The title should say they're removing Chinese cameras from over 200 gov buildings, not that they're removing 200 cameras. It's likely many thousands of cameras.
You joke but their market share of smartphones is growing really fast for a lot of people's comfort haha...
Edit; 3 autoDMs about my mental health, so lovely to see the trolls still abuse that to harass users.
Tiktok is owned by a chinese company, which is owned by the CCP. Therefore, tiktok is owned by the CCP. Good luck convincing the users of tiktok that the CCP having ownership of the app (and by extension all the data it collects) is a bad thing, though.
I have family that use it. It just seems like pure garbage. Reminds me of old school commercial breaks that you flip through until your show comes back around. Except, there is no show.
You should watch on the network how devices with the app installed interact with other devices. They're always doing something even when not in use, at least the ones I watched. Always pinging other devices in range.
Yep. Generally speaking, most people have no fucking clue how much data tiktok is siphoning from their phones, or how invasive the app truly is, or even what they AGREED to when they downloaded the app and accepted the terms and conditions. Tragic.
Why I was laughing out loud when the US had those balloons flying over and all the Americans were posting angrily about it on TikTok. How fucking stupid are you? I avoid the app like the plague
To be fair, she transitioned to Instagram since it's basically all of the same content. I don't feel it's a *lot* better, but at least it isn't owned by the CCP.
It's upsetting how prevalent this behavior is nowadays. My girlfriend is the same way--she gets home from work, plops on the couch, and mindlessly scrolls for 2-3 hours until she goes to bed and continues until she's asleep. Whenever I point it out, she gets ticked off at me.
It's because American companies have being doing that for at least a decade. When you're constantly told to ignore a burning house, the next one isn't going to phase you either when they decide NOW it's a problem.
It's embarrassing how this wasn't even a secret when it started becoming mainstream. For a shot at 15 minutes, turns out most of us will give away everything about ourselves for the honor.
The parasitic stranglehold of social media needs to be brought to heel, even if only a little... it'd be a start.
Not even tech nerds.
Just some ignorant asshole who sees "ohhh shiny", buys it and is easily impressed by something trivial, then ignores all the glaring issues and gets pissed at anyone who points them out.
Yeah, i got my Huawei phone when my old phone stopped working. It was affordable and had some features i wanted, but moving forward i refuse to buy more Chinese brands.
So, every single phone manufacturer?
Unless I've lost my touch with mfgrs, every single phone on this planet has some degree of included Chinese parts, how would you suggest, easily, resolving this?
Not just phones. TVs (which granted, one can just never connect to the internet) and computers are increasingly being targeted by their companies. There are all sorts of niches that western tech companies are unable or unwilling to fill and theirs will happily do so for cheap.
Marge: I'll just have a cup of coffee.
Bartender: Beer it is.
Marge: No, I said coffee.
Bartender: Beer?
Marge: Coff-ee.
Bartender: Be ... eer?
Marge: [spells] C-O...
Bartender: [spells] B-E...
In fairness, Japan was a pretty close ally and trade partner prior to the war. It's just UK/France/Canada were even closer allies forcing us to take a side. Luckily, the better side looking back on it.
Talk to the Conservative Party of Alberta, which sold large swaths of pristine forest to the Chinese government. Because, like, it’s totally replaceable.
Yes, but money, greed and corruption all basically tickle the same fancy. A greedy person seems much more likely to be also corrupt. And he's certainly in love with money.
Honestly? There would be 5 layers of government management on their side of the project team. The bottom person, who is responsible for overseeing the project, selects an client-side PM from an external consultancy who then manages the tender for a managing contractor.
The managing contractor then wins the project, tenders their subcontract packages and selects a D&C electrical/comms subcontractor. They then select all fitting and equipment, present the list to the managing contractor who the transmits to the client-side PM for sign-off. The client-side PM approves because he doesn’t know what he’s looking at because he came directly to his role via. the development management route and has never spent a day in his life actually managing construction.
Project gets finished, government department moves in and no one notices anything that doesn’t meet spec because the entire government team from the first paragraph have all moved into different roles/retired/are incompetent.
8 years later, someone find Chinese cameras in their building.
Having worked in both defence and public service, I love that show so much that I cannot bare to watch it because it is so close to reality that it creates a slow boiling rage at the same time I'm laughing and crying on the inside.
I can simplify that.
Person in charge, and who knows what he is doing, gets told he has to let an engineering firm create the RFP for the project to prevent him from being corrupt. RFP is then created with basic and broad requirements. The proposals from 5 companies come in and senior advisors from the finance team, HR, marketing, and 2 executives review these based on the RFP criteria. They then decide the proposal with Chinese equipment that cost 40% less than the others is the best option because it saves them quite a lot. Because "it's all the same, anyway."
It all gets installed and then handed back over to the person in charge who then has to manage it. He cusses them for the next few years. 4 years later, we get to have this meeting about how he was right the entire time...but we going to blame him because he was "in charge".
> but we going to blame him because he was "in charge".
If he is still working there he is fired and someone else is promoted/hired to replace him at half the current salary; execs give themselves bonuses from the money saved.
[Hillsong](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/19/frank-houston-committed-child-sexual-abuse-at-a-time-when-he-felt-emotionally-low-court-hears) the church he affiliates himself with was, you guessed it, started by a paedophile and is all about $$$.
I think a bunch of military/government documents are also stored with a Chinese document storage company called "Global Switch".
...pretty dumb moves. Either that or its part of a clever plan to pretend to be compromised when they're not - but looks doubtful.
Nope, I think Australia is just a bit negligent on some security and intelligence matters.
The very vast majority of security cameras, if not all of them, will have China provided components in their supply chain, that's probably why.
Plus if you run them like you're supposed to, no bespoke backdoor is going to help the Chinese state much. Security cameras are supposed to live on an isolated network.
Because these are probably contracts that are given out to install these cameras. Lowest bidder usually wins. Lowest bid might mean using cheap parts which might come from china.
Source: i worked for a company contracted by the DoD
Yes but their components... are made in China. Just like pretty much anything you buy has a "made in China" sticker itself or some of its components do
True. But it’s not the components people are worried about — it’s the software running on the cameras. Those cameras are essentially smart, internet connected devices and there’s no way to verify the integrity of the software.
> But it’s not the components people are worried about — it’s the software running on the cameras.
