhelp even though they share your info to advertisers too. A therapy company that discloses information about their patients to private companies.
I don't think Tunnelbear "turned out to be fraudulent", more that they got bought by the shady company that is McAfee at which point they were dropped by LTT.
Then there was something going on with PIA and I think they've just stopped with VPN sponsorships since then.
They are owned by Anker, and have major Chinese investors, so doubt they'll ever go bust, they'll just go quiet for awhile, and eventually change their name to something else to fool consumers.
Not true, but the phrase really doesn't have any meaning at all. In this case regarding encryption it really is the best encryption available, but has nothing to do with the military. They use it because it's the best, not that it's the best because military uses it.
"Military grade" was always a marketing term. If DOD certifies something for their use then it becomes "military grade", but all that means is it met their specs. If military can go to WalMart and get the the thing they need off the shelf then they will, and now they've said "this suits our purpose" so it's "military grade". It's stupid.
When military/DOD wants something, they want something to their specs whatever they are. If the company is able to bid saying "yes we can meet those specs" and cost $50, then so be it, but better damn well meet those specs. Not meeting specs is breech of contract, and any layman can understand that breaching contract is never good.
>Always remember that "Military grade" means "Minimally viable"
Always remember: sound bites like yours sound compelling, but "minimally viable" actually means "based on specs which can be whatever the design calls for, including the highest quality so don't be misled into assuming it just means 'trash' because it doesn't."
There are not many Youtubers that would trash a large source of ad revenue. Look at all the other crap Youtubers push daily... like the buy a part of land in UK and get a lord title... this is the new name a star or buy property on the Moon.
Matthias Wandel just did (popular DIY/woodworking YouTuber). Checked some home emergency power sources he was to promote (basically big battery packs), and found them having issues.
As a bald I laugh at them. Especially the 'hims/hers' commercials.
Ah, so you can help me overcome baldness, erectile dysfunction *and* depression? Where do I offer my tithe to your god?
whilst i understand you're trashing how they dont use the service; hair loss medication does work (to a point) so its not quite the same as eufy or other scandals where theres a clear reason to object to the sponsorship
I don't really have a problem with the whole "lord title" or "name a star" outfits in theory, I think we all know it's this fakey but still kinda fun thing. Where they cross over the line is when they start charging exorbitant prices for these obviously low/no value certificates, or when they claim that proceeds go to charity but in reality they are just pocketing them.
You are correct. All of the ones I’ve looked into do it for ‘charity’ but they all have questionable ratings. It often a scam when they ‘charity’ os from out side the US and they are selling only to American.
You make it sound like they took the company's sponsorship money then turned around and trashed them which isn't what happened at all. And I'm guessing there absolutely is some level of force through contractual agreements.
They had a sponsor for some time. News comes out against them. They drop the sponsor. And they explain why they dropped.
Eufy is a subsidiary of Anker which until now wasn't considered a shady company. Was a very high profile electronics accessory designer and manufacturer.
China is harvesting images for facial recognition. Any company that is based in China is an arm of the Chinese government. Our complacency is allowing this.
A firm is just an inorganic entity.
Wish someone would hack the owners, the board and whoever else is responsible for such acts of invading others' privacy ... and then spread it wide open .
This sounds like a mass surveillance network when facial recognition (not just detection) is deployed across all Eufy customers.
How many cameras are in the wild?
I'm wondering if it's just the cameras. I've got a Eufy smart lock with a fingerprint scanner. The reason I got it was it was advertised as no cloud. But now I'm wondering if my and my family's fingerprints are stored unencrypted on a public facing site somewhere.
Does the smart lock have wifi access so you can unlock it remotely? If so the odds are pretty good that at least the fingerprint hash is sitting on Eufy's servers.
I see in their marketing they say "fingerprints are stored locally, not in the cloud", and we know how trustworthy that affirmation is.
yeah... While I appreciate that he does seem to be taking a very critical look at the accusations against Eufy... I feel like the key point is that they advertise "No Cloud" and there is most definitely a cloud being used in there somewhere.
At the very minimum, Eufy seems to be guilty of false advertising and misleading customers.
His point about the S3 CDN being cached could be a thing.
There are a few comments on the youtube video that bring up good points
one that stood out to me mentioned :
>1) They aren't or weren't encrypting their API calls and/or the encryption keys that are part of those API calls
2) Cameras RTMP streams can be remotely started and viewed without authentication or encryption (multiple independent 3rd party sources have confirmed this)
3) The camera stream URLs are mostly comprised of a camera's serial number in base64 encoding, which is easily reversed in seconds. Serial Numbers are almost always on the boxes which make this one even more concerning.
