Swann cameras may be worth avoiding for a while..

RE: Swann cameras may be worth avoiding for a while..

e14phil — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 10:02:20 GMT

I seem to only buy cheap Chinese wifi cameras, probably streaming direct through a Chinese server or I think I am growing my own little botnet.

But.. I do feel sorry for anyone that tries to check on any of my cam when I have just stepped out of the shower [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-688f45dd-1091-442e-82e8-3feaadda4baf/contentimage_5F00_2516.png:16:16]

RE: Swann cameras may be worth avoiding for a while..

DAB — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 18:56:26 GMT

There are many reasons why I do not use these types of products.

Security issues are high on the list.

The people developing these things just have not done a sufficient risk analysis.

The sad thing is that customers have no clue that they are allowing others to intercept their information on nearly all of their IOT devices.

If that does not scare you, it should.

DAB

RE: Swann cameras may be worth avoiding for a while..

ntewinkel — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 17:37:26 GMT

This article about TappLock (was that mentioned here on e14 earlier?) seems to hit the nail on the head pretty good:

https://blog.hackster.io/the-tapplock-a-typical-iot-problem-child-60dff98a0407

In a nutshell:

"There’s a great deal of pressure on startups to ship product..."

"Prototypes, intended as nothing more than proof-of-concept, have an alarming tendency to ship as product."

"Not thought about during the prototyping phase... security is often times bolted on top as an after thought, after the prototype has already become the product."

It seems a lot of startups are designed for the short term.

I've also noticed a lot of such places are using very junior talent who often don't think far enough ahead.

-Nico

RE: Swann cameras may be worth avoiding for a while..

ntewinkel — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 17:30:25 GMT

Yikes!

I think the worst part may be the way the company handled it.

1) customer support said there's nothing they could do til after the weekend

2) they blamed the users for having the same username and password - which was not true, and even worse, does their software allow multiple users with the same username??

3) blaming the factory - that just means they don't have a very good system in place for manufacturing and quality control

Thanks for sharing! I work for a small startup company (getgate.com) that deals with home security videos - this is good "what not to do" training!

-Nico