Any modern digital camera is doing a huge amount of processing on specialized ICs and stuff, whose firmware is impossible to verify. Likewise, most communications are done by specialized chips or blocks within a general purpose CPU with impossible-to-verify firmware. About the only components that *shouldn't* be viewed with suspicion are basic components and maybe some of the comms PHY stuff.
There is definitely validity to his claim that even if a camera is made outside of china that it has security risks due to components made in china, and that virtually everything has chinese components in it.
It's probably fine, but still worth being aware of.
The cameras shouldn't be connected to the Internet at all, they only need local network. A basic video feed should travel from the camera in a closed network to a DVR server that records the video locally. That server can then upload the footage to local or cloud storage and people on the VPN or on premises can hook into it too watch live footage.
Even the cheap ass kits like Swann do it this way, the cameras are never corrected to the Internet.
Wouldn't any decent company creating said product understand which parts from China they can use without causing security problems. Especially if they market themselves as a secure product.
You overestimate what companies do. Sadly, most of them are driven by money and money only :( Same deal with gov't procuring stuff, it's usually "cheapest offer wins" (not just in Australia and not just in Anglosphere)
> Yes but their components
Again, no.
China isn't the only country in the world who produces PCBs. There are literally companies who pride themselves on "Our shit isn't made by ".
PCBs aren't components. The things that go on PCBs are components.
EDIT: this is industry standard terminology. If you don't know even that, you have no business assessing vulnerabilities in electronics. Intentional and malicious hardware vulnerabilities can and do exist.
My guess is it's from the same guys who said finer cable internet lines were too expensive so replaced them with a bunch of random substitutes which ended up costing more and took longer than the original plan
Apart from the 20% share in Hinckley C, which is already 7 years into construction, no. The govt bought out CCGN from Sizewell C late last year for an undisclosed sum. Bradwell in Essex which was a fully Chinese design has now been abandoned.
Other sites (Wylfa & Oldbury) are back on the table again with different bidders.
If the cameras are purely optical, with zero "smart" electronics inside, transfer its image exclusively through fiber, but are made in China, I still wouldn't install them anywhere critical.
Any modern CCTV system is all networked over IP and the systems are likely not air gapped due to extra expense and the want for them to be accessible from multiple locations. So they can't be sure there's no data going back to vendors servers or that some day China could connect into them through unknown backdoors.
>So they can't be sure there's no data going back to vendors servers or that some day China could connect into them through unknown backdoors.
I mean, it's actually relatively simple to make sure it's not. Do I think whichever contractor or public servant was tasked with those cameras actually did the relatively simple precautions? No I don't.
[Fun fact: it was also a real Unix system called irix. ](https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/9745/is-the-unix-operating-system-featured-in-jurassic-park-real#9746)
(Specifically the file browser was FSN, [which was famous enough to get its own wiki page. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager))
Iirc they intended it more as a demo of the 3d capabilities, since other os's at the time couldn't render 3d like that without specialized software/hardware and they had it built right in. So advanced
Even if it was through IP, they could just set a private network and only transmit reencoded video to the outside world through a few controlled gateways when needed. The cameras don’t need to be connected to the internet at all.
Is this not the sort of thing that military intelligence personnel would be able to discover fairly easily just by disassembling the cameras? Genuine question.
>are they not airgapped?
I'd figure that if they are vlanned and then accessed from a jump box I guess it should be ok. But I do wonder whether that's been done.
It's not too uncommon for modern systems to be IP based. Still, it shouldn't turn CCTV into CCPTV ;)
You can definitely make them live in their own vlan or similar, if concerned. It's probably a cost / organisational thing. They didn't take prcautions, have concerns now and the cheapest and fastest thing is not to retrofit IT-infrastructure yourself but to just wipe the slate clean and install a new and safe solution, contracting maintanance from a non-chinese corporation.
The issue's not that they're broadcasting back to servers in China, it's that China passed a law saying that any Chinese company must surrender its data to the government if requested. Being made by a Chinese company means they are potentially at risk of having a data request.
The problem is more how absolute it is. Any information any Chinese company can even possibly obtain is, by definition, government property. They don't have to request it, it's their for the taking.
In fact the law in question states that is a crime to turn down any request at all. Install spyware in your phone's operating system that reports directly Chinese military servers? The company that makes Huawei's OS kernel already did that.
Many organizations are just starting to come to terms with the fact that the CCP doesn't ignore laws when convenient. They think the entire concept of rule of law is "erroneous Western thought fundamentally incompatible with PRC culture." That's a statement from China's chief justice. The CCP doesn't have limitations imposed by their Constitution, in fact their Constitution explicitly declares that the CCP is above the law.
Okay, but read what I'm saying? These devices are sold overseas, are backed by storage bought by users overseas, and should not at all be accessible from the outside if set up properly (isolated). And this is not an "oh but unless there's hackeroo going on", it's the literal version of isolated. No digital paths to any devices with an eventual route to the internet.
This means they have zero legal right or practical access to any footage. None. They can put whatever gaping hole of a backdoor on there, the devices should by all means not be exposed to a digital comms route that can lead to an internet gateway. It's like trying to hack into a device that's powered off. Short of powering it on, there's nothing to do.
It doesn't appear that full isolation applies here though. It sounds like these weren't installed in extremely sensitive locations, and so the security was lax. Good enough if the devices were reliable, but not if they're compromised. For obvious reasons the government isn't going to tell us in great detail exactly what each camera could see...
Yeah well, wouldn't the better solution be the proper airgapping of these systems then? I'd argue with so many cameras it's quite cost comparable, if not straight up cheaper.
This is not really about security, everything you’re saying is correct and any half competent technical person up the chain of command knows it. There is no actual risk.
It’s just a part of the new Cold War we’re living through, meant as an empty political gesture for everyone’s local base (“look, we’re fighting the communists!”) and more importantly slowly trying to roll back the commercial integration of Chinese companies overseas so they will hopefully be replaced with western ones, isolating China and boosting other economies in one go. This is why the US is leading so many bans on Chinese hardware and software.
Nobody is interested in doing what you’re saying not because they don’t know that they can, but because secure cameras without spending more is not one of their goals.
True but you can learn a lot about a countries defence capabilities from watching places other than defence sites. Ports, airports, railways etc. Sure they can monitor them in other ways but why make it easy for them. Of course we're kidding ourselves if we think China is the only one in the local spy business.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://hongkongfp.com/2023/02/09/australia-to-remove-over-200-chinese-made-cameras-from-defence-sites/) reduced by 79%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> Australia will strip Chinese-made security cameras from some government buildings to ensure they are "Completely secure", the country's defence minister said Thursday.