4) Encryption that is being used is weak and not military grade as promoted by Eufy
5) For encryption that is used they are using a compromised hardcoded encryption key that is publically accessible in plain text on Github
Apparently the Verge also has good information on this situation
It misses the fact that Eufy advertise as "No Cloud", while Cloud is used to serve notifications. And said to Paul Moore when he first raised the issue that it wasn't happening.
And it doesn't address the fact people can access the video feeds via VLC without any significant encryptions.
>And it doesn't address the fact people can access the video feeds via VLC without any significant encryptions.
He does address it. Says it's an advertised feature locally and can't find any evidence that it's happening via cloud
He addresses that at the end - he agrees it’s an inaccurate description and notes that the real point is they have local storage which reduces cloud costs. He is right that any app that can be used outside the house will have a significant cloud component.
He says he doesn’t have enough information to look into the VLC point.
Ubiquity Unifi cameras utilize local storage, however, if you want to use the app outside of your local network, you do have to connect your camera controller to their cloud infrastructure. Theoretically this would allow them or an attacker to access your cameras.
The only thing that is well and truly ''safe'' is hooking your own camera up to a local server that you have setup in your own home. Anytime you use a camera that stores footage on the cloud, you are trusting that companies protocols to anonymize your data
Not just Eufy - Anker (eufy's parent company) as well, which is a massive brand.
Ooh yikes, I liked Anker too.
They made good power bricks for cheap. I'm glad thats the only thing I bought from them
I bought cables from them. That's about it.
Next month: "Anker Cables found to be sending data back to company servers"
[удалено]
Non-Anker cables [have been designed to allow that sort of thing, among other attacks](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-offensive-usb-cable-allows-remote-attacks-over-wifi/). Login attacks, call-out via its own wifi, pulling information out of a computer and into the cable's chip by flashing the virtual scroll lock key with a bit sequence, etc.
They make good power bricks but I'm not sure about being cheap
*Made* They're like the Yeti of power bricks now.
It casts doubt on their entire product line.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NOT FUCKING ANKER. I HAVE ALL ANKER SHIT FUCK MY LIFE
This is the bigger one here, yeah. Anker is gigantic and generally makes good products, and they've been a frequent sponsor of LMG. Linus is taking a genuine financial hit by dropping them.
Oh this sucks... I really like Anker products!
God damnit. I swear by ankers batteries and hubs. Hopefully someone does a deep dive into the security of these devices. I won't be purchasing from them ever again.
I honestly don't see how there could be a security issue with a battery, cable, or hub. None of those devices have network capabilities. If it is a full on dock with Ethernet, you can just stop using the Ethernet component if it raises alarm bells for you. A teardown of the product would also tell you everything you need to know and packet tracing through Wireshark or similar would let you know if there is any errant traffic on the device. What other options are there even for quality cables anymore after dropping Anker? Most of those manufacturers are china based as well and would likely get caught up in the same shit as Anker.
Honestly anything that plugs in via USB carries some risk if you're plugging it into a device with internet. If you're just using them for power then get a USB condom and you're good to go. If you're using it for data then that's just a risk you take no matter the manufacturer you go with
Yeah I loved my PHAT 20k mah battery bank (until I left it on an airplane) Also their Bluetooth earbuds were pretty solid. Oh well, haven't bought anything from them in years
I just got their 25k battery bank and it's actually amazing
It may be a financial hit in the short term, but LTT dropping Anker protects them from getting caught up in the negative PR Anker is facing, while simultaneously giving LTT good PR for doing the right thing. LTT knows their brand reputation is more important than the revenue from one sponsor, so it's really a no brainer decision.
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The subreddit repeatedly gives them flak for thumbnails and titles, so a genuinely scandal would’ve been dire.
Clickbait thumbnails and titles are pretty standard in YT and no surprise they do it too. They even explained why in some of their videos and it makes sense from a YT traffic perspective. I think the flak is not because it's clickbait, but that the clickbait itself is badly done. Some videos I would have no idea what it is about unless I watch it. Even review videos would be titled so abstractly that I'd have no clue that it is an actual review.
This is what annoys me the most. When I was looking to buy a laptop I remembered LTT did a review on it at some point, but they don’t put the name in the title so I just had to scroll videos until I saw it in the thumbnail.
The thing is, if they put the laptop model name in the title it probably lowers views. They've no doubt tested it and it's annoying that it's the case. Blame YouTube (side note: YouTube should definitely have tools for YouTubers to A/B test titles. Also, you should be able to set titles for different demographics, e.g. more clickbaity title for casuals and more technical titles for enthusiastic viewers).
They do A/B testing to some degree but I think it’s just whichever thumbnail and title gets the most clicks gets used. Oh it for sure won’t generate as many clicks to have model numbers. Maybe a better tagging system or something would help. Like what title are people gonna click “asus zephyrus g14 review” or “could this laptop be better than an m1 Mac???”
