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OnHub Router -- Google's Smart Home Trojan Horse?
An anonymous reader writes: A couple weeks ago, Google surprised everybody by announcing a new piece of hardware: the OnHub Wi-Fi router. It packs a ton of processing power and a bunch of wireless radios into a glowy cylinder, and they're going to sell it for $200, which is on the high end for home networking equipment. Google sent out a number of units for testing, and the reviews are starting to come out. The device is truly Wi-Fi-centric, with only a single port for an ethernet cable. It runs on a Qualcomm IPQ8064 dual-core 1.4GHz SoC with 1GB of RAM and 4GB of storage. You can only access the router's admin settings by using the associated app on a mobile device.
OnHub's data transfer speeds couldn't compete with a similarly priced Asus router, but it had no problem blanketing the area with a strong signal. Ron Amadeo puts his conclusion simply: "To us, this looks like Google's smart home Trojan horse." The smartphone app that accompanies OnHub has branding for something called "Google On," which they speculate is Google's new hub for smart home products. "There are tons of competing smart home protocols out there, all of which are incompatible with one another—imagine HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray, but with about five different players. ... Other than Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, everything in OnHub is a Google/Nest/Alphabet protocol. And remember, the "Built for Google On" stamp on the bottom of the OnHub sure sounds like a third-party certification program."
OnHub's data transfer speeds couldn't compete with a similarly priced Asus router, but it had no problem blanketing the area with a strong signal. Ron Amadeo puts his conclusion simply: "To us, this looks like Google's smart home Trojan horse." The smartphone app that accompanies OnHub has branding for something called "Google On," which they speculate is Google's new hub for smart home products. "There are tons of competing smart home protocols out there, all of which are incompatible with one another—imagine HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray, but with about five different players. ... Other than Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, everything in OnHub is a Google/Nest/Alphabet protocol. And remember, the "Built for Google On" stamp on the bottom of the OnHub sure sounds like a third-party certification program."
It's like native encryption without backdoors ... if you build it right, you can't access it.
If they build it so they can remotely administer your network, they are 100% guaranteed to have to hand it over later.
Given the current context, there simply is now way in hell Google can build this device and not 100% know they're creating a device with a massive security backdoor.
Unless they have created magical technology which they can access but which can't be hacked, and they can access to update it but which can't be provided to law enforcement ... what they've done is create a device which will be exploitable, and which is so heavily optimized to push their own services as to be a giant security and privacy hole waiting to happen.
We need to be entering an era where our private home networks don't have remote admin passwords which can be used against us.
If all of our stuff is going to be networked, having us be the gatekeepers for our own security is paramount.
Because you can't design something intended to be remotely accessible and not expect there is a likelihood of someone else being able to access it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
One Ethernet WAN port, one Ethernet LAN port, one USB port, and a jack for the power.
While I understand Google's logic behind this, but that's really a deal-killer for me. Even though many of my devices are wireless, I still rely on wired connections when I want a stable, fast and (comparatively) secure connection. Sure, I could pair this up with a second router or switch, but if I'm paying $200 for the damn thing, I'd expect it to cover those basics.
Of course, I was already wary about this just because it is a privacy-destroying Google device (having said that, I'm using Google's DNS servers in my current router so I probably don't have a leg to stand on in that regard). No web-based interface is a stupid idea too; touch-screen based interfaces are too fiddly for my liking. And despite TFAs claim that OnHub is "something you could put anywhere in your house without much embarrassment", I think the thing is hideously ugly. Anyway, in general I don't want people to see the networking infrastructure and a discreet flat box is much easier to tuck away than this round monstrosity. Not to mention the price is outrageous.
I'm really not sure who this device is aimed at. Sure it is easy to setup, but ordinary users are unlikely to drop $200 on a wireless router when they can get one that works fairly well (and really isn't that hard to configure either) for $50 from Walmart (or included "free" with their modem). Meanwhile, everyone else is going to look at OnHub's dearth of features and configurability and then pick up more capable hardware.
In short: No web-interface. Less Ethernet ports than an ASUS. Lame.
Yeah, I'm not sure why I want to pay $200 for an 802.11ac router with just one wired network port (which is basically twice the going price for most competing routers on Newegg) just for another opportunity to share even more Internet usage data with Google.
It seems like thing should be cheaper than a normal router instead of more if it's advertiser subsidized. Yeah... it might not directly inject the ads itself, but you know that it's going to aid with ad targeting.