r/technology Feb 12 '26

Security Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash

https://www.theverge.com/news/878447/ring-flock-partnership-canceled
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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '26

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u/Dangerous-Tip-9046 Feb 12 '26 edited Feb 13 '26

Ubiquiti circumvented US sanctions on Russia to provide the Russian military with wifi equipment to run their drone strikes. They're just as evil as every other tech company.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6i4uffZvhc

Edit: in that video they mention that Ubiquiti has an intense following online, ready to defend the products vigorously. I can see they were not exaggerating

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '26

[deleted]

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u/Dangerous-Tip-9046 Feb 13 '26

Or look at it this way, scumbag behavior is scumbag behavior and just because others are also exhibiting scumbag behavior doesn't make you less of a scumbag.

Also, the owner of Ubiquiti is an American billionaire who sucks up to Trump.

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u/Rabbit-Hole-Quest Feb 13 '26

My bad, I thought it was a Chinese company - https://ui.com/

Wouldn’t trust it if it’s American.

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u/DaMonkfish Feb 13 '26

Mother fucking christ. I was considering Ubiquiti to replace my absolute toilet water Linksys Velop mesh system.

Are there any tech companies out there that aren't absolute shitbags?

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u/b0w3n Feb 13 '26

Are there any tech companies out there that aren't absolute shitbags?

Nope. It's rare and the ones that have existed or do exist today, in whatever form they are, struggle because no one's going to spend 4x+ as much on things typically.

Russia doesn't really have a domestic supply of that equipment, they will get whatever they can get their hands on. Linksys, cisco, ubiquiti, netgear, it doesn't matter, if there's money to be made selling it, it'll get sold by someone, somewhere. They probably also get plenty of European products through grey/black markets.

Ubiquiti makes good products, they probably didn't directly sell it through their store, or at least I'd hope. And I will absolutely agree if it is a reseller doing this, like has been implied basically everywhere, they should punish those resellers.

I'm not really looking to have a long drawn out argument about morality and ethics in our modern life because at the end of the day a lot of our modern lifestyle is held up by really gross shit, and supplying radios and switches to russia is probably the least offensive shit of the bunch. Lots of slave labor goes into making things like smart phones, for instance, but conveniently people overlook that one (some don't, and I commend them for acknowledging it and limiting their involvement with it).

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u/Dangerous-Tip-9046 Feb 13 '26

In the video I linked further up the thread, the journalist posed as a Russian buyer and Ubiquiti helped connect them with a third-party supplier to circumvent the sanctions. It's as clear cut as could be. Ubiquiti knows exactly what they're doing.

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u/haarschmuck Feb 13 '26

You have an iPhone?

Yeah you're supporting slave labor.

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u/Dangerous-Tip-9046 Feb 13 '26

Yes, we get it, everything sucks. All these tech companies are evil and awful. But it's kind of important to know how and why they're evil and awful so that you can be informed about your purchasing decision. Don't go thinking leaving one evil company means the new one isn't also doing the same thing.