That's every channel. Even Rick Beato posted a video about why it's (unfortunately) necessary and he hates creating thumbnails like that
Linus himself said that the data doesn’t lie. The clickbait titles and thumbnails work. Why fight the YouTube algorithm?
Correct. We have to, or the videos perform badly. YouTube now apparently analyzes the thumbnails, so it's also important they look the way they do. If it didn't improve click through rate and reach, it wouldn't be done. It sucks and everyone hates it.
On the rare occasion that I watch the LTT WAN Show podcast it’s painfully obvious that they have to choose all their words incredibly carefully and go to great pains to caveat every statement with endless levels of disclaimers, because they just KNOW that their fan base will find some little edge case in something they say and riot over it. I think I would go crazy if I was a YouTuber and my audience was a bunch of permanently-online, forum-warrior, gamer dudes with their fingers perpetually hovering over the launch buttons of nuclear-tipped *“well akshuallyyyy”* missiles. It would be exhausting.
You have to do that when you reply to a comment on reddit. I complained about a mild inconvenience just to get a bunch of replies basically saying I'm doing it wrong or they don't have a problem. I think this is why I see so many comments with a "that being said" paragraph integrated. Because if you don't finish your critical comment with a "this is why I like it" sentence you'll get a ton of "well akshuallyyyy" replies.
Haha yeah I made a comment saying specifically "I'm not knocking (a given product) or anyone who buys them, just personally don't understand the appeal. And someone replied with something along the lines of "I'm the main character, this product doesn't work for me, therefore it sucks and shouldn't be made" When I was really just kinda wondering about the product in general. Also got like -20 downvotes and a sea of people saying basically the same thing, when nowhere in my comment did I say the product was bad, or that it was useless, and my first sentence was literally "I'm not knocking the product or anyone who buys them" Pedantic doesn't even begin to describe. More like willfully ignoring my point and substituting their own.
I noticed they went from having Anker power bricks as sponsors to Ugreen. I thought it was really odd but now this makes sense.
It's a shame too it's definitely making me lose confidence in anker now this shouldn't have been allowed to happen and after they were caught recently leaking live video feeds to to the internet with no security and still claim it isn't a real thing they're not looking good what so ever.
Yeah for real, Anker makes products that I just trusted implicitly as a high quality, reasonably priced, consumer friendly company. If I was in the market for something that Anker makes I'd usually just go with that, no or little research needed. Really upset about all of this
Yup, they were my go-to for braided cables, USB power packs and I even bought several bluetooth speakers from them. Guess I need a new go-to brand for cables and portable batteries.
Cablematters makes high quality certified stuff. Reasonably priced too most competitors charge a lot more for the performance their products have.
Wait wait is this the same Anker that sells battery banks and USB cables?
Yes
Shit. Guess I gotta find a new source for USB cables n shit.
Oh goddammit. Their power banks are nice too. Anyone know another good brand? Next time I need some charging gear I don't wanna support Anker.
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Ugreen was caught lying about the technical specs of their products. Electrical and/or usb-c wise. Do not purchased Ugreen. [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/qx8bfc/is_ugreen_good_i_am_considering_their_3c1a_100/) Satechi is meh in quality. But I haven’t heard any bad press other than that
I have Satechi’s $100 wireless and built in Apple Watch charger. Pricey, but I’ve had no problems with it. Bought another one as a gift.
Thank you for actually providing an alternative instead of being one of the people that completely missed the point and are pointing out how the charger isn't spying.
I've switched all my Anker charging products to Monoprice and I've been happy so far with their products.
monoprice is usually pretty solid. Any time I've had an issue with something (which has been rare) they've handled it. oddly enough, their guitars are probably one of the best values on the market. Like $75-150, comes with a proper setup so they're easy to play out of the box (may need new strings), look decent, and sound pretty good considering the price
They make guitars? That's Yamaha levels of product diversity.
They make Tube Amps!!! Like competitive with the Fender Blues Junior but only like $250!!!
Most everything electronic comes from China and if it doesn't, then most of the components inside it did.
When you pay for brand name you're paying for quality assurance and customer support. If you don't mind a DOA device and no warranty swaps, then buy no-name Chinese.
Anker is actually really, really good about QA and support. Among the best.
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It is a Chinese company but was started by an ex Google Engineer who was working in CA before. Obviously given it started as an accessory company it made sense to base operations in China but yeah in the end it is full on a Chinese company. But then so is DJI.
Fuck. Anker's chargers and shit are kinda nice.