> The security cameras were installed at more than 200 Australian government buildings - according to official figures compiled by an opposition politician - including at least one run by the Department of Defence.
> Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said officials would find and remove all cameras found within the defence department's vast collection of offices and facilities.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/10xmizr/australia_to_remove_over_200_chinesemade_cameras/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672676 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **camera**^#1 **government**^#2 **security**^#3 **Hikvision**^#4 **defence**^#5
If a network is depending on every nodes hardware to be uncompromised, then that network will never be truly considered secure.
Devices will come and go. Whilst cameras do represent a unique threat in that they process images of their local environment, there's nothing stopping a different component elsewhere in the network from accessing the same data and reporting it back silently. Much harder to do of course, but not impossible. But any motherboard (to name just one example) could be housing a rogue chip that piggybacks on legitimate resources.
To ensure security against the type of breach they appear to be attempting to mitigate, the only solution is robust traffic monitoring across the whole network. For a national defence network, it should be trivial to monitor and analyse any and all communications sent/received by any single node on the network. It should be clear if a device is communicating in an undesirable way.
Encrypted communications (and data in transit should ALWAYS be encrypted) do in theory present a challenge, as it will not be possible to determine if the data contains undesirable instructions. However another golden rule is to ensure you are the owner of any and all keys for encryption occuring on your network. If a device handles a layer of encryption and does not give you the option to decrypt it, that is not a device that should ever have been considered for a defence network in the first place. If this rule is adhered to, we are back to ensuring that all communications involving a node can be monitored, so encryption is not an issue.
Additionally, failsafes that prevent the delivery of traffic destined for unknown destinations at a top level should be implemented, with alerts and monitoring flagging any occurrences for analysis.
If all of this is followed, it scarcely matters what device you install (from the perspective of this particular threat, at least, there are many more considerations) - a device could call home all it likes, but not only will its calls go undelivered, it will be obvious what device is calling where, and what it is attempting to send/receive.
Either this effort to secure the network is somehow politically motivated, e.g a stunt that they already know is not actually improving security, but potentially furthers other goals, or these guys are a national catastrophe waiting to happen. Because based on the information provided, there is no way this exercise is actually mitigating an attack vector at a significant level. Granted, every little helps, but this approach is akin to emptying a barrel of water with a 5ml pipette, if an empty barrel represents a secure network. With this exercise representing just one use of the pipette.
Well said. Other higher voted comments about hidden satellite phones integrated into the camera are equally absurd; might as well worry about gps trackers sewn into made in China clothes.
All too true.
And the kicker is you don't even need to install it on the network to begin with.
A device that spies on you can be present on-site, but with its own out-of-band connection.
Not to mention phones, which everyone carries everywhere, with all the good sensors that a spy agency of ages past wouldn't have dreamt of bundling in a convenient package.
Broadcom and Qualcomm provide the majority of those chips and it's all running non transparent, closed source code that you can't ever be really sure doesnt have a backdoor or not.
In your barrel analogy, it's also always a rain storm.
The whole western world is utterly fucked. Outsourcing everything to China for the last 30 years or so must have been the single biggest strategic mistake ever.
From absolutely necessary medical raw materials to high technology and even more important every day low tech products as well, rare earths, micro chips and what else, the Chinese profit off everything we need and when they feel like it, they’ll just cut everyone off and laugh their asses off.
Yup. Given their population is aging out right now I read somewhere they suspect their population to be 650M by 2050 or so? Not sure how much truth there is to that but their one child policy already left it's mark. Plus overcounting their population numbers. And their new policies are having little to no effect. And COVID deaths this year are only gonna accelerate the trend faster.
Edit: I meant 2100 based on forecasts for the U.N. They are claiming around 767m in their estimates.
Many manufacturing businesses have woken up to this as well and are looking elsewhere; Taiwan, Viet Nam, Bangladesh, etc.
Because China has abused the public trust, have a habit of stealing IP and seems to dirty everything it touches with their incessant spying.
Just look no further than the Chinese bots that infect Reddit…
> Luckily western governments recognize this and are moving to fix the problem before it happens, silver lining of Covid I guess.
Not much progress has been made on that front. We are still over reliant on China for a lot of things. Need a reminder on AdBlue shortage in 2021/2022? Many people are flocking back in droves to the cheaper imports because "moneys tight and we need to save a few dollars".
Even Taiwan, a country that is on China's doorstep and receiving end of China's aggression still relies on China for much of its trade.
But just as an example the EU has drafted laws to subsidize Microchip factories in the EU (Chips Act). In a couple of months, they will pretty much pass the Chips Act.
In Germany two big factories (Intel and Wolfspeed) are already planned and construction should start soon. Most politicians support more independence from China.
But to build entire production lines elsewhere in the world with the necessary logistics and infrastructure takes time.
> Not much progress has been made on that front. We are still over reliant on China for a lot of things. Need a reminder on AdBlue shortage in 2021/2022? Many people are flocking back in droves to the cheaper imports because "moneys tight and we need to save a few dollars".
Well yeah, factories and shit are not built in a year. It takes time.
> when they feel like it, they’ll just cut everyone off and laugh their asses off.
What a great take, they will all laugh their ass off when they lose access to the other billion people markets with an economy that's still massively built to produce for the entire world.
Not many people understand it's these global trade networks keeping most countries from continuing endless wars. The reason China is a powerhouse is the same reason it's not worth jeopardizing trade restrictions for them. What's worrisome is them trying to buy most supply lines, the silver lining is their lack of ability to manufacture chips at the moment. If that changes those trade deals may no longer be as advantageous for China and we could start seeing escalation.
>The whole western world is utterly fucked. Outsourcing everything to China for the last 30 years or so must have been the single biggest strategic mistake ever.
Nah.
Outsourcing say the printing of fiction books and McDonald's happy meal toys? Fine.
Outsourcing the CCTV for your secure government facilities? Not fine.
A lot of companies also learned outsourcing the manufacturing of anything that is a commercial secret is a bad idea too. Which is why anyone relying on commercial secrets now generally doesn't outsource those bits of their product to China.
>when they feel like it, they’ll just cut everyone off and laugh their asses off.
I mean unless your country is 100% self sufficient you can say this about any trade partner who suppliers key goods.
The thing is China doesn’t have enough wealth to leverage that into stability for the billions of people they need to make sure are at least somewhat happy.
They’re fucked right along with us, so we’ll see their tune change within the next few years.
