Orange Pi - Huawei Security Concerns

[yishaiSilver]

Hi Jeff,

Firstly, thanks for all of the amazing content. You've helped learn/debug a lot over the years.

Second, I have an Orange Pi 5 Plus, and while it blows my RPi 5 out of the water, it kind of gives me the heebie jeebies every time I see it connect to Huawei servers. I understand that it's technically possible to update the apt repositories and even use an Armbian distro, but I've hear horror stories of the OPi connecting to Chinese servers even while using Armbian (could be reddit nonsense, though).

I'm don't have anything too sensitive on the OPi, but I don't know if I like being on the same network as it.

All that being said, I'd love to hear your opinion.

Thanks,
Yishai

[geerlingguy]

Let's move this to a discussion—there are a lot of these SBCs that by default reach out to Chinese apt mirrors... it's definitely something to be aware of with the default images, but most boards can't be forced to phone home unless something happens firmware level. If that were found, it would be a much bigger security risk!

[yishaiSilver]

Okay, that's a huge relief. I've also noticed that you mentioned using the images from their google drive. Does that mean they're relatively safe? I'm not sure if I'm being overly paranoid about things.

P.s. I'm sorry for the grammar mistakes in my first post.