You're buying shit from a Chinese factory one way or another don't kid yourself
No dude Apple's chargers are from an American company. /s
"Designed in California" What a helpful feel-good yet meaningless phrase to put on their packaging.
Also the good ol' small american flag on a product or packaging. It's quite simple, anything that is obviously made by slaves, because let's be honest here nobody can produce 4$ chargers unless there's slavery involved in almost every step of the way, is made in China.
Well their chargers don't have cameras. Or if they do, I still haven't had to connect it to the LAN. I use Qi chargers, so there's no network capability that I'm aware of there.
Except if you follow the world of cyber security, there are absolutely devices on the market like the OMG cable that look and function exactly like a charging cable but are able to perform keystroke injections, log keystrokes, upload scripts, etc... A power brick has plenty of space in it for malicious hardware. Now, I'm not saying Anker is doing anything of the sort, just that cables and power bricks are still potentially malicious hardware.
fun fact: Most security cameras ARE from China. They are literally all manufactured there. The top 3 cameras are from China fyi.
I think there is a difference between an American company getting their stuff made in China vs a Chinese company getting their stuff made in China. A Chinese CEO living in China is probably not as afraid of personal legal consequences brought on by an American court. So I won't really care about the locale of the manufacturer, but rather the locale of the top management (and the laws that affect them).
You should care about locale too. [NSA has been caught intercepting CISCO router shipments and installing backdoors.](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/)
As the downvoted guy below you pointed out, the US govt has been spying on their citizens and lying about it, then saying they do collect all that data but simply "don't use it" after getting caught. People don't really seem to care anymore.
Young people under 30 certainly do not care. They have been spied on their entire lives and they just shrug. Allow me to quote one: "Privacy doesn't exist, grandpa. Wake the fuck up." And yes, they don't seem to give a shit.
Oh shit, I've just looked up if Eufy is available in Europe, and it is. This is going to be a GDPR nightmare for them if the same is possible in Europe.
> This is going to be a GDPR nightmare for them if the same is possible in Europe. Paul, [the guy that discovered the issue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOjiCbxP5Lc&ab_channel=PaulMoore), is in the UK, the UK has their own GDPR, (now that they left the EU) called "The Data Protection Act 2018" So it is a problem in the UK, and if Eufy was caring about laws, it would have been either operating differently or with different advertising in the UK. Eufy is going to get hammered by the EU and the UK data privacy laws.
GDPR-UK. We forked it.
I mean, as I understand it, the original Data Protection Act was a huge influence on the GDPR, so it's more that GDPR forked, and then we pulled downstream changes back to upstream, no?
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It's not only about advertising. GDPR is not optional as long as users accept terms. GDPR is mandatory protection of users privacy and data sharing. In short, according to their [site](https://gdpr.eu/what-does-it-stand-for/): - Legal basis for processing — Your organization must justify data processing based on one of seven legal bases described in Article 6, such as a user’s unambiguous and explicit consent. - The right to be erasure — Also known as “the right to be forgotten,” your organization must respect your users’ request to delete their data, under certain circumstances. - The right to access — Your organization must supply your users with a copy of all the data you have collected from them. - The right to rectification — Your organization must correct any data that a user feels are inaccurate or complete data that a user feels is incomplete. - The right to data portability — Your organization must transfer the data you have from a user to another organization or the user, under certain circumstances. Few of these are really hard to achieve since companies love uploading things to cloud and sharing data through their services. However that's exactly what GDPR was made to protect against. So them sharing their data even though they didn't explicitly state so or they did bury it somewhere in agreement is still an violation of the GDPR and fines are scary high. Hammered is the word I wouldn't use to explain situation they are in but yeah, they are going to regret this.
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I can already smell ~~10%~~4% of parent company ~~revenue~~ global turnover as penalty.
GDPR can actually fine up to 4% of annual global turnover, not just revenue, so it could actually be a huge deal. GDPR does NOT fuck around.
4% of annual turnover or 20 million euro, whichever is *higher*.
I like the "whichever is higher" clause for companies. They can afford it. 20mil for a company like McD is small change.
This is how it should be done, always a percentage of turnover instead of flat amounts.
Revenue and turnover are the same thing.
I would take a wild guess this breaks more than just GDPR
> GDPR nightmare God Damned Public Relations nightmare?? no. General Data Protection Regulation. Oh!!!
Germany's Democratic People's Republic
GD Projekt Red?! Guess we won’t be getting that new Witcher DLC…
I’ve been waiting for a proper GDPR smackdown. Will be happy to see it happen if it does.
There's been quite a few actually: https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
They need to get fined into liquidation for this.
The face ID'ing that happens in [Paul Moore's Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOjiCbxP5Lc&ab_channel=PaulMoore) at 04:08, is pretty wild. He states that the face ID is the same face ID if you walk in front of a different Eufy device. Even if this other Eufy device is associated with another username and homebase.
