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Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

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Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#151

Post by dragonwriter »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #148
dragonwriter wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then why am I paying their salaries? You, individually, are not. Your shared interests with those with whom you are are collectively doing so are, obviously, not coextensive with all of your personal interests, but are a subset of them. Law enforcement serves (ideally) diffuse public interests, acute private interests are served (in the legal realm) by private civil litigation. Particularly, you (individually, and…

I'll be sure to remember this noble policesplaining explanation the next time a bond issue or tax bill comes up. Paying for the private administration of justice is not how things are supposed to work in this country.

> Paying for the private administration of justice is not how things are supposed to work in this country.

It may not be how you suppose things should work, but the split between the public system serving public priorities and the civil system redressing individual harms is exactly how things have always been supposed to work, both in this country and in the system on which it's legal system was directly modeled.

Yes, law enforcement advocates often blur this when seeking funding or new powers, claiming they work for victims. Thid has never been the case, which is why criminal prosecutions are “the State vs. defendant” whereas private litigation is “plaintiff vs. defendant”. Public prosecutors and law enforcement represent the State, they aren't publicly subsidized to represent the harmed individual the way, say, a public defender is for the accused.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#152

Post by dragonwriter »

will_brown wrote: post #149
dragonwriter wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Before I spend a few hundred dollars more on filing a civil suit just to serve discovery on footlocker, I’d go straight to the store and pay the manager to make me a copy (save myself time and money). The manager may be prohibited by policy from taking money for that purpose, and it's not exactly going to remain a secret, so the cost may not be a savings if the manager sets the bribe at a level sufficient to adequs…

>Sure, we'd all prefer a public subsidy of litigation costs, but public law enforcement doesn't have infinite resources, so not every loss, even where a crime is involved, is going to have public resources expended on it. What in the hell are you talking about? Your big takeaway from this conversation is what I would like and other who were victims of crimes where in this thread is that what we want is Subsidize our…

> Yes, resources are limited not every crime will be solved

Arrest, pretrial detention or supervision, prosecution, and execution of sentence also cost resources. The resource limitation that leads to choices about which crimes to pursue with public resources isn't just (or even mainly) about solving crimes, which is often a miniscule portion of the cost.

> I hope your not the victim of a felony some day and the response from fellow man (or lawyer) isn’t...police don’t have resources to investigate your case,

I have been, twice, once with overwhelming evidence and once where the perpetrator openly admitted the offense, where the police wouldn't even send someone out, much less pursue the case.

I agree it sucks when it happens. That doesn't mean I can't understsnd why it has to happen with the combination of the array of criminal conduct defined and the resources devoted to law enforcement, and the actual structure of the legal system.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#153

Post by chaostheory »

reaperducer wrote: post #141
chaostheory wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Ring customer. The Ring Portal is optional and opt-in. People want this. This is similar but not the same as Yc's Flock https://www.flocksafety.com/ but it doesn't require a home owner's association to set up and it's inexpensive. (Flock focuses on storing license plates.) Stuff like this helps police do something about robberies and burglaries. It's harder to ignore and file away when there's video evidence. M…

I'm a Ring customer. The Ring Portal is optional and opt-in. I'm not a Ring owner, but several of my neighbors are. Two have told me that they have been pressured by police officers — in person — to join some kind of surveillance program. I'm not sure if it's this one, or something else. I also don't know how the cops found out that they had Ring devices, but the local PD advocates for it heavily on my neighborhood's…

Were they forced to join? Was it compulsory? You do know even after you join, you choose what clips to share right?

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#154

Post by fixermark »

reaperducer wrote: post #143
fixermark wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ring is just giving this to cops for free and offering customers a discount for letting their video surveillance from their home / doorbell be shared with the police in this portal That's a hell of a market strategy. Do you have a source on that discount story? Because I'm not able to find one right now.

Do you have a source on that discount story? Because I'm not able to find one right now. Not the OP, but my neighborhood's Nextdoor message board is filled with both Ring discounts, and pleas from the local PD for people to buy them. I have no proof that they're related, but if the marketing is being done through hyper-targeted methods like this, it might explain why it's not Googleable.

I think I misunderstood OP's meaning. I though they were claiming the police were paying directly for video signal; it appears police or Ring are offering discounts to get the hardware in the belief that citizens will volunteer the video when the local police need help to stop a crime.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#155

Post by justtopost »

dsl wrote: post #126
sitkack wrote: post #81

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.

You should really expand your circle of friends beyond conservatives and xenophobics. Most of the people I know who have cameras use them to make sure their kids get home safe on time, or keep an eye on the dog in the backyard.

So we went from people yu know to friends just so you could virtue signal that racists are bad? Good job internet strawman warrior!

Seriously, the intent makes it no less creepy when we become surveiled. 'For the children' is a well worn cliche for erosion of rights.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#156

Post by will_brown »

dragonwriter wrote: post #152
will_brown wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sure, we'd all prefer a public subsidy of litigation costs, but public law enforcement doesn't have infinite resources, so not every loss, even where a crime is involved, is going to have public resources expended on it. What in the hell are you talking about? Your big takeaway from this conversation is what I would like and other who were victims of crimes where in this thread is that what we want is Subsidize our…

> Yes, resources are limited not every crime will be solved Arrest, pretrial detention or supervision, prosecution, and execution of sentence also cost resources. The resource limitation that leads to choices about which crimes to pursue with public resources isn't just (or even mainly ) about solving crimes, which is often a miniscule portion of the cost. > I hope your not the victim of a felony some day and the res…

>I have been, twice, once with overwhelming evidence and once where the perpetrator openly admitted the offense, where the police wouldn't even send someone out, much less pursue the case.

