
Ubiquity hardware sends telemetry and it cannot be turned off - spockz
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/07/ubiquiti_networks_phone_home/
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satanspastaroll
This change is a firmware update that was likely automatically installed on
unaware customers equipment. Very shady.

They claim this is to "gather crashes and other critical events strictly for
the purpose of improving our products", but to be honest; how often does that
happen in routers? They are very barebone anyway, and were there to be any
issues, they would be notified by the customer.

Having it forced with no way to opt-out is also an indication of hostility.
They claim they will release a firmware update without telemetry, but no dates
have been set.

~~~
wil421
They have a workaround until the firmware updated. You just need to put a
firewall rule to block the url they are sending crash data to.

I have so many other devices that are snooping and constantly sending data
(phones) that I don’t really care about my USG sending crash data.

~~~
prepend
I think commercial routers have a different standard to be held up to than
consumer phones and iot devices.

The workaround is really lame and and blocks all traffic to the data leak
domains.

I don’t want to send crash data. I also don’t trust a non-open source, non-
documented, non-auditable submission of data from my network to theirs. They
claim it’s only crash data, but I don’t know. They can also change it at any
time as they’ve lost my trust by adding data leaks to a firmware update I
accepted without knowing it.

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z9e
I’m so sick of the analytics theme as a way to increase revenue, instead of
just innovating and making your product better. It just feels so lazy to me,
and part of a checklist for any MBA type now.

~~~
dx034
Especially because most don't really use that data. It's stored because
bandwidth and storage are cheap. But from all I've seen and heard, most don't
really get any information from it they couldn't have gotten by just asking
users.

~~~
thfuran
>just asking users.

That's way easier said than done. Plus, then you have to trust users. If I
want to know how often feature X is used on platform Y, having some basic
telemetry is way more reliable than sending out a survey to users.

~~~
JohnFen
> having some basic telemetry is way more reliable than sending out a survey
> to users.

True, but this fact isn't important. What's important is having respect for
your users and their preferences.

~~~
thfuran
That's so unrelated that I'm not really sure how to respond.

~~~
JohnFen
You're responding to a suggestion to ask users for permission by saying
"that's hard" and "telemetry data is more reliable".

Both of those points may be true. I'm claiming that the fact they may be true
isn't important, though, because respecting user wishes, particularly about
privacy, tops those considerations.

~~~
thfuran
No, I was responding to a suggestion to ask users _for the data that could
otherwise be gathered by telemetry_ by saying that telemetry is better.

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Jamwinner
This is unfortunate. I was hoping the bad noise after this was announced would
be enough for them to listen. I was literally about to buy one, and now it
seems I'll just be upgrading my linux router, again.

Does anyone, literally anyone at all make hadware you can trust anymore? I
feel like I am taking crazy pills.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
The modern mindset for technology is not that it should enable users but that
it should herd users, like cattle. A whole lot of people in this industry who
like to think of themselves as technologists have this mindset. We should be
surprised at the result.

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TwoNineA
[https://community.ui.com/questions/Update-UniFi-Phone-
Home-P...](https://community.ui.com/questions/Update-UniFi-Phone-Home-
Performance-Data-Collection/f84a71c9-0b81-4d69-a3b3-45640aba1c8b)

They will allow opt out. For now ...

~~~
JohnFen
That was a disappointing response as well. Opt-out is better than nothing at
all, but isn't exactly wonderful for privacy-related things. It should be opt-
in.

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shantara
I still haven't seen Ubiquiti officially acknowledging controller-level phone
home. "unifi-report[.]ubnt.com" has not been mentioned anywhere in their
announcement.

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ac29
This has been disabled in the latest testing release and will be opt-in in the
future: [https://community.ui.com/releases/UAP-USW-
Firmware-4-0-69-10...](https://community.ui.com/releases/UAP-USW-
Firmware-4-0-69-10871/37101df7-b0b4-482b-968f-27633f3daf91)

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_salmon
Any good open-source alternatives?

~~~
chopin
I use OpenWRT and couldn't be happier.

~~~
gothroach
OpenWRT isn't really an alternative to the UniFi stack, unfortunately.

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beezischillin
This sounds like it’s against GDPR...

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danielscrubs
HTTP/3 with DoH cannot come fast enough.

~~~
cremp
How is that relevant with telemetry? If anything, that would make it harder to
block their analytic domains and stop it.

~~~
danielscrubs
The router itself will have limited wiggleroom to snoop.

