I'd love to have this. It's certainly a lot easier than the process that I had to go through asking my neighbors to check their cameras for a mail thief (which police and postal inspectors didn't even bother to request).
Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
41–50 of 180 posts
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I can see the potential for abuse But that is the problem. The potential exists, and without proper governance and oversight, you don't have the ability as a citizen to walk back abuse when it begins to occur. You only have the options of submitting to continued abuse, moving to a more sane locale, or the uphill political battle of defending your rights. Authoritarianism is a slow boil, and doesn't happen overnight…
However, are we throwing the baby of crowd-sourced neighborhood policing opted into by residents (essentially, a digitally-assisted neighborhood watch) with the bathwater of potential for abuse? What are the actual abuse scenarios that we would fear could occur? These technologies aren't either-or; they're a tradeoff of possible benefits and drawbacks. What concrete drawbacks should we be concerned with here?
The technologies aren't either/or, but the implementation, control, and regulations are.
I'm all for neighborhoods policing themselves, but this isn't even close to that.
I would be fine with there being additional tools that assist the individual consumer with reporting crimes or providing video evidence to police. Amazon/Ring/whoever doesn't need to be involved with what is a local/neighborhood issue.
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I can see the potential for abuse But that is the problem. The potential exists, and without proper governance and oversight, you don't have the ability as a citizen to walk back abuse when it begins to occur. You only have the options of submitting to continued abuse, moving to a more sane locale, or the uphill political battle of defending your rights. Authoritarianism is a slow boil, and doesn't happen overnight…
However, are we throwing the baby of crowd-sourced neighborhood policing opted into by residents (essentially, a digitally-assisted neighborhood watch) with the bathwater of potential for abuse? What are the actual abuse scenarios that we would fear could occur? These technologies aren't either-or; they're a tradeoff of possible benefits and drawbacks. What concrete drawbacks should we be concerned with here?
> What are the actual abuse scenarios that we would fear could occur?
Abuse by police for non-official business (stalking). Targeting of individual citizens and their daily activities because they attempt to hold public officials accountable. Constant surveillance of the wrong individuals. All off the top of my head from events that have occurred ("ripped from the headlines"). I could go on, but only because I take time to hold my public officials and government accountable as a hobby.
It is deeply unsettling, based on history (not just global, local US history alone), when technology professionals retort to issues like this with, "What's the big deal?"
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#44I use the Ring security system at home and own a couple of the cameras. The security "history" feature is dirt simple but very cool -- I can trivially see when I use different doors in my house. The Ring smartphone app also shows me the Neighbors view for my area, which is very similar to this product being advertised here (a feed of locations, comments, and videos posted by smart device owners and others). I think p…
Can't you just block the mic somehow?
I mean, you can always hack the hardware. As long as you don't short-circuit anything, disabling the microphone should be trivial.
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#45Nextdoor is going to have a ball with this one
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#46I use the Ring security system at home and own a couple of the cameras. The security "history" feature is dirt simple but very cool -- I can trivially see when I use different doors in my house. The Ring smartphone app also shows me the Neighbors view for my area, which is very similar to this product being advertised here (a feed of locations, comments, and videos posted by smart device owners and others). I think p…
Nice shill account. You make it sound like this company is the only company that sells cameras.
A shill account that talks about how the product violates local laws and that feature cannot be disabled? That's definitely a new one.
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
However, are we throwing the baby of crowd-sourced neighborhood policing opted into by residents (essentially, a digitally-assisted neighborhood watch) with the bathwater of potential for abuse? What are the actual abuse scenarios that we would fear could occur? These technologies aren't either-or; they're a tradeoff of possible benefits and drawbacks. What concrete drawbacks should we be concerned with here?
The technologies aren't either/or, but the implementation, control, and regulations are. I'm all for neighborhoods policing themselves, but this isn't even close to that. I would be fine with there being additional tools that assist the individual consumer with reporting crimes or providing video evidence to police. Amazon/Ring/whoever doesn't need to be involved with what is a local/neighborhood issue.
> Amazon/Ring/whoever doesn't need to be involved with what is a local/neighborhood issue
In what way? Who on Earth is going to set up and maintain those tools, pay for the hardware, provide service channels for the hardware, etc.?
Technological sophistication is by no means uniformly distributed.
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, it looks like: 1. Users opt to share video clips 2. Police can't view unshared videos without requesting 3. The whole thing is opt-in I don't see an issue here. It's a technical framework around something that already exists: police going door-to-door and asking for video clips. Why not make this more efficient? I can see the potential for abuse, as it is all centralized. But I think "portal for mass surveillan…
Right on time. I’ll take “bootlicking fascist apologist” for $10 Alex. Notice you didn’t even discuss encryption. Shows how little thought you’ve put in. And that’s ignoring the ethical side entirely. Why do so many of the people I interact with seem to have absolutely no fear of government abuse, despite 10,000 years of evidence to the contrary? It boggles the mind
It also boggles the mind why some think that this sort of interaction is the kind that brings others over to one's “side”. But in any case this kind of comment doesn't belong on Hacker News, so could you please post civilly and substantively instead?
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
However, are we throwing the baby of crowd-sourced neighborhood policing opted into by residents (essentially, a digitally-assisted neighborhood watch) with the bathwater of potential for abuse? What are the actual abuse scenarios that we would fear could occur? These technologies aren't either-or; they're a tradeoff of possible benefits and drawbacks. What concrete drawbacks should we be concerned with here?
> What are the actual abuse scenarios that we would fear could occur? Abuse by police for non-official business (stalking). Targeting of individual citizens and their daily activities because they attempt to hold public officials accountable. Constant surveillance of the wrong individuals. All off the top of my head from events that have occurred ("ripped from the headlines"). I could go on, but only because I take t…
Is that tradeoff worth seeing many, many fewer Amazon packages stolen wholesale from front porches?
... if you ask around, you may find the average neighborhood resident's answer is "yes." Especially if one finds the average neighborhood citizen isn't living under a corrupt police hierarchy, but instead an underfunded / understaffed one.
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#50Can’t say why this feels strange, but’s it’s also not as sensational as the title. Ring Users have to choose to share the information. As someone who has a Ring device, I find the neighborhood feature more a nuisance than anything. It’s mostly people posting videos from their doorbell cams asking if anyone knows why’s the guy with a clipboard was at their door, or posting videos of “suspicious” people in their neighb…
> Ring Users have to choose to share the information.
According to user emcarey:
>There is no encryption
If /u/emcarey is correct (haven't verified this), then the fact that you have "choose to share" is a moot point, the data is out there for anyone to see.