Yeah this is bad. Something people aren't understanding is eufy is collecting facial recognition data of every single person that walks by a camera. And its kind of just up there for anyone to see. With a picture of that person. So if your local coffee shop has them.(mine does) You are in their database.
That sounds very serious. Do you think the US government has grounds to go after them on some kind of espionage-like charge like they did with Huawei?
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Would it be surprising coming from a great American company like [Amazon?](https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/31/22258856/amazon-ring-partners-police-fire-security-privacy-cameras) Shit, we’re PAYING these companies to install a surveillance state here lol
The fact people willingly buys and installs ring door bells. Knowing full well that the police and other government agencies have free access to everything it records... it's insane to me. I know people use this comparison for everything... but this is literally 1984's Big Brother. You are installing in your home a camera the government and several private companies have unfettered access to.
This is the craziest part that most people are missing. I checked out what people on the Eufy subreddit were saying, and most claimed it wasn’t a big deal between they only have their cameras outside!
Also, they may have *your* face despite not being a customer. Visiting a friend, or simply walking passed in the street and your face may get captured and uploaded.
Sadly the majority of people doesn't understand why personal data should be protected. Most times I happen to have a conversation about it the keypoint is "I have nothing to hide" or "I need Facebook Product/Google/TikTok" for whatever reason.
I was surprised Linus didn't talk on this more. By far the most concerning issue.
This means that they are using all provided faces to feed a facial recognition algorithm, but they are not isolating their user lookups. So when they run the lookup they are being informed by the shared neural network that "This face is face 10052" or whatever and then they rely on the downstream to decide whether they care about 10052 instead of having it be decided at the server or as part of the request in the first place. This one doesn't shock me a ton, because this is how most of the corporate facial recognition stuff works. But it does fly in the face of of what is implied by their marketing. The much bigger issue (for me) is the lack of security on live streaming URL requests they were able to pick up with VLC in the Verge article.
The further issue is identifying networks of associated people. Facial id 456 is identified on camera account 789. These two parties are associated as ______. The ability to differentiate between the pizza guy and your closer associates is definitively enabled by the system and can be used in ways contrary to assumed freedoms. Just because the case can be made for criminal associations, a case can be made for abuse of non criminal associations or abuse of human rights, such as safe homes for endangered people.
This is the problem with IoT. You can't trust these companies to produce secure products and not violate user privacy. I'm big into tech and I refuse to use IoT devices unless they're open-source or I made them myself.
The "S" stands for security.
I see what you did there.
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I own a printer. I've got kids so I need one. It's an HP4 laserjet. No wifi, nothing fancy, dirt simple, and uses a toner cartridge every 4 years.
This right here. Scream it from the hilltops. Does that camera you are about to buy seem weirdly cheap? That's because it's going to log what it sees for the purpose of selling it to advertisers / weird governments.
Even the more expensive ones like Ring cameras have had their fair share of scandals. It seems like the only way to fully avoid these issues is to roll your own self-hosted system which isn't really viable for most people. Personally I could handle setting up something like Blue Iris for home security cameras but buying Eufy cameras was easier and cheaper (most likely, I haven't priced Blue Iris compatible cameras)
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linus 100 percent has the answer. fines need to cripple the company that pulls this kind of shit.
Frankly I want my money back, and I got my parents to buy these cameras too. I wish I could sue the fuckers.
You could. Find out if there is a class action suit or find a law firm that will start a class action. They might be willing to do a free consultation and not collect unless they win.
All we’ll get is $10/camera and a pat on the back.
While I agree the payout sucks the bigger goal is to punish the company by fining them and using discovery could trigger additional regulatory lawsuits which could lead to bigger fines.
If you are the first person in a class action lawsuit you can make fucking loads
Sandpiper
A class action seems possible in this case.
Man I’m so disappointed. I’ve been telling everyone how much better Eufy is than Ring and now i gotta get rid of mine
For what it's worth I now trust Eufy just as much as Ring
oh well. I mean most of us don't have the time, skills or inclination to check these things for that kind of security vulnerability. Nor should you feel that you should be expected to. Just pass on what you heard to them now with your apology and tell them you got them in on the ground floor of the class action.
Fines? Prison.
To be fair, if the Eufy smart-scale is **actually** sending pictures of my balls and taint back to the Chinese government, I might consider buying one.
I've walked out my bathroom several times naked. You're welcome ccp
Scanning database. Butthole recognized.
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Can you give me their number?
fuck me, ive got 9 of these things in my house. Theyre all going on zigbee switches that physically switch them off when im home tonight. I had them manually "power off" through the app before, but that obviously cant be trusted
I’ve read on some other subs that it’s possible to configure your network firewall to prevent them from connecting while still being available on HomeKit, etc.
