UPB Question

[lost404]

Are my UPB switches isolated from my neighbors house? If so, how?

I was wondering if I ran upstart in my house and if my neighbor had UPB switches could upstart "see" the switches installed in his house from my house?

Just curious.

lost

 

[hucker]

Are my UPB switches isolated from my neighbors house? If so, how?

I was wondering if I ran upstart in my house and if my neighbor had UPB switches could upstart "see" the switches installed in his house from my house?

Just curious.

lost

If you have the network ID and password you could see and control his lights with various caveats about being on the same transformer, line noise and signal strength. Odds are that you could if you are in an urban/suburban area.

 

[ano]

Are my UPB switches isolated from my neighbors house? If so, how?

I was wondering if I ran upstart in my house and if my neighbor had UPB switches could upstart "see" the switches installed in his house from my house?

Just curious.

lost

Assuming you don't know his network ID and password, you won't see them. The only real security problem would be if you both just happen to have your switches in programming mode at the same time. When you add a "virgin" switch in programming mode, any network can grab it if it is looking, but once one grabs it and programs it, it won't visible to the other.

UPB doesn't use encryption, so if your neighbor was pretty technical, he could determine your network info, but the odds of that are pretty remote. If he did break-in, he could read your switch descriptions, but otherwise wouldn't know which switch is which.

 

[cornutt]

UPB doesn't use encryption, so if your neighbor was pretty technical, he could determine your network info, but the odds of that are pretty remote. If he did break-in, he could read your switch descriptions, but otherwise wouldn't know which switch is which.

Don't you have to know the switch's network password in order to read the flash memory from a switch? Of course, if your neighbor could see your signals, he could grab your network password when you configure a switch.

 

[jharrell]

As far as I know the password is only used for setup. UPB has no encryption, it only has a network ID to prevent collisions and there are only 255 of them.

All your neighbor has to do is sniff(easy to do) or guess(again only 255) the network id to control your devices or otherwise watch them.

The only thing preventing it is signal losses to the neighboring houses.

UPB is really no better than x10 here other than 16 times more network ID's.

I like UPB but I think in the long term, lack of better network isolation and protection will lead to its demise. Imagine if UPB where in every home, it would be an endless nightmare of neighbors having overlapping networks ids just by dumb luck.

It would be nice if someone made a UPB "firewall" that went on the mains to prevent any UPB in or out, that would add much more protection.

I would think something like Homeplug (ethernet over power with encryption) using TCP/IP will win out in the end. Just think you put a new switch in and it gets an IP by DHCP and you just go to it's webpage to configure.