#fingbox

Poco a poco voy aprendiendo a hacer cosas y dejo de depender de las iniciativas de empresas que tienden a desaparecer. Aquí un ejemplo.

Bueno, yo me quejaría de todo en Fing, no solo de Fingbox. Entiendo que es una empresa y necesita generar ingresos y una maquina totipotente y casi inmortal, obviamente no le iba a dar los recursos necesarios. GoPro tiene experiencia en eso. Diría que es consecuencia del capitalismo, pero parece mas bien un error de calculo. no puedes fundar una empresa para vender un producto estático. Igual, no…

Standard Disclaimer:  These opinions are mine, and mine alone.

Please keep in mind that this is only an initial review, and may contain errors, or omissions.  It’s also important to note that this is a brand new product, and Fing has stated that improvements are on the way.  When, and what kind of improvements remain to be seen.

The Good:

Improves visibility to which devices are on, and attempting to gain access to your network.

Gives user greater control over which devices to allow on their network, and when.

Parental controls allow the “pausing” of internet access for selected devices.

Seems to provide warnings when MITM attacks are attempted (e.g. via ARP poisoning).

Fairly easy to setup, and use.

Considering how new this product is, support seems to very good.

The Bad:

Fing has complete control over the Fingbox.  They do not allow the user to control or see anything related to the operation of the device, other than what is reported in the app (or via the blinking lights on the Fingbox itself.) 

Options for tuning scanning?  No. 

Want to see logs from anything it does?  Sorry, no.

Need to control when firmware updates are applied, or just see the change log prior to new updates rolling out?  Forget it.

Fing gets everything the Fingbox collects.  It’s cloud based, and sure, it’s the way the world seems to be moving, but as someone who has invested considerable time into securing their network, plugging in and intentionally giving a company unfettered access to my network, and all of the data they gather is questionable, at best.

The Digital Fence isn’t terrible, but only seems to report results (at least to end-users) when the app is open, which really limits its usefulness.

Very limited testing has shown temporary internet blocking to be fairly easy to get around. 

The device seems to have trouble on complex networks, especially when it comes to reducing impacts from scanning, and other operations.

The (EARLY) Verdict:   For the average home user, this device may be a win.  It seems to do a good job when it comes to warning about new devices on the network, providing periodic bandwidth testing, and alerting about possible MITM attempts.  That said, if you have a moderately complex network, or are a network/security professional who looks at logs, scrutinizing everything, you may find the amount of data collected about your network to be a bit too much.  I know I did, and that’s why it is in a box right now, unplugged, and  away from my network.  And until Fing provides an option for me to keep my data, that’s where it will stay.

On a side note, I have started to build an Ubuntu based VM (with a Alfa AWUS036NH or two) to mimic some of the functionality that the Fingbox provides, but with a focus on privacy.  Sure, it won’t have some of the functionality the Fingbox has, or the support folks they do, but if you’re interested in hearing when it is available (no ETA as of yet) or contributing, let me know...

“Fing, the #1 network scanner, is now in a box.”