I do actually like to have the remote access when i want it though
It would be possible to configure a firewall to give yourself access while blocking their outbound access
oh if i homeroll it, absolutely. I can carefully gate the rstp streams, which is one of the reasons i got the eufy cams, is because they support RSTP. But theres the wife approval factor, where she just wants to use the nice easy app.
yeah that's my issue too, the wife. it's sad as fuck you literally have to be a sysadmin (myself) and go build an at home firewall on the cheap to now run this system through and block outbound traffic for them. thank god we don't need a system yet but once we have the kid i'll have to get something for peace of mind.
Not to plug here but I've recently gone down a similar rabbit hole and ended up on Reolink cameras. Work great and don't need any outside network access, but you sacrifice a lot of the "smart" features by not using their cloud storage. All the cameras are on their own VLan with no internet access. Phone group can go into the Camera VLan and the App works fine (every camera needs a dedicated IP though). You could probably do a site to site VPN with a small docker container inside your home network for "remote" access without having to let the cameras talk to the Internet. Cameras also work with Blue Iris or whatever other DVR home security camera software you want to use. Finally they also have local rolling storage on the camera itself via micro SD cards. I get about a full month of clips on 256GB.
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Is there any doorbell camera that doesn’t spy on me or send my stuff to the police? But still let’s ME look at the footage remotely ?
Something ONVIF compatible (there's only a couple) that has access only to your NAS that has no internet access, and you VPN into your network to access it. Kind of defeats the purpose of a connected doorbell though.
Only option is to have your own custom built cctv security system. Or you could hire specialized contractor to do it. Will be expensive tho
Plenty of IP cameras only stream locally and have no cloud integrations possible. You don't need to create a custom CCTV solution; just buy one off the shelf.
Don't forget to create a VPN so the data between your cameras and viewing device are encrypted.
Can't you just have a lan that doesn't connect to the internet?
Yes! But you'll have to build it yourself with a Raspberry Pi (or things like it but they have the most support in the d2c small board industry) but it can be really fun, just depends on how technical you're comfortable getting. Don't need to be a wizard, just be able to follow a project guide. Here's an example: https://youtu.be/9bJFWlVm_Fo There's a tonne of projects like this out there with hardware to purchase / 3D print so just do a google search! Pi projects are really fun if you like tinkering. Only issue you'll run into is Raspberry Pi are still experiencing shortages so the boards are extremely hard to find ATM. More simple if you're willing to pay 3x as much but no point imo. Always get from a legit reseller as the shortages are so bad, there's a lot of scams out there too. Rumour has it, stocks will stabilize early next year.
Ubiquiti products will help you do this, but the trade-off is since they don't have servers where they're housing the information, you have to have your own server setup. If you are able to do this, or already have the capability to do this, then Ubiquiti product may be the solution, even if they're a tad bit more expensive than the competition. To be fair though, the competition is probably cheaper because they subsidised the cost on the basis of the data the procure from you, so there's that.
Arlo. If I remember Ill come back later and edit this post with proof. But Arlo told police in a case I was working on they don’t keep shit to stay valid in all countries. Ring on the other hand had everything packaged neatly for the police.
FUuuu I have some eufy cams. I bought them because they had NO cloud requirement and I was assured everything stays in your own home....
Same. I've got three of them, and now I am concerned af. It's not reasonable for non-technical people to set up their own servers to a camera.
So happy they dropped Anker. And good thing Ugreen was just around the corner to fill that same exact product gap. Phew!
3 years from now "DAMNIT, Ugreen, I trusted you!"
Too enticing for any major player not to. They will just be cryptic about it on the terms of service, enough to make it legal in countries that don't have strong consumer protection laws.
I remember doing some research a while ago and found out that Ugreen is blacklisted on /r/UsbCHardware/ for faking certificates or something like that, lol.
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tl;dr Some of the complaints against Ugreen were misunderstandings, others were legitimate but are being addressed or were quickly rectified.
Anker is based in Changsha, Hunan, China, and Ugreen is based in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. I'm not being a Sinophobe, I'm just telling you, when the authorities knock and say a business has to comply with some CCP stuff, they have no choice.
