Internet security

[Lango1818]

If I ever get drunk and silly enough to order anything from TEMU again, I must remember to leave delivery instructions for the posty to put whatever I ordered straight into the bin. TEMU sells absolute rubbish. LOL. Five items ordered, five pieces of shit. 

This brings me to the subject of internet security. With our open and free market absolutely flooded with Chinese gadgets and apps, including security cameras, video door bells, the TEMU app and many more.

One has to wonder.
When you operate these various items, like my no name video doorbell or my al cheapo security camera system, the gadgets all want to use your WIFI and you need to put your Wi-Fi password in. They all require you to log into their website to use their cloud.

A super trustworthy outfit like the CCP, that does not use slave labour or preform body organ harvesting or steal technology and probably owns all of the companies that make said gear, surely we can trust them.

These said gadgets, surely would not report straight back to the CCP mother ship giving them access to your home Wi-Fi your home computers, phones and everything else we currently seem to connect to the internet.

Since the CCP does not recognise copyright, they have probably stolen the algorithms for all of the virus programs and have their top coders finding back doors.

One would think this is a massive security breach happening right under our noses and nobody cares.
I would love to know of a program/app that lets you know what is going out of your home network into the wide wide world of the internet.

PS - I have been contacted by Nnamdi Umbombu official top government lawyer Nigeria. He tells me of a gold mining billionaire who died tragically in a plane crash. I am the only living relative it seem. So after I supply him with my bank account details and a small processing fee the money is mine. I am off to live the high life. So long suckers LOL.

[madires]

Wireshark for example.

[dferyance]

One problem with all these cloud accounts is password re-use. Even if the cloud account has nothing of any value or private it can open you up to other hacks. I use a password manager but even with that, I've been bad about password re-use. Also, there are still logins that don't store a hash but instead store your actual password. So this opens you up to leaked passwords.

[unseenninja]

I don't buy any IOT devices which depend on a third party server. Doing so is a poor choice, not only because you might get owned or roped in to a botnet, but even if the supplier is legitimate, if they go out of business, your device turns into e-waste.

It happens more often than you would think that devices from China come with back doors or malware pre-loaded. The various Android powered TV streaming boxes being one of the best examples.

[Analog Kid]

I don't buy any IOT devices which depend on a third party server. Doing so is a poor choice, not only because you might get owned or roped in to a botnet, but even if the supplier is legitimate, if they go out of business, your device turns into e-waste.

I don't buy any IOT devices--period.

I think they should all be shitcanned. When the zombie apocalypse comes there's going to be so much superfluous crap clogging up our lives and the planet ...

[Haenk]

I can only advise against products sourced directly from china with preinstalled operating system (i.e. mainly Windows) or any other network capable device (router, camera e.g.).

Bonus: If you have nothing better to do, you might want to check this YouTube-channel: https://www.youtube.com/@mattbrwn

[Lango1818]

Thanks for all of the good replies.
 I have Wireshark installed but need to find some good tutorials on how to use it. As for buying something that does not want you to have internet access that seems to be an uphill battle.
Even top brand home video surveillance cameras are most likely made in China.
 It seems that over 90% of electronics is made in china. Including my Siglent scope and all of my home electronic bench gear.
 I tried hard to find a video doorbell with no internet just using my home network.
It is a bit like the Apple IPhone made in China, the majority of people line up like lemmings to buy the latest seemingly unconcerned about slave labour and all of the other horrors going on in China.
But I will continue to look around and enjoy the comments on this forum

[Ranayna]

I can only advise against products sourced directly from china with preinstalled operating system (i.e. mainly Windows) or any other network capable device (router, camera e.g.).

Android phones are also well known to be regularly affected by pre-installed spyware. With the added difficulty that you are often not able to just nuke them from orbit.

[...]
Even top brand home video surveillance cameras are most likely made in China.
 It seems that over 90% of electronics is made in china. Including my Siglent scope and all of my home electronic bench gear.
[...]

It's not mainly about "Made in China" in general. You are absolutely right that virtually all the stuff is made in china nowadays, you can't really escape it.
But if a well known local "western" distributor is involved, there is less of a danger of a maliciously infected device. Not *no* chance of course, since this has happened with well known companies before, but the risk is significantly reduced. And if shit hits the fan, you have at least some chance of being compensated.
If you buy directly in china though you have very litte protection against such crap. And you have no recourse at all, you will not be able to get any compensation from a chinese seller.

[woody]

Programs or apps that let you know what is going on in your network are not easy to use and what they show you is difficult to interpret.

Just not connecting anything to your home network is by far the safest. But hey, you're human and what good is life without that dirt-cheap doorbell camera and a connected robot lawn mower? Apart from always using per site/cloud service user-ids (email addresses) and passwords a relatively simple defence is to run all suspect equipment on separate subnets in your network. Then 'they' are still able to manipulate 'their' equipment and use its data without you knowing, but at least you made it a whole lot more difficult for them to freely look around and play with the rest of your network via their equipment.

[Haenk]

run all suspect equipment on separate subnets in your network

Considerung used WiFi routers are available for next to nothing, that certainly is a good idea for suspect devices.
(Funny enough, I had a chinese router from Amazon, that cost only 5 EUR including shipping. I found it to be very sketchy and decided not to use it, instead stored it away. A couple of years later, the whole series of these devices were confirmed as being backdoored. Must have been a reason for being dirt-cheap. Needless to say, I broke the PCB into two pieces and dumped it, so no E-waste digger would be able to use it ever.)

[woody]

Yeah, going through the trouble of laying out a subnetted network and then using a router with a murky heritage to connect it all is probably counterproductive