I work in the field of live video surveillance for commercial customers (why I came across this) and I have no idea why someone would put up any sort of cloud solution where privacy was a concern. Every time an article comes out in regard to these cloud solutions it's about massive security flaws or from the people managing the cloud solution itself abusing access. Also in general cloud cameras are becoming Hostage As A Service where the cameras are nearly useless without paying subscriptions to these services. In general I would warn people against cloud solutions unless there happened to be a very specific instance where the tradeoff was worth it. None of those situations come to mind though.
Fortunately, IPVM (research group that made the discovery) is cooperating with the FBI. Unfortunately, a lot of this may depend on cooperation from Hikvision and the Chinese government. It seems Hikvision's initial response is to discredit IPVM rather than comply with an investigation. There has been a longstanding feud between IPVM and Hikvision because of multiple reports about their security vulnerabilities among other things. I'm worried this may lead them to be even more defensive and less helpful than usual.
Shef
joined 1 year ago
It wouldn't let me relpy to Zima for some reason.
Due to the international nature of the crimes it's going to depend on a lot of countries working together. In this case the company that would need to comply the most is closely affiliated with the Chinese government. So closely affiliated that the government technology holding group actually owns 40% of the company. This makes cooperation unfavorable for China as they will have to admit faults with a product they own. It appears it will be more financially advantageous for them to deny allegations and cover up the problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikvision#Ownership
HIK Group, 中电海康集团有限公司), a wholly owned subsidiary of China Electronics Technology Group, which has a 39.59% stake.[3]: 82 China Electronics Technology Group is a state-run enterprise owned and supervised by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.