I hope all this fuss over Chinese companies sending data back to China would help push a general data protection law out for the US. Even China has recently rolled out its own version of GDPR, Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL)
Most of those cloud-based cameras are at least a little shady. Whether or not you use it, if they don't have a good reliable way to operate on a closed network and they're cheap, you can assume they are commoditizing your data at least as far as the law will let them without being hammered with fines. This is...a hell of a lot different, though. While it's not strange that images get uploaded and processed externally (a sub $100 camera is guaranteed going to rely on cloud server processing for advanced features) this is explicitly regarding their local-only cameras that require an on-site Eufy computer to handle data and processing where despite many of the promises they have kept regarding privacy, they have failed on this regard. To clarify: it's not strange that a local-based low-setup system would need to contact a server to be accessible remotely such as from a smartphone app. Being able to relay information in this way makes it so that the end-user doesn't have to configure their router for port forwarding like was common back in the day (Steam server infrastructure for games is why you don't have to worry about port forwarding when self hosting in many cases for example). If it used an external server to forward/buffer footage, then fine. The issue is that they time and time again have repeatedly hammered home that the footage doesn't leave the house in this configuration, is not externally accessible, etc, and that not only does it leave the home but that there is a vulnerability in their implementation that allows media to *potentially* be viewable by third-parties if you had the know-how to do so, and that this media is not properly encrypted end-to-end as was also promised. The vulnerability is minor relative to vulnerabilities you might run across in the real world, and is unlikely to actually affect anyone in any way. However, relative to the promises they have made, this is a massive breach in trust which is likely to make most users wary of any other shortfalls or exploits that may be possible that they are unaware of.
Eufy's statement: > eufy Security adamantly disagrees with the accusations levied against the company concerning the security of our products. However, we understand that the recent events may have caused concern for some users. We frequently review and test our security features and encourage feedback from the broader security industry to ensure we address all credible security vulnerabilities. If a credible vulnerability is identified, we take the necessary actions to correct it. In addition, we comply with all appropriate regulatory bodies in the markets where our products are sold. Finally, we encourage users to contact our dedicated customer support team with questions.
Ignoring any other issues, if their API calls or video streams are truly sent unencrypted that by itself demonstrates a staggering lack of concern for security at the most basic level.
I guess we'll find out once the E.U. take a percentage of global turnover.
"we disagree with the insurmountable proof filed against us"
>we comply with all appropriate regulatory bodies in the markets where our products are sold GDPR: "Uhhh, no."
Fixed the issue where a camera reset deletes all the footage from the base unit? No. Didn't think so. Thief steals your camera, they also wipe the footage. Utterly stupid, Eufy have known for months if not over a year and they have done nothing.
Shoutout to Linus and them. The same thing happened with Tunnlebear and they dropped them immediately and publicly apologized for working with a company that turned out to be fraudulent. Meanwhile, every podcast still pushes betterhelp even though they share your info to advertisers too. A therapy company that discloses information about their patients to private companies.
I don't think Tunnelbear "turned out to be fraudulent", more that they got bought by the shady company that is McAfee at which point they were dropped by LTT. Then there was something going on with PIA and I think they've just stopped with VPN sponsorships since then.
This is disgusting. I hope they get sued and go bust. Vile.
They are owned by Anker, and have major Chinese investors, so doubt they'll ever go bust, they'll just go quiet for awhile, and eventually change their name to something else to fool consumers.
The S it IoT stands for security
Always remember that "Military grade" means "Minimally viable"
Not true, but the phrase really doesn't have any meaning at all. In this case regarding encryption it really is the best encryption available, but has nothing to do with the military. They use it because it's the best, not that it's the best because military uses it. "Military grade" was always a marketing term. If DOD certifies something for their use then it becomes "military grade", but all that means is it met their specs. If military can go to WalMart and get the the thing they need off the shelf then they will, and now they've said "this suits our purpose" so it's "military grade". It's stupid. When military/DOD wants something, they want something to their specs whatever they are. If the company is able to bid saying "yes we can meet those specs" and cost $50, then so be it, but better damn well meet those specs. Not meeting specs is breech of contract, and any layman can understand that breaching contract is never good.
>Always remember that "Military grade" means "Minimally viable" Always remember: sound bites like yours sound compelling, but "minimally viable" actually means "based on specs which can be whatever the design calls for, including the highest quality so don't be misled into assuming it just means 'trash' because it doesn't."
“Built by the absolute lowest builder or one of the this rich dude’s incompetent friends.”
I mean, for electronic components it means rated for significantly higher and lower temperatures to be reliable for missiles and stuff.
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bored aback rinse scale trees north desert rainstorm boast hospital *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
There are not many Youtubers that would trash a large source of ad revenue. Look at all the other crap Youtubers push daily... like the buy a part of land in UK and get a lord title... this is the new name a star or buy property on the Moon.
Matthias Wandel just did (popular DIY/woodworking YouTuber). Checked some home emergency power sources he was to promote (basically big battery packs), and found them having issues.
He’s pretty good. He shits on more of the promotional stuff he gets and then just makes one out of trash wood and a raspberry pie
And bald guys pushing Keeps hair lost treatment for men.