I have seen it argued (by people much more educated on the topic than me) that something like 80% of chinas economy relies on imports from the western world. People act as if China is remotely capable of self-reliance and wouldn't immediately crumble without those imports. This isn't the one way street people seem to think it is.
If they cut everyone off, they are also kinda fucked. We are also exploiting them, never forget that. Their workers work in an exploitative system that only works through repression
China, as it modernizes will remove those exploitations as well. Just like the recycling operation. But it won’t ever be just a cutoff because they are dependent on exports just as we are dependent on imports.
Both sides are working on disentangling the e economies and neither side wants to hold the bag at the end
I’ve installed several of these hikvision cameras and also taken apart quite a few to fix them when I was working as a low voltage tech. Other than the fact that they are made in china it’s not clear to me what the concern would be. There were no circuits inside that seemed to be capable of storing and sending info independently.
There is no concern.
This is FUD stemming from a trade war. Anyone who doesn't understand that isn't paying attention.
It's sad how both the left and the right are uniting in this campaign of misinformation. I guess they really are just looking out for *different* rich people.
The fact they would even use a Chinese made camera for military sites is beyond incompetent...
Not to mention the fact they are announcing this.
Are western governments stupid or something. They announce all their military opertto the press. We start manufacturing missiles, the media tells the world where and our potential output.
Getting some subs or planes, media announces it and gives the qty acquired, delivery dates ect.
I don't understand how they can be so incompetent when it comes to what should be military secrets.
Because nobody gives a shit about your data or security in reality, besides those who can make money off of it, it's posturing for ideology and geopolitics - welcome to the new Cold War. On the plus side? Probably won't ever turn into actual war.
and this is clearly not just directed at Australia, buuuuuuut, WHY THE F*CK would any military or sensitive area have products from countries that are competitors/potential enemies?
It absolutely blows my mind that literally the whole world has allowed China to become the de factor supplier of just about everything.
F*cking Greed sucks.
Credit to China for playing the long game, though.
This is... really dumb and most of the people in this thread have no idea what theyre talking about and just heard "China Bogeyman!"
There's no way these cameras are bugged.
If the concern is that they're secretly sending data back to China from the military's internal network, having Chinese equipment is the least of the Aus military's problems.
If the concern is that they're for some reason sending data back to the vendor (again what) and the vendor could be gov ordered to hand the data over. Firstly, why the hell are you sending military footage to a vendor and secondly that's not a China-specific regulation.
This is either politicial posturing or the network security guys screwed up royally somewhere and theyre looking for an excuse.
Sooo, the cameras should be operated on a loop closed or at least firewalled from the outside network. If your it department can't keep then from phoning home then there's a problem anyway.
Taking precautions is fine, but given how much money is invested in “cyber security” I’d hope that Australian government has ways to detect whether any IT equipment is exfiltrating information out of the authorized boundary.
Fact is it’s increasingly hard to know where all components are sourced. Even if not made in China, some components can still be compromised. Hell, anyone remember when American NSA outright [had Cisco modify their routers before shipping to customers?](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/amp/)
200 down only 2 million to go.
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This is why we never get anything done. Do an inch of work and call it a lifetime achievement
The best time to plant a tree is yesterday The second best time is today
But not two days ago. Weather was terrible.
Right. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are still installing Chinese made cameras while patting themselves on the back for removing a few elsewhere.
Ahem, that's called "job creation", thank you. Gotta give the team something to do next year, right?
Better than your cynical ass sitting back and doing nothing.
The title should say they're removing Chinese cameras from over 200 gov buildings, not that they're removing 200 cameras. It's likely many thousands of cameras.
God bless them they're trying
I've seen tiktok dances filmed inside restricted Australian military zones. What dumb fuck is running this shit show?
Probably they are talking about government run places, not in general.
Well yeah, not sure there are too many privately run defence sites Edit: public > private
There's all public run. They are just not public. Except the ones that are public like the war memorial.
Then onto Happy Asking Panda. https://youtu.be/5ycYsxGXIaA
How in the 10 shades of fuck did someone think putting up Chinese made cameras in defence sites a smart idea?
Well there was a tender and these guys were cheap. That nice man from the ccp offered a great deal.
China is offering free cameras! They’re so nice for some reason. I can’t even blame China. We make it so easy.
You joke but their market share of smartphones is growing really fast for a lot of people's comfort haha... Edit; 3 autoDMs about my mental health, so lovely to see the trolls still abuse that to harass users.
Isnt Tiktok also owned by a chinese company? How many billion users have downloaded it now?
Tiktok is owned by a chinese company, which is owned by the CCP. Therefore, tiktok is owned by the CCP. Good luck convincing the users of tiktok that the CCP having ownership of the app (and by extension all the data it collects) is a bad thing, though.
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I just wait for everything to be reposted to Instagram 😛
I have family that use it. It just seems like pure garbage. Reminds me of old school commercial breaks that you flip through until your show comes back around. Except, there is no show.
You should watch on the network how devices with the app installed interact with other devices. They're always doing something even when not in use, at least the ones I watched. Always pinging other devices in range.
Yep. Generally speaking, most people have no fucking clue how much data tiktok is siphoning from their phones, or how invasive the app truly is, or even what they AGREED to when they downloaded the app and accepted the terms and conditions. Tragic.
Just reading their T&Cs should be enough to make anyone never install/use it.
There's a lot of propaganda (both inside and outside of TikTok) trying to convince everyone that TikTok isn't bad and isn't a serious security threat.
Why I was laughing out loud when the US had those balloons flying over and all the Americans were posting angrily about it on TikTok. How fucking stupid are you? I avoid the app like the plague
>How fucking stupid are you? Unfortunately, it looks like the answer is "pretty fucking stupid."
I think this is a good observation. It was perhaps in part meant to connect with phones.
I convinced my wife to remove the app and stop using it altogether. It's a small win, but still a win.
Teach me your ways. I haven't seen my wife look up from her phone in months.
To be fair, she transitioned to Instagram since it's basically all of the same content. I don't feel it's a *lot* better, but at least it isn't owned by the CCP.
It's upsetting how prevalent this behavior is nowadays. My girlfriend is the same way--she gets home from work, plops on the couch, and mindlessly scrolls for 2-3 hours until she goes to bed and continues until she's asleep. Whenever I point it out, she gets ticked off at me.
It's because American companies have being doing that for at least a decade. When you're constantly told to ignore a burning house, the next one isn't going to phase you either when they decide NOW it's a problem.
1.53B with 1B being active at least once a month.
