Anyone using a Wyze Cam?
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My experience with security cams cheap as chips from china and maybe even the higher end too, is you can not trust them on your valuable network.
For CCTV I'd say yea, make it CCTV, on its's own network that does not connect to the outside world if possible, or that you cna unplug when not updating firmware etc. etc.
I picked up some years ago, what looked like a good cam at a good price (I think it was fosscam brand) and purchased a whole bunch, maybe about 8 in total.
Tested the first one on the network, when suddenly the entire VOIP system was notable wobbly, checking it seemed to have lost about 80% of it's bandwidth when I looked at the router admin page to see what the load was like, and what do you know, this single security cam hogged most of the router resources and was pinging out all over the place, a lot of addresses in the Asia region, like for example and weirdly what seemed like some Thailand nightclub if I remember correctly and other places.
I did a search and found out lots of other users had similar experiences with different models form this brand! Doh! I don't think firmware mods exited for this camera and I never thought of that tbh.
I can't imagine what would have happened had I placed all 8 on the network - Sent them all back.
Security cameras and cam system are notoriously weak security point and are used to run mass bot attacks.
Caveat emptor
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@omega said:
Caveat emptor
Indeed! That's what I'm learning as I attempt to flash this new firmware... technologically-inclined as I am, I can't seem to get the darn bootloader installed!
It seems Wyze took some steps to actually lock down the camera. It's really pathetic that a company like that would spend resources locking people out, but won't spend a dime on actually ensuring they have a secure product.
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@julian This is actually more typical than atypical. Live and learn.
Oh yeah, as technically uninclined as many/most who buy these things are... how many cam bot nets do ya' figure are out there, eh?
OTOH, it likely doesn't matter in contrast to smartphones and apps such as Facebook. Which are pretty much ubiquitous. Go figure.
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I've just remembered something, I think Pi Raspberry may be the way to go for hardware camera. I had a link ages ago. I'll see if I can dig it out... actually hang on a quick search:
https://projects-raspberry.com/getting-started-with-raspberry-pi-camera/
I woudl have thought Raspberry Pi woudl be rightup your street @julian and anyone who is Linux savvy and so forth.
Ah, when the people can fab their own silicon on demand or similar (whatever iteration is next, still waiting for light based circuits on chip!) - I think something interesting may happen to allow that in a way no one was expecting exactly, I do love a good techno curve ball in the hands of some garage band kids or whatnot, could be anywhere now on the planet at this point, more instances than just one occurrence too, or one might hope, a scenario where many novel solutions all equally super brilliant suddenly burst forth!
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fwiw, CISA released a security advisory for Wyze w/in the past few days. Tried searching my inbox but... Man, ho man!! Too many advisories to even begin to keep track of since WWIII Cyber Warfare Games.
On related note, Chome fans really, really need to ensure their browser is updated. But I digress...
