The majority of people who I know who have all encompassing security systems are conservative and xenophobic. This system is ripe for abuse by racists and racist organizations. When private camera systems feed into state power, some very bad things are setup to occur.
Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
81–90 of 180 posts
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#82I found this dropbox link to Ring's marketing video for Police Departments to use their smart video cameras for mass surveillance. This was made before Amazon acquired them. At the end of the demo the CEO states that their facial recognition search feature will be available soon. This software is made in Ukraine and the hardware is manufactured in China. There was no private company contract bid - Ring is just giving…
> There is no encryption. There is no 2FA. There is no legal protection for privacy of citizens face's caught in these cameras and added to their facial recognition algorithms. Yes and no lawsuit will be won either. Every judge will strike it based on being in public assumption of lack of privacy. If you walk on public street, don't assume your privacy is protected :(
It's way more complex than that. For instance here the evidence from a webcam filming from a public vantage point was struck down.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/12/cops-illegally-n...
I've also seen SCOTUS rulings that they see a difference between public ancillary recordings, and mass surveillance of all public actions.
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#83Nice, efficient, low-friction slide into fascism.
A ring for every room citizen.
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#84Nice, efficient, low-friction slide into fascism.
> "Nice, efficient, low-friction"
^ Completely adequate description - especially low-friction
Won't need to force people to do something they'll willingly do themselves (e.g., police each other via their ignorance in regards to IoT devices and their use)
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#85Can’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…
Did you miss the part about facial recognition and suspicious activity detection?
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There is no encryption. There is no 2FA. There is no legal protection for privacy of citizens face's caught in these cameras and added to their facial recognition algorithms. Yes and no lawsuit will be won either. Every judge will strike it based on being in public assumption of lack of privacy. If you walk on public street, don't assume your privacy is protected :(
It's way more complex than that. For instance here the evidence from a webcam filming from a public vantage point was struck down. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/12/cops-illegally-n... I've also seen SCOTUS rulings that they see a difference between public ancillary recordings, and mass surveillance of all public actions.
Great example +1; however in this example cops assumed Mr. Vargas to commit crime and hence setup cam to watch aka surveillance his property 24/7. Very difference from situation where average citizens records their front yard 24/7 not expecting or assuming a crime will occur, and then having that video being obtained when the crime happens.
In other words, this case is about active surveillance, versus Ring cams are more passive (record everything all the time for no specific reason)
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#87I can not imagine developing this and thinking that it is Good. This type of product and platform completely ignores the reality of how it will be used and how police behave in American society.
In the demo video, their example has someone sharing a photo of "suspicious people" walking around outside their house, and has neighbors commenting "oh no!" on it. Now the police are alerted to this "crime" which may not even be a crime. Anyone who has an account on NextDoor knows the hysteria around a minor event like a car that someone doesn't recognize being in the neighborhood.
The next step is police or homeowner arresting or shooting someone captured on video and posted to this social feed as having committed a crime.
The developers, marketers, SV investors, etc who promote this type of surveillance as a good idea need a course in ethics and reality.
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#88This is not at all what the title makes it sound like - this is merely a portal for law enforcement in to what is in essence a social network feed. There’s nothing to be seen here that isn’t already publicly shared by Ring camera owners - heck, it’s not even stuff that people are sharing privately. People share this stuff on Ring because they want someone to get recognized or caught for committing a crime (or a perceived one).
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'm a semi frequent user here. I registered a new account for this comment thread because my username is easily tied to my identity and I mentioned in my comment there's someone we're afraid of who has threatened to harass us in the past. That person has used my web presence for harassment before and I don't want to give them more ammo.
Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
I don't take issue with them making the hardware and selling a product. I have an issue with them being so heavily involved with the police side of things. There's a big difference between a feature that allows consumers to report a video and a feature that allows police to demand a video.
But they are both features that have to be implemented, and they'll be implemented sooner if done by the same org.
If we have no problem with the police having the tool at all, why would it be bad for Amazon to implement it?
(Unless the issue is you don't think the police should have the tool at all, in which case the question is "Who should? Can private citizens be trusted with this information aggregation? Can private citizens' designated / elected representatives? Or should we just make sharing of private video feeds for surveillance purposes illegal, uh... somehow?").