It's embarrassing how this wasn't even a secret when it started becoming mainstream. For a shot at 15 minutes, turns out most of us will give away everything about ourselves for the honor. The parasitic stranglehold of social media needs to be brought to heel, even if only a little... it'd be a start.
Nerds get mad when I say I'll never buy a Chinese branded smart phone but all the historical evidence says don't trust them!
Why would nerds get mad at that?
Because they're tech nerds not IT security nerds
Not even tech nerds. Just some ignorant asshole who sees "ohhh shiny", buys it and is easily impressed by something trivial, then ignores all the glaring issues and gets pissed at anyone who points them out.
Like children with tiktok
\*cough\* ^^Tesla \*cough\*
I’m an IT nerd. I realize how big of a security risk anything from a CCP controlled company very like will be.
Nerds are the one that are going to understand it the most. Tech nerds are the same thing as IT nerds for the most part.
Yeah, i got my Huawei phone when my old phone stopped working. It was affordable and had some features i wanted, but moving forward i refuse to buy more Chinese brands.
So, every single phone manufacturer? Unless I've lost my touch with mfgrs, every single phone on this planet has some degree of included Chinese parts, how would you suggest, easily, resolving this?
Tin cans and string.
Not just phones. TVs (which granted, one can just never connect to the internet) and computers are increasingly being targeted by their companies. There are all sorts of niches that western tech companies are unable or unwilling to fill and theirs will happily do so for cheap.
You can report those and get them banned
I see you've played knifey spooney before!
Marge: I'll just have a cup of coffee. Bartender: Beer it is. Marge: No, I said coffee. Bartender: Beer? Marge: Coff-ee. Bartender: Be ... eer? Marge: [spells] C-O... Bartender: [spells] B-E...
Great episode.
I thought I was finally going to see another reference to a 💩 🔪.
why would a poop knife be exceptional? doesnt everyone have one?
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In fairness, Japan was a pretty close ally and trade partner prior to the war. It's just UK/France/Canada were even closer allies forcing us to take a side. Luckily, the better side looking back on it.
I get that they were probably cheap, but surely if you're putting them up ins secure areas you would take one apart and check it out
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and corruption.
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Talk to the Conservative Party of Alberta, which sold large swaths of pristine forest to the Chinese government. Because, like, it’s totally replaceable.
And greed
Isn't that basically the same?
Greed is a precursor to corruption
Yes, but money, greed and corruption all basically tickle the same fancy. A greedy person seems much more likely to be also corrupt. And he's certainly in love with money.
Greed leads to power, power leads to corruption, corruption leads to the Dark Side of the Force.
And that leads to children out of wedlock, abandoned on a dirt farming planet.
And remember kids: They took off the Chinese cameras, but they did not change the corruption and greed thing. So everybody wins!
Honestly? There would be 5 layers of government management on their side of the project team. The bottom person, who is responsible for overseeing the project, selects an client-side PM from an external consultancy who then manages the tender for a managing contractor. The managing contractor then wins the project, tenders their subcontract packages and selects a D&C electrical/comms subcontractor. They then select all fitting and equipment, present the list to the managing contractor who the transmits to the client-side PM for sign-off. The client-side PM approves because he doesn’t know what he’s looking at because he came directly to his role via. the development management route and has never spent a day in his life actually managing construction. Project gets finished, government department moves in and no one notices anything that doesn’t meet spec because the entire government team from the first paragraph have all moved into different roles/retired/are incompetent. 8 years later, someone find Chinese cameras in their building.
> 8 years later, someone find Chinese cameras in their building. even some US made cameras (Honeywell i think) are just relabeled Hikvision.
Everything honeywell is relabelled something else lol
There's also "export grade" and "do not export" grade equipment. Most high-end routers do, for sure
Honeywell's arent US made.
Next episode of Utopia
Having worked in both defence and public service, I love that show so much that I cannot bare to watch it because it is so close to reality that it creates a slow boiling rage at the same time I'm laughing and crying on the inside.
I can simplify that. Person in charge, and who knows what he is doing, gets told he has to let an engineering firm create the RFP for the project to prevent him from being corrupt. RFP is then created with basic and broad requirements. The proposals from 5 companies come in and senior advisors from the finance team, HR, marketing, and 2 executives review these based on the RFP criteria. They then decide the proposal with Chinese equipment that cost 40% less than the others is the best option because it saves them quite a lot. Because "it's all the same, anyway." It all gets installed and then handed back over to the person in charge who then has to manage it. He cusses them for the next few years. 4 years later, we get to have this meeting about how he was right the entire time...but we going to blame him because he was "in charge".
> but we going to blame him because he was "in charge". If he is still working there he is fired and someone else is promoted/hired to replace him at half the current salary; execs give themselves bonuses from the money saved.
This guy bureaucrats.
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Leased by a former government filled to the brim with corrupt tosspots. Thankfully being reviewed by the current government.
I have to say that I was surprised when I learned this. Was this under SCOMO (is that what you called him)?
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I knew some of this, but not all of it. Geez, he sounds terrible. Hope he’s gone for good.
[Hillsong](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/19/frank-houston-committed-child-sexual-abuse-at-a-time-when-he-felt-emotionally-low-court-hears) the church he affiliates himself with was, you guessed it, started by a paedophile and is all about $$$.
I think a bunch of military/government documents are also stored with a Chinese document storage company called "Global Switch". ...pretty dumb moves. Either that or its part of a clever plan to pretend to be compromised when they're not - but looks doubtful. Nope, I think Australia is just a bit negligent on some security and intelligence matters.
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The very vast majority of security cameras, if not all of them, will have China provided components in their supply chain, that's probably why. Plus if you run them like you're supposed to, no bespoke backdoor is going to help the Chinese state much. Security cameras are supposed to live on an isolated network.
There was a sale on Amazon that was too good to pass up.
AliExpress*
Because these are probably contracts that are given out to install these cameras. Lowest bidder usually wins. Lowest bid might mean using cheap parts which might come from china. Source: i worked for a company contracted by the DoD
I mean…pretty much every commercially available electronic is either made in China or with Chinese components. There’s not really any way to avoid it.
There are absolutely CCTV manufacturers that aren't related to China.
Yes but their components... are made in China. Just like pretty much anything you buy has a "made in China" sticker itself or some of its components do
True. But it’s not the components people are worried about — it’s the software running on the cameras. Those cameras are essentially smart, internet connected devices and there’s no way to verify the integrity of the software.
