PSA: Found out my Ring doorbell was streaming to a server in another country

I was messing with my router settings last week and noticed traffic going to an IP in Russia from my doorbell. Has anyone else checked where their smart home devices are actually sending data?

3 comments

3 Comments

emmam6726d ago

What gets me is that even if they're not sending video, the metadata alone is a goldmine. My Nest doorbell was pinging servers in Singapore for firmware updates, and I had to block those IPs through my firewall. Have you tried running your traffic through a VPN or using a DNS filter like Pi-hole to see exactly where each packet is heading?

lane.angela26d ago

My Pi-hole is probably the most tech-savvy thing in my house because I barely understand half of what it blocks, haha. Did you notice any performance issues after blocking those Singapore IPs?

wadebailey1d ago

Singapore is actually a common hub for cloud services, not necessarily where the data is really going or being stored. A lot of smart home companies route things through regional data centers there because it's a major connection point for Asia. You might want to check where your Nest actually stores video, because blocking those IPs could just be stopping firmware updates.