Here is an article where you can read more: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/mozilla-publishes-ring-doorbell-vulnerability-following-amazons-apathy/
Quoted a portion:
(SAN FRANCISCO, CA | TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2023) – Today, Mozilla is publicizing a security vulnerability in Amazon’s Ring Wireless Video Doorbell. Mozilla shared the vulnerability with Amazon over 90 days ago, but Amazon has yet to address the issue. Now, per industry standards, Mozilla is sharing its findings publicly to alert Ring Doorbell users and to further pressure Amazon to take action.
Following a penetration test of the Ring Doorbell conducted in October-November 2022, Mozilla and collaborator Cure53 determined that the device is vulnerable to Wi-Fi deauthentication attacks. Bad actors can leverage these weaknesses to disconnect the device from the internet using easily-accessible tools.
As a result, those bad actors could take the doorbell offline and then have their activities go unrecorded — undermining the product’s core purpose. Even after the doorbell is reconnected to the internet, a user will receive no alert about the attack.
Mozilla’s disclosure comes just days after Ring’s $5.8 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over other serious privacy and security issues. The FTC found that “Ring’s poor privacy and lax security let employees spy on customers through their cameras, including those in their bedrooms or bathrooms, and made customers’ videos, including videos of kids, vulnerable to online attackers.”
Oh no! There’s a cheap version of a tech out there that has bugs and/or cut corners at the cost of security!? 😱 What do we do now!?
I suggest we turn off the internet until it’s safe again!
🙄😅
What?
The fact that a doorbell cam can be turned >off< by hackers seems an unreasonably common issue in a world where we literally constantly carry around devices that occasionally listen and record our conversations without consent and we ask online Assistant apps for personal things… 🤷♂️
/s
The problem is that it becomes a race to the bottom. People who buy Rings and Echos and Fire Sticks and Google Homes and Android Phones either don’t care about their privacy, don’t know about their privacy or can’t afford privacy.
Then other brands try to compete with these products and it is a race to the bottom.
Privacy is a luxury, but even then, sometimes manufacturers will create a false luxury brands but still exploit customer data. Just look at the list of car manufacturers who were recently called out by Mozilla. Just look at Google Pixels vs iPhones.
I buy Android phones exactly because I can unlock them and get rid of all Google crap. Try de-Appleing an iPhone, instead…
Not everyone has that luxury, even those who are technically capable of removing it.
I don’t want to get into an Apple/Google / Know-Your-Product debate, but how do you know you removed all the Google Crap?
You only way of knowing what is on your phone is if you start from scratch with something like Ubuntu Touch and compile from source; even then, how do you know the manufacturer doesn’t have an embedded “phone home” chip?
At some point you have to decide whether to avoid Crapware completely or go with just the crapware from someone you can trust.
Analogies are always terrible but here are some analogies for the options you are offering.
Most people live in cities and suburbs. Downtown and Suburbia are the safe places, heavily policed and everyone is expected to conform. There are also other parts of Cities that are not heavily policed by government enforcement; they are policed by Organised crime.
Then there are people who live in the country. Some are Farmers or other Primary Industry workers, some are Moneyed individuals who own hobby farms or ranches, some live in Cultural Communes or Religious Retreats/Compounds.
The Apple Ecosystem is for the city dwellers in comfortable environments. They won’t mind certain restrictions because they know that they benefit from the security of those restrictions. Google Pixels also fall into this community, but only because there is always that weird person at the dinner party who is a little bit different, but they are still safe to be around.
The Aftermarket Android market is that part of town that your parents told you to stay away from. You can go there if you like, you might even have a good time taking drugs or spending time with sex workers, but you run the risk of getting a horrible VD or bad fit cut with drain cleaner. Even if you are street-smart, there may be someone who is smarter than you who can get past your defences.
Out in the country, people aren’t as reliant on technology, they are too busy doing “real work”. They have a phone that makes phone calls (when they have reception), take photos and send text messages. These people have Dumb Phones.
In communes and religious communities that are very insular, there is usually one person (or group of people) in charge that dictates what everyone does. They can usually spend the time to tweak their systems to best suit their community members, while their community members are busy growing food, repairing shelters and doing the menial work it takes to make a small community successful. These are the Linux-on-Phone users.
I would love to be a Linux-on-Phone user, but since I work 8-5 every day, and if I want a management role, I would need to continue working from home after hours, I use an iPhone and UniFi home network. I’m not stupid enough to use an ISP supplied router, I don’t even have time to roll-my-own-Linux or BSD-based network using something like pfSense.
I get that, but has it not always been like this? We’ve been badly and dangerously copying stuff since we as humans started to invent things. I’m amazed even that nobody blew their head off or went blind yet from some cheaply copied VR headset, but I might still be cheering too soon…
I know it’s not a good thing, but it always existed cause it provides a way for lower incomes to gain a bit more equality by at least getting to experience the functionality of an otherwise too expensive product that was carefully certified for safety…
So it just seems weird to me to suddenly remark something that has always been there, unrelated to my opinion about it… 😅