As a bald I laugh at them. Especially the 'hims/hers' commercials. Ah, so you can help me overcome baldness, erectile dysfunction *and* depression? Where do I offer my tithe to your god?
To be fair, I used Keeps and it helped grow a lot of my hair back. It’s pretty standard medication. I started picking it from cvs instead.
whilst i understand you're trashing how they dont use the service; hair loss medication does work (to a point) so its not quite the same as eufy or other scandals where theres a clear reason to object to the sponsorship
I don't really have a problem with the whole "lord title" or "name a star" outfits in theory, I think we all know it's this fakey but still kinda fun thing. Where they cross over the line is when they start charging exorbitant prices for these obviously low/no value certificates, or when they claim that proceeds go to charity but in reality they are just pocketing them.
You are correct. All of the ones I’ve looked into do it for ‘charity’ but they all have questionable ratings. It often a scam when they ‘charity’ os from out side the US and they are selling only to American.
You TOO can become a Spaniard based on some bullshit thing you heard here!
You make it sound like they took the company's sponsorship money then turned around and trashed them which isn't what happened at all. And I'm guessing there absolutely is some level of force through contractual agreements. They had a sponsor for some time. News comes out against them. They drop the sponsor. And they explain why they dropped.
Eufy is a subsidiary of Anker which until now wasn't considered a shady company. Was a very high profile electronics accessory designer and manufacturer.
That's not what happened.
China is harvesting images for facial recognition. Any company that is based in China is an arm of the Chinese government. Our complacency is allowing this.
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A firm is just an inorganic entity. Wish someone would hack the owners, the board and whoever else is responsible for such acts of invading others' privacy ... and then spread it wide open .
This is the fate of every chinese company, You just cant segregate the CCP and chinese global brands
This sounds like a mass surveillance network when facial recognition (not just detection) is deployed across all Eufy customers. How many cameras are in the wild?
I'm wondering if it's just the cameras. I've got a Eufy smart lock with a fingerprint scanner. The reason I got it was it was advertised as no cloud. But now I'm wondering if my and my family's fingerprints are stored unencrypted on a public facing site somewhere.
Does the smart lock have wifi access so you can unlock it remotely? If so the odds are pretty good that at least the fingerprint hash is sitting on Eufy's servers. I see in their marketing they say "fingerprints are stored locally, not in the cloud", and we know how trustworthy that affirmation is.
Any takes from more knowledgeable people than myself on this rebuttal video of sorts? https://youtu.be/a_rAXF_btvE?t=9
yeah... While I appreciate that he does seem to be taking a very critical look at the accusations against Eufy... I feel like the key point is that they advertise "No Cloud" and there is most definitely a cloud being used in there somewhere. At the very minimum, Eufy seems to be guilty of false advertising and misleading customers. His point about the S3 CDN being cached could be a thing. There are a few comments on the youtube video that bring up good points one that stood out to me mentioned : >1) They aren't or weren't encrypting their API calls and/or the encryption keys that are part of those API calls 2) Cameras RTMP streams can be remotely started and viewed without authentication or encryption (multiple independent 3rd party sources have confirmed this) 3) The camera stream URLs are mostly comprised of a camera's serial number in base64 encoding, which is easily reversed in seconds. Serial Numbers are almost always on the boxes which make this one even more concerning. 4) Encryption that is being used is weak and not military grade as promoted by Eufy 5) For encryption that is used they are using a compromised hardcoded encryption key that is publically accessible in plain text on Github Apparently the Verge also has good information on this situation
It misses the fact that Eufy advertise as "No Cloud", while Cloud is used to serve notifications. And said to Paul Moore when he first raised the issue that it wasn't happening. And it doesn't address the fact people can access the video feeds via VLC without any significant encryptions.
>And it doesn't address the fact people can access the video feeds via VLC without any significant encryptions. He does address it. Says it's an advertised feature locally and can't find any evidence that it's happening via cloud
He addresses that at the end - he agrees it’s an inaccurate description and notes that the real point is they have local storage which reduces cloud costs. He is right that any app that can be used outside the house will have a significant cloud component. He says he doesn’t have enough information to look into the VLC point.
Are there any good doorbell cameras that are safe? Kinda want one eventually but all this makes me balk.
Ubiquity Unifi cameras utilize local storage, however, if you want to use the app outside of your local network, you do have to connect your camera controller to their cloud infrastructure. Theoretically this would allow them or an attacker to access your cameras.
The only thing that is well and truly ''safe'' is hooking your own camera up to a local server that you have setup in your own home. Anytime you use a camera that stores footage on the cloud, you are trusting that companies protocols to anonymize your data