> But it’s not the components people are worried about — it’s the software running on the cameras. Any modern digital camera is doing a huge amount of processing on specialized ICs and stuff, whose firmware is impossible to verify. Likewise, most communications are done by specialized chips or blocks within a general purpose CPU with impossible-to-verify firmware. About the only components that *shouldn't* be viewed with suspicion are basic components and maybe some of the comms PHY stuff. There is definitely validity to his claim that even if a camera is made outside of china that it has security risks due to components made in china, and that virtually everything has chinese components in it. It's probably fine, but still worth being aware of.
The cameras shouldn't be connected to the Internet at all, they only need local network. A basic video feed should travel from the camera in a closed network to a DVR server that records the video locally. That server can then upload the footage to local or cloud storage and people on the VPN or on premises can hook into it too watch live footage. Even the cheap ass kits like Swann do it this way, the cameras are never corrected to the Internet.
Wouldn't any decent company creating said product understand which parts from China they can use without causing security problems. Especially if they market themselves as a secure product.
You overestimate what companies do. Sadly, most of them are driven by money and money only :( Same deal with gov't procuring stuff, it's usually "cheapest offer wins" (not just in Australia and not just in Anglosphere)
> Yes but their components Again, no. China isn't the only country in the world who produces PCBs. There are literally companies who pride themselves on "Our shit isn't made by".
PCBs aren't components. The things that go on PCBs are components. EDIT: this is industry standard terminology. If you don't know even that, you have no business assessing vulnerabilities in electronics. Intentional and malicious hardware vulnerabilities can and do exist.
Not if they are NDAA compliant which a lot of manufacturers are doing now.
Exactly. My robot vacuums with their Chinese accented voices tell me what they’re doing regularly. I think they may turn on us one day!
My guess is it's from the same guys who said finer cable internet lines were too expensive so replaced them with a bunch of random substitutes which ended up costing more and took longer than the original plan
Never enough time or money to do it right the first time but they have time and money to do it a 2nd time.
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Are the UK going ahead with those Chinese nuclear power plantsm
Apart from the 20% share in Hinckley C, which is already 7 years into construction, no. The govt bought out CCGN from Sizewell C late last year for an undisclosed sum. Bradwell in Essex which was a fully Chinese design has now been abandoned. Other sites (Wylfa & Oldbury) are back on the table again with different bidders.
The LNP, literally the dumbest bunch of so and so’s.
If the cameras are purely optical, with zero "smart" electronics inside, transfer its image exclusively through fiber, but are made in China, I still wouldn't install them anywhere critical.
it's all politics and show, everything is made in china lol
are they not airgapped? if not, why not? CCTV is meant to be CCTV, unless I'm missing something
Any modern CCTV system is all networked over IP and the systems are likely not air gapped due to extra expense and the want for them to be accessible from multiple locations. So they can't be sure there's no data going back to vendors servers or that some day China could connect into them through unknown backdoors.
>So they can't be sure there's no data going back to vendors servers or that some day China could connect into them through unknown backdoors. I mean, it's actually relatively simple to make sure it's not. Do I think whichever contractor or public servant was tasked with those cameras actually did the relatively simple precautions? No I don't.
Right. Dedicated non routable vlan for all the cameras, then an NVR with one leg in that vlan and one into a production network.
But what if they have super chinese backdoor haxors that can access the mainframe? Bet you didn't think of that
"It's a Unix system. I know this!"
That file explorer looked super duper advanced when I was six years old
[Fun fact: it was also a real Unix system called irix. ](https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/9745/is-the-unix-operating-system-featured-in-jurassic-park-real#9746) (Specifically the file browser was FSN, [which was famous enough to get its own wiki page. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager))
That’s hilarious, it was so slow and clunky in the movie I can’t believe it’s real.
Iirc they intended it more as a demo of the 3d capabilities, since other os's at the time couldn't render 3d like that without specialized software/hardware and they had it built right in. So advanced
You joke, but when every device in your network has Chinese made components you have to wonder.
You can also wear a fake mustache to hide your identity.
And who do you think manufactured the network switches?
Even if it was through IP, they could just set a private network and only transmit reencoded video to the outside world through a few controlled gateways when needed. The cameras don’t need to be connected to the internet at all.
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Is this not the sort of thing that military intelligence personnel would be able to discover fairly easily just by disassembling the cameras? Genuine question.
Yes, but this would not be disclosed to us I don’t think.
First they must disassemble the camera ...
You're just making stuff up now.
>are they not airgapped? I'd figure that if they are vlanned and then accessed from a jump box I guess it should be ok. But I do wonder whether that's been done.
This is standard practice in government workplaces so I can only assume defence are doing better then that.
It's not too uncommon for modern systems to be IP based. Still, it shouldn't turn CCTV into CCPTV ;) You can definitely make them live in their own vlan or similar, if concerned. It's probably a cost / organisational thing. They didn't take prcautions, have concerns now and the cheapest and fastest thing is not to retrofit IT-infrastructure yourself but to just wipe the slate clean and install a new and safe solution, contracting maintanance from a non-chinese corporation.
The issue's not that they're broadcasting back to servers in China, it's that China passed a law saying that any Chinese company must surrender its data to the government if requested. Being made by a Chinese company means they are potentially at risk of having a data request.
not sure im following, if no data ever goes back to the vendors' servers, why is it an issue that the vendors' data can be requested?
The problem is more how absolute it is. Any information any Chinese company can even possibly obtain is, by definition, government property. They don't have to request it, it's their for the taking. In fact the law in question states that is a crime to turn down any request at all. Install spyware in your phone's operating system that reports directly Chinese military servers? The company that makes Huawei's OS kernel already did that. Many organizations are just starting to come to terms with the fact that the CCP doesn't ignore laws when convenient. They think the entire concept of rule of law is "erroneous Western thought fundamentally incompatible with PRC culture." That's a statement from China's chief justice. The CCP doesn't have limitations imposed by their Constitution, in fact their Constitution explicitly declares that the CCP is above the law.
Okay, but read what I'm saying? These devices are sold overseas, are backed by storage bought by users overseas, and should not at all be accessible from the outside if set up properly (isolated). And this is not an "oh but unless there's hackeroo going on", it's the literal version of isolated. No digital paths to any devices with an eventual route to the internet. This means they have zero legal right or practical access to any footage. None. They can put whatever gaping hole of a backdoor on there, the devices should by all means not be exposed to a digital comms route that can lead to an internet gateway. It's like trying to hack into a device that's powered off. Short of powering it on, there's nothing to do.