Now I see why you’re so bitter. Still others shouldn’t have to face the same fate as you. Did you take your own advice and file a civil suit? If not why, is that a shitty solution also? You didn’t care about the damages so much as being the victim of a crime?

For someone talking about the structure of the legal system though...you have great talking points (that’s not police job; they don’t get paid to solve crimes; that’s your loss not society’s problem, you want to subsidize civil litigation costs). And just like a politician you gloss over everyone else’s point and maintain it’s not for the criminal court...but why then, do criminal courts have power to order restitution? Should the criminal court say sorry...that’s not the legal structure now go see a civil lawyer? Seems to me it’s built into the system for criminal courts to order restitution (which they exercise in every plea I’ve ever seen) and it’s cheaper for the taxpayer to have global resolutions in criminal court (of course that’s well known though) rather than having tax payers pay for both a criminal and civil case.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#157

Post by dragonwriter »

will_brown wrote: post #156
dragonwriter wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, resources are limited not every crime will be solved Arrest, pretrial detention or supervision, prosecution, and execution of sentence also cost resources. The resource limitation that leads to choices about which crimes to pursue with public resources isn't just (or even mainly ) about solving crimes, which is often a miniscule portion of the cost. > I hope your not the victim of a felony some day and the res…

>I have been, twice, once with overwhelming evidence and once where the perpetrator openly admitted the offense, where the police wouldn't even send someone out, much less pursue the case. Now I see why you’re so bitter. Still others shouldn’t have to face the same fate as you. Did you take your own advice and file a civil suit? If not why, is that a shitty solution also? You didn’t care about the damages so much as…

> Now I see why you’re so bitter.

I'm not the one that is expressing bitterness about this reality.

> Still others shouldn’t have to face the same fate as you.

Sure, in a perfect world there would be no resource constraints. Of course, property crime (and even property itself) probably would be a lot less of an issue in that case.

Scarce resources require tradeoffs. Some property crimes not being pursued is not any where close to the biggest issue to address with that.

> Did you take your own advice and file a civil suit?

No, in both cases the damages were insured with a deductible which made it not worth pursuing that even if it might otherwise have been worthwhile (and in neither case did the insurance company seem interested in litigation, either.)

> they don’t get paid to solve crimes;

I never said that. I said that solving crimes is often a negligible portion of the resource cost of pursuing them, so that the fact that a crime is easy to solve doesn't automatically make it worth pursuing.

> And just like a politician you gloss over everyone else’s point and maintain it’s not for the criminal court

I didn't say that, either.

> but why then, do criminal courts have power to order restitution?

Because, where criminal prosecution already serves the public interest, so does integrating restitution, since the courts are a public resource and economy of justice increases the capacity for any given cost of that resource. That doesn't mean it serves the public interest to prosecute every apparent crime, even when there is a near zero cost to solve the crime.

> rather than having tax payers pay for both a criminal and civil case.

Sure. That clearly is true where otherwise there would be both types of cases. But when the criminal case wouldn't otherwise be worth expending resources on, there is no savings to the public by pursuing criminal process for private restitution.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#158

Post by zyren »

zyren wrote: post #142
_r3e4 wrote: post #2

I 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…

do you have a mirror to this? video has been taken down.

found a mirror: https://vimeo.com/290482418

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#159

Post by maxxxxx »

logfromblammo wrote: post #110
ncallaway wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what if we changed those laws? We could, for example, make it such that you can continue to record, but that those recordings couldn't be used as input to facial recognition software without the consent of the person being recorded. Just because you _currently_ can do something legally does not mean that it _must_ be that way.

You cannot abridge freedom of expression without an amendment. Nor can you abridge freedom of computation. You should perhaps instead endeavor to strike down anti-mask laws as being contrary to existing freedoms. The logical counter to automated facial recognition technology is facial concealment practices. It is the least harmful to liberty. Alternatively, we could all wear--with our masks on--t-shirts with other pe…

What's wrong with an amendment? I don't want to live in a world where I have to wear a face mask to get some privacy. And they will probably soon not even need faces but recognize you from your height and the way you walk.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#160

Post by lostsock »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #127
alphabettsy wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a local business the police went in to request surveillance footage of an incident that took place off their property, but in view of the camera. This isn’t much different, except that the police now have a map of where Ring cameras might be located. The business owner could comply or the police get a subpoena.

This is very different, because a) the police no longer have to bother to ask as long as the camera's owner has opted in, therefore this can scale much more quickly, b) the police can offload "assessments" to some neural network, and c) as far as I'm aware, you may not be able to control or even be aware of which footage is viewed by the police. The police absolutely do not have a sufficient reason to know every pers…

That's just not true. The police can send a request to certain cameras recording at certain times with an explination of why they want that video. The owner then gets notified of the requet and can grant or deny it.
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