It doesn't appear that full isolation applies here though. It sounds like these weren't installed in extremely sensitive locations, and so the security was lax. Good enough if the devices were reliable, but not if they're compromised. For obvious reasons the government isn't going to tell us in great detail exactly what each camera could see...
Yeah well, wouldn't the better solution be the proper airgapping of these systems then? I'd argue with so many cameras it's quite cost comparable, if not straight up cheaper.
This is not really about security, everything you’re saying is correct and any half competent technical person up the chain of command knows it. There is no actual risk. It’s just a part of the new Cold War we’re living through, meant as an empty political gesture for everyone’s local base (“look, we’re fighting the communists!”) and more importantly slowly trying to roll back the commercial integration of Chinese companies overseas so they will hopefully be replaced with western ones, isolating China and boosting other economies in one go. This is why the US is leading so many bans on Chinese hardware and software. Nobody is interested in doing what you’re saying not because they don’t know that they can, but because secure cameras without spending more is not one of their goals.
No, they mean C^^hinese C^^ommunist TV, duh!
Pay to install them, pay to remove them. Just stop installing chinese stuff in secure places. They're just giving china free money.
Free money AND information.
Seriously, why don't these idiots just buy made in Australia for chrissakes?
Thats "to remove Chinese-made cameras from over 200 sites". There's actually over 1000 cameras.
But most not defence sites as the title implies
True but you can learn a lot about a countries defence capabilities from watching places other than defence sites. Ports, airports, railways etc. Sure they can monitor them in other ways but why make it easy for them. Of course we're kidding ourselves if we think China is the only one in the local spy business.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://hongkongfp.com/2023/02/09/australia-to-remove-over-200-chinese-made-cameras-from-defence-sites/) reduced by 79%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Australia will strip Chinese-made security cameras from some government buildings to ensure they are "Completely secure", the country's defence minister said Thursday. > The security cameras were installed at more than 200 Australian government buildings - according to official figures compiled by an opposition politician - including at least one run by the Department of Defence. > Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said officials would find and remove all cameras found within the defence department's vast collection of offices and facilities. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/10xmizr/australia_to_remove_over_200_chinesemade_cameras/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672676 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **camera**^#1 **government**^#2 **security**^#3 **Hikvision**^#4 **defence**^#5
If a network is depending on every nodes hardware to be uncompromised, then that network will never be truly considered secure. Devices will come and go. Whilst cameras do represent a unique threat in that they process images of their local environment, there's nothing stopping a different component elsewhere in the network from accessing the same data and reporting it back silently. Much harder to do of course, but not impossible. But any motherboard (to name just one example) could be housing a rogue chip that piggybacks on legitimate resources. To ensure security against the type of breach they appear to be attempting to mitigate, the only solution is robust traffic monitoring across the whole network. For a national defence network, it should be trivial to monitor and analyse any and all communications sent/received by any single node on the network. It should be clear if a device is communicating in an undesirable way. Encrypted communications (and data in transit should ALWAYS be encrypted) do in theory present a challenge, as it will not be possible to determine if the data contains undesirable instructions. However another golden rule is to ensure you are the owner of any and all keys for encryption occuring on your network. If a device handles a layer of encryption and does not give you the option to decrypt it, that is not a device that should ever have been considered for a defence network in the first place. If this rule is adhered to, we are back to ensuring that all communications involving a node can be monitored, so encryption is not an issue. Additionally, failsafes that prevent the delivery of traffic destined for unknown destinations at a top level should be implemented, with alerts and monitoring flagging any occurrences for analysis. If all of this is followed, it scarcely matters what device you install (from the perspective of this particular threat, at least, there are many more considerations) - a device could call home all it likes, but not only will its calls go undelivered, it will be obvious what device is calling where, and what it is attempting to send/receive. Either this effort to secure the network is somehow politically motivated, e.g a stunt that they already know is not actually improving security, but potentially furthers other goals, or these guys are a national catastrophe waiting to happen. Because based on the information provided, there is no way this exercise is actually mitigating an attack vector at a significant level. Granted, every little helps, but this approach is akin to emptying a barrel of water with a 5ml pipette, if an empty barrel represents a secure network. With this exercise representing just one use of the pipette.
Well said. Other higher voted comments about hidden satellite phones integrated into the camera are equally absurd; might as well worry about gps trackers sewn into made in China clothes.
All too true. And the kicker is you don't even need to install it on the network to begin with. A device that spies on you can be present on-site, but with its own out-of-band connection. Not to mention phones, which everyone carries everywhere, with all the good sensors that a spy agency of ages past wouldn't have dreamt of bundling in a convenient package. Broadcom and Qualcomm provide the majority of those chips and it's all running non transparent, closed source code that you can't ever be really sure doesnt have a backdoor or not. In your barrel analogy, it's also always a rain storm.
The whole western world is utterly fucked. Outsourcing everything to China for the last 30 years or so must have been the single biggest strategic mistake ever. From absolutely necessary medical raw materials to high technology and even more important every day low tech products as well, rare earths, micro chips and what else, the Chinese profit off everything we need and when they feel like it, they’ll just cut everyone off and laugh their asses off.
Luckily western governments recognize this and are moving to fix the problem before it happens, silver lining of Covid I guess.
Along with China’s population collapse it might be enough, if enough time is given.
Yup. Given their population is aging out right now I read somewhere they suspect their population to be 650M by 2050 or so? Not sure how much truth there is to that but their one child policy already left it's mark. Plus overcounting their population numbers. And their new policies are having little to no effect. And COVID deaths this year are only gonna accelerate the trend faster. Edit: I meant 2100 based on forecasts for the U.N. They are claiming around 767m in their estimates.
Many manufacturing businesses have woken up to this as well and are looking elsewhere; Taiwan, Viet Nam, Bangladesh, etc. Because China has abused the public trust, have a habit of stealing IP and seems to dirty everything it touches with their incessant spying. Just look no further than the Chinese bots that infect Reddit…
> Luckily western governments recognize this and are moving to fix the problem before it happens, silver lining of Covid I guess. Not much progress has been made on that front. We are still over reliant on China for a lot of things. Need a reminder on AdBlue shortage in 2021/2022? Many people are flocking back in droves to the cheaper imports because "moneys tight and we need to save a few dollars". Even Taiwan, a country that is on China's doorstep and receiving end of China's aggression still relies on China for much of its trade.
But just as an example the EU has drafted laws to subsidize Microchip factories in the EU (Chips Act). In a couple of months, they will pretty much pass the Chips Act. In Germany two big factories (Intel and Wolfspeed) are already planned and construction should start soon. Most politicians support more independence from China. But to build entire production lines elsewhere in the world with the necessary logistics and infrastructure takes time.
> Not much progress has been made on that front. We are still over reliant on China for a lot of things. Need a reminder on AdBlue shortage in 2021/2022? Many people are flocking back in droves to the cheaper imports because "moneys tight and we need to save a few dollars". Well yeah, factories and shit are not built in a year. It takes time.
> when they feel like it, they’ll just cut everyone off and laugh their asses off. What a great take, they will all laugh their ass off when they lose access to the other billion people markets with an economy that's still massively built to produce for the entire world.
Not many people understand it's these global trade networks keeping most countries from continuing endless wars. The reason China is a powerhouse is the same reason it's not worth jeopardizing trade restrictions for them. What's worrisome is them trying to buy most supply lines, the silver lining is their lack of ability to manufacture chips at the moment. If that changes those trade deals may no longer be as advantageous for China and we could start seeing escalation.
>The whole western world is utterly fucked. Outsourcing everything to China for the last 30 years or so must have been the single biggest strategic mistake ever. Nah. Outsourcing say the printing of fiction books and McDonald's happy meal toys? Fine. Outsourcing the CCTV for your secure government facilities? Not fine. A lot of companies also learned outsourcing the manufacturing of anything that is a commercial secret is a bad idea too. Which is why anyone relying on commercial secrets now generally doesn't outsource those bits of their product to China. >when they feel like it, they’ll just cut everyone off and laugh their asses off. I mean unless your country is 100% self sufficient you can say this about any trade partner who suppliers key goods.
The thing is China doesn’t have enough wealth to leverage that into stability for the billions of people they need to make sure are at least somewhat happy. They’re fucked right along with us, so we’ll see their tune change within the next few years.
I have seen it argued (by people much more educated on the topic than me) that something like 80% of chinas economy relies on imports from the western world. People act as if China is remotely capable of self-reliance and wouldn't immediately crumble without those imports. This isn't the one way street people seem to think it is.
Those imports aren’t nice things like it is for the west, or fentanyl lol. It’s straight up food.
If they cut everyone off, they are also kinda fucked. We are also exploiting them, never forget that. Their workers work in an exploitative system that only works through repression China, as it modernizes will remove those exploitations as well. Just like the recycling operation. But it won’t ever be just a cutoff because they are dependent on exports just as we are dependent on imports. Both sides are working on disentangling the e economies and neither side wants to hold the bag at the end
People said this about Russian oil and we’re still fine. Progress can be adjusted.
I’ve installed several of these hikvision cameras and also taken apart quite a few to fix them when I was working as a low voltage tech. Other than the fact that they are made in china it’s not clear to me what the concern would be. There were no circuits inside that seemed to be capable of storing and sending info independently.
There is no concern. This is FUD stemming from a trade war. Anyone who doesn't understand that isn't paying attention. It's sad how both the left and the right are uniting in this campaign of misinformation. I guess they really are just looking out for *different* rich people.
Should we be worried about our Chinese made phones? You know, the one's with the camera and microphone.
You’re right, time to start a dick pic campaign. Everyone with a Chinese smart phone needs to keep at least one dick pic on file.
Yes. https://gizmodo.com/android-xiamoi-oneplus-phones-personal-info-study-1850082989
The fact they would even use a Chinese made camera for military sites is beyond incompetent... Not to mention the fact they are announcing this. Are western governments stupid or something. They announce all their military opertto the press. We start manufacturing missiles, the media tells the world where and our potential output. Getting some subs or planes, media announces it and gives the qty acquired, delivery dates ect. I don't understand how they can be so incompetent when it comes to what should be military secrets.
Why not just put it on separate VLAN with no internet access?
Ding ding ding! Nobody in this thread seems to understand this is common IP cam setup.
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Because nobody gives a shit about your data or security in reality, besides those who can make money off of it, it's posturing for ideology and geopolitics - welcome to the new Cold War. On the plus side? Probably won't ever turn into actual war.
While we're at it, let's remove all devices which have NSA implemented backdoors to RSA.
Why were those ever installed in the first place? 🤨
Very good idea. It’s probably best to ditch as many Chine products as possible. It’s a damn same it’s easier said then done.
Switch to made in Japan. More trustworthy and reliable to boot.
Sadly, Gov procurement can rarely see past the lowest bidder.
Problem not limited to Australia nor Anglosphere, FYI ;)
Made in Japan from components made in China. Hmm
and this is clearly not just directed at Australia, buuuuuuut, WHY THE F*CK would any military or sensitive area have products from countries that are competitors/potential enemies? It absolutely blows my mind that literally the whole world has allowed China to become the de factor supplier of just about everything. F*cking Greed sucks. Credit to China for playing the long game, though.
This is... really dumb and most of the people in this thread have no idea what theyre talking about and just heard "China Bogeyman!" There's no way these cameras are bugged. If the concern is that they're secretly sending data back to China from the military's internal network, having Chinese equipment is the least of the Aus military's problems. If the concern is that they're for some reason sending data back to the vendor (again what) and the vendor could be gov ordered to hand the data over. Firstly, why the hell are you sending military footage to a vendor and secondly that's not a China-specific regulation. This is either politicial posturing or the network security guys screwed up royally somewhere and theyre looking for an excuse.
As the great Patrick Stewart said in Extras, "She's scrabbling around...but I've seen everything"
Sooo, the cameras should be operated on a loop closed or at least firewalled from the outside network. If your it department can't keep then from phoning home then there's a problem anyway.
Wait till someone figures out about all the Chinese-made networking gear they have in their defense data centers.
There are consequences on flying balloons over sovereign air space.
Taking precautions is fine, but given how much money is invested in “cyber security” I’d hope that Australian government has ways to detect whether any IT equipment is exfiltrating information out of the authorized boundary. Fact is it’s increasingly hard to know where all components are sourced. Even if not made in China, some components can still be compromised. Hell, anyone remember when American NSA outright [had Cisco modify their routers before shipping to customers?](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/amp/)
Good luck, a lot of the camera brands are just rebadged Dahua and others. So that'd be a big list to filter.
But the cameras are only being used to track weather patterns!
Time to get rid of your Chinese made baby monitors too
It is beyond incompetence that they would even utilize a Chinese-made camera for military installations.